badderjet

Not that hard to find.

And? For how much longer, do you think? That's the only hope I have.

Thanks, I appreciate the sentiment. 🙂 Are you one? I was one for the past few versions of MSFS back then, but no luck this time it seems. Might also be my partly sub-standard system, who knows. Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if you were the only one who actually read my points, so I appreciate that too. 😅 Sure we could bring up many other examples of waypoints named after nearby places, but a particular one comes to mind here. There is this one airport with a single runway, of which its both IAFs are called VATER and UNSER, which literally translates to OUR and FATHER. Seems like the folks who designed the procedures thought you need a lot of heavenly support to conduct these approaches, for whatever reason. 🤣 And to add another totally aviation unrelated comment about the video being discussed, I feel like the head and especially rear lights of cars could need some improvement, as can be seen in the very last shot. The rear lights are way too bright, and the head lights need some way narrower angled beam.

I thought it did until that landing scene came up. Gosh how I still hate those REILs. They look like those new fancy LED blinking strobes on current aircraft. Those are FLASH tubes, I wonder when this is finally gonna be fixed. Sure hope before release. Furthermore you can't see them from some distance, which is really unrealistic. I strongly dislike how the runway lights pop in at 2:00 out of nowhere. Plus they still have that weird behavior of suddenly getting super small just before crossing the threshold, and then getting bigger again in their appearance. 🙄 Fix fix fix, puh-leeaze...

Don't know, I guess you're gonna keep telling us until one day before beta. Or to put it differently, do you really expect some magic major feature change to happen at this *alpha* stage we're at? And what makes you so sure? Because I'm pretty sure we've seen what's there. You know what, I like that seat cover. 😂

Thanks. Took me until now to realize that's actually an app you were talking about. Really could not find that tab on the website. 😂 Anyway, no luck also there just as expected.

