stretch1365

Hi all, I am currently flying round the world, not all in one go but small steps at a time. My aircraft has so far gone from the UK to New Zealand via the states, but I like to explore each area I stop off in. The other day I flew from Christchurch to Wellington NZCH-NZWN in the PMDG 737, during approach to RWY16, I noticed there wasn't an active glideslop at NZWN. Odd I thought, it usually works fine, so after I landed I tried a circuit in the BN2 islander. Now this time I used the other runway 34 and found the ILS indications working backwards, the bar moved to the right but I had to fly to the left etc. I wondered if I had the course set wrong, but no it wasn't that. I even returned home to EGNX and flew a circuit in the QW757 and that worked perfectly. So after all these frustrations in Wellington, it got me thinking. I have recently updated my AIRAC cycle and FMS data to 1408 so I asked on their forum if this is a consequence of the update, and it isn't. mmmm. So is there an easy way to check and alter any erroneous ILS' at any airport I might come across during my travels. I am happy to delve into files in fsx with good instructions on what to do, but what am I looking for if I do and can I open files if there is an error and change it. Thanks for any help anyone can shed on this.

Hi all, I was flying from KSFO to NZAA today in time 4x acceleration mode, I have had this happen in normal time as well, and once or twice noticed all the vc cockpit animations would stop responding to my mouse clicks. I cycled through the views as suggested in the forums and all is well again. FSX didn't crash or stop working and now I use DX10 I don't appear to getting any more OOM's either so this 13hrs flight is probably my longest 777 one to date. When I went back into the vc I noticed that the things I had clicked on while I appeared to have no animations had now moved to where they would be if the animations hadn't frozen. So for instance if the FMC froze and I changed the page from LEGS to PROG it would still show LEGS until I cycled the view, then it would show PROG when I returned to the vc. Anyway I was just curious if this loss of vc cockpit animations is a known thing or not, it's not like I can't work round this if it's something unusual. Thanks again for a great aircraft, since SP1 and SP1b my 777-200 is getting alot more air time and I am enjoying the flying even more than ever.

Hi all, Interesting topic, I use TrackIR and have to say I find it very natural to just look round the cockpit as easily as I would in real life just by turning my head. If you play around with the settings a bit you can alter the speeds and smoothness to suit yourself. I tried a quick flight without TrackIR the other day after installing an aircraft and couldn't fly it properly without looking round the sky to see where I was going, for me it's that good. Also of interest to this topic are a couple of video's on YouTube by "Almost Aviation" called "Wide aspect and Zoom pt 1 and pt2" in which he explores the view out of the window and what it should look like compared to the real thing. When we see our beloved 747 and 777 in fsx and indeed on fsx video's they always show nice large cockpits with all the screens showing in the one view. They really are not that large in real life. Just last week I got to check out the cockpit of a real 747-400 and I was surprised at just how small it was for such a large aircraft. Following on from watching the video's mentioned I have set my VC default zoom to 1.0. It takes some getting used to, as it's tricky to see out the window and the instruments during landing, but then that's what TrackIR is for! It does however make the immersive felling of being in a small cockpit much greater and I think much more realistic.

Hi all, I recall having issues with the PMDG operations Centre and updates. I read a post on here somewhere that the issues were caused by your internet security program, in my case Norton. So I now turn it off if there is any update to do and everything works fine now. The comment about your 777 liveries disappearing after an update happened to me, but if you read the forum, there is a comment there that you only need to close the Operations Centre and then restart it. When it restarts it recognises your downloaded liveries and asks if you want to repair the liveries. You will then find them all back again without having to mess with files or cfg files. Happy Flying all.

