Is there any plane more frustrating than the CRJ?

[MagyarMatt]

Used to fly it on P3D and had a bit of a love hate relationship with the plane there so because I like suffering I decided to buy it for MSFS! Interestingly the 550 version doesn’t seem to give me too much hassle but the 700 is a different story.

Decided to fly it for the first time in a while to KRDU tonight.

The problems began on approach where it decided to start descending before the glideslope was captured with 4 reds on the PAPIs. Then it decides to start really pitching up quickly reducing the speed as a result. I then disconnect the autopilot and have to manually wrestle it down the rest of the way with the slightest throttle input either totally cutting power or turning it on full blast. All whilst trying to trim it to stop it bouncing up and down.

One hard landing later where I have again to struggle to get the nose down, and I’m left wondering what the hell is this mess? I fly a number of other planes none of which have throttles as ridiculously sensitive as the CRJ!

[SkyVagrant4490]

I recently gave some easy-play suggestions to another simmer as I had to learn the CRJ myself too but eventually managed. You can check it out near the bottom of this post if you like.

Aerosoft CRJ - How to land?

Cool of you to come here and ask. I had the exact same problem with the CRJ at first and found myself surprised after 21 years of sim experience, now struggling so much with this plane. Surely the bird must be bugged right? Nahhhh was all pilot error. Haha. What I needed to learn was of course the manual throttle - but combined with the auto stabilizer trim. Observe this little indicator on your Stats-screen during approach and landing. You see, when you provide the aircraft with too little thr…

[MagyarMatt]

Interesting. I’ll check that out. Thanks!

[StanTGM]

@MagyarMatt

the 550 version doesn’t seem to give me too much hassle but the 700 is a different story.

As far as I know the only difference between the 550 and 700 models is the seating arrangement. The technical specs are identical.

[SuperSixBravo]

I am sorry but this plane has always had glide slope issues since release. It is like flip a coin up in the air to know if it will actually follow the approach or not. I have tried everything, I have no problems with CRJ in X-Plane, or any add-ons like the MSFS FBW, Toliss, Zibo, NXI I know what I am doing, I have tried and listened to every bodies advice, read the manuals, tried on default airports everything.

I just cant trust this plane in Bad weather anymore, its so hit and miss.

Since I take the whole Airliner side serious I am fed up of spending an hour planning my flight, getting the weather, importing the plan from simbreif, loading up the charts, making sure I am at or above minimums for landing etc, only to have the plane just fly off in any direction it feels like, or just fly right over the runway or into the ground… I know how to use it, I know it has no Auto throttle, I know it either should switch from FMS1 to VLOC automatically or I can do it manually, It says ILS will be Auto tuned or something to that effect, but it makes no difference, it just plain busted, I have tried tuning manually, I set the RW course, everything and as I said, you may as well just flip a coin!

I am going to give it a try again, over the Holiday season, but if it carries on doing this, in the bin it goes , I do not have this problem with the X-Plane version, it works as it should, I landed it in X-Plane beautifully the other day at Ibiza in very bad weather and does what it always does in that sim…Work. This is not about the difference between 2 sims, as the FBW GS is always on point, never lets you down… This IMHO is an Aersoft problem, or a maybe a sim problem, and nobody is acknowledging it! It just lets the whole sim down. It may work for others, fine then tell me what I am doing wrong?

[RFpilot]

I fly all variants of the CRJ in msfs regularly and rarely have a problem. If you know how to fly it the aircraft is extremely well behaved. Out of hundreds of flights I have only had approach or glideslope issues a handful of times. I also found that if you leave the honeycomb bravo on VS mode the CRJ will not follow the glideslope. So you need to disable VS mode on the Bravo before capturing the ILS

[SkyVagrant4490]

I’m with RFpilot on this one Six, as long as I stay out of VS-mode on the honeycomb the plane has no difficulty anymore with intercepting an ILS and following into the glide path. Though I never let it do an autoland as I don’t thrust it to flare, I always do the last few feet myself once I pass minimums.

Please allow me to just verify one thing with you that for myself differs from the old simulators I used: on average, a localizer intercept can only be executed under a 45 degrees angle. On the localizer needle instrument there’s this “deadspot” which indicates the maximum angle to put your heading bug for a succesvol intercept (the red square I painted in the pic below), or the plane might behave much as you describe here above. Are you aware of this change in MSFS too?

[GamingCat2130]

It flies perfectly by hand.

