NGXfanatic

Thanks for the list of improvements Devin, as it helped answer some remaining questions I had. I was curious about how ASN can live up to it's claims, as it would need to bypass the FSX code entirely and inject it's own interpretation of the weather, and until now I didn't see any information specific about it's ability to "hook" into the sim. I have always dreamed that some enterprising developer would just break through the FSX code and do it's thing, and circumvent the "FSX limitations" roadblock that has been a drag on addon developers. I knew this kind of project was possible, but I had resigned myself to giving up on the prospect for two reasons, the market is too small and it's a costly endeavor. If only a similar product could "rewrite" the ATC and AI in FSX/P3D. I have a long list of suggestions for making AI more realistic, but I can only dream that anything will be done to address that aspect of the sim. I am so happy that Damian and his crew have taken on the risk, because if ASN lives up to expectations, they could surely become the second most valuable addon developer behind PMDG!

I heard President Obama called Jeff Bezos. He offered a trade: some U.S. Government drones for his company to help fix the ACA website.

Even their frisbees act weird. They come back to you after you throw them!

Great news about the imminent release. Kicking myself that I just bought AS2012 in September, when I should have gotten it 2 years ago, because until recently I was convinced it was only ASE with a weather graphics package tacked on which I don't need. But I'm happy to see a discount for the upgrade.

As excited as I am about ASN for FSX, and what it can do to correct the myriad deficiencies in the built in weather engine, I am dying to see how the new weather engine code works with the more realistic volumetric clouds/fog in P3D v2. The 2d cloud imaging we are forced to live with is no match for the capabilities of ASN. I hope the tradeoffs of global weather as DWC users can attest to are really gone for good in the new engine. I would love to use the real ATIS frequencies no matter the altitude, and eliminate quirks like contrails on the ground when I'm at cruise, seeing cruise winds on the ground, and of course, the realistic looking weather fronts and varied cloud formations which station based weather mode users enjoy is something DWC users would love to see.

Well deserved promotion to a longtime contributor. Congratulations Jim!

Great news, I suspected as much.

Is it ok to install P3D on the same drive as FSX? We all know FSX is a PITA to install, and I just spent 2 weeks installing everything from scratch when I built my new rig about a month ago. I imagine jumping on the P3D bandwagon sometime early next year, can I just add P3D to my FSX drive, which presently uses only 14% of available space?

I just built a new haswell rig, and had a tough time deciding between the 770gtx and 780gtx. I knew that P3Dv2.0 was on the horizon and that it would benefit from 780 as opposed to the 770, but at the time PMDG was steadfast against any involvement with the new program so I was leaning towards the cheaper 770. NickN ultimately convinced me to get the 780, as a 770 would short change the otherwise perfect balance among the components I chose. And low and behold, PMDG changed their tune and will allow their new and upcoming products on the platform, I'm so stoked! I found I needed to upgrade to the Haswell because my rig was 3 1/2 years old, but for the most part I found I was happy with my frames in the old rig and was considering just some minor upgrades, say exchanging the i7 930 for a SB. I understand the OP's rationale, as it was something I thought about as well. If v2.0 is less cpu bound and offloads more work to the GPU, and if they make additional under the hood code optimizations, there may be no point in getting a new pc apart from just replacing the GPU. In this economy, and with the right tweaks/setup installed (see NickN's bible thread) all you need really is P3D and the latest and greatest Nvidia card and you basically have FS11!!

Not sure if this program works on the scenery library in P3D, but one way to help alleviate the load on FSX and lessen the probability of an OOM in FSX is to use a program called "SceneryConfigEditor" to easily disable addon scenery you do not fly over. You can even create custom "playlists" of scenery.cfg files, say, Europe only, Asia only, or you can always go into the tool before your flight and only enable the two airports you are flying between. You are going to put much less strain on VAS usage if you are careful about the scenery you load into the sim.

That is an excellent point, and a strong reason to be optimistic of this program's potential to totally disrupt the flightsim marketplace. This is not really FS11, but rather the SP3 we have all wished ACES released, plus some additional goodies that go way beyond bug fixes. I don't think there is much chance of LM abandoning it's users, who are primarily professional and military customers who insist on code stability for mission critical applications. I'm sure LM is making some serious money of their license sales, and unlike ACES/MS, they can justify the expenses incurred in fixing the archaic code. And all that hard work trickles down to us "lowly" hobbyists, for a fairly reasonable cost. I am sitting out the release for now until the kinks are worked out and more addon developers pile on officially endorsing the platform, but I am fully confident that this program will breathe new life into what was long considered a dead program.

