rsrandazzo

Gents, The purpose of SID/STAR procedures is to help both sides of the equation understand what the expected plan will be. In the real world, at least in the USA, SID/STAR use has dramatically increased as high performance airplanes become largely FMS equipped. It is a RARE moment not to be given a SID or a STAR leaving congested terminal airspace in the USA. I have seen a couple of comments about pilots "declining vectors" and the like- and all I can say about that topic is: Not on my flight deck. The controller is our partner in the outcome of the flight. He sees a bigger picture than we do- and if he wants us to fly the whole SID/STAR, we will and we are prepared to do so. If he wants to vector us off the procedure for simplicity or convenience- so be it. We comply convivially. (Okay- sometimes I gripe to my copilot... but that is more just to hear myself talk... LOL) As for VATSIM: I'm betting most VATSIM controllers will vector you because it allows them to interact with traffic in their space. The traffic load isn't as high or as continuous as many real world sectors- so why lump everyone into a SID/STAR and just sit and watch them? Either way- as a pilot- you should be prepared for both!

Gents- We got the issues resolved back on Wednesday, but I have been a bit too busy to update this thread. If you are having trouble- please reach out to support and obtain their help- but as for the server issue that plagued us the past two weeks, it is resolved. Thanks again for your patience- it wasn't much fun for us either!

Gents, To follow up on Kyle's post: This type of service outage is taking place in a system that was updated in order to prevent service outages. It has been a near constant focus of my attention for almost two weeks, working with our vendor to determine **why** the manual license return function that our support team uses so regularly has magically ceased working. On Sunday, it appears one of the engineers investigating that issue did **something** that knocked the activation system offline and he was unaware of it until I started barking about it when Kyle brought it to my attention during the day, Sunday. (Yes- I do have a pretty good bark...) NOTE: Activation SHOULD be working now... We have a forensic analysis taking place to determine why activation was allowed to fall offline without notifying us (it should have) and we have been advised to expect a fix for the license return issue on Tuesday. (I am moderately hopeful that this will indeed be the case.) In the mean time, if you are going to unintall/reinstall FSX, upgrade hardware, build a new computer, etc- we STRONGLY encourage you to go into to the FMS and select the license return function. Using that function you should be able to return your license and then check it back out when you are ready to install on your new setup. (This of course, is the recommended method and is documented in the manuals... you read those right? RIGHT?!?!?!) In the mean time- we do have a small stack of folks who are waiting for this to be fixed- and I am making quite regular noise to keep the pressure on our licensing vendor to make sure they get us up and running ASAP. I apologize- and your patience is appreciated!

Dan, I'd just let him sit here and scream his head off. He isn't actually interested in help or a solution, else he would have realized the system has been working since the weekend, as I detailed in my post. He wants attention. He wants to yell at someone because it makes him feel empowered. Imagine how much fun it would be to hang out with him, drinking coffee with friends in a crowded coffee shop with mediocre service? Can you picture the embarrassment as he wedges off like that to the poor server in front of everyone? Of course you can't... because most cowards only act like he does in front of an internet audience.

Gents- As of a few hours ago, we successfully identified the point of failure and corrected the problem. Anyone with a valid license key should be able to activate without any further problems. THANK YOU for your patience as we worked through this issue. It is always uncomfortable when we conduct system upgrades, but it is especially uncomfortable when we find that there are problems on a weekend because it is often hard to get adequate support from vendors even though weekends are the busiest time for simmers! Internally we are still working through some cleanup items, so the support team is a bit behind on a few tasks, including license returns/resets. We hope to have those issues resolved late tonight or during the day sunday, for those impacted. Need to get through all of these hiccups so I can get back to resolving squawks from the Tech team!

Gents- For reasons that are still unclear, it appears that any user attempting to activate a key for the FIRST time is being rejected by the activation system. We are not sure why this is happening, but our vendor has been notified and we are continuing to research the issue. I apologize for the inconvenience- we will get it resolved just as quickly as possible!

