NoahBryant

8 hours ago, C2615 said:

No one ever mentioned 737-100/200/ADV?

IMO it's true pilot's airplane. It isn't too heavy on machines so no flight engineer needed as old 707/727/741, nor it's too smart that can fly itself as 757\767 737CL onwards...

I'd love that, especially since the MilViz one won't really be supported on newer versions of P3D. Sadly I think the masses like the automated-everything planes though 😞

Maybe I should stop hoping for the J41... It's hard to give up on it because it's was practically finished a year ago and it was such a fun plane. 

Honestly, though all I want is something difficult. I want to have to read the manual cover to cover. I want the first time I try and start it up to end in disaster. Please, please not another Boeing unless it's an old one that takes skill. 

I finally caved and bought the 747-8. I started it up, took off, came back around and landed without any trouble at all. I haven't touched it since. 

Ditto - I have all of the addons (all PMDG, Q400, Orbx everything, etc etc) and have no issues at all with FPS - it's just not something I have to think about anymore (pretty nice, yeah). I always describe wearing the rift as flying with 20/30 vision. No, it's not crystal clear, but you don't lose immersion because if you can't quite read the instrument you do exactly what you would do in real life - just lean forward a bit. 

There's only one plane I have issues with and that's the Aerosoft CRJs - the PFD and MFD are just too small to read all the numbers. That said, in FI you can just assign a joystick button to the zoom feature so you can quickly zoom in and see what you need to see then zoom back out. 

I do look forward to a slightly higher resolution display and have considered the Vive Pro but to be honest, without being able to test it in P3D first I don't want to pay that much.

Even with the 20/30 vision, I wouldn't go back to flying using a monitor for anything - even if I could afford a full motion sim in my backyard. 

My hopes:

1 - OMG gives us the J41 for frack's sake. It was almost exactly a year ago it went into "beta"
2 - DC 3 
3 - 787 yet?

2 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

I believe we've already addressed this, but it will be on our servers. The admins will be able to manage their pilots and aircraft, but this will be done on our servers.

Looking forward to seeing what VAs take advantage. That will definitely make me want to join a VA again. Thanks Kyle!

9 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

The short version? It's a way to take your simming experience and make that much more in-depth...no matter what you want to fly.

Thanks for taking the time to write - So I suppose the very first thing that jumps out at me is one of the main things that drove me nuts about the larger planes in FSE:

It's easier to land a big plane on a short runway than it is to depart and people would often take a big plane like the 737 into a tiny little airport and leave it there. So what happens then? Or someone who deliberately (or maybe not, lol) leaves the aircraft parked on a runway with one engine running, and the switches in complete disarray? 

Edit - should have read the rest...(you can disregard the above)

So the more I hear about this, the more it sounds like a framework, or back-end of the most amazing VA ever. If you were to add in the flight schedules and other VA-features, or an economic system like AH or FSE I would pay a LOT of money for something like that. Gladly pay a monthly fee. 

I'm definitely interested in trying this, and thanks for taking the time to explain better. 

I almost feel as though you could turn this into a deployable infrastructure.  For example, I own Virtual Noah Airways, and would like to use your system for tracking my planes, flights, comms etc. I could pay you to deploy this in the cloud for a monthly fee. I could then populate it ONLY with my fleet and ONLY my pilots could make use of it. 

I hope there's something like that in the back of your mind because I truly think there would be a market for it. You could revolutionize Virtual Airlines overnight. I work for an aviation company that creates similar software pieces that we then deploy to a customer's servers (or in the cloud) and they actually use it completely on their own. We're pretty hands off. All these different airlines using the same backend but in different ways that wouldn't really be apparent to pilots/pax.

Kyle, is someone going to explain what it actually is (I don't want to watch the videos)? I'd love to see a PMDG style, long forum post, explaining it in-depth as well as all the different applications it may have. As best I can tell it sounds almost more like a framework or backend for something else...not sure. 

I am genuinely intrigued, but at this point, the only information about the product I have received is the angry internet people yelling at each other and you firing back at them. 

