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[DrHotwing1 97]

Greetings Flight Simmers,

For those of you who downloaded the new Dash 8 Q400 aircraft and sat in the cockpit for the first time and said "great I downloaded my new aircraft, now how do I fly it?" Look no further, Jan has completed his first in a series of tutorials to help anyone fly a successful flight. The new tutorial series will provide enough information for the beginner to learn how to fly an aircraft by the numbers, and for the advanced pilot that may not be checked out in a particular aircraft.

Check out the first updated tutorial, the Dash 8 Q400 now. You can find this tutorial in the wiki: HERE

 

There are three sections for the Q400; 1) V-Speeds, 2) Introduction to the Flightdeck, and 3) the tutorial itself.

Be sure to check back soon for tutorials for other aircraft.

Happy Flying!

[DrHotwing1 97]

Team Member Showcase

Hello again from the flightdeck,

 

As you know, the past week has been fairly quiet on the development side due to Torsten (our captain) on a well deserved vacation, however, I wanted to make it a special point to mention that Jan-Hendrik Hanuschik has been working around the clock putting together a highly detailed tutorial so that everyone can enjoy all of the functionality that the Q400 has to offer. These special side items often go unnoticed and are sometimes taken for granted. We have all done this from time to time but this time Jan has gone way above and beyond, and all for you, our Aerofly fan base.

I felt this important to point out. This is the kind of dedication and passion that we all have for this product, and you can continually expect this from all of us here at IPACS, now and in the future. 

Be sure to give Jan a big thank you for not only setting up the Q400 but for his devotion to his wonderful work.

[jimimac 19]

Thank you Jan great tutorial.

 Jim

[DrHotwing1 97]

IPACS is fully back to work following some vacation time.

Not that everyone sat on their hands during Torsten's "time away" but we are all back to business here are IPACS. I wanted to recap some of the items that are being worked on at the moment.

   *  We will be addressing some small issues/bugs

   *  further patches to the autopilot will be implemented

   *  new features will be introduced shortly

   *  improvements to the popular geoconvert tool will be introduced

   *  Improvements to airport development using AC3D will be made to allow for easier airport creation using the cheaper AC3D modelling program

   *  Public access to the IPACS model library will be given; allowing you to add pre-built models to your sceneries

   *  A detailed tutorial will be added to the official Aerofly Wiki that shows advanced users/development companies a step by step process on how to build an airport in 3DS Max 

   *  additional aircraft specific flight tutorials will be added to the Official Aerofly Wiki 

   *  ATC is continuing to come together nicely. Give us more time and we will provide you with a sneak peek of this advanced feature soon.

We will be providing you with more detail of the above mentioned items soon along with a few more goodies to announce, so be sure to check back soon.

Happy flying fellow flight simmers!

[DrHotwing1 97]

Greetings Flight Simmers,

After taking a small breath of fresh air the team has been back to work preparing the next update that will not only improve upon some recently released functions but also added a few more improvements. And of course fixed some stuff as well. Here’s a list of what you will see in the upcoming update today:

* Changed autopilot improved LOC tracking, now uses a calculated lateral offset, not deflection angle

* Changed autopilot / flight director LOC stays engaged when autopilot disconnects

* Changed Fly by wire implemented C* law, modified flight phase transitions, pitch trim reset after touch down now smoother, nz load protection.

* Changed FBW bank protection, how the aircraft rolls back to 33deg when stick released, softer pitch attitude stop, over speed protection now targets VMO + 15kts when stick full down, VMO when released.

* Changed FBW angle of attack protection now internally also controls only angle of attack, aileron compensates asymmetries better

* Changed wheel simulation: improved ground handling, idle taxiing and improved brake control. Q400 one engine taxiing now possible.

* Added parking brake

* Added deformable wheel animation

* Added thrust lever sealing lip animations for Q400 and F18, more to come

* Fixed A320 fixed auto-brake now disables 5 seconds after lift off, correct ECAM page displayed after lift off during gear retraction, PFD now displays correct ground phase

* Changed ASG29 improved flight model: more realistic behavior to flap, added pitch trim synchronization on AP disconnect button (force trim), reduced drag from landing gear, fine tuned glide performance for current weight (no water)

* Changed pressure settings in airliners are not automatically set to either STD or QNH when initialized in air or ground.

* Fixed B737 localizer now displays correctly

* Changed B747 flight physics to be less sensitive to throttle, better flare dynamics

* Changed B747 updated cockpit 3D model with new textures, newly modeled switches and buttons

* Fixed B747 some bugs in VNAV, placing the 747 near the route should now correctly resume VNAV PATH

* Added F18 high and low sensitivity nose wheel steering, toggled per AP disconnect (same button in real world)

* Changed Q400 decreased nose gear steering speed to be more realistic, decreased drag on approach, more realistic cruise drag

* Changed Q400 increased full flap pitch attitude, decreased pitch attitude for others

* Fixed Q400 a bug in the REDUCED NP LANDING, a bug in the pitch trim runaway detection, is now sensitive to autopilot pitch trim changes

* Fixed Q400 master caution and master warning, now re triggers when a new warning comes up

* Fixed Q400 a bug in the formatted ILS view

* Changed Q400 increased stall trigger margin for full flaps

* Changed Q400 right side MFD to display system pages per default

We have also added support for FSWidgets ( http://fswidgets.com/shop/index.php) which can now be enabled from within the settings menu.

As always, we wish to thank you for your support and sometimes patience while we aim to deliver you a realistic and professional flight simulator.