Hi all, Interesting comments above, but which one is best, mmmmm well! Most of these airliner's are basically similar when you get down to the bones of it. Some like the 777 and MD11 are highly automated, which pmdg have faithfully replicated. Other's like the 737 are more hands on, like someone said in the comments above. You didn't say in the OP what you wanted to do with your new airliner, short, medium or long haul? The 737 has the shortest range, and the 600/700 models you mentioned are an addon to the base pack, which contains 800/900 versions only. The 747 and the MD11 are older products and the Virtual Cockpits don't have the fantastic clear textures we have in the 737 and 777, but are better for your poor old system trying to run it all. You also get a passenger and freight version of each in the basic package too. The 777 base pack is a 200 LR and a freighter but the 300 is an addon which is a separate purchase. Would I suggest spending hours studying all the 1000's of pages of manual's NO! Just load up the plane and fly it. use the autopilot to set heading and altitude and fly VOR to VOR like a big Cessna. Lean to program the FMC as you go along and your need to know things expands with your enjoyment of flying the plane. The challenge of getting from A to B. Fuel planning, weight and balance can all come later as you want to know more. Don't try and learn it all and be perfect from the off else you sit there reading manuals and not flying anywhere, where is the fun in that! Also this way you pick up something on every flight and can put that to good use in the next flight, making each better and better. So you asked which one we would recommend, well they are all brilliant, all for different reasons, but the one for me that has flown the furthest and had the most use over the years, and I have them all, 747, MD11, J41, 737 and 777 is definitely the MD11. Why, well it's just a bit different to all the Boeing's it's a bit quirky with some novel features such as "Dial a flap" and I like that in a plane, it's easy on the PC too and you get good Frames/Second as well. But that's only my opinion. I would also watch as many Youtube videos on pmdg aircraft and there are thousands out there and see which you find interesting and think you might enjoy flying. Hope you find what your looking for, it's out there somewhere.

Hi Nafsir, As far as I am aware you need both the SP1 update and the 777-200 to run the 777-300. It's an addon to the original aircraft not a new aircraft. I am slightly unsure why you would want to run the 777-300 without the SP1 update though. The original version of the 777-200 still had time compression as a feature but you don't have to use it. If you have had time compression issues in the past the PMDG version works differently to the fsx version, as it slows down when there is a turn or bad weather ahead. I would install SP1 and try the 777-200 again first, see how you get on.

Hi Barry, I think disabling scenery outside fsx is going to be better for me, not much point disabling the scenery in fsx if I had to wait for it all to load up in the first place, kind of defeats the idea really. I haven't really suffered much with OOM's I got a few when the PMDG 777 first came out but switched to DX10 and they went away, so I am quite happy in that respect. I will look at the scenery config editor and give it a go, thanks for your comments.

Hi guys, Thanks for the quick replies. I have UTX installed and GEX and always leave them alone. I was thinking more along the lines of addon sceneries of airports more than anything. If I select sceneries inside FSX do I need to restart the sim for the changes to take affect? I notice you mention using a scenery manager to move sceneries up and down the library, I have been doing this recently from within fsx and wonder if this may have caused some of my slow running? Is Scenery Config Editor the most used scenery manager available or are there others to choose from?

Hi all, I have been using fsx for ages and ages all without any problems, I have numerous addon aircraft and scenery as we all do. Recently I bought New York Airports, Flytampa Montreal and FSDT Houston and Vancouver to try and fill a few gaps in my scenery coverage and enable round the world flights landing at addon airports each time as these were the last few I needed to make up some decent routes. New York Airports slows my sim quite a bit but I am still tweaking this product to get the best, however it set me thinking. My sim is loading when first fired up quite slowly and as I understand it has to load up a some details about all my addon aircraft and sceneries during loading, this takes time the more there are. As I understand it, if all sceneries are active in the sim, this doesn't affect a flight unless you actually fly over the said airport when the computer will load up the airports on route as well as the destination too, this causes the dreaded OOM's if there are too many. If your not overflying other airports than this isn't an issue. I have also read on the forum's that some folks turn off any airports or scenery not on their proposed route, however doesn't this require restarting the sim each time you have selected the airports you want included and then doing the flight which seems very time consuming and messy to me? So I was wondering if out there in FSX land somebody wiser and cleverer than me had developed a "Scenery Manager" where you can select the sceneries you want to have in your flight before FSX is even started up. This hopefully would speed up the starting of the sim and stop the sim loading any airports you fly over enroute. I would be interested in any advice anyone can shed on this and also if my thinking regarding loading of sceneries is correct or not. Thanks and Happy Flying.

