JaneRachel

thanks Robin, That is very kind of you to say that. I appreciate it. I am always around as I love being part of this community. In my 13 years at PC Pilot Magazine I have made many friends, both developers and consumer. So this hobby is special to me. Jane

hey Peter, There is a little tick box that you can select in the missions selection page that allows you to fly any aircraft on the approaches. It doesn't break the mission in any way, you still get all the voiceovers (it has a professional actress who is wonderful!), GPS flight plans (with embedded SID and STAR etc). All the mission completion and custom stuff in each mission still works fine. I made a point of coding each mission specifically for that flexibility. The only thing that you don't get if you swap aircraft is the trophy reward for the landing in your pilots log. Each landing awards a medal that is recorded permanently there. I had a lot of fun getting them all. The reason that the medals are not awarded if you change aircraft. That solves an exploit where cheating with something such as the ultralight (which would make the approaches easier) to record the landing doesn't award the trophy. That matters, because the missions are multi-player compatible and during beta people were challenging each other in multiplayer sessions to see who could land the best and get the awards. So no cheating allowed! The team at Dovetail spent many hours trying their hand at various approaches, with office challenges happening every day! Gibraltar is a firm favourite! So yes, in a nutshell, you can fly what you want, whether you are new to FSX or want to fly PMDG. It only affects the logbook trophy for reasons described above. Everything else is fully functional regardless of aircraft. I flew Castlegar in Dangerous Approaches yesterday with the A2A B-17 and loved it! Dovetail tell me they are releasing a video today to websites of some of the approaches. (I think it is their way of justifying the office addiction to flying these approaches ) Thanks ever so much for the question Jane

thanks for that Robin, appreciated!

here you go, here is some background info on the Dangerous Approaches DLC that I have written for FSX Insider https://fsxinsider.com/dangerous-approaches-a-developers-perspective/ all the best Jane

will do! I will post the link as soon as I have it, as hopefully it will answer people's questions.

it is Pete, I have an article discussing it on FSX Insider being posted today. I will share the link hey Rick, Haven't seen you in ages. I hope you are doing well. I kept your note, it meant a lot!

I hope you enjoy Dangerous Approaches! I have certainly had a great time flying the missions. I just landed at Papa Westray in a rainstorm as I write this and do a final test of the mission pack before release and I am still having a blast! Jane

hey Robin, Thank you very much for all the kind words. It means a lot! I agree with you completely, I think after some time in the wilderness, the future has never looked brighter for our hobby on many fronts! You are so right about avoiding scaring people off too, we have to ease newcomers in to our hobby and show them just how fun and rewarding it can be. I don't just want us to bring new people in to the fold, but to retain them as that helps us all. Jane

its not quite as simple as that. I have designed the Dangerous Approaches pack to appeal to a new generation of simmer, in addition to those of us who have been simming for a long time. Each flight has been very carefully researched with accurate real-world routings etc. Additionally, I have written a detailed manual which acts as a tutorial for flying aircraft in the sim (in some ways similar to my tutorials in PC Pilot Magazine), which will introduce new people to the nuances of flying an aircraft and an approach. It is as much tutorial as it is a flight pack. There is a lot going on for seasoned veterans and newbies alike to enjoy. My personal hope is that these packs on Steam (I have developed 4 for Dovetail thus far - with Dangerous Approaches being the first to be released), helps expand our community with new blood whilst giving equal enjoyment to the "old hands". The sales page for Dangerous Approaches is not yet on Steam, but will be arriving shortly. However, first press went out last night / today. I hope that clarifies a bit! Jane there is a little more detail here:- https://fsxinsider.com/fly-into-a-world-of-adventure-with-dangerous-approaches/ all the best Jane

sorry guys, AVSIM glitch, double post...

