Iron Knuckles DC-9 Battery Keeps Going Dead

I want to know why it is that when I'm trying to go through the checklist and reading over the manual following all of the procedures that every thing goes dead all of a sudden, and I don't get to finish what I was doing? There's no sense in this! How am I supposed to learn how to follow all of the procedures if everything goes dead all of sudden? What I mean is that the lights and everything would be on and the annunciator lights would be lit and all of a sudden, everything goes out, just as though the power went dead or the battery power went dead. And I do have to APU running. I'm following all of the steps by the manual.

Another thing. The manual does not explain which position is the Auto position for the APU Air Conditioner Door Switch and a few other switches that the manual does not specify as to what position is what.

I know this is an old aircraft but could this be the reason for the sudden dead power? I'm running it in FS2004.

Ken.

cal2177 wrote: The dead battery thing is a flight sim condition. If you have the payware FSUIPC, you can set it to make the battery stay alive longer or never die.

That's true but this would apply to all aircrafts in the simulator. Why would the battery go dead just on the Iron Knuckles DC-9 and not the other aircrafts in the simulator? It seems to me that when I either connect using the ground power or the APU, the batter should NOT even go dead in the first place.

Ken.

ubersu wrote: The battery will go dead with anything except the engine generators - it's an FS oddity. It will go dead with any other aircraft in the sim if their engines aren't running. DJ

Yes, I agree, but if the APU is running or ground power is connected, that should keep everything powered up even with the aircraft engines shut down. I'm not really sure if the battery is going dead but all of the lights on the annunciator panel go out, and I can't proceed any farther. The instruments shows that the APU is running. Normally, the engines are not started up until pushback. The engines are not running while the crew is preparing the aircraft for flight and the passengers and the fuel are being loaded. It's either running on APU or ground power is connected. With any other aircraft I fly in the simulator, I can prepare the aircraft for flight, load the FMC and many other things while the engines are shut down as long as I'm running on APU or ground power is connected. How can I prepare the aircraft for flight if all the lights keep going out on the annunciator panel and the generators stop working, although I had the switches in the correct position? At the beginning of the manual, you are preparing the aircraft for flight and the engines are shut down. Of course, I know the DC-9 is loaded with the engines running but I shut them down while at the gate.

Ken.