Avantime

See this post. Use open climb. http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/313102-vx-vy-a320.html#post3905993

I've experimented with the ENB stuff and I can confirm it does work with Spotlights & the A320. I originally thought it doesn't work because of this forum post, and I already have the latest version of Reshade (It hasn't been updated since April). The CTDs didn't come from the Reshade DLLs, but from the Mastereffect shader suite. My method is: 1) Get the latest version of Reshade (the main download button, Reshade+Framework) from http://reshade.me/ and chuck the contents of the zip file into FSX's root directory. 2) Rename Reshade32.dll to D3D9.DLL for DX9 Users, and DXGI.DLL for DX10 users. 3) Get the latest version of Mastereffect Reborn from http://reshade.me/forum/shader-presentation/161-mastereffect-reborn-official-thread 4) Copy the contents of the Mastereffect zip to the FSX root folder, replacing Reshade.fx 5) Find a good Mastereffect preset from https://sfx.thelazy.net/games/game/136/ 6) Rename the downloaded preset file to MasterEffect.h and replace the one in FSX's root folder. I haven't tested SweetFX yet, I'll do that later and report.

Just a heads up for any potential buyers of the FSLabs A320, on both FSX and P3D. The FSLabs A320 does NOT work with the current ENB mods, like SweetFX and Reshade. The A320 requires another FSLabs addon called Spotlights, and Spotlights will cause CTDs if SweetFX/Reshade is installed, as those ENB mods alter both D3D9.dll and DXGI.dll within your FSX root directory. Given how Spotlights work in the sim I have very little confidence that this problem is fixable, and this includes P3D.

I can't speak for Emirates but some airlines have non-standard configurations with regards to altitude alert. For example the IXEG 737 altitude alert does not sound if the autopilot is on, and that's confirmed by the devs as the correct (Lufthansa IIRC) configuration.

OK I pulled the trigger and brought it, and after the first flight my impressions are it's OK for $45. Some FMC functions, like PROG, FIX, HOLD, procedure turns and TOC estimates are not there, but the stuff that is in there are of decent quality. VNAV descent path feels a bit suspect, but TOD is around the right place. Weather radar is a bit wonky but they're expanding it in a later patch, along with TCAS. Feature wise it's also a bit less than IXEG. It doesn't have a load manager, aircraft manager, checklists or custom failures. And it's single FMC operation. Systems wise it fell short of IXEG or the Leonardo Maddog, but at $45 it's not bad at all. $60 would be a bit more difficult to justify. Finally if you like eye candy, the exterior model is perhaps the best I've seen in X-plane. I would say it slightly exceeds Captainsim, if you're from FSX. Edit: Just to add a little extra - The aircraft feels quite unstable when hand flown, when compared to the IXEG or any complex FSX airliners. It has that yo-yo effect which makes it difficult to trim and fly with precision.

The IXEG 737 has a separate graphical display of the autothrottle commanded TLA compared to the hardware controller TLA, it's very neat and it's something PMDG should think about including in all of their aircraft, not just the DC-6. For FSX it can be done as a semi-transparent pop-up gauge. Here's a screenshot:

The org store is having a 4th of July sale, and the Rotatesim MD-80 is now $45. Since this is the first time I've seen this go on special, I'm just wondering what's the progress on patches given the criticism from Froogle's video from a while ago. System wise how do you compare it with the IXEG 737, and the Leonardo Maddog? Also is it polished or buggy?

These days no simmer should run a 32-Bit OS. Even FS9 users should run Windows XP x64. As for sims, only X-Plane 10 is a 64-bit application. P3D likely won't be for a while, but when they do make the transition it will break most addons.

