Hi fellow PMDG online captains,Any of you tried out the new IVAO pilot client yet?Personally I've been flying exclusively on VATSIM when flying online but I tried installing this new pilot client for the IVAO network and fired it up and was amazed how easy it was to get online and most of all how smooth the online traffic around me was!As soon as I can find the time for it, I will do some real online flights and see how well it all works but what I've seen so far looks very good!Cheers,

Yea, just a couple of days ago I downloaded it and went for a spin. I really like, plus since most fly in Europe on IVAO and so do I it's perfect. There are some problems though, but it's only a beta. If you want to have something similar but for Vatsim you should try out FSInn.

Heard of FSInn but didn't think that was available to the public on VATSIM yet but only on some kind of test network?What kind of problems have you encountered with IvAp so far?

FSInn is in the accreditation program for VATSIM - see post on the VATSIM forum. Richard (Vatsim12) says they're in the process, but that there's a delay due to the new authentication scheme to be used by both SB3 and FSInn, to prevent access to the network from "unauthorized" software.I'm very excited to see some friendly (well, cordial is the word used I believe) competition between various connect software offerings. It's really turned up both interest and some very positive improvements in the last few months.I believe that the hurdles one must go through just to get a stable connection on VATSIM via SB2 are very much hurting the network, and there is much effort by volunteers to fasttrack the new connect software.

>What kind of problems have you encountered with IvAp so far?None in regards to the PMDG.As a beta software IVAP suffers from a few problems (mainly regarding the meteo), but you can expect them to be fixed soon (they are actually already fixed, but it will take some time before a new version is released to the public).

Thanks for the info Etienne!I think we're facing a very interesting online future and I must say it's about time a more convenient and stable way to connect to the network(s) sees the daylight. Credits goes to all persons involved in making it happen!!

OKWell, I'm looking forward to get some time testing the client out myself.Happy flying,

Yes I should have mentioned that so far it's only possible to fly on the FSFDT server and not on Vatsim as of yet. I've talked to Benjamin a couple of times and he sounds very optimistic about FSInn working on the Vatsim network.I completely agree that the single biggest hurdle in getting more people online is the cumbersome rutine you have to execute in order to get online. It's just too much trouble and if you read the Vatsim forum and it's pretty obvious that this is where most people have trouble.I tried out the IVAO network because of the bigger number of online pilots flying in europe, which is where I mostly fly. At first I was a little skeptic but it has turned out to be a good experience these couple of days and I'll go there today again for the german event. Except for a few problems I think the new client is very good, only thing I've had trouble with is reconnecting to the network after having lost it.

Actually I have noticed the same problem to reconnect as well. Or rather in my case - if I for some reason don't succeed in connecting the first time I haven't found any other way to give it another shot than to quit FS9 and start all over again. But hopefully this will be solved...

Yes this is what I see too. I did a search over at their forum and it seems they are aware of the problem and it has been fixed in the next release...although this is very annoying actually.

I've tried the IVAp client for IVAO and I love it! Very easy to use, pretty stable so far and the ease of switching frequencies make it great!I tend to fly IVAO when doing European flights[major numbers of pilots and atc] and use Vatsim for North America.Too bad there wasn't a Vatsim/IVAO merger.. having 2000-3000 pilots and 200-400 atc online would be amazing.Randy Oldfield

Well, good thing they are aware of the problem and hopefully already found a cure for it.Part from that, I think the new client seems to be very promising and again what I find most impressive is how smooth the surrounding traffic is when comparing to using SB/VATSIM - it's like day and night! Will be very interesting indeed to see how well FSInn/VATSIM will perform compared to IvAp/IVAO!!

I agree, having them merged together with all ATC and pilots would be fantistic but I doubt that will ever happen unfortunately...Nice dream though :-)

If you take a look on the FSFDT server and go to an airport where there is some traffic you will be surprised to see that it's even better imo. With FSInn you can do close formation flying with fighter jets without losing a single frame, something not possible even on the ivap or the new SB3 I believe...watch for a video showing just this from the FSFDT team.

OK, sounds good! Like I said in an earlier post, hopefully we're looking forward to a very nice future when it comes to online flying compared to what we're used to :-)