It has a head-up display for always having the airspeed in view even while concentrating on the landing (instead of being in need to watch at this 1x1 millimeter sized airspeed indicator to the left of the artificial horizon that is unreadable when having zoomed out rather wide for landing).

The throttle reacts smooth and wonderful and with a few tips on the F2 or F3 button (I currently have no HOTAS) it is not a problem to accelerate or reduce 10 or 20 knots airspeed and she is holding that new airspeed wonderfully afterwards.

It follows the NAV wonderfully with the autopilot and with 90%-95% N1 it holds the airspeed perfectly 30 knots or so under the red line.
The same goes for lower airspeeds, it flies wonderfully with 230 knots under 10.000ft or with 140-160 knots while flying a landing per hand with N1 at 69-75% and flaps fully out depending on weight and kerosene left.

The CRJ is making the slightest problem at all. The only detail that annoys me is that the flight path vector indicator becomes invisible under the horizon and also there are no negative pitch ladder under the horizon because the artificial horizon line ends the HUD with nothing beneath except the compass rose.
But I need a negative pitch ladder to at least -10° visible to also see the flight path vector under the horizon even while the nose is pitched up during landing. The flight path vector is as important as the variometer while landing.

But there is nothing under the horizon except that useless compass rose - the CRJ HUD should be reprogrammed until it looks like a real HUD.
The real CRJ has a negative pitch ladder to almost -10° nose down like it should be and that compass rose way farther down below.
In the simulator the HUD becomes unreadable during daylight (because of overblooming) - so there should be a serious update in the HUD.

Well I think I register at the Aerosoft forum and beg the developers to overhaul the HUD until it has +10°pitch ladder upwards visible, the artificial horizon line visible in the middle, and down -10° pitch ladder visible while looking straight ahead through the HUD.

The HUD reworked and a functioning weather radar would make this plane PERFECT

So the question should be: Is there any plane better looking and flying more smooth and well-behaved than the CRJ … with it´s superstylish rear-mounted turbines and T-tail and sharp-looking aerodynamic angled wings finishing with winglets? Only a true artist can create such a beauty.
Only William P. Lear could have created a plane THAT stylish. He would be proud of the CRJ series the most beautyful aircraft ever designed (or is the MD80 fly-the-Maddog more stylish? Not sure…) if he would be still alive.

But the HUD needs a patch.
This is what the real CRJ HUD looks like:

[SuperSixBravo]

Thank you, I will look at this and check/try this, and when i try it I will take screen shots, and post here to compare if it all goes wrong. Many thanks.

[Ephedrin87]

Doesn’t the HUD come with different modes like VMC, IMC, PRI… ?

[GamingCat2130]

Oh well I have to admit I haven´t read the handbook yet. I have only found a brightness dimmer and no other function for the HUD yet
Hm this handbook is not that interesting because it consists mostly of checklists and descriptions for instrumentation but does not have this awesome engineering historical and technical background infos about the plane like PMDG handbooks have… that´s why I found the CRJ handbooks not that interesting to read but watched YouTube tutorial vids only.
But almost no YouTuber is ever using this HUD because none of them are handflying, meanwhile I am handflying always and am what in DCS is called a “HUD-cripple”
(…a person who fully relies on HUD only and has gotten to slow and lazy and incompetent to read all these very tiny and very scattered aircraft attitude gauges in difficult flight situations like landings - because every relevant information like speed attitude altitude sinkrate and more right is in front of the eyes on the HUD.)
But after 171 hours of DCS (-20 hours Mi-24 Hind-D, this one has no HUD) one is getting fully used and dependand to the most practical gauge ever invented, the HUD, and this cannot be reversed. I want a primitive iron HUD even in the 1946 PMDG Cloudmaster…

And thank you very much for the tip with these “VMC IMC PRI” modi, I will have a look in the CRJ handbooks now and try these out before ridiculing myself in the Aerosoft forum when trying to declare my own lack of knowledge how to operate this airplane as a “bug and please fix it” wish.

[Ephedrin87]

I don’t have the CRJ so I really don’t know, it was a genuine question. But all HGS that I’ve seen had several modes to guide you. In DCS I also rely a lot on the HUD in the Warthog but that serves a slightly different purpose I have no idea though how well the CRJ has been modelled, given how despereate AS was to bring it to the sim as quickly as possible and knowing the dev’s other airplanes I wouldn’t be surprised if what you get is what you see.