I find myself in a position where the only reason I don't fly P3D more is it's hard to find a "point." FSE is so 2002 and lacks heavies, AH2 is close, but still a bit too exploitable for me...VAs are also somewhere between...

I can't tell if this is something that may interest me or not and I'd prefer to hear it from your mouth. 

7 hours ago, GCBraun said:

You can pin, resize and move up to three 2D windows in the VR cockpit using the latest Oculus Dash software. This implementation is better than Flyinside's, in my opinion.

As for zooming in, this is also possible in X-Plane.

Excellent thank you, I will look at it. 

11 hours ago, GCBraun said:

Of course it is possible. The Rift software does this natively. 

Which one? I mentioned three things?

Yeah I always create a PDF with my flight plan and all my terminal charts so I can bring it into the cockpit and view them. No way to do that without FI. Plus the zoom is important for planes like the CRJ and the Dash 8 where the text is too small to read. I'd like P3d to get to the point where I don't need FI but it's just not even close. 

I'd give anything for a way to take good screenshots though. I really miss that.  

I just want to stress to everyone: If you are trying to do VR in P3D without FlyInside, you are doing yourself a great disservice. P3D VR support is nothing compared to what FI is able to do. I dont blame people for disliking VR in P3D if all they tried was the VR setting in P3d, it's terrible. 

I am afraid I don't know how X-Plane works, but if it's similar to P3d/FSX in the use of the popup 2D windows then use Fly Inside. It allows you to open and manipulate 2D windows such as FS popups and even w indows from Windows (like a PDF or browser window) into your VR cockpit. It's great for bringing in flight plans and charts as well. 

The biggest reason I am meh about the new 747 and 737 projects is that they are replacing the...747 and 737...Sure it's got more features and I will buy them when they come out and enjoy them but it's not going to give me something I don't already have in terms of aircraft capabilities. 

The J41 will actually give me a whole new type of plane I don't already have. The closest I have is the Dash 8 which is a great sim as well but it still feels a bit "big" compared to the J41. Honestly, the J41 was probably my favorite all-time plane in FSX and I will have to decide when it is released if I like it more than the DC-6 which I think is my current favorite. 

My personal preference is flying around my extensive Orbx world and that doesn't lend a whole lot of options in the 747. 

One thing I wanted to mention. I never use the Oculus controls/hands to fly - just the mouse. They may work okay for a simple single-engine plane or something but are nowhere near accurate enough for a complex plane.  

I have yet to even closely successfully use native VR in P3D and only use FlyInside. 

The mouse position can be set to remain constant according to your head position - what I mean is that you don't have to hold your head super still to interact with a rotary knob. The mouse will stay over the knob if you move your head (unless you move it so far you can't see the knob anymore).

Additionally, you can set a button to do a binocular zoom real quick if you do need to quickly read an instrument, but in PMDG planes this hasn't been necessary for me ( I will use it to program the FMC at the beginning though). 

I have buttons on my joystick/throttle set for:

• Trim
• Autopilot vert speed up/down (for the DC6 mostly)
• Gear
• Binoc zoom
• Centering the mouse (sometimes it gets lost on one of my other monitors)
•  Autopilot on/off
• TO/GA
• A/T Disengage
• flaps up.down
• Recentering VR position

For charts, I mostly just use ForeFlight on my iPad and lift the goggles if I need to see it. However, if I am truly doing a complex approach or flying by hand and that's not ideal, I do the following:

• I create a PDF that contains my OFP, Weather and Charts
• Open the PDF in Acrobat. 
• Import the Acrobat window into the cockpit with FlyInside and just set the Acrobat window in the first officer seat.
• In VR, I can scroll through the different pages of the PDF and see whatever I need to see without a problem. 

I wish I could post a screenshot or something to show how this works but screenshots/videos of VR just make it look terrible and is not fair to the experience. 

Add me to the "will never go back" list. Flying in VR has completely changed FS for me forever. Yes, the resolution is low but, I always equate it to flying with 20/30 vision. If you can't read the gauge you just lean in and read it just like you would in real life. It's so immersive you don't even notice. I don't at least.

It's possible for me to see out the bottom of the headset to see the keyboard if I hold my head just right too. 

