When I took the F28 up for the first time, I did a short hop from Reno to Truckee. On my taxi back after landing, I could swear the airplane was rattling at me, I mean, it was a firm landing, but only ~350fpm, nothing crazy.
I then did another short hop, shooting an impromptu LDA approach into South Lake Tahoe. The thing was “rattling” at me the whole time, but it was pretty rhythmic, so I thought that maybe there was a loop of landing sounds that activated and got stuck.
It was only after landing at TVL that I realized the sound was kind of like an electronic drumset and it was definitely in some sort of time. As I parked and sat there with engines idling, my musician ears picked up the faint sound of… a soprano saxophone? I realized the clacking I heard was cabin music! Wait, that sounds a lot like… Wayne Shorter? How awesome, JF put a track of Wayne Shorter in the cabin music!
At that point, one of my helpful stream watchers told me I can go back to the cabin to turn the music off - oh, what a cool feature. So I did and the clacky drum stopped, but the soprano sax didn’t. What? That must be a bu… oh jeez, I look over at iTunes (I listen to music, often jazz during flights) and the late, great Wayne Shorter was playing.
So I was listening to the cabin track and my music, and the two had blended together fairly smoothly underneath the whine of the Speys.
Anyway, that’s how I found out the F28 had automatic cabin music.
It’s a technique used in the BaE 146 too. It absolutely works in the F29 also, although drag in the last two stages of flap is way higher than the others, so finding the right throttle position isn’t easy. The engines are small so it’s not like they’re RR Nenes or something, but there is a little lag still & there definitely isn’t with the airbrake.
I’m sure the cockpit colours are from a real source, but it does look like someone got hold of a bunch of leftover formica from some late 70s kitchen builds or something
Yes size seems to be good and correctly modelled. It’s just a feeling that instruments are more clear on other plane like the BAe146.
Performing an IFR approach with DME arc, following the flight director, maintaining the speed at the perfect knot… is just too painful for my eyes without zooming on instruments
I have compare real cockpit pictures too, agree after years some cockpit are différents concerning the colour and navigation equipment. I have bought the real flight manual from Fokker. Some option exist for example with INS and control of V/S for the PA since the first production (-1000/-2000). But yes JF has modelled one precise model, difficult to create so many different variants.
I completely uninstalled the release version, redownloaded the latest version of the installer and it seems to be working just fine today. I’m not sure what was causing the issue earlier. Its possible one of my joysticks was malfunctioning.
Thanks all for the horn silence button tip. Works well, just wish I could disable or have the silencing work for whole flight. Warning horn comes back every time you change the throttle a bit on descent, which is still annoying.
Also, anyone else feel that the cabin callouts are way too quiet? On the 146 I can hear them more clearly. On the F28 they are very quiet and I can barely hear what they are saying, and often just have to assume what I’ve heard. Especially the co-pilot flaps, gear and Vr callouts, all way too quiet over the peripheral cabin noise. Maybe I need to go and change my global sound settings in the sim. Strangely though the 146 callouts were fine though.
Will go fiddle with my global sound settings a bit, as the callouts are not clear for me.
“The primary warning will sound when one or more landing gears are not in the down and locked position and
either throttle is retarded below 75% HP RPM. Pressing the silencing button on the centre pedestal silences the
warning until the relevant throttle has been advanced above the 75% HP RPM threshold.”
Trouble is to slow the F28 down from cruise on descent requires air brakes (as required) and significant throttle adjustments, it’s those adjustments that keep reengaging the warning horn (for me).
I can only assume that it follows the behaviour in the real F28. The wording in the manual is almost the same as in the real “F28 Training Manual” section 4.8, “Landing Gear Warning System”.
Interesting. I hear that warning only once when significantly reducing power during descent. Then I don’t need that much power anymore (to trigger the warning again) till my final approach where I already have gears down.
You’re right that the callouts seem to be quieter than in the 146 but I think it’s rather because the cabin in the F28 is very loud. I sometimes find the engine whistling very uncomfortable but that might be just my sensitive ears.
Ok, I take that first paragraph back I’ve just finished Heathrow - Glasgow flight and there’s this RIBEL1G STAR with a step descent and to keep 270 kts during levelling I needed to go higher on throttles again, so I heard the throttle warning more times. Nevermind, quite expected and I don’t take it as annoying. I even kind of like it
Interestiongly my wife did complain a bit when I first throttled the F28 about the whiny piercing engine sound. So yes I did turn the tv down a bit at one stage!
But an option slider to increase the F28 copilot sound would be nice. Honestly I can’t hear anything other than background muffled calls from the co-pilot which I have to just guess what they are.
It might just be me then, but if I hear that alarm once per flight it is more than enough! But yes it keeps flipping back on and off all the time if you mess around with the throttle on descent, requiring many horn alarm resets.
FLAPS!
Also a bit confused on the flaps flipchart, landings seem to get co-pilot called for flaps 11?, 18, 25, 42 yet on the clickable flaps chart for Landing VR it only has 0, 25, 42. Again I’m more used to seeing all (or most) the flap configs being there on the 146 flipchart.
EXTERIOR CABIN SOUND
It’s one of the few aircraft that I noticed exterior sound increase/decrease (of other aircraft taxiing etc & other general airport noises) when doors open/close, quite cool as I don’t think I’ve encountered that before. It’s very immersive.
Regarding speed chart, the latter two are only approved landing flap settings. The top row includes other settings, but is for takeoff. The bottom row are the flap settings for approaches.
That’s fair enough, and I understand that. I was just used to seeing what my VR was at each flap setting on the 146 then working my way down the flaps when close to min speed for each flap setting irrespective of whether you could actually land with that flap config or not.
I’m seeing the porpoising effect at cruise with AP in HT & BEAM mode that some others have reported, but it seems to relate to airspeed. Can happen at lower alts too when level. Seems if airspeed drops at cruise to below 250kts (or less at lower alts) you will see porpoising effect. Speed up again and it goes away and levels off. Is this expected behavior or not?
The challenge seems to be finding just the right amount of RPM to keep speed steady so it doesn’t gradually drop below 250kts or gradually increase into the red zone. The 146 can target TGT is there a similar targeting control on the F28 or is it just fine throttle adjustments?
Both the hush kit and HF aerial options are automatically set each time the aircraft is loaded on a per livery basis depending on whether the real-world airline/operator used them. You can then override that by manually selecting your preference from the EFB.
The automatic configurations are based on the values read from the ‘livery_config.ini’ file, which is found in [Community]\justflight-aircraft-f28\Data. That can be edited.