Captains, Late thursday night, our activation service was brought back online after a comprehensive server side upgrade. We had been conducting a bunch of testing to make sure everything was working, but it appears our testing missed something and we are in the process of researching. Right now- it seems that any products with a previous activation history are able to activate and maintain status, but any activation keys that have not previously been activated are being rejected. We are working on it... I apologize for the inconvenience, and we will keep you updated here in this thread.

Gents- We are now mostly back to normal operation. Might be a few reboots here and there or short outages as we tweak and tune things a bit- but the major work is done. I'll be back to code now, fortunately! The tech team has been keeping us extremely busy!

Gents, Jim summarizes the major points very well in his post above. Steam restricts addon sales in such a way that the sales process is effectively anti-competitive for third party developers such as PMDG. Not only must we pay Valve a sizeable sum for the honor, but we then must also pay Dovetail Games for the access rights to being on their channel. Taken independently, either of these costs is extremely high, but taken together they are prohibitive unless we want to raise the price of products sold through steam to significantly higher levels than regular distribution channels in order to recoup the losses. The advantages that Steam distribution brings in terms of market exposure, customer simplicity and a wider potential revenue pool simply don't offset the costs of doing business via that channel at this time. It might change in the future- but for now it just doesn't add up for us.

Thomas, Check my post up at the top of the forum- we are causing your problem at the moment (Sorry!) but we will have activation back online ASAP...

Captains! Those of you who were active in this forum during the leadup to the NGX release and the 777 release will recall that we typically make an investment in updated technology for our servers and systems during the last phases of development of a major product. We are in the midst of completing some pretty comprehensive system updates and upgrades that were planned for today. We anticipated the outage lasting about 12hrs, but some of the changes are taking a bit longer to test and get squared away for operational use. The KEY hiccup right now involves our license activation servers and requires input from the vendor in order to be certain the hiccup is resolved properly. This being the case, both activation servers are currently offline having updates accomplished, and that means we are unable to conduct activations for customers needing them. We took the eCommerce system offline to prevent anyone from being able to make a purchase during a period of time when we know they won't be able to install, activate and go flying- as it seems rather cynical to take the customer's payment and then tell them "you have to wait until tomorrow." We anticipate having everything back online during the day Thursday, but we don't have a specific time just yet. I apologize profusely for any inconvenience this causes. I recognize it can be frustrating to being doing an installation only to find out something unexpected prevents you from getting flying- but I hope you know we are making some changes to improve our ability to support you, and our products for many years to come! Thanks- I'll be back here to let you know we are operating again once we have the whole shebang back online! (And yes... this is a good sign, for those who are trying to find some way to link it to progress on hte 747. )

Gents, A few folks have asked about Prepar3D. We do not yet know if the P3D version will release concurrent to the FSX/FSX-SE release, or if there might be schedule lag between them. It is simply too early to tell. We will let you know as the Prepar3D version begins to move through testing, so you won't have to guess. We use FSX as our primary development platform for this product, but we have already made changes to allow the product to work in Prepar3D, using many of the new P3D tools that have been developed. In a perfect world we would release both at the same time- but we shall have to wait and see if perfection is reality.

Captains, A short note to let you know that tonight we have officially moved the PMDG 747-400 Queen of the Skies II base package for FSX and FSX-SE past an important milestone. She is now being flown and tested by our team of Technical Advisors. For those who haven't been with us through this cycle in the past, or those who didn't really notice it taking place last time, we operate with two independent testing teams: Team 1: Technical Advisory Team is made up of industry experts to include engineers, technicians, operators, flight crew and others with intimate experience in the operation of the airplane. These individuals conduct the first wave of testing on any new product because they have a tremendous reservoir of operational experience from which they can provide us with feedback on nearly all aspects of the airplane being modeled. Team 2: Beta Test Team is made predominantly of simmers who have worked with us as testers for many years, along with a mixed bag of Tech Advisors from other products such as the 777 and the NGX. There is no specific timeline for how long each of these teams will have with the product before it reaches release readiness. Such decisions are made largely by feel and through our experience having created a number of products during the past twenty years. The only thing that determines when the product moves from Tech to Beta and Beta to Release is the product itself. When it is ready- then it is ready! We have asked our Tech Advisors not to share any images of the product just yet- but I suspect we will remove that gag order pretty quickly. Okay- I must get a few hours of sleep before the testing starts to fill my days with schematics, logic charts and reference materials...