Currently XP10 is still very user unfriendly and needs a lot of work, but I think it has fantastic potential going forward - much better than P3D especially if you like to fly heavy metal. I suggest everyone who's interested to have a look at the X-Plane presentation video at the recent Flightsimcon event. IMO They're moving in the correct direction in terms of development and XP11 will be spectacular, and I'm glad that the likes of PMDG are on board. Advantages: - Native 64-bit. No more VAS issues. If P3D (inevitably) goes 64-bit it will break most existing addons. - Very GPU dependent. This is fantastic as graphics card performance increases by around 30% with each new generation. Imagine every year or two you get a significant boost in performance. - Continuously updated - and new features and content are added for free. XP 10.50 will be a significant upgrade - Complex aircraft like the PMDG and IXEG flies surprisingly well, XP10 is a very good platform for complex aircraft. - Tons of freeware addon scenery, and high quality freeware scenery is easy to create with WED and common scenery libraries. - Night lighting is miles ahead of FSX and P3D. Street lights look great from the air, and airport lighting (and aircraft/vehicle lighting) reflects off the surface of the aircraft. - Clouds can look quite nice, but like FSX/P3D it needs addons like SkyMaxx to bring out its full potential. REX could work some magic there. - You can buy XP10 off Steam. You can't with P3D. Steam is the dominant marketplace for PC gaming. Disadvantages: - Currently the menus and UI are horrid, for an FSX user it takes about 2-3 weeks to get the hang of it and find out which essential addons (XPUIPC, Python, FlywithLUA etc) you need. Once you do it's no different from FSX/P3D, apart from a few inconveniences. XP11 will greatly improve the UI experience. XP 10.50 will include scroll wheel support for turning knobs. - Real world weather is not exactly usable out of the box. NOAA plugin is a bit meh, but FSGRW works for XP10. I would like REX/HiFi to have a look at XP10. - Landclass variety is worse, but with HD Mesh V3 + OpenStreetMap data it really shines. - No landmarks out of the box. - Graphics look incredibly dull with very poor shaders. You need RealTerraHaze and a good preset to make it work, and even that is worse than FSX/P3D. XP10 needs a good ENB mod and iCEnhancer-style shader mods. - VRAM is the primary limiting factor, but the current Nvidia 10XX series have 8GBs of VRAM, which is more than enough. Future cards may have 16GBs of VRAM. - Water textures and blending are very poor. The 10 year old FSX manages to look better than XP10. - Some of the more basic aircraft flies a bit odd, due to how XP10 calculates flight dynamics. - Default ATC is broken. Don't use it. - AI traffic is also broken, but JARDesign's X-Life seems to be turning into the Ultimate Traffic of XP10. IIRC XP 10.50 will include some sort of smart AI aircraft simulation. - Addons are pricier compared to FSX/P3D. You pay more and you get less. - Time Compression is not as useful, as it can be as slow as 1.5x. 3x is about the maximum. I wouldn't recommend increasing Groundspeed instead as time-based calculations go out the window. I can definitely imagine how XP10/XP11 can become the successor to FSX, rather than P3D. This is especially true for flying airliners into crowded airports where framerates, VAS and VRAM become important issues. A 30% increase in graphics performance with every hardware generation is incredibly important.

FlyinsideFSX runs like a sandbox window for FSX. You start FlyinsideFSX and it seems to load FSX inside of itself, and this messes up DRM in areas like Hardware ID etc. This seems like the only way all non-native VR 'mods' work.

That's good news!

Many thanks Cameron for the information, I've recently migrated to XP10 and I love how the sim is so much more GPU bound compared to FSX/P3D, since graphics cards improve substantially in performance with every generation. I'm hitting the VRAM boundary with my 4GB 980 so an upgrade to a 8GB 1080 would be great, but I'm waiting for prices to stabilize first. One of the great things with the 1080 is support for VR. I have a Rift CV1 and I hope the X-Plane team will someday include native support for VR (Someone asked about VR during the FlightsimCon presentation, but the video got cut off). I understand that FlyinsideFSX will release an XP10 VR addon, but I've tried it with FSX and it didn't work out - FlyinsideFSX interferes with the DRM on practically all my payware addons and I think it will happen again with XP10, with stuff like Gizmo and SASL etc.