Another amazing update, and I'm missing the Feature Discovery Series already. I wish there were more in the future, but you never know. Since I'm one of the many not being busy alpha'ing this thing, here are a few comments on the screenshots: Superdelphinus: Anyone ever notice they physically modelled the DCDU on the Airbus, but to this day it remains dark? I wonder if they'll implement CPDLC stuff, and since the ATC is working already I believe this might be a feasible option, maybe even after release for the long term, but still. The instructions are similar and it should make no great difference if you react in that ATC window or via CPDLC. Simtom112: That shot with the 747 taking off and the runway edge light in the foreground: I just freak out to see those landing lights reflect on the fuselage. Awesome! Raynen: While I'm not sure how ice accretion on the lower wing like that is realistic in flight in severe CAVOK, that shot itself is just awesome. Svg1780: Incredible atmosphere. Those volumetric landing lights. Now this is exactly the kind of weather where I can imagine vapor and moisture to form on the upper wing, in the engine intakes and trails behind the flaps. Also the tilting bogies are, well, not quite tilting yet. Edf8981: Again, great colors and overall feeling. Although for the waves we are seeing, I still think the reflections of ground features on the water surface are too defined and precise. But that might just be me. Parorng: Once again a brand new runway, no skid marks whatsoever, geez... can also be seen in the video, skid marks still seem to be layered under the runway markings. This really has to change at some point, preferably before release. Also I don't get why the edge lights seem to be interrupted sometimes when taxiways intersect. Irl the lights will often just be of the in-pavement embedded type at these places, even if they are elevated on the rest of the runway. ExpertSage23861: This might be me or the lights and shadows playing games, but I could swear those clouds have improved. Look to the left and especially right sides of the main gear, I think these are a lot less puffy and fluffy and have a much more defined shape. Dang, love it! A few remarks on the video: No more outdated AIRAC. Phew. Been asking MS for this 18 years (and two-ish weeks...) ago. And once again, patience has paid off. This sim is gonna have so much I've been wanting since decades, it's just insane. Probably not everything, but we're getting there, close as never before. On that huge map they have this filter to display certain data, one of them being called "Fix & RNAV Position Report" which I think just means fixes. Seeing that kinda reminds me of horrible translations of e. g. FSX into other languages. In general, I hope they review all labels and texts etc. before release to have them in somewhat aviation conform language. Totally unrelated, I wonder that that "Fauna" filter will do. Are these the elephants? 🐘 The flight planner is a huge step forward regarding the UI/UX, but still reminds me a bit of FSX regarding the available options, even though it now supports SIDs/STARs. In the long term I would hope to be able to modify a route just by drag and drop, similar to Google Maps or so. Also I hope they will adjust the height of all those drop down menus. While they look great, they might contain a ton of procedures at big airports, making that scroll bar super tiny and sensitive. It would be easier if those menus had a much greater height. Other than that, a really great feature. God, how I hated that map in FSX with the arrow-clicking at the borders... YES - Another 'set the record straight'-moment - 8.33 kHz confirmed - thanks! And in that C152 shot we actually see 119.270 tuned in, certainly a non 25 kHz-freq. But wait... is that even a valid 8.33 channel? It seems it's not, which comfirms my concerns they won't get the channels right. As I said before, to the untrained eye it might seem like just a simple .005 spacing on the COM radio, whereas it's sometimes .010-steps as well... those are channels, not frequencies. This is important to understand. While 119.265 and 119.275 would be valid, 119.270 is in fact not. Amazing to have the support of the tech in general, but I suspect this needs another big fix! Same shot - that ADF tuning, I had hoped SO much for realistic needle behavior, which seems won't make the cut once again, at least not yet. It just snaps to its perfect bearing, just like it would in a FFS. Very NDB-unlike. Interestingly enough, in a later shot at 4:15 that (digital) CDI actually seems to move smoothly or dampened. Also see this shot and watch that NAV2, this is kind of the randomness I would like to see also when nothing specific is set or there is a weak signal. Just adds so much to the realism, cause that's just what the needles do irl. Need to find a good shot of an ADF as well, spinning around like mad. I don't care much about the ATC, as it pretty much reminds me of FSX functionality, even though the new SID/STAR support. Phraseology might be different internationally, but it already starts with "ready to copy IFR clearance". In many parts of the world the only correct phrase for this is the simple "request startup". This will trigger activation of your flight plan and you'll get the clearance. "Climbing through ... for ..." is another example that sends me shivers down the spine. Giving "Altimeter" settings, especially in inHg, is seemingly US-centric, ignoring the rest of the world. Now many of us know that in real life the official phrases are not adhered to all the time, which is totally fine. To get more of this variety into the sim however, I could think of some user editable file with phrases and placeholders for variables to be filled in, so there could be multiple variants of a certain radio transmission. The introduction of TTS might really help here too, although the voices really don't convince me at this stage. Localization or voice accents in the future with the possibilites of TTS would be awesome. As mentioned by others that waypoint spelling is really not adding to the immersion. They'd only spell if you really don't understand the point, don't have it in your flight plan and ask them to spell it out. Furthermore it would be cool to have simply more options to interact with ATC. As an example, it's not that uncommon to ask for the weather or the runway in use at certain smaller airports, when then don't provide ATIS, let alone D-ATIS. Also think of route deviations due to weather, which seems not far-fetched with all the new great atmospheric system and even WXR (how long have we waited for this!). Great to get a tiny insight into the virtual copilot's abilities here. I wonder how he flies the plane though and how that differs to the autopilot. Seems interesting. It's very weird to see QFE on the Airbus EFIS control panel and the PFD. I'm not an Airbus expert but I'm not even sure you could select QFE even if you wanted to. Pretty sure they're aware that no LOC(*)/GS annunciations were shown upon ILS capture, but that seems fine as other parts of all the panels still seem non-finalized (yeah, Alpha, I know...). While I'm a huge fan of all the fancy 3D lights we're now getting as a default, at 5:45 those PAPIs are somewhat interfering with the taxiway. Would be amazing to have such issues fixed. One little sentence definitely caught my attention, where he mentioned ceilings and RVRs could be precisely set for IFR training. Yesterday I wrote that rather extensive rant about airport lights, and now they say RVR could be set, which for me kinda sounds like the lights will somehow affect the RVR (which they should). Unlike in FSX, where you always had RVR equal meteorological visibility, lights on or off. Hope I don't interpret too much here and this is really what he meant between the lines. The sequenced flashes in that landing scene now have quite appealing visuals imho. They 'look' way brighter than the barrettes, just as it should be. Still no new information about physical light behavior in fog. Will be a total bummer and almost no-buy if it stays like in FSX/P3D. That wing flex upon touchdown is crazy good, eh. And I like the lights reflecting off the underside of the wing too. Yet no touchdown smoke anywhere. There are a few runway scenes that suggest the runway lights will finally be somewhat direction-dependant, although the visible angles could still be a lot narrower. If you don't know what I mean by that, look at this example of such an installation and you will understand. Taxiways, especially centerlines are also affected irl. There is no way to see embedded lights from other angles than straight-on. In most cases all those lights are simply invisible when you overfly an airport and look at it top-down. All of this greatly affects the visual impression of an airport at night. The only ones being prominent when looking from above are all elevated lights like runway and taxiway edges, and especially apron flood lights. Not entirely sure, but in that last landing scene, could it be those three white diamonds on the ND? Although they don't have any numbers to them (which could still be if they indeed were TCAS targets, with no altitude transmitted). How so? I could easily claim the opposite and yet I believe it depends on the specific chart you're looking at. Actually that seems about right. That anti-glare coating is surprisingly efficient, at least as long as no one leaves their fingerprints on them. There are only rare occasions where readability is impaired due to reflections in extreme lighting conditions. As far as I remember those were already in FSX. The voices were recorded, but I think you somehow had to "unlock" them with this mysterious airlines.cfg file or how it was called. I might be wrong though. Furthermore, with all the ADS-B today you'll even get yelled at if you set the wrong (assigned) altitude on your MCP/FCU. Even if you maintain the correct one.