Thanks for sharing this video. This is exactly what I was looking for, a concise explanation of what v2.0 offers in the way of improvements to FSX and if the platform change is worth the effort. Froogle has a way with words, and he pretty much answered all my questions! After building a new system and reinstalling FSX from scratch a mere few weeks ago, and because I only fly PMDG aircraft exclusively, I'm going to wait a few months until the initial kinks get worked out and PMDG rolls out it's P3D products. I a little apprehensive about the costs of upgrading from FSX to P3D, so I want to be sure the benefits really outweigh the costs, both monetary and intangible. I'll tell you what, I am glad I chose the 780GTX vs the 770GTX, as it looks like P3D is going to squeeze every bit of power it can from the GPU. I also hope the much hyped Active Sky Next will work on v2.0.

Is he referring to the lack of a derate-vspeeds calculator, like a TOPCAT profile or alternative spreadsheet? As a TOPCAT owner, I am eagerly awaiting one, but I think I have found something to help in the interim. Look for a utility called Utopia in the Avsim library: utopia12.zip. It won't give you V-Speeds, but it will ask for some basic parameters that are important for calculating the derate, such as airport, runway, weather, and takeoff weight. I just started using it, and I think it's pretty accurate. For a flight from Narita Tokyo to Singapore, with a half full 200LR, the program instructed me to use Flaps 5, 60 degrees Assumed Temp, and TO2 for the derate! I thought that seemed crazy, but remember, we are talking about the 777 here, and it was only a 6:45 hour flight from a 13000ft runway. I ended up taking off with more than enough runway margin left. This is a FS9 program, but it actually reads FSX data to populate the weather and weight. Bottom line, it's the best solution for the time being, and I feel safe using it.

Great news. Honestly, I don't have any issues with the T7 as it is, but that's just my experience, so I welcome any bug fixes and performance improvements. I would like to know if a 200ER, with proper GE,RR, or PW engine visual, fuel burn/performance, and systems modeling is still in the cards? I'm dying to fly this bird in British Airways colors, but only as the -200ER that wears the uniform in the real world.

Yup, I remember first hearing about that route when it was first introduced. I was flying the PMDG 747 and wishing we had an ER expansion, as I was running almost on fumes after crossing the pacific from KLAX to YMML.

I've seen this issue in the past few months, best thing to do: just go back to the "root" topic page, most likely you will see your new topic or post had posted successfully.

Bingo! Tf51d has hit the nail on the head. There was no potential for or any abuse or silly games with the old system, just a helpful feedback mechanism. True, some folks have said you get the same result with a PM, but it may be too much effort or someone is feeling shy...point is that the old approach served a simple purpose and I was kind of disheartened to see it tampered with. I rather like the new replacement, as one can offer more substantive feedback on the posts than just a simple "like". To have posts voted up or down like , messing with the traditional chronological order of posts, just never suited this community and it's mission.

I wonder why the airlines have two completely separate routes, using entirely different aircraft, share the same flight number? I'm sure there is some kind of internal, corporate reason, but I can't figure out why. I have noticed that the inbound flight will have one number, say 21, and the outbound is 22. I use real flight numbers using real routes gleaned from Flightaware when I sim, and at the moment, I'm flying as Delta 621 from RJAA to WSSS. It shares the same flight number as the flight from KMSP to RJAA, using the same equipment, a 777-200LR. Flight refuels at RJAA, lets off passengers who chose Tokyo as their destination, and from what I have read, does not pick up new passengers for the trip to Singapore because of government/competing carrier restrictions.

Yep, I meant to say A340-500, not -600. I was holding at the end of runway 34L awaiting takeoff at RJAA in the trusty old PMDG T7 and watched a Swiss A340 come in for landing. Must be this story, and the news in the past few years of the 747 and A340 being phased out and replaced by more fuel efficient twins, but my first thought when I saw the outline of that airbus far away on approach was just how seldom I see the A340 in my sim. Apart from the 747-8, which isn't selling too well, and the A380, has the death knell been rung for the four engined type?

I'm glad to see the new function that allows a user to "like" a post enabled. For me, this is not about acquiring useless internet points, but I value having a mechanism in place to offer a quick reward to authors for noteworthy posts.

