ATR 72-500, by F. Sánchez-Castañer. Manuals and checklists by Werner Schott.
Version 1.0 - Iberia Regional / Air Nostrum livery
ATR 72-500 in Iberia Regional / Air Nostrum livery. Designed by F. Sánchez-Castañer for FS2002. Includes virtual cockpit, custom panel and gauges. Customs sounds also provided. Flight manuals and checklists made by Werner Schott.
Installation:
You should have a basic idea of the flight simulator files and folders structure in order to perform the installation. Remember one thing: if you are prompted to overwrite a file, don’t do it unless you are 100% sure what you’re doing (maybe you made a mistake and are about to delete your favourite plane, so don’t do it).
INSIDE THIS ARCHIVE THERE ARE SOME FILES CALLED FSC.ATR.FL.CAB , FSC.ATR.ovhd.cab, AND FSC.ATR.radios.cab (.cab extension may be hidden in your system). DO NOT DE-COMPRESS THEM!!! DO NOT EXTRACT THE FILES INSIDE IT!!! (unless you know what to do with them) JUST COPY THE FILE INTO THE GAUGES FOLDER, AS STATED ABOVE. FS2002 WILL TAKE CARE OF FINDING THE BMP's AND XML's INSIDE IT. IF YOU DECOMPRESS IT, MOST PROBABLY HALF OF THE GAUGES WILL BE MISSING IN YOUR PANEL.
The panel
The panel provided with this release contains a set of custom made gauges, which try to simulate as accurately as possible the systems of a real ATR 72-500. Here is a brief explanation of those that differ from the default FS2002 gauges.
Altimeter: By means of the knob in the left bottom corner, hte reference speed bug can be adjusted. This reference speed will be used for the fast/slow indication in the ADI below.
ADI: at the left side there is an indicator which will compare the aircraft’s speed with respect to the reference speed adjusted in the airspeed indicator. At the bottom and at the right there is NAV/LOC and glide slope indicators, which will activate when available.
When an autopilot mode is selected, it will be indicated at the top left and right corners (note: there is a known bug which will sometimes prevent the autopilot modes be properly displayed).
Under 2500ft agl, a radio altimeter is shown in blue in the left bottom corner.
HSI display: clicking on it will toggle rose/approach mode. The switch on the right will toggle between GPS and NAV1 mode.
CCAS (Centralised Crew Alert System): Contains all basic warnings.
Power Management and Torque gauges: Unlike the ATR42-300 , the power management provided in the ATR 72-500 can perform automatic torque adjustment, as well as rpm control. The PWR MGT selector has four positions for TO (takeoff/go around), MCT (maximum climb torque), CLB (climb) and CRZ (cruise). The amber bugs in the torque gauges will show the optimum torque for each of these positions. The optimum torque is also a function of the engine rpm, pressure, altitude and temperature. At the bottom of the gauge there are pushbuttons for engaging automatic torque separately for each engine. This function must remain disconnected during descent, landing and ground operations.
There are two ways of using the gague: When power is controlled manually, the pilot must adjust the power levers to the torque indicated by the amber bugs. The rpm will be automatically set to 100% (for TO position) or 82% (for all other positions).
The power can be controlled also automatically. To do this, engage the two pushbuttons at the lower part of this gauge. The torque delivered by each engine will automatically be ajusted to the amber bugs. (note1: this automatic function is in the real plane adjusted by moving the power levers forward to AUTO position. This was difficult to implement and more difficult to operate in this panel, so the buttons have been provided instead) (note2: it is recommended that both buttons are pressed with parking brakes on before taking the runway, in order to test the function of this gauge before takeoff. Under certain circumstances the gauge logic will lock to a low power setting. The test will reset the gauge and ensure proper function during take off).
A display has been provided in the gauge, which will show the desired torque. This display does not exist in the real plane, but I have included it in order to facilitate its use in FS2002.
