Timmer

The 340 is my favorite Carenado and my most-flown plane in FSX. I'm looking forward to it.

Very cool. I can't wait for the Archer update -- I am hoping that fixes the Archer's penchant for the engines shutting off on short final every time. Makes landings "interesting" to say the least.

I saw that. I got accepted via the secret handshake. Thanks again!

For the record, I tried oxygen a bunch of times (then went to air, lungs, breath, etc) I don't know why it didn't accept it but that was my first attempt. I then got put on trying to figure out the correct city between two other cities. And I couldn't find any good step-by-step on starting up the CJ1+ in the documents, just a check-list but that doesn't say where the items are and it didn't work (nor does Ctrl-E.. engines start then shut down after spin-up). And I understand the anti-spam necessity, no worries there just that they seemed a bit obtuse and, you must admit, nothing like feeling punished for being on the legit side of the fence. Thank you for your replies here

You're not kidding. I've spent the last two days trying to get the answer to their anti-spambot questions correct so I can ask on the forums how to get a plane started

I think they fixed this in B9 -- see the thread below about turbulence. And yes there can be bumpiness in a small plane going through most clouds but people are talking about pre-B9, XP didn't seem to often differentiate between "mean crazy thunderstorm cloud" and "calm friendly foggy clouds." My example was flying into the marine layer in San Diego (advective fog) which, by definition, is not anything to be wary of beyond just being IFR, in XP a small plane would be thrown around like crazy with the ASI going haywire between 0kts and 150kts every second and taking all my control to keep a basic attitude. I've also flown into other clouds that should be bumpy but in XP they caused my Archer II to flip over and fall out of the sky. But anyway my first flight in B9 through the marine layer shows this may be fixed so it might be a moot issue from now on :)

I just did a real-weather flight from San Diego's KMYF through the marine layer and no issue with turbulence . Thumbs up! I did have a huge issue with frame rates once I got into the cloud layer but my 560Ti card isn't the newest thing so I won't be too critical of that. So far it seems like a nice tweak. The change note sounds like they did it the right way since high-turbulent clouds did feel great and XP and really give that sense of "you should not be flying into these clouds if you want to live" -- just that it was happening with Mr. Friendly Cute Clouds and Fog Layers, also.

Oo... I guess I know what I'll be doing right about now...

HDR is very bi-polar for me. I can turn it on and be fine and then I'll look a certain direction and it'll instantly go down to about 0.5FPS and sometimes it'll come back to normal and other times not. Sometimes just depending on where I look. I figure there most be some geometry or object rendering that can clog up the HDR pipeline. Also, I find two weird artifacts: the shadows generally dance around on the aircraft and especially in replays the lighting of the sky and scene in generally flicker dark-to-light as I rotate around the camera. This didn't happen until a couple betas ago. Finally, FXAA looks much worse than HDR off with AA on and apparently my card cannot run the nicer S--whatever mode above a couple FPS. Hopefully with time or computer upgrades. I've always been a big fan of HDR to get that brightness that's been missing in computer games since the beginning.

Thanks! I assumed it added a filter on the graphics but I could never tell the difference. Now I know why :} @Tom: Good comparison shots and indeed that softening of the horizon is great. The newest REX Essentials does this nicely, too, if you havent upgraded, just FYI.

Just a touch over-strong. I actually ran into a fog layer that flipped and crashed my Archer II. There are clouds that can and will do that to a plane but a marine layer in Southern California is not one of them ;)

Could he be talking about having the "cinema vesomething" option set? OP: Try posting a screenshot and pointing out the effect. It's hard to know what it is you're describing.

I'll try it out. I tried it out a year or two ago and it was too rough for my tastes but I'll look at it again. And I just had to tease. The amount of control XP gives each aircraft is definitely an asset. One of these days I'll start learning it since well every plane I've tried needs some tweaking (but hey I like tweaking) :)

So in a post about tweaking an aircraft to make it work better you say one of the advantages of XP is not needing to tweak? *ducks and hides* :)

Hmm, I recall in the demo being able to fly with VOX without filing a flight plan. Maybe I am remembering incorrectly, though. I do remember it got picky if you deviate from the commands it wanted to hear, though. It's one of the things that kept me from ordering. I do hope there's stil work on future versions, though, it's a great base of an ATC app and the closest of all I've tried. It just needs some flexibility improvement and a way to interact with traffic (and a price cut) and I'll purchase it.