Hi TommyK154, I have the CaptainSim C130 package, well it was actually from JustFlight as a CD, great plane and lots of animations and seems to fly nice too. You didn't say what countries military cargo planes you were interested in, if your in the UK then the Quality Wings 146 package is good, someone has done an RAF repaint for it too. Also there is the Captain Sim Lockheed L1011 Tristar which flies beautifully and also has an RAF grey paint job out there, I know they have just been retired but brilliant if you want large aircraft. If you want French or German then look for the Nord Noratlas Project, it's a twin prop with tail booms lots of animations and stuff, best of all it's freeware too...........I think there are some updates too, so you might have to search around a bit. Also depending how far back you want to go, the US air force flew the Boeing Stratocruiser which A2A do and there is a military paint available for that too. Hope these ideas give you some idea's. Happy Flying.

Hi all, I can't make my mind up about "steam". I have Train Simulator 2014, well I had the previous version of Train Simulator, and the reason I don't like steam is because it automatically updated my Train Simulator without asking my permission first! Sounds nice to have the latest version, but when it comes with a whole new way of running the sim so that your old stuff won't work with the new version, I think that's not so good. That may have been Railworks who developed it at the time making a significant improvement to the sim but if they think I am willing to spend out again to update any DLC to the new version think again. I may be wrong but I have always thought that buying things off of "Steam" is granted easy enough to do, but do you actually own a downloaded copy of the purchase on your computers hard drive, or is the game held on Steams servers. Because if the latter is the case and their servers go down at any time then you can't access your purchases. I don't like that idea. Can you imagine not being able to access FSX or XP10 because the internet is down? Just some thoughts, maybe others can tell me if I am right or wrong! I don't really like the idea of fsx being on steam and how that effects our add on after market people like Just Flight, Carenado and PMDG to name a few.

Hi all, Oh now that is a shame. I thought the Scenery Fixer was a brilliant program the breathed a new lease of life into FSX. Glad I have it! I've never had a need to search out support, I did some homework before purchasing and knew what to expect, installed it and it did what it said it would! I sometimes wonder if people just call "support" when the slightest thing doesn't go right, instead of searching the forums and trying to find out the answer's themselves. Shame the Fixer isn't still available, but glad I have mine. I wonder if FSS will still send me an email if there is any updates?

Hi, Isn't that just the most wonderful aircraft to fly. Old and amazing at the same time! Nice pics anyway, hope you enjoyed the flight, but you never said where from and where to?

Hi Trevor, Just run REX4 Direct, use the weather option and select your locality, REX4 will pick the best textures for the weather in that area, but you need to save and load the textures using the options in REX4 Direct. You can then close REX4 Direct when done. Then run REX Essentials which is your weather engine and will inject the weather during your flight, again select real world weather and your locality as you did before, but DON'T select the "install textures" option just click the "start fsx" option. You should now have REX4 Texture Direct providing the textures but REX Essentials providing the weather for the sim. It's quite easy once you get the hang of it, I hope this helps but I'm trying to remember from memory as I switched from REX essentials to Active Sky recently and uninstalled REX Essentials, but still use REX4 Texture Direct.