The torque indicators are also provided with a white bug, which is manually adjustable by operating the knob at the right bottom corner. They should be adjusted according to the aircraft’s published performance tables (see recommended readings at the end of this file).
Fuel quantity gauge: the red LED’s at the bottom will light if the fuel level is below 160 kg in either tank.
Air temperature gauge: pressing the button at the lower left part will cycle between OAT and TAT. On the right side, the TAS is shown.
Fuel quantity gauges: This is another deviation from the real plane. In the real ATR, these are fuel temperature gauges, but such variable does not exist (please correct me if I’m wrong) in FS2002. So I used them for an additional fuel level indicator, also with warning light below 10% level.
Oil gauges: the red LED’s will illuminate if low oil pressure.
Trim indicators: For some reason, when choosing a new aircraft in FS2002, the elevator trim is set to an extreme nose down attitude. It is recommended to pause the simulation to change your aircraft. This gauge can be used to check that the elevator trim is in a reasonable position before returning to normal simulation (an, of course, to
check correct trims before takeoff). Normal values for the provided air file are in the range 0 to 0.5 positive elevator trim.
AFCS display: contains information about the autopilot’s status.
AFCS controls: Controls all functions of the autopilot. There are four knobs to adjust course (only CRS1 can be adjusted), heading and altitude hold variables. Note that in some systems, CRS and HDG (and sometimes ALT and IAS) will vary in increments of 10 instead of 1 by 1. This is a FS2002 bug, see the "control acceleration bug" section.
The NOSE UP/NOSE DN wheel has two functions: when VS mode is engaged, will adjust the vertical speed. When IAS mode is engaged, will control the airspeed.
Note that you can operate these knobs and wheel by clicking on them, but also if you have a wheel mouse, moving the wheel when the cursor is over them will have the same effect. (This seem to work only in FS2002 *.cab gauges)
There are three buttons to control the autopilot’s main functions (AP, YD and CPL). CPL is just a dummy button in this panel ,as the function is not supported by FS. When the AP button is presssed, the both the autopilot and the yaw damper are automatically engaged. Pressing the YD button will then disengage both autopilot and yaw damper.
Four buttons control the airplane’s heading: HDG, NAV, APP and BC. Please note that the BC function does not seem to work at all in FS2002, and has some unwanted behaviour when the APP function is activated. I believe this is a particular behaviour (bug?) of FS2002 rather than a bug in my gauge (feedback will be highly appreciated).
Three buttons control the plane’s vertical speed: IAS, VS and ALT.
The IAS hold provided behaves like the real aircraft’s IAS hold function. Like many other aircrafts, which will act on the plane’s pitch to maintain the pre-set airspeed. The engines are not controlled by this function at all. The airplane will climb to reduce airspeed, or will dive to increase it. You can control the aircraft’s climb or descent by setting a desired airspeed and then adjusting the power levers until the desired VS is reached. When this button is pressed, the aicraft will try to keep the current airspeed, this airspeed can be then raised or lowered by means of the nose up/down wheel.
IAS hold function will automatically de-activate when the preset altitude is reached. Try to avoid sudden changes in power or in IAS hold speed knob while IAS button is illuminated, or you will run out of sickness bags ;-). Be also aware that, while IAS function is active, there seems to be a bug (?) which, in case you try to operate the speed selection knob, makes it change in steps of 50 kts instead of 1 by 1. This is a FS2002 bug, see the "control acceleration bug" section.
With IAS or VS modes active, when the preselected altitude is reached, the autopilot will go automatically to ALT mode.
If the ALT button is pressed before the selected altitude is reached, the aircraft will stop climb and hold the current altitude. If VS or IAS is pressed,a the aircraft will continue climbing to the preset altitude.
Note: The VS, IAS and ALT functions do not match at all with the standard functions provided in fs2002, and have been custom made to behave like the real aircraft. Due to this, if you activate alt hold by means of a keyboard stroke, the behaviour explained above may vary. It is recommended to operate these functions by mouse clicking instead.