I just got an Oculus Rift CV1 today and to be honest, asynchronous timewarp does kinda work in VR - but not on the mirror image on the monitor. With FlyinsideFSX I get relatively good fps, not 90fps but more like 40fps. I can peek through the Rift's nose gap and see the monitor, and the mirror image on the monitor gets like 1 fps. This makes me think it's only for VR, because if it had worked in a normal monitor-driven game we would've already seen developers adopting this technology in shooters and other PC games. Positional tracking is a bit weird making it near impossible to poke around, although I think it's a software issue. As for VR in FSX, it's completely unworkable if you fly complex payware aircraft. FlyinsideFSX acts like an FSX loader like that Shade payware addon, and it will break the DRM in virtually all payware aircraft, as well as stuff like couatl in FSDT/Flightbeam scenery. Getting those addons to work is simply impossible. Secondly the pixel density of the CV1 (search Google images to see what it looks like) is still not good enough to read a lot of the smaller texts in FMC/MFD/small gauges, making the aircraft inoperable - that is if you can get the aircraft to load correctly in the first place. Thirdly the Rift shuts down when you take it off in order to conserve energy, sometimes causing FlyinsideFSX to glitch or FSX to CTD. This means you couldn't take the headset off. The only way I can see VR being good is if you use a fresh copy of of FSX/P3D, fly simple GA aircraft, and fly short flights. IIRC that's how Froogle demonstrated it. For me VR is not fit for purpose for the type of flying I do, with PMDG and other complex airliners.

There's no inbuilt pushback or slew mode in XP10, although there are addons like JARDesign's $10 pushback plugin. The gate select feature doesn't tell you which type it is, and a lot of GA parking doesn't have numbers. I was just wondering because the DC-6 has 3D models of the pushback tug and towbar, and IIRC all XP10 payware airliners have their own in-built pushback.

Yes I'm aware of this. But XP10 follows modern airport layouts.

Thanks for the update, I hope you'll keep updating the DC-6 for XP10 as you port the aircraft to FSX/P3D. A little bit of nit-picking, but since you're editing the exterior 3D model as well - have you considered adding virtual passengers as 3D models in the cabin, similar to the J41? Also any chance you'll add a pushback function?

The DC-3 is the obvious choice. The MAAM-SIM DC-3 is really showing its age.

I have no idea how it got moved, I saw this video on a gaming website, recognized the potential for flight sims, and immediately posted it here. As for those who think it's impossible in today's hardware, here's a demo video of the upcoming PS4 game Horizon: Zero Dawn. The PS4 is considered the less capable console of this generation so I'm pretty sure today's PC hardware (e.g. GTX 1070/Radeon 490) can cope.

OK, I must have read it wrong as I thought there were different AFE cruise setups.

Maybe a couple more tutorial flights from different eras, for example the first tutorial may be from the perspective of a current DC-6 operator, like Everts. The route could be from Anchorage to Barrow. Talk about cold weather operations, cargo ops, GPS/RNAV, AFE, fuel planning, top-of-descent planning, icing etc. Also talk about features/limitations of XP10 as well as any tips. The second tutorial may focus on classic airline operations at a specific point in time e.g. 1952. The route may be an eastbound leg of a transcontinental service, a Hawaiian run, or transatlantic flight. Talk about more detailed procedures without the AFE, climb performance near MTOW (Especially for the eastbound transcon due to the Sierra Nevada mountains), power settings and fuel tank management for max range, vintage navigation methods (for information only) and airline operations trivia. The tutorial may split into 2 ways by intentionally failing an engine near the mountains, or at equi-time point in an ocean crossing. Start talking about OEI cruise/driftdown, and correct power/fuel management. You can add some scenery for the missing navaids, and if you're doing the transcon maybe you can build a classic airport as well, like Denver Stapleton. XP10 has a very nice Lego-style scenery builder. Introduction, pg.13.

Have a look at the Flightsimlabs Concorde tutorial flight document (revised link above) which is about 150 pages. I find the 2 DC-6 tutorials to be comparatively sparse in terms of detail, because they both rely on the AFE to do much of the work. At least one of the tutorials should have the AFE completely disabled, because on my first flight I had to turn off the AFE as it wouldn't set 1000bhp cruise. Contrary to documentation I cannot change the AFE settings.

