weaklink

Like many, I'm also guilty of buying more aircraft addons than I have time to fly. I suspect part of the reason is that I'm holding on to the habits I developed in the FS9 and FSX days. There were fewer quality addons then -- still a fair number, but not the glut we have now -- plus I had more time, so it was a no-brainer to buy everything that was good. I've been getting better about this -- I don't have a single PMDG aircraft for MSFS, for example. (I know, shoot me -- I did a ton of PMDG flying in FS9 / FSX, so the absolute urge isn't there any more.) Didn't get the Tristar or the Fokker 70/100 because I know I don't have the time, even though I adore both aircraft. But I still regularly buy aircraft that I only end up flying a few times. Part of it is that I simply don't know which addon I'll end up flying a lot. When I got the Piston and Turbine Duke, I suspected they'd be hangar queens that I'd drag out maybe once a year -- then I ended up flying almost nothing but the Dukes for a while. Conversely, I was super excited about the Starship, but then only did a few shakedown flights. I do want to get back to it eventually, but it will take a lot of time to learn to fly it properly. But then -- is it really so bad to fly an addon just a few times? If the enjoyment I get out of it is worth the money to me, then I'd say it's perfectly justifiable. And then there's the idea of "supporting the developers". A hoary old chestnut maybe, but if my compulsive addon buying habit means that all of these wonderful aircraft are being recreated in digital form, allowing all those who could never dream of flying them in real life to enjoy them, then I know there are many other things I spend my money on that are a lot less worthy.

To me, the quality of the default airports is one of the big pluses of X-Plane. I can chose to fly from just about any airport to any other airport, and I'll have accurate and, usually, pretty good looking airport scenery at both ends. The same is not true in MSFS. The default airports are... hmmmm... not quite up to snuff. So I have to go trawling for freeware on flightsim.to - some really good stuff there, but coverage definitely isn't as broad as the default airports in X-Plane, plus finding and installing scenery addons takes time. Often, I'm not up for that, and as a result, in MSFS I end up flying between the same few airports all the time that I know I have good scenery for. In contrast, in X-Plane, I'm much more adventurous in the airports I explore. Just recently, the hosts of one of the aviation podcasts I listen to (Uncontrolled Airspace) talked about Bangor, Maine. I'd never flown there, so load up X-Plane, and five minutes later I'm flying a practice ILS at KBGR.

Can you post a screenshot of your PFD? That will show what your active autopilot and autothrottle modes are.

Which, as it happens, is pretty much exactly the fuel capacity of the wing and center fuel tanks. I did the numbers on Simbrief, and a lightly loaded 737-800 is just barely able to fly this route too - though it wouldn't make commercial sense. The BBJ2 has a ZFW that corresponds to a relatively lightly loaded 737-800 - it has heavy furnishings but takes just a few passengers. So that explains why you didn't need the aux fuel tanks. Go just a little bit further and you'd start to need the aux fuel tanks. As @Christopher Low notes, those aux tanks give it a lot of extra range over the 737-800. Because the BBJ needs to carry less payload than the 737-800, it can carry a lot of extra fuel instead - and that means that, when it comes to range, it's in a completely different league than the 737-800.

Excellent point. By the same token: There are no consequences for taxiing an airliner across the grass - the landing gear doesn't get stuck or get damaged. Yet I've never heard anyone say that, until there are consequences for taxiing an airliner across grass, taxiways are just a gimmick.

I didn't - but I'll have to check it out! Did he use the flightsim.to addon I linked to above?

I'm tempted to get this for one particular route: ENSB to ENAS.

No one is claiming that. Nothing I'm seeing about this addon would indicate to me that it glorifies the existence of the wall. If anything, it celebrates the resistance against it. Tempelhof was an airfield in the western part of Berlin, one of the two airfields (the other being Gatow) that served as the destinations for the Berlin air bridge, which was crucial in keeping West Berlin viable. Today, it is the site of a monument to the Berlin air bridge. Dotted all around Berlin are museums and monuments to its divided past. None of them are trying to pretend it was a "cool and fun time" in the city's history. They are ways of remembering the past and learning from it. I see this addon very much in the same vein.

In addition to SIGWX, the Simbrief map can also overlay wind barbs, color coded turbulence levels, and much more. In the Simbrief map, click on the "weather" icon near the top right (the icon depicts a cloud and the sun). You can now select "wind barbs" and "turbulence". Once you've done that, controls appear at the bottom that allow you to choose the altitude and time of day for which to display the information. You can use these to find the most favorable altitude (and possibly time of day) for your flight. Some additional notes: When planning a flight in Simbrief, if you set altitude to "auto", Simbrief should choose the optimum altitude with respect to fuel burn, taking winds aloft into account. You may also want to use Simbrief's "Compare" feature, which allows you to compare fuel burn and time enroute for different altitudes, different routes, and so on.