Condition levers (throttle panel): Unlike the default FS2002 aircrafts, the ATR does not have separate fuel and prop levers. The condition levers in the ATR72-500 have four positions: MAX RPM, AUTO, FTR and FUEL S.O. The AUTO position will adjust the propeller rpm automatically to 100% or 82% according to the PWR MGT selector. The MAX position will bypass this function and set rpm to 100%. To shut down the engines, move the levers to FTR position and further down to FUEL SO position.
Note1: although the real plane does not allow manual control of the prop rpm, I have provided a way to cheat this, for those simmers who want to have manual control: Place the condition levers in FTR position. The propellers will feather, but afterwards the propellers can be controlled by a joystick or keyboard.
Note2: If you have a joystick axis assigned to propeller control, it must be placed in its minimum position for this gauge to work properly. Otherwise, the gauge will fight agains the joystic setting and the rpm will continously go up and down. this is not a bug. Some analog joysticks may need to deactivate this assignment for the gauge to work properly.
Note 3: When loading an aircraft, the levers will default to AUTO position.
Idle gate (throttle panel): Pull for ground idle, push for flight idle.
Radio stack (throttle panel): contains all except the NAV radios, which are located beside the AFCS display. Note that the ADF radio has been repeated to make it visually similar to the real radio stack. The radios must be TURNED ON before use!!
Note: the COM2 radio cannot be programmed in xml code due to a FS2002 bug. This panel uses the default King Air COM2 radio (which is included in the Professional edition only) due to this problem. Therefore, the Standard edition users will not have a working COM2 radio. Thie is the only known incompalitility (so far) specific to the standard edition. Please do not ask me to send you this gague: is is copyrighted by Microsoft.
Trim controls (throttle panel).
Throttle panel toggle icon (throttle panel): Has been provided also in the throttle panel itself, to allow closing the panel when the icons on the main panel are covered. Top right corner.
Overhead panel: Most buttons in the real panel have been provided, but many of them are jsut dummy switches with no function (although they can be useful if you are trying to simulate some serious procedures). The elements that have a function are identified below:
Engine starters and propeller brake panel (overhead panel): There is a selector switch with 5 positions: START A+B, START B, START A, CRANK, OFF & ABORT START, and CONT. RELIGHT. Normal procedure when starting an engine for the first time after a long stop is first to crank it for a moment, then select START A+B and press the starter button. If the engine has not had a long period of inactivity, START A or B can be selected without prior cranking. To simulate this circumstance, the starter buttons will display a FAULT indication if this procedure is not adhered to (can be reset by placing the selector in OFF position). The FAULT indication will also illuminate if the starters are activated with the condition lever out of FUEL SHUTOFF position. The FAULT indication will not appear if you start from the keyboard, only when using mouse-clicks on the gauge (thus allowing for Ctrl + E start).
Procedure to normally start an engine is activate starter, wait for 10% NH, then bring condition lever to FEATHER, wait 10 seconds and then give FULL RPM. The starter will de-activate automatically when ignition is detected.
At the bottom of this panel there is the propeller brake switch and indicators. The ATR 42 is provided with a propeller brake on the starboard prop (no.2), allowing it to operate in "hotel mode", the engine generating electrical power while the propeller is stopped, and thus eliminating the need for an APU.
The propeller brake provided in this gauge will actually not stop the propeller from spinning, it will just make the rpm indication go to zero, so don’t look out, please ;-). I’ve made several attempts to build a working propeller brake, the only result being FS and Windows crashing in various flavours (if somebody has found out how to stop a turboprop airscrew in FS while maintaining the gas producer turbine running, I’d really appreciate the information).
The propeller brake switch must not be touched if the green READY indicator is not illuminated, or if the red UNLOCK indicator is on. Place engine #2 in feather position and power at ground idle to do it. A blue PROP BRAKE indicator will tell you that the brake is activated. Don’t try to take off in this condition: in order to simulate the lack of thrust from a stopped propeller, its condition lever will insist on staying in feather position.