Captains, A few moments ago we made live the MacOS compatible version of the PMDG DC-6 Cloudmaster for X-Plane and simultaneously dropped an update to the Windows compatible version so as to bring them both to the most current cycle: v1.11.0045. The MacOS version is available for sale immediately- and the Windows updated version can be had by simply accessing your account in our eCommerce system, navigating to your purchase history and redownloading from there... Once you have the updated installer, simply run it over top of your existing installation and you will be all set to go with the very latest version of the DC-6! The change list for the DC-6 going all the way back to initial release follows: ================================================================ Version 1.11.0045, 27 June 2016 INTERNAL MODEL - Blurry VOR needles and gauge glass sharpened - Mild texture adjustments SYSTEMS - Refined yellow ADF needles' behavior - Allow transmitting on Com1 or Com2 - AFE only activates main tank boost pumps Before Takeoff DOCUMENTATION - POH refinements - Pilot Intro refinements - Refined PFPX profiles, including one for the A model MISC - Flipped the headshake realism slider direction - Mac OS X version is available - Removed version strings from graphics Version 1.10.0043, 10 June 2016 AUDIO - 3D positioning of all engine sounds - Open windows/forward right door now admit exterior sounds to cockpit, fade in/out with aperture - Exterior sounds are doppler-shifted when the airplane is viewed externally - Exterior sound volume fades appropriately with camera distance from aircraft - Engine sounds no longer 'pop' when switching views - Stall horn is silenced - Stock fire warning bell overwritten with our own correct one - Aspect ratio is included in exterior volumes (a bit louder in front of the plane) EXTERNAL MODEL - All light leaks hunted down and killed - Geometry and coloring tweaks INTERNAL MODEL - Increased texture resolutions: ceiling, sidewalls, glareshield, fuel dump, etc. - Bolts, bolts everywhere! - Improved gauge reflections - Vibration of the whiskey compass - Other vibrations added to various cockpit parts - Artificial horizon corrected for level - Ball corrected for level - Little texture anomaly fixes and light leak fixes - Gust lock housing tweak SYSTEMS - Modeled fuel volume within the lines so that switching to/thru an empty tank won't immediately kill engine (oops!) - Engine fire correctly causes engine damage - Fire warning lights turn off when fire extinguishes - Increased concentration of CO2 to slightly increase effectiveness as a suppressant - ADF/RMI needle motion is smooth rather than sudden - Cold&dark behavior of certain instruments is corrected - Engines will still turn when mags are off - BMEP gauges no longer 'go crazy' when cold&dark - Inactive transponder won't force off-side transponder to deactivate - Carburetor damage no longer occurs when engine not running, more forgiving of high-OAT climates - Cabin heater core temp is cooler and POH-compliant DOCUMENTATION - Tutorial revised with feedback from users - Graphical livery installation instructions in Pilot Intro - POH updates including aux blower SCENARIOS - Autopilot logic corrections - Mixture levers restore correctly in saved scenarios - Scenario no longer loads with incorrect control deflections - Gust lock is unlocked before anything else happens, when loading a scenario MISC - Additional key commands - Tweaked 'fall-in compensation' logic that applies to turns - Tweaked 'artificial dihedral' logic that applies to banks Version 1.00.40, 1 June 2016 - Initial release ================================================================ Conversion to FSX/FSX-SE and Prepar3D is taking place and we will have more information on that process for you a bit later in the summer. Alright- clear those props and get going!

