Everything posted by JRBarrett
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Citation Sovereign+ Video Walkthrough
I used to maintain a Gulfstream G200 which uses the same PW-306 engines. Boris perfectly captured the groaning “howl” they make when accelerating after start!
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iFly B737 Max upcoming new EFB explained (YT)
The problem is that data for ASDA, TODA and TORA for a given runway is not contained in any navigation or facility database that MSFS uses - either default or Navigraph. For US airports, that information is contained in the FAA AFD supplement for a specific airport. Obviously, airlines that have their own custom performance apps would have that information in their database, but that info is not contained in any standard MSFS database.
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Phenom 300 soon? (released 18 May 26)
Soy hablante nativo de inglés y me cuesta comprenderlo.
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Apparently 12" vinyl records can fly like frisbies.
The YouTube clip says absolutely nothing about him being struck by a flying LP record?
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Sim Update 5 [1.7.27.0] Now Available | MSFS 2024
I have a Fulcrum yoke and it is still recognized as such. I know some people have had issues with controller assignments and bindings changing, but that has never happened on my installation. All the controller assignments I made when 2024 first came out have never changed in all the subsequent SUs.
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Pop Ups are Annoying, but…
I browse Avsim almost exclusively with my iPhone using Safari. I use an ad blocker called “1Blocker” which is 100% effective. I have never seen an ad here even once.
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The PMDG 737NG High Detail Update: MSFS 2020 vs MSFS 2024
I have done one flight so far from KMCO to KORD. The performance is fine, but this version definitely uses more VRAM than any other aircraft in MSFS 2024 on my system. I monitor VRAM using the Windows Gamebar performance widget. The 737 was using about 85% VRAM on the ground at MCO. It dropped to about 79% in flight and went up to a peak of 96% after landing at ORD. I did not run out of VRAM, but it came close. I have a RTX3080Ti GPU with 12 GB
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NZMF in MSFS2024
The snow data provided by MeteoBlue does not have enough horizontal resolution in MSFS, so snow on the mountain peaks “spills over” into valleys. They do have higher resolution snow coverage data for New Zealand, which you can see if you go to the MB snow coverage map on their web site and zoom in. They either don’t provide the high resolution data to MSFS - (perhaps for reasons of cost?), OR MSFS cannot use the high resolution data because of the way the snow is overlaid on the underlying terrain tiles. The same problem exists in the European Alps.
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PMDG 777 for MSFS 2024 fleet receives significant update.
Just because MSFS 2024 is a "new" sim, that does not mean that developers can (or should) re-write every bit of code "from the ground up". The data structures and classes that define the internal operations of something like the FMS take a long development time to test and optimize, and will almost certainly be re-used, because a new base sim platform does not automagically mean that there will somehow be a better way to implement those functions. For instance, the mathematical halversine formula, which is used to calculate the great circle distance between two sets of LAT/LON coordinates is over 225 years old, and is still used in every real world and flight sim FMS and GPS navigator today. The "ground up" rewrites will be for functionality that is new and specific to the MSFS 2024 SDK.
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Missing RNP 24 Approach at LSZG (Grenchen) - Cycle 2603 - Re
The approach should be valid. The current Navigraph Charts shows the RNP 24 approach at LSZG. The glide path angle is depicted as 3.34 degrees rather than 4.0 degrees. The chart is dated 06 March 26 and is effective 19 March 26. Could be a coding issue in the RXP nav data. I do not own the RXP product, so cannot verify.
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No Strobes above 10000ft
If an aircraft is equipped with strobes, regulations require them to be operating at all times when airborne, no matter what the altitude. However, many airlines do switch off landing lights when climbing above 10,000 feet, and switch them back on when descending below 10,000.
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MSFS 2024 - Custom Weather - Wind Speed Increases
In regular Live Weather, surface winds come from the latest METAR report (in knots) and winds aloft come from the MeteoBlue model. I believe the transition from METAR wind to MB model wind happens about 1500 feet AGL. Wind speed in a gridded weather model is always expressed in meters per second. The direction is expressed in rectangular coordinates U and V in which the U is the east/west component and V is the north/south component. Actual direction is calculated by doing a rectangular to polar coordinate transform. It appears that when winds are set manually, the entered direction is being used (as entered), but the conversion routines used for the MeteoBlue model wind speed are still active even though the model is not actually in play. That would explain why speed manually entered in knots is being interpreted as meters per second above a certain AGL altitude. It seems as if this would be an easy thing for the developers to fix. The MB model wind parser should be completely disabled when manually entering wind. The directional parser is indeed disabled, but the speed parser is still active when it should not be.
