Just did a quick circuit, as that's all I have time for right now. Scoring system seems really nice and complete, though from the looks of it, it will also give you a penalty for wind shifts...while running REXE+ ... which seems kinda lame .

 

These must have been some impressive wind shifts... there's a lot of logic in Latitude to try to eliminate the effects of wind shift on the penalties associated with over-speed. But all other scoring remains the same. Several beta testers have had issues with wind shift which is why the logic was changed (the logic mimics the wind smoothing available in FSUIPC, but for scoring purposes - e.g. limit wind change to 1kt/s).

 

I very much am interested in Latitude. I fly for one of the 'bush' charter services and my activities are almost exclusively confined to the PNW, NRM, CRM and Alaska territories. Most often, the typical flight ops involve staying below the WX and flying the contours of the terrain. As a result getting from point A to point B can be quite adventurous and circuitous. How will REX Latitude identify the legitimacy and appropriateness of my flight pattern, given that type of flying? Will REX Latitude be able to account for 'bush' flying operations with its attendant steep bank angles, descents, STOL activities, etc?

 

For the bush flyer types... I do a lot of bush flying as well, but I generally pick altitudes that will get me below a deck and follow a "deck" altitude. If you do this you'll be fine. If you're following terrain it won't be.

 

However, if there are those that have this habit of terrain following, and have made flights with Latitude, I'd like to see them. Please reach out to me on the REX forums, and we can find a way for me to get the "log" files of the flights in question. I will look at them, and can expand the algorithms to "allow" this type of flying. It will likely allow you to either fly "level" using MSL or AGL, with different allowances.

 

Can you assign Rex L to certain aircrafts, like transport, military, aerobatics? I mean if I fly the 737 I do it by the book, but aerobatics is a whole different game...is this only aimed at transport category?

Edit: the 2:d above post explains my questions pretty well, thanx!

 

Aircraft are grouped by weight (mostly for comparisons). There is no "aerobatic" mode yet.

 

We are committed to evolving the project in a very community driven direction. We've thought about supporting aerobatic operations, but is not high on the feature list. This is a lot more complicated, because there are two approach: the real approach (tracking the maneuvers and seeing how well you abide by them, which will likely mean that most people will get 0%) and the fake approach (see how "wild" you can get in enroute for example). However, if the community overwhelmingly wants this feature, we'll move it up in the queue.

 

We'll be publishing a list of "future features". We'll likely allow the community to vote in the importance of at least some of them, and we'll implement quickly. The plan is to have a fast evolving, quickly updated product to satisfy the community's need for a central place/way to fly.

The wind shifts are not a REX issue and I wish we would drop this. WE ALL know that this is an FSX issue and Latitude DOES compensate for this within FSX/P3D.

 

Winds are best handled by turning down the wind turbulence and shear, enabling wind smoothing in REX. Also turn off your wind turbulence effects within FSX. If using FSUIPC you will get added effects.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bring REX down. It is in fact the only weather engine I use. Was just trying to point out that you can still get penalized for winds shifts when using weather engines with smoothing features.

 

I flew a quick circuit around Nelson in FTX NZSI, have all my settings as recommended in the REXE+ manual and strayed perhaps 3nm from the runway. Was subjected to some windshifts and Latitude noticed it and gave me a slight penalty for Comfort/Lateral motion. We're all working within the limitations of FSX, as I'm well aware. I'm just reporting my experience.

 

So far I'm having a lot of fun with the program, did a couple more quick flights and all seems to work great.

 

The only negative point I personally have is the user interface. Lots of work put into it, but all the blue hues and the glossy photoshop buttons, flares and fading light edges are not for me . Would love to see an option somewhere down the road for a more neutral default Windows theme or something .

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bring REX down. It is in fact the only weather engine I use. Was just trying to point out that you can still get penalized for winds shifts when using weather engines with smoothing features.

 

I flew a quick circuit around Nelson in FTX NZSI, have all my settings as recommended in the REXE+ manual and strayed perhaps 3nm from the runway. Was subjected to some windshifts and Latitude noticed it and gave me a slight penalty for Comfort/Lateral motion. We're all working within the limitations of FSX, as I'm well aware. I'm just reporting my experience.

 

So far I'm having a lot of fun with the program, did a couple more quick flights and all seems to work great.

 

The only negative point I personally have is the user interface. Lots of work put into it, but all the blue hues and the glossy photoshop buttons, flares and fading light edges are not for me . Would love to see an option somewhere down the road for a more neutral default Windows theme or something .

 

I agree that themes are a personal choice. It's tough to find one that everyone likes. But we'll explore the possibility of different skins. But give it time, you may just get used to it.

 

And, with regards to wind shift, I tried alleviate as much of the major deduction (the big one was over-speed limits) as I can, without impacting the scoring. If this becomes a larger problem, I can explore additional methods to minimize their effects, but I wanted to leave the integrity of the scoring intact as much as possible.

how does the multi player bit work?

how does the multi player bit work?

 

Afaik it's not really multiplayer like in flying together in FSX. The Portal seems to be the multiplayer part: I think 'community' would be a far better description. In the Portal you can see how other pilots are doing and you can also see a map to check out where everyone is flying. You can check out the Portal online, even without buying or registering the software: the map (radar) for instance is here: http://www.rexlatitude.com/Radar Click on the other tabs to see other information.