Alright, to complement my continuous whining and complaining about the fear of unrealistic airport lights in that amazing brand new sim, I was finally able to take a short video of what the sequences flashes and REILs are supposed to look like. I'm still a bit irritated so many seem to be concerned about how and if city or street lights will be life-like if even the most basic, actually aviation related lighting issues are not fixed compared to past versions. In a FLIGHT sim, that is. I slowed the video down in the middle so the effect can be seen a bit better, but excuse the 30 fps rate only as I forgot to turn that up on the phone before shooting. The rabbits consist of actual flash tubes irl AFAIK, so that's why there should be no fading in and out, their duration should be super short, and since there is usually one of those flashes mounted to each horizontal bar of approach lights (mostly five in a row), there should be a visible and significant difference in brightness to the static lights. As much as I hate this, but since we mostly don't have HDR hardware this could be done by some visually "bigger" and more blurred light. Actually just like in the video below. The rabbit will absolutely not be active just because it's dark, especially and even less under CAVOK conditions. I don't know if there are exact values to be followed, but they will usually get switched on under definite IFR conditions only. If those, however, are not that bad again and with fairly "good" visibility while still being IFR, I've heard numerous pilots ask for them to be turned off because of their intensity, which can be quite distracting on final approach. There might be some differences if we look at different runways internationally, but the general frequency of the sequence is pretty much exactly 2 Hz. The REILs will fire off once the rabbit reaches the threshold, wihch can be seen in the video as well. On a side note, I'd greatly appreciate if MS/Asobo could somehow simulate the different brightness levels the airport and runway lights offer. In clear nights it's not uncommon to have them at 1% of their full brightness only, with higher levels in worse wx conditions. What can be seen as well is how the lights light up the moisture in the air volumetrically, an amazing effect that I wish would make it into the sim, but I don't know how feasible this is on today's hardware. Finally, as I stated elsewhere before, the probably most important feature of these lights that has to my knowledge never been implemented, at least never in the MSFS series, is the light propagation through fog (for the lack of a better wording, excuse my English). Look at all those heavy IFR landings on YT like here, you'll easily notice the lights will be discernible a long time before any other ground feature can be visually recognized (which is basically the reason for having lights in the first place). Then go ahead and compare them to some good old FSX or P3D footage, and you'll see how this is totally not happening. It is completely obvious the lights pop in at the exact same viewing distance just as any other ground feature gets enough contrast to become visible, rendering the whole lighting system pretty much useless. In fact, I remember an old blog post of some FSX dev member back in the days explaining why this effect was missing because it was so hard to accomplish. I dearly hope we have moved forward in the meantime.

Just to be on the safe side, as some people said they were in but did actually never receive a mail, where again would you be able to check if you're in...? In the Insider area or where was that?

I applied just like anyone else, but yet I couldn't care less just like you. I've beta'ed and partly alpha'ed the past few versions of MSFS so I kinda know how this is like, and TBH I am stuck with a quite old desktop here and I actually want to wait as long as possible (alap?) until I get the massive upgrade for the Golden Master. I'll be totally fine checking that one out, then on decent hardware.

Interesting, thanks. But that accent is horrible. 🤪 Wish they’d do a talk about the actual algorithm.

Yeah, as said before I’m like 100% sure this is NOT what they meant. Even in more current footage, look at the KORD video, the runways are more than off. Even at such a major hub with good satellite image coverage. The runway material is off, the skidmarks are almost completely absent. For such heavily used runways, the opposite should be true. I’ve never seen convincing skid marks in any sim yet, maybe excluding hand made custom airports with satellite runway textures. Usually there will be heavy and widely spread out rubber deposit along the entire TDZ, with a bit less wide rubber area along the entire centerline, hiding quite some of the runway markings like the centerline. Also you will often see rubber marks at sharper entry taxiways (even only 90°), where aircraft usually make tight turns to align themselves for takeoff. The nosewheels tend to skid a bit and leave those markings. I think these visual features are extremely prominent irl and would add an enormous amount of real life airport feeling to the sim in general. Which I think should be of utmost importance in a FLIGHT sim. On a quite related side note, they mentioned quite early they’d recreate the whole ground friction model. Irl the friction will be significantly reduced on the rubber deposits especially on wet runways. I wonder how their enthusiasm is gonna be concerning these details for a realistic simulation.

400/20 I believe. Not that I'm really getting that all the time, but in theory, oh well. Should suffice. The real bottleneck is actually the super crappy wifi receiver on my current desktop, albeit sitting only 3m from the antenna with no major obstructions. With the Apple devices I'm getting that speed easily.

Why would they, if they already announced the Navblue partnership. Wouldn't expect anything Jepp here.

Because they do not have the slightest clue how to operate an aircraft.