Guys, I quickly wanted to mention something as I have seen a lot of comments in various places with regard to the 300. Those comments allude to this being the 200LR with a stretched fuselage. As such some people are talking about passing on the expansion. This could not be further from the truth, unlike some other sim developers, this is not just a change in external model. The 300 when you fly her (and I have been for a while now) flies like a COMPLETELY different bird to the LR. That stretched fuselage and more importantly, different powerplant makes a huge difference. You will notice that immediately on the first flight. The guys at PMDG have spent a long long time getting the 300 just right, to an incredible level of perfection and it has a completely different flight model. The cockpit may look pretty much the same, but under the hood this is not the same aircraft and it shows! There has been a huge amount of time spent on flight dynamics and aircraft power, etc etc. I am sure some of the other beta testers can chime in and confirm with me that in many ways, this feels like a whole new aircraft, which in fact it pretty much is! I just wanted to chime in as comments about this being same plane, different external model are a long way from reality. She is a whole load of fun to fly and you will be managing the power much differently to the LR. all the best Jane Whittaker

you will see quite a lot of differences in the FMC too. The Honeywell FMC in the 777 is very different from the Smiths FMC in the NG's in a number of subtle little ways.

You would be wrong in your doubts, there are indeed some things included in the sim, that are in the real aircraft that really shouldn't be there, for instance a few little quirks in the FMC that are just plain weird. One of the team was saying only yesterday that they had to break a couple of things in the FMC to be accurate to the real aircraft Don't worry though, its nothing that will affect you during flights, but strange nuances of the real FMC that you really have to dig hard to find, but they have been modelled in the sim, all the same!

Hello Iain, Thank you for the kind words, I appreciate it!

the cargo doors are opening as an Air Canada 200LR waits patiently at London Heathrow ahead of a departure to Vancouver

that is correct, the sim does that too. Of course, if you are quick enough on the double disconnect, you might beat the sound. There are options in the sim for more than one version of some warning sounds too.

argh, the secret is out

sorry if I mangled my explanation guys! I was trying to say what RSR is saying, but he did it much more eloquently!

yes, there are standby instrument options included with the aircraft. You can change the layout in the settings. The older layout is still an option for airlines, although not sure how many have taken Boeing up on that offer.

fantastic images Luke!

just a couple of systems shots as I am currently working my way through checking the electrical system Here the APU is providing power on the ground, whilst the external power is still live. Notice because of that, the Right side buses are still on external power, reducing the load on the APU. Notice also the LOAD SHED messages. The APU has shed the Left Util bus. The APU gen cannot carry all loads so the util busses shed. Note that you can carry the right util bus, but only if you shut down most of the big power consumers: fuel pumps, hydraulic AC driven pumps etc. Here we are with external power now disconnected so we are only on the APU, both busses are now shedding. Although, as mentioned above, switch off those big consumers and you can get UTIL power.

Kyle was/is absolutely right, it was greyed out whilst the guys finalised their tweaking of it. We now have it working. We do indeed get updated versions

honestly I think this is all a fuss over nothing. As been said in this thread a few times, you an set the ZFW to whatever you want, thereby recreating exactly the passenger loading that you want. Your ZFW has nothing to do with faking cargo as passengers! I am happy the guys are concentrating on making sure the aircraft has so many accurate and fascinating features rather than making the 777 a seating simulator. Sure you could do a whole seating config thing, but there are only so many hours in the day and only so many programmers on the team. Something else would have to be dropped. I think they have their priorities just right. Would you want a situation of "sorry guys she doesn't fly accurately because we put all of our time in to a really nifty seating simulator"? All that seating setup would do, in any case, is create the ZFW for you. You can do the whole thing yourself very easily.

I had it happen to me a couple of times today on a long flight from London to SFO, but certainly not often enough to be a nuisance or mess up the new time acceleration feature in anyway. The software takes it in it's stride.

another interesting realism. Some of the testers were noting a strange noise when powering up from cold and dark and wondered if this was some sort of sound bug. Actually it was the self test for the cockpit speaker system! You get allsorts of tests if you are starting from a cold cockpit, speakers, cooling fan tests, display units testing themselves and stuff happening all over the place. All completely realistic!