[WingZ 547]

Great stuff... these update reports are truly appreciated, the sim is alive and well!

"deformable wheel animation": the mind boggles :)

[DrHotwing1 97]

Just a small update today regarding, well, the update released today.

Here is what was fixed:

* Fixed a bug that caused the pilot figures to be shiny

* Fixed a bug where the trees were floating above the ground in random locations

* Small bug fixes to the A320 and B747 aircraft

 

[DrHotwing1 97]

 

We know...It's been quiet around development for a few days. We also know that you deserve to know what's going on behind the scenes while Aerofly FS2 is being made. So, I wanted to let you know that no one on the team is sleeping or letting up on the development process.

In fact, there are a couple of nice features being worked on, one of those features is a logbook to keep track of your flights and time. It's still too early to give you more information at this time but, like all other features, a lot of care and dedication is going into it.

There will also be more fixes and additional functions added to the core of the aircraft systems coming your way soon as well.

On another front, we would like to give you a small progress update on our ' user tools'. First there was the geoconvert tool, then some improvements to the tool to make it more user friendly, now let me introduce you to a new word in the flight simulator development community (strongly investigated by Karl-Heinz (Rodeo) ), that word is cultivation. This new word has a lot of wonderful meanings, it means a potential new way to offer wide-spread precise autogen without having to use 3rd party tools or major coding. It's also a way to add a really nice layer of night lighting without having to add night specific imagery. We have been testing this new possible game changer, and Rodeo has taken this to a whole new level, and has created some test beds to move this forward. Here's a brief look at this:

To add more to the mix, further improvements will be made to the geoconvert tool, better airport development tools will be provided, and a complete reference model library will be available to anyone wishing to try their hand at making an airport.

 

So, please stay with us. this is a small team creating big things.

[WingZ 547]

Thanks for the update... I hear that developers are holding back because of the (lack of) SDK. I see this as a major detraction to improving the sim.

[DrHotwing1 97]

Geoconvert Tool Update Released!

 

Greetings fellow flight simmers,

as promised a new update to the geoconvert tool has been posted.

This update addresses some memory and processing issues that have caused the tool to crash when larger sceneries were run. The new update has resolved this issue.

 

Also, a couple of new config options have been added;

1) You can now manually specify a source image folder. Here's an example: <[string] [folder_source_files][./input_aerial_images_hawaii/]>

2) You can selectively enable/disable the creation of files that require a mask. As mask images are sometimes problematic, for performance and border issues, you can disable them using this flag: <[bool] [write_images_with_mask][true]>

As always, please stay with us while we continue to update Aerofly FS2 and the tools used to develop great stuff.

The geoconvert tool as well as the SDK will continue to receive attention until it's the best that it possibly can be. Please continue to note any bugs or issues that you see as it helps us a great deal.

[DrHotwing1 97]

Another Small Update Released!

Aerofly has once again been updated with a fix that will resolve a blurry texture problem that some users are seeing in conjunction with the geoconvert tool.

 

Thank you for your continued support while we get back to work on some new features :)

 

 

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

On 9/14/2017 at 1:48 PM, DrHotwing1 said:

Another Small Update Released!

Aerofly has once again been updated with a fix that will resolve a blurry texture problem that some users are seeing in conjunction with the geoconvert tool.

 

Thank you for your continued support while we get back to work on some new features :)

 

 

Thank you for the communication channel...trust me...it is read by not only visible users, that post....but a lot that only like to sit in the bush, and read....lol.   :)

[DrHotwing1 97]

Greetings fellow flight simmers,

While we are hard at work getting ready for the next update I wanted to introduce you to the remaining two members of the team.

Dietmar Schaible is the man behind the design of several aircraft including the Cessna 172 and with his knowledge of game development he contributes now to the feature list of Aerofly behind the scenes. Dietmar joined IPACS back in 2007

.

And last but not least, a man needing no introduction in the IPACS forums, Dr. Karl-Heinz Roeder (aka Rodeo). Karl-Heinz has been working diligently on many scenery features including the new geoconvert tool as well as cultivation efforts recently seen allowing for more directed autogen and night lighting. Karl-Heinz began by stopping by the IPACS headquarters regaling the team with his talented ideas during a cup of coffee; he loved the IPACS coffee so much that he stuck around and is now a part of our team.

On behalf of the IPACS team I would like to thank all of you for your continued support during development. Each and every one of you contributed to this project for the better and it is acknowledged and very much appreciated.

Until next time....

[DrHotwing1 97]

LearJet 45 Tutorial Released

After a lot of work by Jan we are pleased to announce that the tutorial for the Learjet has been added to our official WIKI. The tutorial can be found HERE

This is in continuing effort to provide users with detailed step-by-step documentation for our complex aircraft. We will continue to make every effort possible to make Aerofly FS2 a simulator for both greenhorns and veterans alike.

Check back often while we continue to add more information, and HAPPY FLYING !

[DrHotwing1 97]

AC3D Airport Design Workshop Released!

For those creative minds out there that are interested in creating your own airport using AC3D a complete package has been published to our downloads section.

In this 373MB download you will find further instructions and all of the files needed to build an airport using the 3D modeling program AC3D. This package includes AC3D design files, cultivation files for adding night lighting, buildings and houses, and even vegetation, scenery files for a complete airport, and the much anticipated xref library files for adding buildings and static aircraft to your scenery without even knowing how to model. Tutorials are also included to give you a better understanding of the entire process.

Karl-Heinz (Rodeo) spent a lot of time working on this package so be sure to thank him.

Happy building !