[25APR18] New Product Reveal at FlightSim Expo'18 - Las Vegas 09JUN18

[BlueStar 323]

3 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

I get that this is a 35 page thread now, but this is literally two posts back:

When PMDG is involved there are two things I'm not going to worry about, security and realism.  

Do I need to send you my Texas Cargo liveries so us freighter folks will be well represented?  

[jfriz 27]

Folks,

I was at the Expro, and very much enjoyed all the new flight sim products.  Is there  a roll out date for the GFO?  Maybe I missed it somewhere, I am looking forward to it, will certainly  try it.

Also glad to see the mini Summit, with LM, and PMDG.. Good news for the flight simming community.

Jerry Friz

[avhpilot 155]

I wasn't at the Expo simply because I live in the Netherlands. But perhaps PMDG can come to the yearly expo in November some time? Some guys from X-plane also visited for the past 2 yrs i believe.

After the inital shock (so, this is it?) i am getting intrigued by the idea but am not sure if it's for me persé. I would also like to see a visual reflection of being in a unique VC. I have seen youtube video's of VC's modified to people's own taste (sticking a  'there's no place like home' poster on the wall, putting a little toy statue on the dashboard etc. Wouldn't it be nice to have a library of 3D objects that can be placed in the cockpit so everyone can do a bit of interior decoration? Then, when you claim different aircraft you also get different (visible) sentiments,

 

 

[HighFlier 17]

Hey Kyle, question about the gate assignments.

I run on Navigraph Charts most of the time, but occasionally I have to drop the subscription for a month due to financial reasons. However, Navigraph is the only place I know where I can find out exactly where a specific gate is.

So my question is, for people who don’t have a chart subscription, how will they know where to park after they get the assignment from GFO?

[scandinavian13 5,192]

4 minutes ago, HighFlier said:

So my question is, for people who don’t have a chart subscription, how will they know where to park after they get the assignment from GFO?

Whatever resource they find. Online maps, the 748 ground mapping display (if you're in the 748), charts (outdated ones will probably be fine - gates don't change that often).

[JA806A 26]

So that’s what the ACARs and datalink option in the FMC is all about. 

I look forward to hearing more details.

-Michael

[Ephedrin 418]

7 hours ago, HighFlier said:

Hey Kyle, question about the gate assignments.

I run on Navigraph Charts most of the time, but occasionally I have to drop the subscription for a month due to financial reasons. However, Navigraph is the only place I know where I can find out exactly where a specific gate is.

So my question is, for people who don’t have a chart subscription, how will they know where to park after they get the assignment from GFO?

Adding to Kyle’s answer: Google maps sat view, GSX’ follow me

Edited June 15, 2018 by Ephedrin

[windshearDK 52]

On 6/12/2018 at 3:56 PM, scandinavian13 said:

Every time you load the sim, you get whatever panel state you load with - perhaps you save a continuous state each time, perhaps not - at a location you set up through a menu structure, with whatever hours you put on the plane yourself. The plane doesn't quite have the feeling any plane out there in the real world does. After all, you're simply flying a copy of a plane thousands of others potentially have a copy of. You can't do that out in the real world. If you were to go to Dulles right now, you'd find N422WN at gate B50. Once the crew takes that plane, that plane is gone. I can't magically conjure up a second copy of it and start flying it around. When it gets to ATL, any other crew picking it up will get the aircraft in the state the last crew left it in - switches, accumulated hours, position, and so on. If a switch is out of position, the next crew will have to handle that. If the last crew parked it a couple degrees off the line, the next crew will notice (though it's not a big deal, it's just the imperfection of daily life). GFO brings that kind of experience into the sim. Oh yeah, and any airliner can be used in this system. You have the TFDi 717 and want to fly that around? Go for it. While the various devs may have differing levels of integration so far, updates to existing products could further integrate them, and/or new product can be developed with GFO integration in mind.