The Hind is something I want to figure out soon too… currently learning the deep side of the Hog and a bit of A/A in the Hornet lol…

[GamingCat2130]

Don´t worry the CRJ feels in no way rushed and brought to the flightsim as fast as possible as ugly half-baked alpha with 1-to-1-converted 3D model from FS2004, but it is an exquisite high polygon 3D model with highest polygon count everywhere, and superb textured 3D virtual cockpit.
If you like to fly bigger planes with turbines, the CRJ is a must-buy

If you want to fly the DCS Hornet I would absolutely recommend the cockpit texture I made for this plane (JetCat), it is way better than the original texture and I also textured the rockets for the canopy and many other details, took me many hours to create it. You should do yourself something good and download my Hornet cockpit as christmas present Screenshots here in my JetCat postings:

Hornet cockpit textures, anything better?

https://www.file-upload.net/download-14732281/Cockpit.zip.html
I have a black Viper cockpit texture too if you want.

But back to topic, if you buy the CRJ (it makes no difference if you buy it on the Marketplace or the Aerosoft website, there is no PMDG Operation center you will miss after buying in the store) you will be surprised how lovely designed everything is, there is so much attention to detail.
So far I have found no flaws on this plane - and this is rare because I always find texture or graphics bugs.
The flight model is exquisite very stable and a joy to fly, and the cockpit is beautyful comfortable and looks modern yet cozy and beautyfully illuminated at night. It is like switching on a christmas tree when all these amber-orange lights are lit up in the virtual cockpit.

This aircraft looks absolutely beautyful and PERFECT from every angle inside and outside. I refused to buy it for months because the weather radar was not implemented. Without weather radar I considered it unfinished, but after finding out that this radar problem is a very complex SDK problem and there will probably never be a weather radar implemented (or at least for several years not until some ultra-important SDK update held back for a year now finally get released for PMDG Aerosoft and the others), well I gave her a try - and never regretted it
And you would never regret getting this dream of a plane either:

Aerosoft Aircraft CRJ 550/700

Because I have never made ILS landings (I have not learned this style of landing yet, only hand-flying with VASI lights) I cannot tell if this plane has autopilot problems. If yes - these will surely be patched soon

[HuwieBlue]

I hate to be “that guy” but I haven’t had any of the problems you’ve had with the CRJ. In fact your problems sound like they may be hardware configuration issues. For example, there is absolutely no way you should be struggling to get the nose down. This suggests an erroneous trim setting which, again, could be cause by hardware misconfiguration.

Myself, I have a generally very positive experience with the CRJ. The only slight issue really is that it can take a long time - one to two minutes - to stabilise on the next heading after executing a turn in LNAV mode. It rolls too far when it turns, leading to a cycle of overcompensation. Usually it sorts itself out but on the rare occasion it doesn’t I just switch to HDG mode to stabilise it myself, then switch back to LNAV.

@Ephedrin87

Doesn’t the HUD come with different modes like VMC, IMC, PRI… ?

Sadly not. The modes are selectable, and runway parameters editable, on the HGS control panel but they do nothing. The only control you have at all is TO mode.

[Ephedrin87]

HA! thanks for the textures

[GamingCat2130]

Could you please tell me how to switch to TO mode in the HUD? I have read the handbooks and these say literally nothing about the HUD but only “there is one installed in this airplane” - and that´s it.
I have tried almost every button in the cockpit, but the HUD does not change it´s layout.

[SuperSixBravo]

Ok well I am very pleased to report that I have had a successful landing using the ILS and the plane behaved as expected.

EBBR-LJLJ (Both payware) CRJ-900 I did a total re-install.

ILS-30 LJLJ

Shortly after taking this pic I disengaged the AP for a nice landing.

STAR approach into LJLJ:

Chart:

Approach:

Everything all good:

So not sure if this is just the coin flip I was talking about or maybe the re-install or a patch has fixed it, But I try to do it by the numbers.

I forgot to sync the heading, and I had to flip the nav source manually, not sure if it is Automatic in MSFS, it is in the X-Plane rendition of the plane.

[SkyVagrant4490]

That’s a great feeling Six! Good to have you back with us! This plane is so much fun to fly really. I’m glad you’re back on board with it.

[HuwieBlue]

@GamingCat2130

Could you please tell me how to switch to TO mode in the HUD?

It’s a kind of workaround. See those two black screws in the panel just to the left of the CRS knob? You can click one of those to activate TO.

[SuperSixBravo]

Many thanks and thanks for helping me, I appreciate it. You are a credit to the community member in my opinion, even though I was venting like a fool, you saw past that and still helped. Thanks.