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DA Piper Cheyenne X radar

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I am looking at buying the DA Cheyenne X. It looks to be a great model and the reviews and comments here and on other sites have been very favorable. The screenshots and video I have seen have been stunning.My question involves the weather radar. Does this radar show the weather being simulated in FSX that lies ahead of the aircraft's flight path or does the radar simply show a generic weather pattern and serves no real purpose other than being eye candy?Just out of curiousity, what is the flight range of the Cheyenne? I am looking to use it for my next Around The World flight. Preferably, I want to make the flight entirely in the southern hemisphere, so there will be a lot of island hopping involved. Any comments by owners of the Cheyenne X are appreciated. Thanks!

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I am looking at buying the DA Cheyenne X. It looks to be a great model and the reviews and comments here and on other sites have been very favorable. The screenshots and video I have seen have been stunning.My question involves the weather radar. Does this radar show the weather being simulated in FSX that lies ahead of the aircraft's flight path or does the radar simply show a generic weather pattern and serves no real purpose other than being eye candy?Just out of curiousity, what is the flight range of the Cheyenne? I am looking to use it for my next Around The World flight. Preferably, I want to make the flight entirely in the southern hemisphere, so there will be a lot of island hopping involved. Any comments by owners of the Cheyenne X are appreciated. Thanks!
http://digital-aviation.de/forum/

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According to the WXR 2100 manual the weather radar does show the weather ahead of the vehicle, although interpreting the the display will require a careful study of the .pdf document. The WXR 2100 is a fairly complex unit which also displays the current flight plan.The cruise speed of the Cheyenne IIXL is about 275 kts, it has a range of about 840 nm, and a ceiling of 31000 ft. It's fuel capacity is 382 US gal.It's a frame rate hog, so you'll have dial down your display features to get a reasonable frame rate. There have been reports of the sim crashing while programming the Trimble 2000 GPS unit, and from my own experience I can confirm these, although I've found that it does function reliably when you limit your use to importing an FSX generated flight plan.It's a well polished add-on which I think most users will recommend you get.Here's a pic showing what you can expect from the weather radar.


Mike Beckwith

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Guest RET_1935

Be aware that it's radar does not seem to work with Active Sky Advance. Hopefully when Hi Fi releases the SP1 for ASA it can be used in conjuction with it but I wouldn't hold my breath.

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Guest santiagoluib3

It does work, but as mentioned above, it doesn't seem to work with AS advance. I rarely use it too, except when displyaing my GPS flight route. Aside from the bug on programming the Trimble, there may be other minor issues.. most of which you probably can live by) :) I prefer to use FSX flight planner and import it, rather than manually programming it in the aircraft.Despite all those 'minor' issues, this is my favourite light GA Twin... and I highly recomend it. I love doing short regional flights and this is among the best aircraft for the job ;) It dont see much of a performance hit on my system, but it's slower than default AC like many other add-on ACs. I can still maintain ~25-30 fps above cities or large terminals with SC/AG at very high (but I rarely fly over these areas). Oh, that's with the FPS Limiter tweak btw.I think the rest of your questions have been answered above :)Cheers.

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Since I have had it, I have flown the Cheyenne at least 90% of the time up against the Level D 767 and the Flight 1 ATR, so that gives you an idea how highly I regard it.Digital aviation run a very open & democratic support forum http://digital-aviation.de/forum/Usually that would be great, but I do think they get over-run with it and what looks like a huge number of problems which in fact mostly consists of either people who haven't read the manual or who have system problems on the one hand and those who are pushing the GPS unit to its absolute limit on the other.I am not aware I have ever had a Cheyenne related FS crash, but I don't use the GPS other than to import a flight plan before take off and then follow it. There are probably some residual problems with the GPS but you won't encounter them unless you want to set & amend your flightplan in flight using the more complex functions.The weather radar does show real weather and it does work with ASX (the previous version of ActiveSky for FSX - and indeed with AS6.5 for FS9). It also is capable of acting as ground radar. I have used the RealityXP WX500 and I have to say that the Cheyenne display isn't as easy to set or interpret as that, although it does work in as far as it seems to reflect the weather you see around you. The argument at Digital Aviation is that the RealityXP units are "dumbed down" somewhat for sim pilots and the Cheyenne unit is a more accurate representation of what real pilots see. I can't verify or disprove that.


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Guest ziporama

Compared to other complex add-ons, the Cheyenne is much less of a frame hog than others and it's not very significant at all on my system. See my review here http://www.avsim.com/pages/0208/CheyenneX/CheyenneX.htmThe problem with the new version of Active Sky (released after my review article) and the Cheyenne weather gauge is true, and that gauge is currently disabled on my system (I've prevented the offending gauge file from loading). Because other weather gauges work just fine with Active Sky Advanced, (eg, Leonardo's Maddog) I'm not entirely convinced where the problem is. I do know that ASA seems to use the weather programming capabilities in FSX to the max.As was said above, there is terrific support from DA in their forums as there is in Hi-Fi sim's here at AVSIM, so I encourage you to ask your questions there. Etienne

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Thanks everyone for all of your good information. I ordered the Cheyenne last night so hopefully it will arrive soon. I am running the default weather on my FSX, so there shouldn't be any problems related to AS Advanced.I am worried that the aircraft range may be a little short to hop islands across the South Pacific for my around the world flight, but who knows, maybe I will catch a good tailwind to Easter Island. Ziporama- I did a lot of research on the Cheyenne before buying it and the AVSIM review was the best information available that I found. My decision to buy the Cheyenne was probably 90% based on that review. Good job and thank you.I will have to go out and buy some new printer cartridges so I can print out the manuals. There will be lots of reading (and printing) to do and I can't stand staring at monitor that long unless I am flying. I do want to read all of the manuals so I don't post needless questions here or on the Aerosoft or DA forums.I am expecting decent FPS on my my system-Dell XPS 630iIntel

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Guest JeanLuc_
The argument at Digital Aviation is that the RealityXP units are "dumbed down" somewhat for sim pilots and the Cheyenne unit is a more accurate representation of what real pilots see. I can't verify or disprove that.
I'd be curious to know how did the developers (DA) manage to conclude and assert the Reality XP Wx500 is a dumbed down radar... I've known Hans for better than that, and it surprises me "pseudo techno explanation" would be used to back/justify their partnership decisions.

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Please do not attribute my use of the phrase "dumbed down" to anyone at Digital Aviation, it's perhaps an unwise shorthand which is solely my responsibility.Their position is that the current Cheyenne weather radar (which is I believe the same as the one in the Fokker F70/100) is as realistic as they can make it. If users find it less easy to interpret than others then that's just real life (or as real as it gets etc).Apologies, no insult intended to RealityXP, I think the WX500 is good too, as are a couple of other gauges I had access to in FS9 due to them being bundled with a couple of Dreamfleet aircraft.


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