 

My first impression is that Latitude is FSPassengers with a nicer looking interface and a community idea behind it...? (Simply put... ^_^ )

thanks j van e

yes the community idea is what I like. In fsx pax your still very much alone. I like the idea of your score being viewed by others, that can hurt your pride, forcing a better flight next time :-)

I assume it can be used with vatism?

Can reports be sent to virtual airlines from this?

thanks j van e

yes the community idea is what I like. In fsx pax your still very much alone. I like the idea of your score being viewed by others, that can hurt your pride, forcing a better flight next time :-)

I assume it can be used with vatism?

 

Yes, I read on the REX forum that it can be used with Vatsim. I also read you can chat with other pilots in the portal (better be on autopilot then) and track their flights. So it's more then just statistics that are gathered on a site.

 

I have to say it's interesting, despite my reservations about certain aspects of the addon.

 

BTW Does Latitude have an impact on performance of FSX? I mean, you have to keep a program running in the background that tracks all kinds of things...

It does have to run in the background. I saw no performance impact at all.

That's correct - there should be no noticable impact flying with Latitude. It only collects data during the flight - the analysis is done after the flight is completed.

 

It should also be noted, Latitude will run on a client machine on the same network if you have that option.

 

Benjamin

thanks j van e

yes the community idea is what I like. In fsx pax your still very much alone. I like the idea of your score being viewed by others, that can hurt your pride, forcing a better flight next time :-)

I assume it can be used with vatism?

 

You can use VATSIM. Ultimately Latitude WILL inject traffic into FSX (in a future feature direction and our intent). But it's your choice what you use for MP or ATC services right now. An we no plans, or desire, to provide an alternative ATC environment.

 

Can reports be sent to virtual airlines from this?

 

There's no VA integration. We wil have "Groups" features (it's a major planned update). However, if VAs are interested in the scores, I would urge them to reach out to me on the REX forums to see if we can make this happen (I don't know much about VAs, so I don't know if there's some common technology platform for this - so educate me please).

 

I would love to see the Groups mirror VAs, and allow VAs to make hiring, promotion etc decision based on how you fly. So if this is of interest to the community, we can make it happen.

 

It does have to run in the background. I saw no performance impact at all.

 

Latitude tries to stop most non-essential stuff (like Fuel/Payload updates) when recording starts and simply records data. Analysis and all the statistics are done after you land so it doesn't impact your frame rates.

How customized is it? for example I dont like to cold start every flight, Is there a penalty for this?

How customized is it? for example I dont like to cold start every flight, Is there a penalty for this?

 

You don't have to cold start. "TAXI" is not part of your score. Also, it's not systems/procedures based. It's purely concentrated your flying (pilotage) skill. It doesn't care whether you put the strobes on when crossing a runway, or whether your transponder is on ALT, or whether you trimmed correct (of course this may effect your abilities to handle the aircraft and in turns scores) etc.

 

Scoring starts on your takeoff roll (above 30 knots or 1/2 VS1), and ends after you land and slow down (below 15 knots or 1/2 VS1).

 

How customized is it? for example I dont like to cold start every flight, Is there a penalty for this?

 

You can also just practice landings, and you'll have scores for the approach and landing portions but not the full flight. You'll get scores and analysis for this, but you can only upload and earn money on full flights (e.g. ones that have a takeoff, enroute, approach and landing phase).

PJ, Perfrect!

You don't have to cold start. "TAXI" is not part of your score. Also, it's not systems/procedures based. It's purely concentrated your flying (pilotage) skill. It doesn't care whether you put the strobes on when crossing a runway, or whether your transponder is on ALT, or whether you trimmed correct (of course this may effect your abilities to handle the aircraft and in turns scores) etc.

 

Scoring starts on your takeoff roll (above 30 knots or 1/2 VS1), and ends after you land and slow down (below 15 knots or 1/2 VS1).

 

 

 

You can also just practice landings, and you'll have scores for the approach and landing portions but not the full flight. You'll get scores and analysis for this, but you can only upload and earn money on full flights (e.g. ones that have a takeoff, enroute, approach and landing phase).

 

Very interesting. That answers a lot of my questions. So it's all about clean flying.

 

One question remains for me: how does Latitude look at the flightplan? When I want to go from A to B, does Latitude expect me to fly STRAIGHT from A to B or does Latitude expect me to follow a flightplan waypoint for waypoint and without straying off? And do you have to fly at a planned altitude all the time?

 

The thing is that I sometimes like to do VOR-flights in my RealAir Legacy (without using the GPS) and this means I will have to intercept radials and use triangulation to get to my destination. This has me flying left and right sometimes... I also like doing some sort of scenic tours, as if I am flying people around the region to show landmarks or whatever and I might leave the plan to check out something in the distance. Or I might even fly very low and then go up again. Stuff like that.

Doing all this results in NOT flying straight from A to B and my flight might take longer then necessary and I might have to load more fuel because it's a bit harder to plan fuel which also means I might land with too much fuel (if the flight went better then expected). And my approach won't always be by the book because I sometimes (when using VOR) have overfly the airport before I can setup the approach (since I have to find the airport first before I can approach it properly).

 

How does Latitude deal with all this?