Normal procedure for engine start is: Activate prop. brake; start engine #2; let passengers in and do whatever you need before taxi; de-activate prop. brake; bring condition lever no.2 to full rpm; start taxiing; start engine #1 while taxiing. (On a real ATR, the thrust from one only engine at ground idle is enough for taxiing, not in FS due to the well known "sticky tires" effect).
Spoilerons
You may notice that, although there is no spoilers gauge, spoilers will deploy if activated by keyboard command. This is a side effect of how FS handles spoilerons: The real ATR has spoilerons to assist in manoeuvring at low speed, but has no airbrakes (spoilers). FS doesn’t like spoilerons without spoilers, so there they are. If you experience lack of lift or excessive drag, have a look at your airplane from an external view and make sure you didn’t accidentally extend them.
Sounds
The sounds included with this aircraft have been recorded inside a Dash-8, which is similar enough to the ATR sounds.
Some explanation about the sound.cfg: Simplifying it a lot, the sound of a real turboprop engine could be considered as caused by four individual sounds: 1-A jet whine sound, which has both its pitch and volume depending on the gas producer rpm (NH). 2-A propeller sound, which has its pitch depending only on the propeller rpm (NP) and its volume depending on the torque. 3-Another component would be caused by the resonance of each blade, the pitch of it being always the same, and volume changing as a function of both torque and rpm. 4-The last component would be a sound induced by the air friction, turbulences, etc. produced by the blades’ linear speed, its pitch and sound depending on several factors, primarily on the blade tip’s Mach number.
What the default MS sound.cfg provides is a reasonable modelling of component 1, but all the other components are mixed up into an awful result: The propeller sound (which they categorize as combustion sound!!) will vary its pitch according to the power setting, while the propeller rpm will have no influence on it! So, if you fix a certain propeller rpm and increase power while in flight, you will hear the propellers speeding up, even if they maintain the rpm unaffected. Also, you will hear them slowing down when you decrease power. But if you look at the propeller rpm gauges, they will not vary in flight (the rpm will only show a variation when the plane is almost stopped on the ground or when the props are feathered). This is very unrealistic.
As quite a few simmers have correctly pointed out, MS seems to have forgotten we are dealing with constant speed propellers when modelling the sound, but they have provided the tools to improve the situation in their SDK’s. This is what has been modelled in this aircraft. Please remember: the propeller sound frequency will not vary according to the power setting. This is not a bug; it's how real planes sound like.
You'll also notice that there is no flaps sound. This is intentional, the flaps can not e heard at the cabin in the real plane.
Known problems and limitations
- In some systems, HDG, CRS (and eventually altitude and speed) cannot be selected in increments of 1 unit, but rather the gauges will insist in jumping in 10 units increments. Thus, the heading will display 000, 010, 020, etc. but it will not be possible to select intermediate figures, as 012. This is a known FS2002 problem, which can appear in this aircraft due to the custom functions which are built in the gauges. To solve it, download and install FSUIPC (made by Peter Dowson, and available at www.schiratti.com/dowson), then activate the option "Fix control acceleration" in the Technical section.. This module has many other features which make it highly recommendable. See the documentation in this site for additional explanation.
- The autopilot flags in the ADI can sometimes appear and disappear at random. This is a known bug, I'm investigating how to solve it.
- If you find that a lot of gauges are missing in the panels, the reason is that you have extracted the xml and bmp files which came inside the following cab files: FSC.ATR.fl, FSC.ATR.ovhd, FSC.ATR.radios. It is a very common mistake. These files are to be coiped inot the \gauges folder, without extracting their contents. Windows ME and XP can display these files as if they were folders, which can contribute to this mistake.
- The COM2 radio will not be operative if you have FS2002 standard edition. I tried to program a custom one, but it is not possible due to a bug in FS2002. So, I had to use the stock one from the Beech King Air, which is only included with the Pro version.
