February 20th, 2020 – Development/Insider Update

[bashope 112]

3 hours ago, FDEdev said:

This is of course wrong again, it's more the other way round.

I'm sorry... what? Even I, a "measly" private pilot mostly land on runways with noticeable "undulation". Hell, even one of those I had to "touch" on my exam, you could not stand on one threshold and see the other! Burg Feuerstein, look it up. Cheers.

[bashope 112]

1 hour ago, MatthewS said:

I suspect their implementation of sloped is simply a "flat" incline between the low and high runway elevation on the airport chart, rather than implementing undulating runways based on the underlying elevation mesh.

Courchevel is a custom airport, one of the 80 iconic airports they mention.   I'm talking about the other 36000+ airports worldwide, 99% of which have undulating (to some degree) runways/taxiways/aprons and that are not completely billiard table flat.

However the "prima facie" evidence displayed in video indicates they have failed to generically implement undulating runways/taxiways/aprons... Such a shame!

I'll sum it up because I won't waste much time on this discussion.

As a pilot also myself, I can tell you MatthewS, you are right. Easiest way to show this is to bring up those "spotter" videos on youtube where they zoom in on the runway from afar and the undulation is extremely evident with this perspective. For example, the video below at 6:55. Can anyone NOT see that the runway has a "hump" in the middle??

HOWEVER!!!! I wouldn't be as skeptical as you are about the undulations in MFS... Unfortunately I can't say much more...

 

[Dominique_K 10,133]

5 hours ago, Mengy said:

 

However, my only criticism is I wish they had shown more small airfields and strips along with the big busy super detailed airports. 

This is what I thought when they showed us their quite amazing  Alice Springs. I’ve flown from the Orbx YBAS tens of flights to the small OZx strips in 100nm radius.  Will they be there ?

[bashope 112]

2 hours ago, Krakin said:

99% percent of runways are not undulated to the point that it will be easy to perceive at any angle and you are wrong about your flat incline theory. But believe what you want to believe.

That's DEFINITELY not true. Unfortunately I only have one video up on my real life aviation youtube channel, but I hope to prove you wrong soon... this summer if all goes according to plan 🙂

[elprim 10]

Like most, I am thrilled with every new video from developers but also increasingly concerned: how much will this cost? Such effort and level of details could easily justify the $500+ price for some business application of the same complexity. With each new update we are pleasently surprised by MS and I hope at the release there will be one more pleasent surprise by announcing a reasonable price tag, wether one time or subscription.
 

[Bear242 68]

21 minutes ago, elprim said:

Like most, I am thrilled with every new video from developers but also increasingly concerned: how much will this cost? Such effort and level of details could easily justify the $500+ price for some business application of the same complexity. With each new update we are pleasently surprised by MS and I hope at the release there will be one more pleasent surprise by announcing a reasonable price tag, wether one time or subscription.
 

For them it will be suicide if they price it in an unreasonable manner, they don't want to have another bad press about it after the whole Flight situation.

I think some of us feel all this might not be affordable and all these details are very expensive, but I am sure Microsoft has thought this through and already had a budget in mind and I am sure they also have the pricing mapped out in their office.

Worst case scenario for us customers the simulator will be available to those with Xbox pass. No extra cost.

Edited February 21, 2020 by Bear242

[MatthewS 761]

24 minutes ago, bashope said:

HOWEVER!!!! I wouldn't be as skeptical as you are about the undulations in MFS... Unfortunately I can't say much more

Ha ha, enough said.

[RALF9636 1,904]

Setting all the drama and exclamation marks aside, undulation is an important topic when it comes to airports.

There are (more than 1% and less than 99%) airports with noticeably undulated runways (and taxiways and aprons). To have these undulations in the sim would significantly enhance the immersion and realism, not only because it can affect the flaring. 

So I hope the undulations will be included in all the appropriate airports and - even more important - unpaved strips.

 

[Dominique_K 10,133]

1 minute ago, RALF9636 said:

Setting all the drama and exclamation marks aside, undulation is an important topic when it comes to airports.

There are (more than 1% and less than 99%) airports with noticeably undulated runways (and taxiways and aprons). To have these undulations in the sim would significantly enhance the immersion and realism, not only because it can affect the flaring. 

So I hope the undulations will be included in all the appropriate airports and - even more important - unpaved strips.

 

Undulations, shmundulations, now tell me about ruts and puddles

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 517]

still nothing about LPMA.

 

[FDEdev 955]

52 minutes ago, bashope said:

I'm sorry... what? Even I, a "measly" private pilot mostly land on runways with noticeable "undulation". Hell, even one of those I had to "touch" on my exam, you could not stand on one threshold and see the other! Burg Feuerstein, look it up. Cheers.

You seriously consider EDQE a typical airport?  Did you even watch the videos in the links I've posted? 

[FDEdev 955]

55 minutes ago, bashope said:

That's DEFINITELY not true. Unfortunately I only have one video up on my real life aviation youtube channel, but I hope to prove you wrong soon... this summer if all goes according to plan

Even when you are flying to 10 or 100 different airports this summer, this doesn't prove anything since there are more than 40000 runways.

Edited February 21, 2020 by FDEdev

[bashope 112]

3 minutes ago, FDEdev said:

Even when you are flying to 10 or 100 different airports this summer, this doesn't prove anything since there are more than 40000 runways.

It's called statistical analysis 🙂 or are you saying that any statistical research is meaningless? 🙂

EDIT: That's such a poor argument that it shocks me that you can't see it can also be used on you... or will you post videos of the 40000 runways to prove YOUR point? Useless discussion. The airports that I MYSELF fly to, either in RL or in sim, have noticeable undulation (which is very well represented in X-Plane) and I expect nothing else from MFS.

Edited February 21, 2020 by bashope

[FDEdev 955]

1 minute ago, bashope said:

It's called statistical analysis 🙂 or are you saying that any statistical research is meaningless? 🙂

Statistical analysis? If you are e.g. flying the whole time patterns exclusively at EDQE, does this mean that statistical analysis confirms that 100% of the runways are undulated?

[Dom74 14]

9 hours ago, Tuskin38 said:

Well they have been working on it for several years.

++