The following never cease to amaze me: 1) You guys will argue with one another over ANYTHING. ("Oh look- lint!" "No- it is fuzz." "NO I SAID IT WAS LINT!" etc.) 2) Some folks just make NO effort to educate themselves prior to offering completely uninformed conjecture. We post our development agenda and thought process over and over... Thank you to those who read it and try to disabuse the non-readers of their ignorance... 3) Some folks think our decision making is binary. We are fairly sizable team- we don't work on a single project at a time... There are other points- but i'm making myself grumpy just recounting them.

Steve- PMDG's new revenue strategy. micro purchases. You have to send us $5 every three years to keep your license.

Gents- A quick note of thanks for some of the kind things that have been said here. I also just want to be sure that nobody goes bashing after the poor bloke who made the video. We don't know him- and I'd hate for anyone to put him down just because he voiced an opinion, factual or otherwise. I know that it is sport to bang on us for various reasons- some perceived, some valid, some completely imaginary... We are big boys and we DO read what folks say and continually evaluate the feedback in order to make sure we don't become one of those companies so convinced of it's own capabilities that it goes off a cliff made of it's own arrogance. Sometimes we read things that sting- but we don't ever want the community to devolve to shouting. That takes the fun out of it. When you come here- you are talking to US... not some volunteer or a clerk or a surrogate. If you don't like something, you can tell us and we will listen. But as Ryan pointed out- you have to accept that we might not agree or that our expertise exceeds yours. Just as we accept that you might not agree with our feedback. (We really don't make this stuff up- it takes HARD work and research...) That happens in two way communication. It doesn't make either of us wrong, or bad. It simply means we disagree. Sometimes that little point gets forgotten on the internet. At the end of the day we are glad you are all here- and don't mind a bit of back and forth if it ultimately improves the product line!

Gents, Seems there is some community knowledge of a flaw within X-Plane that causes this? Or am I not correctly understanding the replies? If you guys can get me information on what causes it- I can certainly pass it along to Laminar... They are very receptive to such reports.

Katrin- Actually- I quite strongly disagree with your characterization here. I have not offered an evaluation of the user's opinions, nor do I intend to. Pinning "credit" to a particular person simply because he stated something that others also stated is really an insult to the members of this community who participate and provide feedback in a positive, useful manner- as well as being an insult to the developers who spend so much time evaluating customer feedback, consulting with our tech advisors and implementing solutions. What you have done is along the same vein as me taking credit for Apple increasing the size of the iPhone 6 because I wrote in a blog that my iPhone 5 was too small. Of course- I recognize that the primary purpose of your post was to come here and insult us with the same tired "PMDG doesn't like feedback" BS trope that axe-grinders have thrown at us for years. I will give you some credit for having the moxxy to at least do it HERE... in the very forum we maintain in order that our customers can... <gasp> provide us with feedback on our products!!!! The irony just kills me. At any rate- don't assign credit for feedback. You don't know enough about the process to provide value to the conversation- and I would hate for someone to think you speak with any knowledge because you clearly do not.

Captains- Just wanted to be sure your attention was directed to this update release announcement in the GENERAL forum.... (http://www.avsim.com/topic/490048-11jun16-pmdg-dc-6-cloudmaster-updated-other-goodies/?p=3436240) Enjoy!

Gents, The fellow who created it very strongly believes his views- which is great. I'm not going to take the bait on offering my opinion of him, his opinions or their validity. They are his opinions and he is as welcome to them as anyone else here. We get a TON of feedback on every product we release. Some of it comes to us directly in the form of questions, or forum posts. Some of it comes from our efforts to read and educate ourselves as to what customers are experiencing with the new product. We have become quite used to vacuuming all of this information up into our internal evaluation process where we have a number of experienced experts assist us in evaluating and verifying reported problems and recommending changes. Sometimes customer feedback is right... sometimes it is wrong... Sometimes our tech team picks up an issue and says, "oh, yes- you need to change this" and other times they just laugh uncontrollably and tell us to trust them. I always trust our experts. We collect them for a reason - experience!

