Hi , thanks for responding so swiftly - when in flight and I see them lighting up what should I do ? I noticed that changing the prop rpm upwards or downwards or changing power with the throttle, turns them off but I do not know what is the right thing to do…. Apologies if I am saying stuff that don’t make sense I just started with this great aircraft…
@MontgomeryB28 No problem, happy to help.
The solid blue lights on the overhead panel indicate if you have selected minimum prop RPM (1500) or maximum (2700-2800) as the target on the prop governors. If they aren’t lit then then the governors are set somewhere inbetween. They only indicate the governor setting though, not the true rpm. They should be lit for takeoff and initial climb and then you should reduce prop RPM to 2500 or lower for the rest of your climb. The minimum rpm setting is used during long descents at low throttle setting, to reduce drag and stress on the propellers, and extend glide range.
If the lower blue lights are flashing you’ve moved the throttle past the idle detent into reverse. You can actually do this in flight, but if you tried it in the real plane you’d quickly destroy the propeller. Reverse throttle should only be used during deceleration after landing or for manoeuvring on the water. Use of reverse on one engine and forward throttle on the other will allow you to turn in place on water.
The reverse thrust is powerful enough to reverse the plane on the ground but this is not recommended due to the risk of tipping it backwards onto the tail etc.
Hope that helps.
It does a lot, thanks ! I understand how this is functioning when throttle is in reverse. However, I am seeing the instrument panel lights turning blue also when throttle is not in reverse. See an example in the attached pic. Is there something that needs to be adjusted in such a situation (i.e. throttle or prop or both) until they turn off ?
@MontgomeryB28 Ah, if you’re referring to the two green lights above the rpm gauge, those are the “safe rpm” indicators. If those are illuminated then you’re at an rpm safe for continuous operation, generally in the green arc on the gauge. Note there is a ‘dead spot’ on the gauge between 2200 and 2300 rpm where the vibration harmonics can damage the props, so the lights will extinguish in that zone as well.
Also might want to check your generator switches, you have both of the generator out warning lights on. The battery will only last about an hour with everything turned on.
Cheers.
Yes, I was referring to those. Crystal clear now , many thanks. I am turning the generators on - they were off in the pic because I was just anxious to simulate the situation I was asking about. Many thanks again for your support and of course for this great piece of work. I am flying a lot in the Aegean Sea and it is a great aircraft for island hopping and water landings.
Is there a native key bind for the oil cooler flaps? There is one for the cowl flaps but I also want to use buttons for the oil cooler flaps.
@IncontnentCamel There are key events in the sim for it, and they still work, but they are not exposed in the UI for binding unfortunately. You can probably achieve that with Axes & Ohs or FSUIPC etc. One thing to note is that the oil cooler flaps are not indexed, so there’s no way to move them independently per engine.
I think they’ve been trying to deprecate these for awhile, though I’m not sure why, and I don’t expect them to survive into the next version of FS. They’ll need to have a replacement though as these (and radiator flaps, which are in the same semi-broken state) are needed for many aircraft.
The events, if you want to have a go at binding them externally, are…
OIL_COOLING_FLAPS_DOWN
OIL_COOLING_FLAPS_SET
OIL_COOLING_FLAPS_TOGGLE
OIL_COOLING_FLAPS_UP
Cheers.
Well Isle of Man to Gander as in the original question is pretty much all headwinds as in my reply to the original poster. That is a nice map to show prevailing winds, but what are these puffy blue things with a circulation like pattern??
That’s another vector component of the flows, circulating up and down, on top of the flow tangential to the surface of the earth.
That’s the three-cell (per hemisphere) system, showing the overall poleward or equatorial flow of each cell aloft and at the surface. Where each cell meets, it also introduces a general vertical component of movement, along with commensurate convergence and divergence aloft and at the surface, depending on which cell boundary you’re at.
This is confounded by the movement of the long wave patterns (interactions between the jet streams and high pressure ridges), the coriolis force, friction, sea temps, differences in insolation between land and sea, weather, etc., so it’s not nice and pretty like the diagram.
Just 'cause it’s not like the diagram doesn’t mean it’s not pretty!
Well, I suppose maybe like a mother could love…
@FlyingsCool5650 thanks for the explanation guys. I don’t think i have ever seen that depiction before. Or i am getting to senile to remember that i have
Definitely makes for an interesting bunch of air-vectors, and since they are unlikely to be quite so predictable their effect is equally unpredictable.
You bet! In the mid-latitude (Ferrell) cell, the biggest overall predictor is seasonality. We know the polar and subtropical jet streams move poleward in the spring/summer, and equatorially in the winter. Same with the development of the prevailing highs in the tropics. From this, we can generally predict when and where the trade winds will be more advantageous in the lower latitudes, just as we know the general season for winter storms and strong westerlies as you increase latitude.
Going westbound in the mid latitudes is always going to be trickier, because you are significantly decreasing the interval in which you run into both shortwave and longwave patterns - you have to cross a wave sooner or later. Whereas eastbound, you can often time it to chase a system and remain between them (of course, depending on aircraft, course, and the actual weather that’s happening). Plus the whole tailwind versus headwind thing 
.
Just have to put that all together with forecasts to see what the resulting weather is doing now and over the next week or so and plan a good time to launch. I’ve been considering an around the world westbound, but a lot of it comes down to timing the over-ocean portions, heck, even the over-land portions.
Hello! Would anyone be able to explain the purpose of the APU? Is it only for use when I need power but don’t want the engines running? When the APU is on when I’m parked or on water, should the battery be on as well? And is there any point to having both external power and APU at the same time?
Thanks!
@DRockHimself Good question. The APU, such as it is, was added to the military HU16s to allow them to perform long deployments away from home base without any support equipment. The “APU” pulls fuel from the right main tank and is only intended to keep the main battery charged, and to run any anciliary electrical loads as needed. As I recall it can be run for a few days continuously on right main tank fuel.
The “External Power” switch is just a breaker really and should only function in a parking spot at a hard surface airrport, and serves much the same function.
Cheers.
I suppose this is a great plane, but since I can’t push back out of the cargo ramp it’s useless!
REFUND!
@MuteSwing7176 You can use reverse thrust to back yourself out of tight spaces if needed. It’s quite effective.
The lack of native pushback function is a ‘rock and a hard place’ problem in the sim. Amphibian flying boats have a pretty big display bug in multiplayer by default, and the only available workaround for that bug has the unfortunate side effect of breaking the native pushback tug’s ability to connect to the plane. It was always clipping into the nose anyway though.
I’m working on a possible alternative pushback method for the next update, which will hopefully work out.
Cheers.
My other flying boats do no have the ‘floating in air’ issue, and they push back just fine as well.
Oh, now I see it’s a multiplayer issue? So we non-socializing pilots are left out.
P. S. I’m not calling for a tug, just using ‘shift-P’.
Anyway, I guess I’ll just wait for the update which will hopefully arrive soon.
Meanwhile, figuring out how to reverse thrust with the simple yoke I’m using.
Ha-ha-ha! Old dog learns new trick! I wonder if this will work on other aircraft…
before you start your flight, how about slewing your plane 180° and then just heading out from there?