- If you notice that your radios are dead, please remember that each one is provided with an on/off switch that needs to be turned on before use, same as in a real aircraft.. The radios are set to off every time the aircraft is reloaded.
Disclaimer
1-These files will not harm your PC. 2-If you are not sure of how to install them, please don’t do it, as you may harm yourself your PC. 3-If you are confident that you can do it, then do it at your own risk. 4-If you think these files have harmed your PC in any way, you are wrong, 2 applies. I accept no responsibility.
REPAINTS
If you want to create and distribute a repaint for this aircraft, please
do it as follows:
- Option 1: If you create a textures-only package, you dont need my
permission, the files files made by you are yours. Just remember to write an
aircraft.cfg file to match the new livery, and to provide a link to my
archive.
Don't forget to identify the files as yours.
- Option 2: If you wish to distribute a full package aircraft + textures,
please note: The docs folder must remain unchanged, and must be included in the
release. You must include a file called readme.txt with your name, e-mail
address or other contact information, and a list specifying which files are
belonging to my original release, and which files have been created or modified
by yourself. At the end of this file, write "TEXT OF THE README FILE FROM THE
ORIGINAL AUTHOR:", then copy the entire text of this file you are reading now,
including my copyright information (of course my copyright excludes those
created by you). Please do not include my panel in a different aircraft. You
must instruct the end user to contact you in case of problems with the plane; I
will not support any other release than this ATR72-500 EC-HBY in Iberia Regional
- Air Nostrum livery. Please send me a link to your repaint.
COPYRIGHT AND SO ON
This aircraft is released as Freeware. Copyright F. Sánchez-Castañer
González. As freeware you are permitted to distribute this archive subject to
the following conditions:
- The archive must be distributed WITHOUT ANY MODIFICATION to the contents of
the archive. Redistributing this archive with any files added, removed or
modified is prohibited, except as specified under REPAINTS above.
- The inclusion of any individual file from this archive in another archive
without the prior permission of the author is prohibited
- No charge may be made for this archive other than that to cover the cost of
its distribution. If a fee is charged it must be made clear to the purchaser
that the archive is freeware and that the fee is to cover the distributor's
costs of providing the archive.
The file manatr725.zip and its contents is cpoyright by Werner Schott, see
the included readme file.
Acknowledgements:
I’d like to express my sincere thanks to:
Luca Piccini, he is an ATR pilot form Rome, Italy who has hugely contributed to this project and continously encouraged me for improvement.
Gabriel Niño Vizcaya, who kindly offered himself for testing the flight model. He is Flight officer in the EC-HBY depicted.
Werner Schott, for his fine manuals and checklists.
Scott Thomas, Milton Shupe, Tomas Foosnæs, George Bernard, Daniel Pimentel, Stefano Gazich Valseratti. They have kindly tested the beta verion of this aircraft and thanks to them the final release has been greatly improved.
Ron Freimuth, for the useful information he sent me on flight dynamics and turboprop parameters.
Matt Zagoren, for his very useful ATR42 documentation.
Laurent Michelot, for his advices regarding panel design.
Chris File, for his patience to teach how to properly get something out of Gmax.
Dai Griffiths for his superb gauge design tutorials.
Arne Bartels, for his huge contribution to gauge design and his ability and willingness to share his knowledge.
Karl R Pettersen, for his advices in gauge design.
All participants in the forums at www.flightsim.com, www.avsim.com, www.freeflightdesign.com, www.avhistory.org, and all other valuable fs-related sites.
Recommended reading:
Highly recommended: "ATR42 Performance, Procedures and Limitations", by Matt Zagoren. A set of three pdf documents with extensive information about this aircraft, which will allow a highly realistic flying. Available at www.flightsim.com as at42perf.zip. The documents are meant for the ATR 42-300, but will still give a good guidance for the 72-500.
Copyright © 2000-2003 F. Sánchez-Castañer