Captains, A few moments ago we uploaded a major update to the PMDG DC-6 Cloudmaster that we think you will appreciate! This new version is 1.10.0044, and comprises some pretty significant changes that fix issues we received in post-release feedback, as well as to add some functionality that was requested after the product hit the market last week. The master change list for this new update includes the following: AUDIO - 3D positioning of all engine sounds - Open windows/forward right door now admit exterior sounds to cockpit, fade in/out with aperture - Exterior sounds are doppler-shifted when the airplane is viewed externally - Exterior sound volume fades appropriately with camera distance from aircraft - Engine sounds no longer 'pop' when switching views - Stall horn is silenced - Stock fire warning bell overwritten with our own correct one - Aspect ratio is included in exterior volumes (a bit louder in front of the plane) EXTERNAL MODEL - All light leaks hunted down and killed - Geometry and coloring tweaks INTERNAL MODEL - Increased texture resolutions: ceiling, sidewalls, glareshield, fuel dump, etc. - Bolts, bolts everywhere! - Improved gauge reflections - Vibration of the whiskey compass - Other vibrations added to various cockpit parts - Artificial horizon corrected for level - Ball corrected for level - Little texture anomaly fixes and light leak fixes - Gust lock housing tweak SYSTEMS - Modeled fuel volume within the lines so that switching to/thru an empty tank won't immediately kill engine (oops!) - Engine fire correctly causes engine damage - Fire warning lights turn off when fire extinguishes - Increased concentration of CO2 to slightly increase effectiveness as a suppressant - ADF/RMI needle motion is smooth rather than sudden - Cold&dark behavior of certain instruments is corrected - Engines will still turn when mags are off - BMEP gauges no longer 'go crazy' when cold&dark - Inactive transponder won't force off-side transponder to deactivate - Carburetor damage no longer occurs when engine not running, more forgiving of high-OAT climates - Cabin heater core temp is cooler and POH-compliant DOCUMENTATION - Tutorial revised with feedback from users - Graphical livery installation instructions in Pilot Intro - POH updates including aux blower SCENARIOS - Autopilot logic corrections - Mixture levers restore correctly in saved scenarios - Scenario no longer loads with incorrect control deflections - Gust lock is unlocked before anything else happens, when loading a scenario MISC - Additional key commands - Tweaked 'fall-in compensation' logic that applies to turns - Tweaked 'artificial dihedral' logic that applies to banks Not a bad update for the week after initial release, eh? I recognize that many DC-6 customers may be new to PMDG- so it is worth pointing out that we are firm believers in standing behind our product quality, adding functionality as we go, and continually improving the simulation value over time. This represents just the first update to the PMDG DC-6 Cloudmaster product line- and I imagine more will follow as we continue to evaluate feedback from users and from our Technical team. I think it is worth pointing out just how much we enjoy working with members of the community who come to us with expert opinions and information, especially when backed by experience operating the airplane. Our technical team has a number of active DC-6 pilots and flight engineers- and it has been fun for us to pass back customer questions and feedback in order to "double check" our work and iron the kinks out of v1.0. One of the greatest experiences we get to have during the development of our products is to interact with some folks who are out there in the real world "getting it done" with airplanes like the DC-6, and it is fun to watch the development team and the experts compare notes, exchange ideas, teach and learn. I would also like to throw out a general thank-you to those who have taken the time to offer constructive feedback to help us improve this, our first product on the X-Plane platform. Since 1999, PMDG has maintained an active presence in this forum for the primary purpose of interacting with you, our customers- and I have said many many times that our products keep getting better because you guys come here and develop relationships and bonds with all of us. As always- you have our deepest gratitude- and we hope you enjoy this update! How do I get it?: Easy! Log in to your account in our eCommerce system, go to your order history, navigate to the download link and pull a brand new copy. You can run this installer and it will update the installation for you. You can always uninstall your original installation and then install this new v1.10.0044 too, if you like. Either method will get you to the same place. Some Other Goodies!: We have released the paint kit to allow users to create their own DC-6 liveries. You can find it on the downloads page on our site. If you take the time to create a new livery- make sure you come back here and show it off! MAC Updates: The MacOS version of the PMDG DC-6 Cloudmaster is over the final approach fix. We expect to have her available for you shortly! (Note for our new customers who don't know our forum traditions: If I say "soon" to something, it is generally recognized as being a kiss-of-death for the schedule... so I was careful to say "shortly" rather than "soon.") Okay- that is all I have for you this evening- we hope you like the changes! Alright... Turn four. Get out there and get it done.

