A new thing that has been bothering me is the Altitude Alert system. After getting used to the autopilot most of the systems work decently with the exception of this system. I’m talking about the altitude selection above the weather radar. After looking through some documentation, I found no evidence that this system is connected to the autopilot system, and therefore the plane should not level out at these altitudes automatically like it does.
If someone has evidence that is true, then the behavior is still very frustrating to deal with. Once the plane levels off at an altitude set by that display, it becomes inconsistent and annoying to try to force the plane off that altitude. If you change the set altitude by only a few hundred feet, the plane will not budge from the current altitude and the pitch wheel becomes unresponsive. The only way to get it off of the altitude is to set that altitude selection to an altitude further away, like +/-1000ft or greater, then the pitch wheel will start working.
I don’t think the real system was coupled with the autopilot, it was just supposed to give the pilots a warning that they are arriving at a certain altitude and the pilots would manually adjust the autopilot controls to level the plane off there. The current “easier” system is more frustrating than helpful for me.
And there is no warning tone or display triggered by this system (which is it’s real world purpose I’m guessing), and THAT would be more helpful for me than the automatic level off.
Source: Altitude Alert System – The Boeing 707 Experience.
I note from the old manuals that the YD is only engaged after takeoff at heights >100ft, and turned off just ahead of landing.
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AFAIK there are no repaints for the 707 - I’ve only been able to get a repaint in by overwriting the PanAm livery.
The usual technique yields pink square disease.
I’m going to ask AH about it…
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I’m sure they’ll be very accommodating /s
In any case, would love to see some repaints! Hope something gets sorted soon!
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Upvoted, I also noticed the propeller-esque sound at high thrust settings and it annoys the hell out of me. Makes it sound more like a turboprop than a jet.
I’ve had this problem previously and it’s very annoying. Tonight coincidentally I came across it again.
My prevous workaround was to use the gns to calc descent rate, plug in the V/S and descend to the last altitude restriction of the arrival so say 6000 ft and not really care about alt restrictions inbetween. I’d then descend down to 3000ft or whatever the approach altitude happens to be and the unit works fine.
Tonight I was on arrival into KLAX and descended to 7000ft, but then had a new star alt restriction at 6000ft, but for the life of me that altitude dial/unit is just not interested in setting a new target alt for the AP unless it’s 2000ft or more it would seem. I ended up dialing in a target alt of 5000ft to get it to start working, otherwise the pitch control dials just don’t want to change pitch, and you won’t be able to descend unless you disconnect the AP and do it manually.
It’s also annoying having the 100ft increments to deal with, with no acceleration available on the dial either.
I don’t mind having the unit set target alt though even if it is a bit unrealistic.
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I don’t use that altitude dial at all, I just set it to its highest possible value to prevent it from interfering and then use the autopilot’s altitude hold switch to level off when I need to. As long as you can remember that you need to use that switch, it’s fine.
In the brief time I tried to use that dial, I also found that it doesn’t seem to be very accurate. For example, on one flight it caused the aircraft to level off a few hundred feet short of the set altitude.
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Yeah, that was my issue last flight. It would leave me high or low by several hundred feet.
I’ve also been noticing that the autopilot mode switches to MAN if I so much as open the VFR map. Another thing I’d appreciate being fixed.
Oh, and the taxi lights light up the inside of the cockpit for no good reason.
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Also figured I should make an honorable mention of the fact that the taxi lights probably shouldn’t be pointing in two different directions, as seen here.
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Weird, I don’t have this issue…
I wonder why I do, then? Strange. I might try temporarily removing all other add-ons, though I don’t want to because it takes a while to launch the sim on my computer even without any add-ons.
Maybe it’s something to do with graphics settings, I saw someone else post the same thing I think
Possibly, though I have most of my settings turned down to the absolute minimum because my computer doesn’t have much VRAM.
I see we are both using the Pan Am livery too. I messed with some graphics settings and couldn’t recreate it, so I’m not sure what’s going on.
I guess I’ll have to try temporarily cleaning out my Community folder then. Idk what else to do about it right now.
Edit: huh, so it must have been one of my other add-ons causing that. I’m not so sure I feel like taking the amount of time it would take to figure out which one is the problem though.
It has it’s own baro reading you have to set. I find the aircraft alt reading can vary by +/- 100ft at any given moment. There’s also the digit movement of the main aircraft ALT display that can make it look like it’s over/under say 30000ft when it’s quite close in reality.
It seems like it is way to easy for the aircraft to flip into into MAN mode. I’d create a list of things that trigger it, but I’m still not sure what they all are yet! Breathing could go on that list. 
They do.
I posted about this previously but @ZeekR5430 couldn’t replicate and they look symmetrical. Mine looked varied like your picture did. I’m starting to wonder if there are cargo/passenger variant or livery differences. So maybe one is fine and the other has this issue.
EDIT: also just noticed your post about community add ons. I haven’t tried emptying mine yet, seems a step too far. Interesting though.
Yes, I did fix that taxi-light issue by cleaning out my Community folder. Unfortunately I’m not sure exactly which add-on caused it, and at the moment I don’t feel like taking the amount of time it would require to find out (my sim tends to take between 10 and 20 minutes to launch even without any add-ons installed), so I just moved back into the folder the add-ons that I’ve found myself using the most and left everything else out. Still works properly so far.
Yes, but that baro setting appears to be synchronized with the one on the captain’s-side altimeter, so I haven’t had to bother with it. Still, the altitude at which the aircraft levels off seems to always be offset from the set altitude in that window by up to a few hundred feet, so I currently see no reason to trust it.
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I’m currently cruising at FL280 and the alt is spot on. I do occasionally see a digit flip on the altimeter then flip back again, but I think that’s more spurious as opposed to real.
