FS2002 Reliability Factor Version 1.4
For use with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002
Platforms: Win98/ME/XP/NT/2K
Author: Mark Schilberg
Support email: reliabilityfactor@sympatico.ca
Website: Here
Also required: FSUIPC module by Pete Dowson (www.schiratti.com) (version 2.95 at the time of this writing)
Reliability Factor is shareware. If you like it, please register it here.
What is FS2002 Reliability Factor?
FS2002 Reliability Factor allows you to set the reliability percentage based on flight time for over sixty flight simulator sub-systems grouped in seven system categories: Autopilot, Control, Electrical, Engine, Fuel, Instrument and Radio. It will then use these factors to simulate sub-system failures during flight. Reliability Factor is useful for people who would like to enhance their flight sim experience with a slight (realistic) chance that something might go wrong during their flight. On the other hand its useful for people who'd like to plan certain failure scenarios.
Features:
- Set reliability percentages based on flight time for over sixty flight simulator sub-systems.
- Reliability percentages accurate to three decimal points.
- Quickly set reliability factors globally, for a specific system or one sub-system at a time.
- Included "Hardcore Mode" locks you into failure situations so that you cannot clear failures etc.
- Save and load your reliability profiles for different aircraft or situations.
- Optional in flight status display, audible warnings and user definable hotkeys.
- Component failure is testable so that you can immediately see the effects of failing a certain sub-system.
- Clear all failures with the click of a button, or clear one failure at a time (recent first) in flight with the press of a hotkey.
How does FS2002 Reliability Factor work?
FSRF simulates failures based on the reliability percentage, which is in turn based on flight time. For example, if you set the reliability of a given sub-system to 99.999% based on 1 hour of flight, then there is a 0.001% chance that the sub-system will fail sometime during each hour of flight.
What are some more examples of reliabilities that can be entered:
You can set the reliability percentage of a given sub-system from 0%, which means definitely fail, to 100%, which means never fail, in 0.001% increments. These reliability percentages are based on hours of flight which can be entered as low as 0.1 hour (six minutes) and as high as 999 hours (approx. 42 days).
Examples:
1) Definitely fail a sub-system within 12 minutes of flight:
- Enter 0% based on 0.2 hours of flight.
2) A 40% chance that a sub-system will fail within an hour:
- Enter 60% based on 1 hour of flight.
3) A somewhat realistic (very slight) chance that a cockpit instrument will fail:
- Enter 97.6% based on 6 hours of flight for all instruments.
How does "Hardcore Mode" work?
Since it is quite easy to clear a failure(s) in Reliability Factor once a failure occurs and to see what failure(s) occurred, Hardcore Mode prevents you from doing this while airborne. In effect, it prevents you from "chickening out" when a problem occurs :-) and makes failures harder to detect. Here are all the options which are not available when Hardcore Mode is on and you're airborne ...
- Sub-systems display
- Failure clearing
- Failure displaying
- Reliability setting
- Profile opening
- Deactivating RF
Further to this, if you attempt to close the Reliability Factor application in any way (even with the Windows Task and Process Manager) while Hardcore Mode is on and you're airborne, Reliability Factor will slew your aircraft to 0 degrees longitude and 0 degrees latitude (over the Atlantic, just south of Ghana Africa) and slam it into the ocean.
Failable Sub-systems:
Autopilot (Airspeed)
Autopilot (Altitude)
Autopilot (Approach)
Autopilot (Attitude)
Autopilot (Autothrottle)
Autopilot (Back Course)
Autopilot (Glideslope)
Autopilot (Heading)
Autopilot (Mach)
Autopilot (Master)
Autopilot (Navigation)
Autopilot (Vertical Speed)
Autopilot (Wing Leveler)
Autopilot (Yaw Damper)
Control (Aileron)
Control (Elevator)
Control (Elevator Trim)
Control (Flaps)
Control (Landing Gear)
Control (Rudder)
Control (Throttle)
Electrical (Battery)
Electrical (Entire System)
Electrical (Alt/Gen (Engine 1))
Electrical (Alt/Gen (Engine 2))
Electrical (Alt/Gen (Engine 3))
Electrical (Alt/Gen (Engine 4))
Electrical (Master Avionics)
Engine (Engine 1 (Fail))
Engine (Engine 1 (Stall))
Engine (Engine 2 (Fail))
Engine (Engine 2 (Stall))
Engine (Engine 3 (Fail))
Engine (Engine 3 (Stall))
Engine (Engine 4 (Fail))
Engine (Engine 4 (Stall))
Fuel (Pump(s))
Fuel (Tank Center (Leak))
Fuel (Tank Left (Leak))
Fuel (Tank Left Aux (Leak))
Fuel (Tank Left Tip (Leak))
Fuel (Tank Right (Leak))
Fuel (Tank Right Aux (Leak))
Fuel (Tank Right Tip (Leak))
Fuel (Tank Center 2 (Leak))
Fuel (Tank Center 3 (Leak))
Fuel (Tank External 1 (Leak))
Fuel (Tank External 2 (Leak))
Instrument (Airspeed)
Instrument (Altimiter)
Instrument (Attitude)
Instrument (Fuel)
Instrument (Heading)
Instrument (Magnetic Compass)
Instrument (Pitot Static)
Instrument (Turn Coordinator)
Instrument (Vacuum)
Instrument (Vertical Speed)
Radio (ADF)
Radio (COM)
Radio (NAV)
Radio (Transponder)
Notes:
- FSRF only simulates failures during flight. As soon as you take off, FSRF goes into action. When you land, FSRF will stop simulating failures but the failures that exist remain until you clear them. (Don't forget to clear failures between flights).
- You can manually set a failure on the ground or in flight by selecting the sub-system and then selecting "Test Failure".
- FSRF detects how many engines and fuel tanks in your current aircraft and will only bother simulating failures for the components that exist.
- Hotkeys need to be pressed until FSRF detects them. This might take a second.
- When a sub-system is set to 100% reliability, there is NO chance FSRF will simulate a failure for it.
- If an engine stall occurs, the failure is automatically cleared after 30 seconds so there is a chance it may happen again. By the way, engine stalls are simulated by leaning out the fuel mixture (fuel flow in jets). Once you recognize there's a problem you'll have to increase your mixture (or fuel flow in jets) and then possibly restart the engine.
- Fuel leak sizes are random and there is a less likely chance that the leak will be very large.
- Be careful with the "Entire Electrical System" failure option. I've observed that if this fails, it sometimes won't clear (it stays broken) until you reset your flight.
- When you clear a control failure, it may take a few seconds for the control to be regained.
- FSRF checks for subsystem failures every 10 seconds.
Is there any more help than this?
Hopefully you'll find FSRF pretty intuitive to use. There isn't any more information that will be presented here. If you have any questions, please forward them to the support e-mail address above.
May luck be your copilot :-)
Authors note:
I work hard to make the applications I program as dependable, efficient, easy to use and bug free as possible. If you like my programming style, you may be interested in my other recent projects. If so, check them out at these websites ...
Rapidshot (for any application)
Limitation for non-registered version:
If Reliability Factor isn't registered, there's a 30 minuite time limit at which it will stop working. You can exit and restart FSRF if you hit the time limit.