I took this photo while approaching GMMX and was absolutely stunned. What XP12 is capable of is truly amazing, can't wait for future developments!

Edited February 22, 20233 yr by UKflyer

Wallpaper grade.

Orthos and X-World Europe, otherwise default?

13 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

Wallpaper grade.

Orthos and X-World Europe, otherwise default?

ha almost, i also have the visualxp plugin which adjusts the colors slightly 🙂

Edited February 22, 20233 yr by UKflyer

Nice shot, If your into sim fidelity XPLANE blew away the competition for me last night doing touch and goes at Vancouver after going from Friday Harbour, We all remember Friday Harbour where FSX started you up overhead in the trike, that area never looked like it does in XPlane, mesmerising, The runway at Friday Harbour actually has a bit of a bump in it and all those islands have very interesting terrain, well they do now in XPlane, 

Main point you can actually get realistic side-slipping out of aircraft in the sim and the cross wind landings were spot on for control as well, Now never been able to get any other sim to reproduce or do sideslips before, Now I am amazed as well! For those unfamiliar with this technique it was very common for old pilots to learn as a means to lose height rapidly in the days of glide approaches with unreliable engines! Effectively you completely cross the controls full say right rudder with full left aileron application, the aircraft will then track straight sort of and immediately go to about 1000 fpm rate of descent, recovery uncross the controls, did it perfectly in XPlane, 

1 hour ago, UKflyer said:

ha almost, i also have the visualxp plugin which adjusts the colors slightly 🙂

Ah, should have noticed from all the minor cloud puffs. Those don't occur with default clouds.

23 minutes ago, coastaldriver said:

Nice shot, If your into sim fidelity XPLANE blew away the competition for me last night doing touch and goes at Vancouver after going from Friday Harbour, We all remember Friday Harbour where FSX started you up overhead in the trike, that area never looked like it does in XPlane, mesmerising, The runway at Friday Harbour actually has a bit of a bump in it and all those islands have very interesting terrain, well they do now in XPlane, 

Main point you can actually get realistic side-slipping out of aircraft in the sim and the cross wind landings were spot on for control as well, Now never been able to get any other sim to reproduce or do sideslips before, Now I am amazed as well! For those unfamiliar with this technique it was very common for old pilots to learn as a means to lose height rapidly in the days of glide approaches with unreliable engines! Effectively you completely cross the controls full say right rudder with full left aileron application, the aircraft will then track straight sort of and immediately go to about 1000 fpm rate of descent, recovery uncross the controls, did it perfectly in XPlane, 

Called a "slip'" in my day. Is that term not used anymore? 

Les - might be an Anglo-Aussie thing we always called it side-slipping, Bit like spinning (full developed most students only have seen an incipient spin never experienced a fully developed spin) not taught any more and not for a long time, because the aircraft could not tolerate it (Either over stressed a lightly loaded airframe or had a nasty habit of slopping your fuel away from the lines to the engines (generally covered in a note in the aircraft manual). It was standard technique in the old wood and fabric taildraggers. 

I will see how the deliberate spins go, have to choose my aircraft carefully for that, some will some won't. Pitch it up until the point of stall is reached then full rudder (left or right) and full back stick and hold it for 3 rotations then recover.

Well only have the C172 at the moment - true to form entered an incipient spin then un stalled itself and basically continued on in a spiral dive. Funny the real thing did the same! The C152 aerobat would do it and quite viscously, I am  looking for quick rotating nose down attitude and the speed not increasing (that is the wing remains stalled), Off to find something more suitable but never mind the C172 is pretty true to the real one!! Still the clouds and landscape is pretty as you do it!

Edited February 23, 20233 yr by coastaldriver

1 hour ago, Bjoern said:

Ah, should have noticed from all the minor cloud puffs. Those don't occur with default clouds.

VisualXP does an amazing job with adjusting light scattering - default XP12 is fantastic, but VisualXP take the atmosphere's lighting to another level again., but the clouds do need some adjusting in the plugin as default setting are over detailed.  Mind you, the screenshot posted looks real from that height as small cumulus way below will look just like that in many cases.

Hmmm I was sceptical about that VisualXP plugin might have a look at it now! I like what I see or it can do!

12 hours ago, Les Parson said:

Called a "slip'" in my day. Is that term not used anymore? 

Pretty much the same.

I use it a lot in soaring, specially landing @ rw 03 LPMN....

The difference between forward and side slip is towards which relative direction the slip occurs.

In a forward slip, the one I sometimes use when landing a glider in a short "terrain spot" or when arriving high to the final, the flightpath of the aircraft is at an angle to its heading, with the slipping wing pointing more in the direction of flight, while in a sideslip the aircraft longitudinal axis can be at a very short angle to the flightpath.

15 hours ago, UKflyer said:

ha almost, i also have the visualxp plugin which adjusts the colors slightly 🙂

Thanks for the tip, I didn't know this plugin, I will give it a try.

14 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

Main point you can actually get realistic side-slipping out of aircraft in the sim and the cross wind landings were spot on for control as well, Now never been able to get any other sim to reproduce or do sideslips before, 

Which sims did you try ? As far as I've seen, sideslip is supported both in XPlane and MSFS, I haven't tried in DCS or IL2 yet, though..

2 hours ago, Daube said:

Which sims did you try ? As far as I've seen, sideslip is supported both in XPlane and MSFS, I haven't tried in DCS or IL2 yet, though..

DCS and IL-2 do it very plausibly.

Condorsoaring does it very well for gliders...

MFS while having a rather "plastic" feel overall, strangely does sideslips / forward slips in it's gliders more convincingly than all of the gliders and their MODs I tried in XP... XP does gliders strangely 😞

XP does strange stuff with sideslips / forward slips, with various aircraft, including some which, otherwise, are very plausible, like that recently released RV-7 designed by a RW RV-7 builder and pilot.

I believe most of the problems with side/forward slips in XP derive from limitations with the modelling of fuselage aerodynamics and it's effects (shadowing among others) over the wings, stabilizers, etc...

Austin should record a few youtubes doing sideslips, and ask for a ride in a glider too...

Edited February 23, 20233 yr by cagarini

I think I remember the slideslip was not great in XP11 (at least with the default planes), but I thought it had been fixed in XP12 ? I confess I haven't tried recently, though...