Carlos- Yes! To fly the 747-400 sim, you would think the airplane is unpleasant to fly by hand, which really isn't the case. I recently completed qualification in a CE550 and the sim was so bad that I had to close my eyes and look down whenever starting or stopping motion, or it would make my inner ear rotate so badly that it would induce vertigo. The FAA examiner griped at me during the checkride- so I had to pretend to sneeze or sniffle or wipe my nose right at that moment instead- just to keep him from making an issue of it. The 744 sim is quite a bit better, but it is very over sensitive in pitch and under-sensitive in roll... I try to dismiss it as the manufacturers way of making the real airplane easier and more enjoyable to fly...

Mikael- Thank you for your feedback. I have mentioned a few times that, yes, it has been added to the task list for an update. In fact I think it is already being worked on. Nice video! In fact- watching your video what stood out to me was the value that doppler shift and directional coning in the external view will provide. It is funny that you can spend so much time working "inside" that you just don't notice something missing... Ah well... we shall rectify that shortly. Now- as the de-facto Chief Pilot for the fleet I need to invite you by my office for a short conversation about your flying technique. I noticed you were flying around with the cowl flaps open- and the whole airplane shaking in your video has caused the engineering folks some concern... stop by and see me with an explanation, will you? (I'm always more pleasant if your bring coffee....)

Carlos- Thanks for the note. Tribalism is definitely a factor in PMDG's day-to-day operation. When we announced in August 2002 that we were planning a release for MSFS2002, we were abused so openly that it was really quite shocking. When that product released in 2003, the abuse only became worse. Needless to say, we learned to deal with it- let our product quality speak for itself- and I think many simmers have forgotten that at one time we were outsiders to the MSFS marketplace. Seems we are seeing a bit of that again- but it is human nature. Some folks just don't like outsiders- and we really are outsiders to the X-Plane market and it brings out a natural tribalism. It is just part of the marketplace. I think you see it no matter where you go. Our job is to separate facts from opinion. If someone THINKS we did something wrong, we encourage them to come and ask. If we are indeed wrong, then we fix it. If we are correct- then everyone gets to learn something about the airplane in the process. Svilen, That is an astute observation- and one we can certainly agree with. I pointed out in a different thread that X-Plane has some embedded flight model behaviors that are native to certain types of airplanes, but do not exist for airplanes of this size and design. Engineering those behaviors out of the flight model of the DC-6 was a monumentally challenging task- and one that I think will keep Chris mumbling to himself in the dark for a few more months at least. Is it perfect? No. We know that- because it is a mathematical approximation- so the further you get from the center of the statistical norm, the more variance you can have in the outcome. That is true even of the sims used to train flight crew- and it is the reason why so many pilots complain that "the sim flies nothing like the airplane." The goal is to get very close- and I think we did that here. We have some very experienced DC-6 flight crew supporting us on this project and they have been exceptionally helpful in nailing down the normal behaviors of the airplane in flight. When we get Chris' medicine dosage down to acceptable levels again- perhaps I can talk him into writing a piece about the techniques we developed to convince X-Plane to stop acting like a large-bore horizontally opposed single engine prop and more like a large bore, huge-chord, fire breathing dragon that is the DC-6.... Perhaps... but the meds are still pretty heavy. :wink: