JaneRachel

+10 for the reply back from Jane Whittaker.

 

It's great to see feedback from devs.

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

Hi. Can any addon aircraft be used to fly the approaches or are default aircraft permanently linked to a certain mission as in the boxed version? Are the missions flexible in terms of choosing the aircraft?

Regards..

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, Jane.

Great Story & great flights.

 

Regards,

Robin

thanks for that Robin, appreciated!

Keep us in touch Jane!

 

Looking fwd for that link from FSX Insider!

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

Keep us in touch Jane!

 

Looking fwd for that link from FSX Insider!

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

Dangerous approaches? Is this an addon for FSX? Must give it a try.....

it is Pete, I have an article discussing it on FSX Insider being posted today. I will share the link

Nice +ve Update, Jane.

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

Hi Jane, & thanks for clarifying.

It's a breath of fresh air when I see releases such as yours. I hope this will really  create & expand interest with the newbies that have discovered Flight Simming. Hopefully, there will be some new developers coming into this amazing hobby of ours.

 

I wish you the best with your developing work. Will they only be released on Dovetail, or elsewhere, where us 'old timers' can find your work?

 

I think we are in exciting times with simming. With FSX, FSX:SE & Dovetail's own release, & then P3D! The choices we have! The devs have their work cut out for them.

 

We were chatting about different add-on releases for different folk.. A Gold release for the 'technical' simmer, Silver for the hobby guys/gals, & Bronze for the new guys, with small costs involved when upgrading. Our thoughts were to ease the newbies into the hobby by offering a degree of difficulty choice. Too high a level could maybe bore the gamers & scare them off.

 

Another thought, although we realise was limied by license constraints, was for Dovetail, if they could at the time, take a page out of LM's P3D & release FSX:SE with a change in default aircraft & add in a few payware planes as freebees. This could really have differentiated FSX:SE from FSX.

 

Oh well, in an ideal world...

 

Best of luck, once again,

Robin

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

lol.. & is this to be paid for? A simple search in the sim add-on sites will find lots of free Difficult & Dangerous flights. However, all I find on Steam are the 2x DLC's, Around The World in 80 flights & Early Years.

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

Did someone say DLC?

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/01/26/new-dlc-announced-for-microsoft-flight-simulator-x-steam-edition

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.

At least, no one asked this before, so it's a start, I regain my hope.

 

It would be funny to see "undocumented features" of real aircraft simulated, but I doubt that's gonna happen :smile:

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!

Thanks Jane for bringing us all this info. I always enjoy your reviews when they are published in Airliner World magazine.

 

Up until now, being a short/medium haul simmer, mostly in the 737NGX, I hadn't really thought about getting the 777. I wasn't one of those who couldn't wait to get it. Also, with the long development time I thought that maybe the whole world's 777 fleets would have been retired by the time it was actually released! (Sorry Robert - couldn't resist!)

 

However, it is now clear that this is a fantastic development in airliner simulation and, it seems, a pinnacle has been reached. How much further can they go? It can't get better than this, surely?

 

So congratulations to Robert and all the PMDG team for a mind blowing achievment.

 

Iain Smith

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

I'm not sure what you're actually asking here? I believe the T7 works in the same way as a lot of other commercial aircraft in the sense that the AP disconnect button on the yoke first disconnects the AP and then a second press disables the AP disconnect sound. 

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.

Show-off.

 

Admit it. Your sole responsibility is not beta testing. Your job is to drive us nuts with excitement. Job well done.

argh, the secret is out

Gents,

 

Jane gave you a tiny bit of incorrect information on the load shedding.

 

The APU will carry the entire airplane, but if you have certain large electricity consumers on, it will dump one or both utility busses in order to meet power demand. If it can only sustain one of the utility buses, it usually chooses the right one. (As in, not the left one.)

 

When on ground power, the APU will take only one side of the airplane unless you force it to do otherwise.

 

The images Jane is showing were taken before the Electrical Load Management System (ELMS) reconfigured the airplane. ELMS is fully simulated and it does spend some time watching consumption rates and adjusts load shedding accordingly. It is a fully dynamic process.

 

Other things we have accurately simulated in the electrical system: break power changes versus no break power changes. These are incredibly important to modeling the systems correctly, yet most simmers probably don't even know they exist...

 

The backup electrical generating capabilities of the airplane are fully modeled as well, including the backup generators and all of their associated self test behaviors, as well as the standby system powering down differently than it powers up, the full ELMS power up test process, the APU auto start sequence if AC power is needed and the RAT of course...

 

No detail has been left out!

 

We have an internal pool running on how many simmers are going to write in to suggest that the electrical system must be broken because the hey displays visible before shutting the batter off, but when they turned the battery back on there were no screens visible. Hmmmmmm

 

 

And we are also betting on how many folks will notice that the battery takes 90 seconds to turn off after you hit the switch...

 

Like we keep saying, it is the fine details that make PMDG products what they are!

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.

Pull your head out of the gutter David. The beta team gets updated versions - I would not be surprised if it was a daily occurence. It might have very well been greyed out at time Kyle told us, someone from the team looked at it, thought "might as well release it" and by next day, it was working.

 

If Kyle said it was greyed out, I have no reason not to believe him.

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.

As you said it, Tobias (what's your last name, BTW???): scenery/traffic reloads when back under 8x, but not as long as you keep acceleration up higher than 4x.

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!