I'm talking more about SOPs and general operating notes in that context, not timetables. For example should you drop the gear down early (say 8,000ft) and use it as a speedbrake as long as you're below Vle? With the DC-7 you can drop only the main gear and use it as a speedbrake. Another example is the use of powerback - AFAIK there's no inbuilt pushback function in the DC-6, although the tug and the towbar can be triggered as 3D objects. The POH expanded checklist focuses on engine start and run-up, and text for the in-flight sections are rather sparse. For example the descent section (pg. 209) only tells you that you need to observe the maximum gliding and diving speeds according to the chart (the chart itself doesn't exist in section VIII) and Do not exceed the maximu.ni “AUTO LEAN” powers. (sic) - I have no idea what this means. This wouldn't be much of a problem if the tutorial flight documents are well written, but they're not. Finally some additional info with regards to icing conditions would be nice, such as how PMDG implements icing in the DC-6, a discussion with regards to X-plane icing limitations, and what to look out for in each phase of flight. The PMDG J41 has a detailed icing model and IIRC the documentation for that product is easy to understand. IMO the biggest point of simulating a classic aircraft is to simulate classic airline operations, not to simulate the Red Bull DC-6. NDBs that no longer exist can be added as custom scenery (I have no idea how in XP10, but I have added navaids before in FSX with ADE9X) and it's not new for a payware aircraft to include some additional supporting scenery. I was hoping that the documentation, especially the tutorial flights, would include resources from books, official documents and perhaps interviews from retired airmen, so we as customers don't have to dig through those books ourselves and learn about classic airline operations the hard way. Calclassic does this well, they have the aircraft, the scenery and a quite a bit of supporting documentation. Like this pic of the US continental LF radio range network. Have a look at Flightsimlabs' tutorial flight documentation, which is available for free (login required) on its website. (Revised link) It's around 150 pages and the text is dense. It has a good intro, it has the correct period-specific charts, it has step-by-step checklist items, with tons of pictures, pictorials, tips, 'simmerisms', detailed explanations etc. IMO previously PMDG could get away with less detailed tutorials because many customers already know how to operate modern jets in a basic manner, and information is readily available on the internet. The DC-6 is very different, and for many simmers it's about as exotic as the Concorde or the Tupolev 154, and detailed tutorials are required.

This is the mother of all weather and environmental effects. Source: http://reset-game.net/?p=752

The POH systems description is indeed sufficient, but what most people need is how Pan Am, United, American etc. operate these machines in real life, and a typical flight profile. I'm talking about SOPs, flight plans, vintage IFR enroute charts and approach plates, notes from pilots on handling and systems etc. IMO good, well written tutorial flights similar to the old SSTSIM Concorde will do wonders for this product.

As a reconstruction of a particular modernized DC-6 for X-plane, it does the job well. It's right up there at the top of the X-plane payware list because IMO many of its competitors' products (IXEG 737, RotateSim MD-80) are still unfinished, with a lot of stuff missing. However the product is also quite different because its complexity is mainly derived from engine management, not complex FMS calculations or the drawing of splines on the EHSI. Still chances are you'll spend most of your time flying with the X-plane Garmin 430 GPS, rather than relying on the sextant, the four-course radio range, and LORAN/CONSOL - as they're not implemented. The biggest problem I find is the documentation. There's very little information on real world DC-6 operations, which is sorely needed because they're very hard to find on the internet. The 2 tutorial flights are IMO poorly written, and focus on short hops. I hope there will be additional, more detailed tutorials focusing on Transatlantic, Transcon (Especially eastbound as the DC-6's RoC near MTOW is truly pitiful, like 200fpm) and Hawaiian (Max range) operations. Another major problem is fuel management - the chart doesn't state the recommended fuel level at each tank before switching. So if you burn too much fuel in the main tanks you might run out of fuel on landing, if you follow the chart settings. Finally there are a few wording issues - the documents refer to the supercharger as the 'blower', which some people might not understand. Also the AFE is a bit quirky. It's similar to FS2CREW but unlike the NGX/777 PMDG didn't include any copilot callouts. On takeoff you'll hear the AFE talking about power settings but you'll never hear the V-speed callouts. There's a few other problems as well, such as the AFE cruise power settings. It seems like the AFE defaults to 1200bhp cruise which burns far too much fuel for long range operations. The intro document states that you can change the AFE cruise power settings, but I can't find the settings. Also the AFE doesn't seem to switch tanks so you cannot be away from the keyboard for any extended period of time, as you need to switch tanks 3 times during the cruise.