Re: NGX impending release: Are we there yet?

[fluffybunny88 22]

Thanks for the update Robert, very much looking forward to the release whenever it may be.( I think with no solid evidence middle to late April) I have my new system built and just waiting for this fantastic aircraft to make it complete.

[Tabs 2,790]

This is a great update, but I'm a little confused...Robert makes it sound like it's just around the corner, but we all know beta hasn't been announced yet. And beta could take two or three months. Perhaps they are expecting a really short beta test?

Our alphas are probably "good enough" for some companies to release as their 1.0 version. We do not anticipate a long beta for this, most of the serious bugs are long gone before we hit beta - it was the same way for the MD-11 and J41.

[Airbus Commander 563]

Looks like we're on short final then, been waiting for ages now, tis good to know

[Cuddly1956 1]

Great news there - just hope one of those really tiny niggles doesn't get in and hold it all up for three months while trying to find it lol. Seems a shame that most of us won't see all the extremely hard work that has gone into it as we fly it to death on our machines.All the best to all the team and I'm sure our patience will be greatly rewarded as will Boeing's pleasure at such a fine simulation.John Ellison

[Adam106 3]

Our alphas are probably "good enough" for some companies to release as their 1.0 version. We do not anticipate a long beta for this, most of the serious bugs are long gone before we hit beta - it was the same way for the MD-11 and J41.

A few months ago I was bored and decided to check the forum posts for August - October 2008 and it seems the MD-11 beta took about 2 months. There was an anoucement that it had gone beta in August, and it released in mid October.Just saying....sorry, I don't mean to be nit picky.Adam Turley

[Ayster 73]

A few months ago I was bored and decided to check the forum posts for August - October 2008 and it seems the MD-11 beta took about 2 months. There was an anoucement that it had gone beta in August, and it released in mid October.Just saying....sorry, I don't mean to be nit picky.Adam Turley

NGX has probably had a longer development time than the MD11, hence more bugs squashed before Beta begins ?

[b737800tuifly 0]

wow crazy good news, my birthday is on 11.4 ...and mabye pmdg drops her in april! would be an epic birthday present i guess! keep goin. hope to see her fly in a video next days!? cheers

[Fabri91 0]

Thanks for this update, much appreciated!

[rsrandazzo 6,353]

Gents-I am going to publicly disagree with Ryan's post above. :( Testing on the NGX is unlike anything we have ever done with any product prior to this- primarily because the engineering resources we have available to us on this project exceeds the sum total of all resources we have had available to us on all previous projects combined...I'll give you an example:I have sitting on my desk in front of me right now a chart/graph that depicts the amount of bleed duct pressure that can be provided to the airplane by an external start-cart in all possible temperature and altitude conditions. For the next twenty minutes, I will be doing the following:1) Double checking the equation that is used to provide the same results in the NGX when you have the airplane hooked up to the external start-cart. It should produce a curve that matches the graph.2) Then I will choose five points on the curve at random and establish the temperature/ground altitude parameters in the NGX in order to double check that the results match the curve.From there, I will move on to testing the air start process at various pressures in order to validate that the start parameters are met (motoring N2, etc...)This is just one of what will likely be 400 similar tests I will conduct on the bleed/air conditioning and pressurization systems during the next week or so while verifying the behaviors against 643 pages of documentation... These tests will include things such as running Boeing's pressure hull leak-down check on the ground, running acceptance checks in the air for the pressurization control system in Auto and Manual mode... Triggering specific failures related to the various valves, ducts and controllers in the pneumatic systems, then running the QRH to determine that the outcome is expected and/or acceptable according to what the airplane will do...I'm sure we'll have a few areas here that don't work correctly or that we do not have sufficient information to complete, so we'll be making calls up to Seattle and asking our engineering friends for additional information, double checking against a live airplane or a simulator if one isn't available...Yeah... If all goes REALLY well with the pneumatic systems I should be on to testing and running acceptance checks on the Aural/Visual warning systems by Monday at the earliest... A week from Monday at the latest...So what does this have to do with beta testing?Well, as you can see, the in-house post-development testing is extremely in depth. So unlike previous releases we really aren't expecting our beta team to tell us if the airplane is doing what the manual says it should do. That process will be completed by the time we finish the post-development checks in house with assistance from our Tech Team.When we hand this to our beta team, we are looking for their feedback on how it runs, whether they see anything missing during installation, if they have any unusual performance issues, etc...In other words: The beta team will be testing an airplane that already meets our standards for release... There won't be much for them to "test" per se... So unless something REALLY bad happens when we roll it out to them, Beta testing will be an extremely short affair...Okay, I am off to put some pressure into the bleed ducts....

[b737800tuifly 0]

you are a lucky guy robert

[johanv39 0]

Captain! My Captain!You guys are awesome! Including Dr Vaos :( Keep on going!Johan Viljoen

[MVelasquez 12]

Oh man its almost here!!!!!!!!!

[fakeflyer737 991]

I bet Randazzo has a hot wife.

[rsrandazzo 6,353]

You guys are awesome! Including Dr Vaos :(

Johan,Did you mean *our* Dr. Vaos? Because Dr. Vaos hates it when we call him Dr. Vaos in our forum... :( (good setup, Johan, thanks!)

[jose88 50]

Gents-I am going to publicly disagree with Ryan's post above. :( Testing on the NGX is unlike anything we have ever done with any product prior to this- primarily because the engineering resources we have available to us on this project exceeds the sum total of all resources we have had available to us on all previous projects combined...I'll give you an example:I have sitting on my desk in front of me right now a chart/graph that depicts the amount of bleed duct pressure that can be provided to the airplane by an external start-cart in all possible temperature and altitude conditions. For the next twenty minutes, I will be doing the following:1) Double checking the equation that is used to provide the same results in the NGX when you have the airplane hooked up to the external start-cart. It should produce a curve that matches the graph.2) Then I will choose five points on the curve at random and establish the temperature/ground altitude parameters in the NGX in order to double check that the results match the curve.From there, I will move on to testing the air start process at various pressures in order to validate that the start parameters are met (motoring N2, etc...)This is just one of what will likely be 400 similar tests I will conduct on the bleed/air conditioning and pressurization systems during the next week or so while verifying the behaviors against 643 pages of documentation... These tests will include things such as running Boeing's pressure hull leak-down check on the ground, running acceptance checks in the air for the pressurization control system in Auto and Manual mode... Triggering specific failures related to the various valves, ducts and controllers in the pneumatic systems, then running the QRH to determine that the outcome is expected and/or acceptable according to what the airplane will do...I'm sure we'll have a few areas here that don't work correctly or that we do not have sufficient information to complete, so we'll be making calls up to Seattle and asking our engineering friends for additional information, double checking against a live airplane or a simulator if one isn't available...Yeah... If all goes REALLY well with the pneumatic systems I should be on to testing and running acceptance checks on the Aural/Visual warning systems by Monday at the earliest... A week from Monday at the latest...So what does this have to do with beta testing?Well, as you can see, the in-house post-development testing is extremely in depth. So unlike previous releases we really aren't expecting our beta team to tell us if the airplane is doing what the manual says it should do. That process will be completed by the time we finish the post-development checks in house with assistance from our Tech Team.When we hand this to our beta team, we are looking for their feedback on how it runs, whether they see anything missing during installation, if they have any unusual performance issues, etc...In other words: The beta team will be testing an airplane that already meets our standards for release... There won't be much for them to "test" per se... So unless something REALLY bad happens when we roll it out to them, Beta testing will be an extremely short affair...Okay, I am off to put some pressure into the bleed ducts....

Thanks ... Take your time to make it!!!