While you're in the plane, getting set up for departure, you may think to check the weather to throw in a departure runway. Right now, you might look at your weather add-on, or perhaps pull up a web page with a METAR on a second screen, or on your phone. Either way, you usually have to break some of the feeling of realism in order to do so. Same goes for checking the current and forecast weather for your destination, and maybe an alternate or two. As you get closer to your destination, you might look at FlightAware to get a gate assignment, if it's available - again breaking the realism in order to do so - or you might just "assign" yourself one. For some people, who are into statistics and data collection, they may manually write down fuel loads they start with, and end with, along with the various times - gate departure, takeoff, landing, and gate arrival - or they may log in to VATSIM to have all that tracked by VATAWARE, or a similar site. GFO brings that into the sim in an in-depth simulation of ACARS. You can request weather data via the CDU in the sim itself, which will get the data for you either from real world sources, the sim itself, or your add-on weather program (useful when you're using historical weather). You can request gates for an ever-growing list of airports, and it will give you a proper assignment for your aircraft type, operator, and so on. All of your times are tracked online, as well, so you don't have to manually track it, or log into an online network. Given that ACARS is out there, this opens up an interface for VAs to communicate to their pilots with ops messages. CPDLC will also be available down the line, so that controllers can log in and handle those functions: clearances, route changes (route pushes), and so on. That means Cross the Pond, and similar events will be slightly less painful, and quite a lot more realistic: position reports over HF are rare now.

Less interesting for the pilots here, but this also allows for ADS-C simulations (yes, -C, and it's oddly much older than -B ) for controller clients.

The short version? It's a way to take your simming experience and make that much more in-depth...no matter what you want to fly.

Its amazing when I first heard Robert's introduction of this, I thought: "He read my mind"!

I've been suggesting to ATC PRO X that they perhaps started working with you or VATSIM to make ACARS a possibility, and here you are exactly making this work! I know this idea does not include ATC PRO X, but still its what I had in mind! Because as you say CPDLC is the way forward these days, many many airports simply send route confirmation from dispatch with no need for radio coms.

 

Also I was getting bored with my max 4 variations of paints plus the same flightdeck settings, set to my needs for a flightdeck setup... Which in the end is not realistic nor is it very interesting! And as I love service based failures I just love this idea so much!

I know people were expecting you to announce a new aircraft, Robert already did with the 737NG 3 with the MAX included. so perhaps next year we will get that 787 production line finally revealed 😎😋

[pellelil 10]

On 6/15/2018 at 2:35 AM, scandinavian13 said:

Whatever resource they find. Online maps, the 748 ground mapping display (if you're in the 748), charts (outdated ones will probably be fine - gates don't change that often).

Working on some sofware to visualize flight schedules. As of now I use it primarily to find inspiration of which routes to flight. This software visualize gates on a map. The gates (names/numbers, position, size, heading) are extracted from the scenery (I simply use the output of Peter Dowson's MakeRunway). Perhaps I can turn it into a program just to show gates

[HighFlier 17]

On ‎6‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 3:34 PM, pellelil said:

Working on some sofware to visualize flight schedules. As of now I use it primarily to find inspiration of which routes to flight. This software visualize gates on a map. The gates (names/numbers, position, size, heading) are extracted from the scenery (I simply use the output of Peter Dowson's MakeRunway). Perhaps I can turn it into a program just to show gates

But the FSX/P3D default scenery gates numbers don't match with the real world gate numbers. Unless I misinterpreted what you meant when you said you extract from the scenery.

[pellelil 10]

13 hours ago, HighFlier said:

But the FSX/P3D default scenery gates numbers don't match with the real world gate numbers. Unless I misinterpreted what you meant when you said you extract from the scenery.

I hope/expect that Global Flight Operations will assign gates according to installed scenery. I would find it odd if PMDG realize the need to scan customers installed scenery for the 747-8 EFB, only to disregard it for GFO? It was from this perspective I mentioned the software I'm working on.

[downscc 1,327]

12 minutes ago, pellelil said:

I hope/expect that Global Flight Operations will assign gates according to installed scenery. I would find it odd if PMDG realize the need to scan customers installed scenery for the 747-8 EFB, only to disregard it for GFO? It was from this perspective I mentioned the software I'm working on.

I've got good quality payware scenery that has gates identified in the rendered scenery that are different from their own AF file (AFCAD).  And both the rendered scenery and the AF file are different from the current Jeppesen's.  You gotta pick which error you want or stick to the real world data.

[pellelil 10]

In a perfect world the visual gates in the scenery will allign perfectly with both the AFCAD and the charts. When this is not the case (which it is most of the time) I will prefer to rely on the AFCADs:

• Its relative easy to change an AFCAD (compared to change the scenery). Perhaps sone one already did the work, so you just have to find/download it.
• When "placing" aircrafts in the SIM, they are placed according to the AFCADs.
• Many 3rd party tools rely on the gates in the AFCAD (e.g. GSX)