I found out about the final flight on Reddit. Someone likened this event to the final flights of the Space Shuttle and the Concorde. In some ways, it was similar to the Concorde flights, because it catered to the affluent business traveler who paid a premium price for a luxurious and relaxing experience, and there was some time savings compared to an alternate SIA route from KJFK to WSSS. The article I read states that most long haul widebody aircraft are more than capable of non stop flights of this duration (19 hours), but for economic and strategic reasons, such legs are not feasible for the airlines. I suppose it only makes sense if the route is very popular with business travelers, and the carrier can consistently fill up the available seats. One traveler who flew on this leg estimated maybe 60% or less of the flight was booked the 3 times he traveled on this route. I remember learning about this route when I drove south on Interstate 95 by KEWR as a SIA A340-500 was on approach to runway 4R. The first thing I did when I arrived home was to look up Flightaware activity and I was astounded to learn I witnessed the longest commercial flight in the world at the end of it's 9700sm hop across multiple timezones. I was sad to learn of the demise of the route. I'm about to board my PMDG 777 for a trip to WSSS myself, as Delta Airlines Flight 621 from Narita Intl in Tokyo, maybe I'll see the SIA A340-600 at the gates!!

I have CNN.com as my homepage, and I too was going to post this but was beaten to the punch. Apart from the story, I was particularly fascinated by the page design. Goes to show you what is possible now with broadband and modern pc hardware, right away I thought about browsing during the web 1.0 era, remember interlaced GIFs? This was a really stunning presentation, it stood out even with all the fancy designs out there in this day and age.

Those are some very excellent points. You don't know how many times I have wished that I could just zip up my AI collection, both flightplans and models/paints, and share it with the community. I take lots of pride in my "work" and wish others could see what I see in my sim on their own screens, as I try my best to make sure the fleet paints and equipment, at least for the biggest airlines, correlates with what is seen in the real world. And I don't stop at the AI traffic, I also constantly update the gate assignments at my airport AFCADs so that airlines park at the correct terminals. It really is like a model railroad, just virtual! How cool would it be to have an open source, central database of AI traffic that the user could inject into their sim with frequent updates to account for the constant change in the real environment? We have to option to update our navaid database, and SID/STARs databases to match the real world, why not have the same capability with the AI traffic? There are quite a few obstacles in place. File size for one thing, I'm sure if I was to zip up my install it would be a few gigs. Most importantly, the majority of my AI traffic, while based on freeware flightplans, is injected into my sim via UT2, a payware program. But lets look at this from the perspective of the freeware flightplan and repaint authors. There is the potential for all kinds of technical headaches, mainly with the installation of the AI models and paints and the likelihood of installation snafus from duplicate paints or model mismatches, as a one size fits all simobjects AI folder will not work. AI comprises two elements: The .bgl flightplan housed in the Scenery/World/Scenery folder. That file is not very hard to deal with. But the second element, the management of the base models and paints in the simobjects folder, can be complicated. You start dealing with text files,and if there are missing or duplicate entries, it can play havoc with your sim. WOAI helped in that regard, because it uses a smart installer that does all the behind scenes work of adding/removing base models and paints, but it's a very time consuming task for the package authors to compile those files, hence, the reason why very few packages are released. Not to mention, the topic of copyrights and intellectual property is a very sensitive subject, and there have been times where authors have asked for their work to be removed from WOAI packages, and there is also the recent UTT scandal. So as much as I would love to see a unified AI database created, where users can freely upload their own paints and airline schedules and have them pushed into the sim seamlessly, that kind of project is pretty much a pipedream. The current infrastructure of the the simulator will not allow it, from both a technical and legal standpoint, so the user is relegated to hunting for paints and schedules from many disparate websites to carefully install into their sim.

Hi, I do not mean to push any buttons, as I respect Tom's decision to abort this feature entirely, but I kind of liked the old reputation system as it was before the down vote button was introduced. Is there any chance the previous iteration of the reputation system with the "thumbs up" votes only be reinstated? I like having that ability to thank a person for a helpful or thoughtful post, and this was a great way to acknowledge posts the user feels are particularly noteworthy. I don't see how the old system can be gamed or abused, and I don't think anyone really wants to see these forums turned into Reddit or Quora where there is a competition to get the most votes, that apparently was not the right approach to take here. I appreciated the ability to recognize a great post, and enjoyed receiving up votes as well. This reward system only encouraged posters to contribute with substantive posts, and although the absence of such a reward system should have no effect on the quality of posts, I'm sure a few people here miss the old system. The removal of this feature is not the end of the world by any means, but you know the saying "If it ain't broke.." Just my two cents.

I've never tried anything like that, you may want to ask on the UT2 forum. If I see a missing airline I just find a flightplan online and import it into UT2 with Powerpack, but I don't know about individual flights for an airline already in the UT2 database.