Same reason pilots like the 757? 😎 Wheeeeeeeeeee One person's "making it hard on yourself" is just another person's "setting myself a challenge"? And from what I hear, real-world pilots typically enjoy the opportunity to do an empty ferry flight...

Just a hunch: Have you checked whether your -700, unlike your -600, is set up to use kilograms instead of pounds? Regarding the "pause" during rotation: This is something the 737s are known for; it's caused by the horizontal stabilizer entering ground effect. I would assume the effect is stronger the longer the fuselage is, which might explain why you haven't seen the effect on the -600.

Correct. No, there isn't an Initial Approach Fix on this chart. The Final Approach Fix is FF26L. The fix at 1 mile from the runway is part of the missed approach. If you look at the description of the missed approach, you're not supposed to start your turn before that point (which might become relevant if you initiated an early go around).

The "FF" in FF26L stands for "final fix" and is an abbreviated way of referring to the final approach fix (FAF) - or, more accurately in this case, the final approach point (FAP), as this is an ILS. Lido charts designate this by a "P" in a circle; Jeppesen charts designate it by the "Maltese Cross" symbol. The Jeppesen chart also gives the name FF26L that is used to refer to the FAP in the FMS, but this is just supplementary information - as noted, the FAP can be identified from the symbology. CF26L is an FMS-only waypoint that isn't part of the official approach procedure. As far as I can tell, it is not depicted on the Jeppesen chart either. I've seen different explanations for what the "CF" stands for - "center fix", "course fix" or "centerline fix". The idea is that this fix can be used as an aid for intercepting the final approach course.

I specifically find the LIDO taxi charts easier to interpret. Jeppesen tends to put the taxiway letters off to the side of the taxiway, which can be slightly ambiguous for complicated taxiway layouts and require a fair amount of conscious thought to make sure you're associating the right letter with the right taxiway. LIDO, on the other hand, places the letter onto the taxiway, which makes things unambiguous.

I also think it's a strong word. To be clear, the A330 ceo is an awful product. Some other products have not been great either. But there's a big difference between putting out bad products and scamming people. We've seen actual scams where developers have, for example, posted AI-generated screenshots that didn't depict the product being sold, or where they claimed the product had features that it simply didn't have. This isn't what Aerosoft are doing.

I'm wondering some of the same things. Specifically: What are the things that ATC really needs from the OFP, beyond what an IFR flight plan contains in the real world? Does it look at the top-of-climb to get an idea of climb performance? If so, this would seem like a bit of a "hack" though, considering that real-world ATC doesn't have access to the OFP -- they simply know from looking at the aircraft type and from experience what performance to expect. Most fundamentally: If the OFP is so crucial, what does ACE of ATCs do for AI aircraft? It presumably needs to make the same operational decisions for AI aircraft as it does for the player aircraft, but there is no Simbrief OFP available for AI aircraft. If it can do without this for AI aircraft, why does it need a Simbrief OFP for the player aircraft? Not trying to be contrarian here -- I'm just generally curious what the constraints are that require a Simbrief OFP.

2020 and 2024. Third sentence in the linked post.

Little Navmap is one popular option.

I'm continuing to enjoy the 732. I love how versatile the avionics are, allowing both VOR-to-VOR navigation (if you want to recreate operations from the 732's heyday) as well as enroute RNAV and even RNP approaches (if you want to fly current Nolinor ops). The 4.0.4 update that was released a week ago has cured the floaty landings, It hand-flies beautifully - you just need to anticipate the large trim changes required when extending flaps. And even when the autopilot is engaged you're never really hands off - by modern standards, the SP-77 is really more of a "semi-manual-pilot". Looking forward to many more flights!

Happily, while navdata requires manual action to update, charts don't - the Navigraph app automatically loads the current version of each chart from the Internet, without any user action.

Found it: It's the ILS 09 at DAAG (Algiers, Algeria).

I don't think it could have been Switzerland because the baro minima show 286 feet (and the altitude versus DME is also consistent with a roughly sea-level airport), while the lowest elevation in Switzerland is 633 feet. I haven't been able to work out which airport this actually is though.

And, even more importantly, behind the hold short line. 😱 In terms of traffic flow, this is already looking pretty good though!

I believe it is. The official designations are F28 Mark 0070 for the Fokker 70 and F28 Mark 0100 for the Fokker 100.

We're talking about a 172, right? Even a Vy climb (never mind Vx) needs a good amount of pressure on the right rudder to keep the ball centered. It's not exactly subtle...