Hi all, Well I wasn't really interested in any details of when the DC6 will be released. In my OP all I asked was whether the DC6 was still being worked on! PMDG won't tell anyone a release date, they don't work like that. Still great news that the DC6 is going to happen one day though. Somebody asked above about high quality old prop aircraft for FSX. Well I would suggest looking for the A2A Stratocruiser with Accusim which is a great old 4 engined passenger liner from the 1940/1950's which comes with a Flight Engineer if you want to just fly it, or you can do it all yourself. Great to learn about props with it. Alternatively the Ulver DC2 is a great fly too, with significance given to engine management so again a good one to learn with. Failing all of those, the A2A B17 Flying Fortress or even the Aerosoft Catalina are sure worth a look at and very realistic if you want something more military to try. Sometimes after flying the modern airliners we are all so fond of, especially the PMDG ones, I like to have a change for a while and fly the old airliners and some GA planes too, maybe even a few military jets before returning to the modern civilian airliners. There is just so much to do with flight simulator I never get bored.

Hi Robert, Thanks for the reply to my query. Great to know that this project is still on the burners, even if it has been the back burners. Regards and,

Hi all, I was just browsing through the PMDG forum, I haven't been here for a while, all this talk of 777-300's and when will this or that come out gets a bit boring after a while, so I try and avoid commenting until there is something worthwhile to comment on. Now I know that PMDG will not comment on release dates for their products which is fine by me, but I recall they were working on a DC6 for FSX. Looking through the forum I can find no comments on this future product anywhere. When PMDG initially commented on the fact that they were working on a DC6 there were some lovely screen shots on their pages but since then nothing. While I know that Cpt RSR does not comment that often, I would be interested to know if this project is still a work in progress, or has work on it stopped altogether, which would be a shame as the screen shots did look amazing. Kind regards,

Hi Math341C, There are many programs out there and I guess we all have our own favourite. I use the Aivlasoft EFB, which I think is worth a look. It's a payware product and you can make a flight plan by just inputting your start and end airport, the EFB then uses "Routefinder" to download a suitable route. It's good enough for most flights, and what I like about it, is that once you have a route, which takes a few clicks, you then save your route and at the same time the EFB saves the route to FSX, PMDG, Quality Wings, and some other addons, just with one click. The cool thing for me is the route appears in a separate window, or on a remote laptop if you have one, your route and NAV aids are all shown in real time. It also gives you SIDS and STARS at airports too so you can work out the best one for your approach, as well as ground maps for airports too, which is great for finding your way round on the ground. If your unsure then have a look on Youtube and search for Aivlasoft EFB. Hope this is some help to you.

Hi all, I flew my 777 for the first time in months today from EGNX East Midlands to the winter Olympics in Sochii URSS. Thought I'd go and visit for the day.

Very nice, mind if I ask who developed that B25 model, it looks lovely?

What's an OOM, lol The only OOM's I've had in years was when I bought the 777 and flew to an airport with addon scenery, I'd get an OOM on approach just as the scenery was loading up. I switched to DX10 and haven't had any since. Worth looking at in my opinion.

Hi Jim, No problems, although I didn't want to give out your link without your knowledge so suggested the folks waited until you replied to them yourself. Hope that was ok with you. Regards,

Hi. Thanks for your reply ChaoticBeauty, When I had the problem with the doors on the C208 a long while back now, I did contact Carenado to ask if they knew of this problem, but my reply was something along the lines of, it's not their program at fault but my system that has an issue. I think if you look at the numbers of people asking for Jim's door fix I don't think I'm the only one who has a dodgy system. Anyway I'm not here to bash developers, it doesn't help our hobby any! I noticed looking at the thread that Jim has replied with a PM, so by the time you read this reply hopefully your up and running again.

Hi ChaoticBeauty, There is indeed a patch which Jim Hodkinson, has graciously shared with us all. You won't find it in the library here as he prefers to send you a PM with a download link. It works very well and corrects any doors that won't work in the Carenado C208. I'm sure Jim will send you the link as soon as he notices your post here. Hope this helps some.

Hi, I have heard comments on the CaptainSim forum to the effect that there are a few issues with the sound, I believe they are looking into it for the first update soon.