At one point I was considering going down the route of building a home cockpit but there's no way I would do that now - even if someone gave me the hardware for free. 

Thanks, Matthias - 

I really like the idea of the plane remembering its last state automatically without having to use saved scenarios. It really makes running through the checklist important because 'past Noah' has been known to forget steps when shutting down and 'future Noah' has to pay extra close attention when starting up.   

Is the DC-6 supposed to remember the fluid levels from flight to flight? I know it will if you continually save your scenario after each flight but there I have problems doing that sometimes. 

Since there's an interface to top off your fluids I always assumed that it would remember your levels since it would be pretty difficult to deplete all of your oil in one flight without breaking something. 

Also it would be amazing if you give us the ability to select a startup panel state <wink wink>

1 hour ago, downscc said:

No question, the AFE should back you up not trip you up.  However, someone needs to document the problem on a trouble ticket to ensure it gets into the bug tracking system.  Things found and discussed in the forum are soon forgotten.

Good call - I'll submit a ticket. 

Thanks Robert - Just tried a flight myself without AFE and had no trouble at all following your advice. Need to send the FE back to school, I think!

2 hours ago, downscc said:

I think we had a thread a couple of months ago where CHT became a problem with low OATs..., I don't recall want came of that.  All my beta testing was in Alaska during cold weather so I don't think there is a bug.

Check your procedures, don't rely on the AFE (I refuse to use it).  Carb icing will prevent you from developing expected TO MP.  Common reason for high CHT other than airflow is low fuel flow/pressure causing lean conditions.

Thanks Dan - I would love to ween myself off the AFE but I am still waiting on tutorial 3. In the beginning, I had tried to go without AFE but I was having trouble killing the engines, lol. 

1 minute ago, randomTOTEN said:

The AFE could be setting excess power. Cold air is very dense, and BMEP limits will likely be reached before MAP limits.

Robert Toten

That's a good point. I have found that if I fly it manually I can easily take off without going to "full power" 

I just did another flight and yes, cowl flaps are on TO. On my next one I will try opening them fully to see if that helps but I'm not sure the FE will let me?

My 'fix' has just been to repair the engines once I reduce power in the air...kinda unrealistic, lol

Hi All - 
I have been doing some flying up in Alaska and have run into trouble taking off.

• I am using AFE after engine start
• OAT is about -10C
• I set AFE to Dry Takeoff
• Cylinder Head Temp starts raising and is in the red before we even get to full power
• Before I am even up to about 30 knots or so all four engines have damage

I thought it was carb icing so I:

• Used carb heat until before takeoff
• Turned on carb anti-ice

None of that helped

Just to be sure, I moved the aircraft to a warmer airport (OAT was 4C) and there was no problem at all with CHT

Any idea what I am doing wrong here?

Hands down my favorite PMDG plane ever. Big enough to feel like you had some weight behind you but small enough that it was fun. No FMC to literally do everything for you. It was also so much fin in VR.

So stoked....

Thanks very much for the response Kyle, Dan and Henning. I apologize for not being more detailed in the beginning as I was simply asking what I was doing wrong. At the time, I had an 85 degree OAT and it was 85 degrees in the pax cabin. I took off and even by 10,000 feet it was still 85 in the cabin. 

I just now conducted two different tests. First, I loaded the sim with the DC6 at KLAX where the temp is currently 84. As soon as the sim loaded (since it sadly loads with the engine running) I looked at the cabin temp and it was dropping from 80 and went down to the low 70s (Exactly as the manual states). 

I then set the plane to cold and dark, as I always do. Immediately the cabin temp rose to 84 degrees in about 20 seconds. 

Then, I went through my startup procedure as I always do and once the engines were running and the turbine was switched on, the cabin temp never changed. I throttle the engines up - still no change in cabin temp. 

So once again, I am just asking what I am doing wrong because although the manual does talk about cabin cooling, it neglects to actually say how to do it. Based on my above tests, I am nearly positive I am the one that's doing something wrong and I am just asking for help. 

Edit - Actually never mind. Although the cabin temp goes down when you first load the sim, if you wait a few seconds it climbs back up. So I have no idea how it's supposed to work so I am just asking for help.