That sounds really promising Tom. From the images and videos posted so far it already looks like a winning package to me.

I can only imagine how difficult it is to fit this around your "day jobs", especially coding and modelling something like the Boeing 737-300 in between family life and work etc, (which obviously has a much bigger priority). I have to say I marvel how commercial developers (on any platform) get things completed in such short time frames given the incredible complexity of these addons, hats off to you.

 

Cheers

 

Rhydian

Just wanted to draw everyone´s attention to some new screenshots of the exterior that are up on our gallery. New movie about the autothrottle system about to be released on our youtube channel as well (within a day or two), so keep checking back there.

 

http://www.ixeg.net/gallery

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/IXEG1?feature=watch

 

Thanks, Jan

New video up on autothrottle

 

Impressive!

 

By the way, do you plan to include weather radar functionality on the Navigation Display?

All I can say is ... WOW! That engine start up video on YouTube is just fantastic. I love the little performance details that have been implemented in that phase and I can't wait to see more! You guys are really making me reconsider my thought of moving from FSX to X Plane. 

 

Keep up the good work

By the way, do you plan to include weather radar functionality on the Navigation Display?

 

Yes, we already have the weather display and TAWS also, BUT we are encountering some new issues in the switch to 64-bit that we must resolve.  This is an area of concern for us at the moment and we are not sure where we will end up, but without a doubt, radar is important for us to make work asap.

 

TomK

Very intuitive way to sync ingame throttle levers with hardware ones!

Very intuitive way to sync ingame throttle levers with hardware ones!

Yes I agree. I initially thought it was a graphic just for the video, but then listening to Jan I realised its a feature of the software. I thought the way PMDG implemented their throttle indicator on the display inside the VC was a neat idea too, but I think this is a superb visual reference for syncing ingame throttles. This is looking great IXEG, hope it all goes well for the 64bit version.

 

Rhydian

Very intuitive way to sync ingame throttle levers with hardware ones!

 

I absolutely think so, too. Nils came up with this, and it works like a charm. Everytime you move your joystick throttle, the "ghost image" comes up and then fades away after a few seconds. If your "virtual" throttle is free to move (i.e. autothrottle servo not powered in OFF, ARM or THRHLD), it will be "grabbed" when the positions match.

There is one exception to this rule - during takeoff yanking your joystick throttle to idle will also "grab" and retard the virtual throttle - and trigger the autobrake in RTO, as the real plane does. (It will simply disengage the autobrake under 90kts, and only trigger the RTO if above 90kts groundspeed).

 

You can see me advance the joystick throttle all the way forward after the autothrottle sets takeoff power - this way I have throttle travel available to trigger the RTO mechanism if I need or want to.

Hi everyone,

 

next installment of the autopilot series movies is up.

 

 

Enjoy, Jan

wow!

Its been quiet for some time here so here is a quick report to let you know work is still ongoing.  Just about everything except the FMS is ready to go.  All the focus is on the programming of the FMS, which is quite narrow focused and internal and so it may look like there's not a lot of activity...nothing new to show in the cockpit or exterior, etc..  The truth is that the coding and work on it is ongoing and everybody are well are that we are waiting on the FMS work to be complete for a run up to release.  As we have said, this is our first go round and so have no re-usable FMS code and we want to get it right the first time, handling all the button presses you can throw at it without crashing the sim and also handling dual CDU operation for shared copilot use in the future.

 

TomK

How deep is the FMS simulation going to be? Can we expect the same level of complexity as the real unit, minus the obvious not included stuff such as ACARS, Weather Uplink, etc?

 

Thanks!

As deep as we can make it.  Being the FMS is "new" to me, I don't know any better than to understand it and simulate it as I see it operate.  One thing I am really good at is trying to break stuff too.  I press button combos that no self-respecting airline pilot would ever press and so make sure the unit can handle that.

 

Minus the obvious, one thing I think a real unit might have that we won't is waypoint bypass and double-bypass calculations.  In general, procedures are designed nowadays such that aircraft can fly the procedures so you don't encounter bypass situations very much; however, we have found our Navigraph data source having some situations where the data doesn't match the procedure description and we elect to "skip"  waypoints in these cases (when the next waypoint is inside the turn radius of the aircraft and can't be made)....in these cases, we simply will sequence to the next waypoint.

 

I think all the important stuff will be there.  lnav, vnav, takeoff and climb calculations, leg and route editing, fix and hold pattern entry, etc.  We won't really know till we get there how long it will take or how tough...is our first time, but thus far, there is nothing critical we have said, "lets leave out" or not followed through on stability during operation.  

 

Here's a quick glance at the EHSI with Gizmo's interactive terminal for debugging and testing.  This is leading up to route editing via the legs page and RTE pages..including shortcutting, deleting or adding direct points, etc.

 

TomK

 

 

This addon looks amazing from every angle! Thank you for the complete answer.

 

You have real pilots on the team, so I feel confident they will always bring their experiencies to the simulation, in order to make it as real as possible.

 

And even being the first time simulating such complex aircraft systems, I´m pretty sure from what we´ve been seeing, it´s going to be one of the deepest for X-Plane. And if we users spot anything we think it´s not like the real stuff, we´ll make sure your team gets the info and you can work on it.

 

If this is the first, and it looks like this, imagine how the second one will look like! hehehhhee

 

Keep us updated!