Hmm. When FSX takes half power to even start a plane rolling and most addon devs I've read say this is because the ground has too high of a friction component, but I admit I haven't tried making a plane say I'm repeating what I've read most often and it seems to match my findings. "With the right add ons" -- exactly. I have yet to find one, though. I did have fun today doing wheelies at 20knots and many planes will move some on the ground with elevator or rudder controls even while not moving. I do really like Carenado's Archer II taxing feel, though, unless there's a more-than-moderate wind in which case can sometimes require full rudder to keep it from going off the road. Anyway, I realize that mentioning different sims and possible shortcomings starts people getting defensive and that's not my intent so I hope it's not taken that way.

The default planes leave a lot to be desired, FYI. Also, the ground behavior of XP can be very entertaining. Where FSX has too much friction on the ground, XP has not enough. While it can be annoying, it does go away once the plane is in the air. Also keep in mind many addons have much better behavior (while others can be even more entertaining).

BTW, RealAir's airplanes like the Scout and Duke do require good rudder usage along with the freely available 172 air file. And yes, I'm not as impressed with the Katana 4X as many others are, either. For whatever reason rudder usage seems under-used in simulated airplanes in many sims -- it's one of my issues with XPlane's planes, too -- after doing a 60-degree bank steep turn with no rudder.

Unfortunately, I don't think XP pays attention to the TIR profiles and uses its own system. It's different on every plane, too, so I assume how TIR moves is embedded in the plane's configuration somewhere. I'd love to be corrected, though. ( It's one of my bigger sore spots with XP as I cannot stand how TIR behaves under it. It's not only so sensitive that just by slouching and straightening an inch I go for a perfect position to completely outside of the airplane, it also does not turn well, either. Turning in many planes feels more like you're giving a command to look left or right and the camera then pivots and actually moves its position, too, creating very awkward feelings. )

Aye and thank you again for your reply. I haven't run into memory issues yet but I also haven't used any custom scenery.

Thank you for the answer. I'm sure there are reasons but I've only heard of it spoken as some magical chant, "XP isn't perfect but just wait until it's at 64bits!"

@LAdamson: Yeah, I got excited to try some soft field take-offs but the Carenado Archer II with flaps down actually can't even pull the nosewheel off the ground until well after it can rotate with flaps up. :( I am sure, as people really knowledgable with XP claim, that the sim supports the physics to handle most situations correctly, but I think sims shouldn't expect years of dedication from authors to get decent physics from the planes. I hope as time marches on, this side of simulators find improvement.

Lack of rudder may help your thoughts. I am curious though why so many people are awaiting for 64bit. It reminds me back in the days of 32bit game consoles. Number of bits by itself really doesn't mean much. I do enjoy the sim, though, despite all my issues and facepalm moments with it. It'll get even better when the likes of A2A, RealAir and PMDG can really do the studying to get well-behaved flight models in all areas. Found any good gems of addon planes?

I just wanted to agree with others: merge the free FS9 real air AIR file with the default 172. The TSS sound files are pretty good although it crackles in my cockpit sounds but is perfect in exterior views. I also recommend the 2008 and 2009 free skins you can find -- I believe they're either located in the file library here or the OZ library. I'm not at my computer so can't look it up easily. And then wait for the new 172 by RealAir and also keep an eye on A2A for its 172.

Hi Jcomm, I hate to tell you not to get those Milviz planes because I hear they are pretty good. However, I can say the RA Dukes are phenomenal. I definitely recommend getting the bundle deal with both the turbine and piston. The turbine is pure adrenaline but also a bit too fast for my tastes often and the piston fits that need perfectly. They're both wonderfully modeled planes that are one of the fee that handle ditching in water among all the standard RA goodies of good engine out behavior, spins, stalls, slips, etc. My only complaint with the piston version is its a bit heavy on frame rates when compared to some other GA models. Enjoy! Oh and EZdok is a must. While the effects are nice it's also great for customizing the cameras. I couldn't fly without it, FSUIPC and TIR.