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MSFS 2024: Sim Update 5 Beta (1.7.6.0) Out
The initial beta just came out today. I am sure there will be many updates to come in the weeks ahead. Whatever changes/improvements to weather might be planned will probably come later in the Beta 5 process. They don’t necessarily include “everything” in an initial release.
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SLS is on the pad.
I was 13, and the picture tube on our TV had died a couple of days before but the sound still worked, so I heard the landing but did not get to “see” it!
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ATC over the North Atlantic
Domestic CPDLC is now being used increasingly in the US for communication with ATC centers. The difference is that the data is typically transmitted over a VHF data radio instead of via SATCOM.
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ATC over the North Atlantic
Oceanic CPDLC, which is text based, uses ADS-C (not ADS-B), and is transmitted and received via a satellite link. If it does not work for any reason, the crew would fall back to giving verbal position reports on the HF backup frequencies given by Gander or Shanwick
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Storm Goretti!
It looks like the core of the storm this morning is over the Netherlands. Winds have decreased, but still rather strong south of the low pressure center.
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EHAM Major Winter Storm. You wouldn’t know it in MSFS2024
It may be that the higher resolution snow data (like in the Alps) might not “fit” into the existing terrain grid without major modifications to the sim.
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PMDG 737 MSFS2024 "Mini-Review" after my first 17 flights
I would bet that it is something in the simulator rather than the aircraft. Possibly it assumes there is ice or snow on the taxiways when it is very cold (even if it not visible), and changes the ground friction model accordingly?
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PMDG 737 MSFS2024 "Mini-Review" after my first 17 flights
PMDG doesn’t have a separate “online model”. The way online aircraft appear to other users in Multiplayer or when on Vatsim is controlled entirely by MSFS itself. If the PMDG appears with gear down to other players, that is something that only Asobo could address.
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Icing after SU4
There is no way that Asobo can (or ever will) “open up the API” for weather. The entire Live Weather system in MSFS is coded to work at a very deep level specifically and only with the gridded weather data contained in the NEMS30 weather model of MeteoBlue. If the API was “opened up”, for the existing Live Weather system, any third party would have to provide exactly the same data, and in the exactly the same format, as MeteoBlue already provides, which would be pointless. The only way that weather could be provided by 3rd parties, would be to scrap the current Live Weather system entirely and create an API that could use data from alternate weather models and using alternate parameters within those models. I don’t think that will ever happen. It is already possible to use METAR data alone to set the weather globally, which is what Active Sky and other add-ons already do. That is probably the best that can be hoped for as far as 3rd party weather injection goes.
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PMDG 737 2024 - Wobble?
I have never seen anything like that in the PMDG NG, either in MSFS 2020 or the new 2024 version. I don’t use Chaseplane. I note in the video that your flight director is turned off, so there are no command bars displayed on your PFD.
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MSFS 2020 & 2024 not connecting to network...
In the past few months of using MSFS on an almost daily basis I have never had any issues with network connectivity. I just completed a 3 hour flight and the network was fine.
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PMDG 737-800 Set To Release 2025/12/18
Owning a biz jet is an extremely expensive proposition - especially an older one like a Falcon 50. The operating expenses for fuel and ongoing scheduled and unscheduled maintenance can be very high. If it is being used for Part 135 charter, those expenses can be recouped through the fees that charter clients pay, but that doesn’t always work out if something expensive breaks and has to be repaired. We had to replace the cursor control device (basically a track ball) in one of our Falcon 900EX EASy aircraft this week. In 2021, Honeywell charged $33,000 for that unit. The current price is $140,000! That is the case for almost all avionics and engine components - price increases of 100 to 300 percent are typical over the past two or three years
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PMDG 737-800 Set To Release 2025/12/18
Yet if you read some of the PMDG-related threads specifically on Reddit, you will see absolutely horrid abuse of the company and RSR by some (not all) posters. I can understand why Robert might have gotten his hackles up in this case if he read some of those posts. Not excusing it, but I can understand why it might have happened. Customers have as much a duty of respect towards how they address the company - especially on their own forums, as PMDG does towards how they deal with customers.