Robert McDonald

Take a look at my most-recent videos on YouTube. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at what HD Textures 2.0 and SkyMaxx 1.1 / UrbanMaxx bring to XPlane 10.25. Snow is coming soon... but the overall effect in terms of realism can be stunning - and markedly so compared to the competing sim platforms. Not just at night! Take a close look at the vehicles when you're on final in XP10. Jaw-dropping. And the runway rushing up to meet you - the shadows - the rays of the sun changing as your heading changes... a lot to be happy about RIGHT NOW. Oh, 64-bits, and yes, 64-bit ATC (PilotEdge or Vatsim) as well.

Actually, it's very good, because of the glass cockpit (see it just below the outside view of the plane?) Plus, in the USA, I use Garmin Pilot which has a moving map that shows your airplane in relation to the terrain (or the taxiways when in an airport - that is called 'safe taxi' function). The only 'bad' thing I can say about Garmin Pilot is that all of its charts and functionality are strictly USA. Here's today's footage (very short). Take a look at 50+ frames on the wing monitors (the center screen is locked at 30 fps all the time). Those external monitor frames can really go insanely high with non-dense scenery (dark sky and stars). Reality is most of the time they are 45 or more...sometimes a substantial amount more. This means the airport rushing past the side windows on your landing touchdown streams by butter-smooth. To me, the best investment I made in the entire setup was: 1- Sim-Avionics Glass Cockpit 2- HP Rove all-in-one for glass cockpit guages (networked via Wi-Fi) 3- Triple PCs (Dell XPS 8500) w/ upgraded 750-watt Corsair PSU plus upgraded MSi Gamer OC 4GB DDR5 GPUs in each. 4- Skymaxx Pro 1.1 plus UltraMaxx 5- HD Mesh (Donation Ware) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W802HbTz3ak and... (note the glass cockpit - you can see the extended centerline for the departure runway [ the white ---- dashed line ]. The triple screens help a great deal for situational awareness, because now you can see the airport on your downwind before you commence your base turn.

+1 for the guy who said your current video card might need a step up. Bluntly, in XPlane, the MORE VRAM you have, the better off you will be. 3GB is GOOD! 4GB is probably 'the sweet spot'- consider MSi Gamer OC 770 w/ 4GB option (also avail with 2GB) 6GB is ULTIMATE- but pricey, standard on the GTX Titan The Msi works great on an i5 PC, and frames rates are insanely good. The card if you shop a bit, can now be bought WITH 4GB of VRAM for $399 less $15 mail-in rebate. It's a game-changer. Requires decent power supply (I like Corsair 750M semi-modular). The website that is named after a South American River has both items for reasonable pricing. If you buy directly from the main site, all products are returnable for full refund in first 30 days. This may NOT be true if you are buying from a "trusted partner" off their website. Deal only with the main company to be sure! Off the shelf PCs have very poor video cards, generally-speaking. They almost always are less-than-the-retail version of the product, made to the specs of the PC builder. Prices are volatile, do your shopping and be prepared to push the 'buy now' button when you find the right price. I hesitated waiting for Black Friday, and the Jungle Rainforest website ran out! Luckily, they got more a few days later. +1 for new Skymaxx Pro 1.1 (1.1 JUST came out, and really enhances performance). Beware of FSX scenery that has been ported-over to XPlane. San Diego Buildings is one example. Looks tasty in daytime, buildings are black at night (not lit). Causes 3-second hard-freeze in powerful system only scenery that does that. The buildings portion alone is 1 GB of VRAM. If you have a 2GB card, you should NOT set it to run at 2GB texture load, you will experience stutters anytime the VRAM needs to be flushed. Better is 4GB of VRAM and 2GB of headroom.

Important news! X-Aviation informed me this morning that Skymaxx Pro ver. 1.1 has just been released (this is a free upgrade for all 1.0 Skymaxx Pro owners, and includes several important fixes, most-notably, the "frames hit" that was part and parcel of the initial release is no longer an issue. Translation: insanely beautiful clouds, apparently gets rid of sudden complete GRAY SCREENS in XP10 (a HUGE bonus), God Rays can be left operational (the sunbeams coming down through heavy dark clouds)... now rating this add-on as a "must own"... FYI.

It's a challenge, and it rated pretty high on the stressometer. OTOH, it was worth it, once I finished doing the upgrades.

I will have to do some test flights. I just upped the ante on the wing PCs. Added 750 watt Corsair power supplies in lieu of 460 watt Dell XPS 8500 stock PSU. Replaced Dell Stock GPU with GTX660, then swapped those out to Msi Gamer GTX770 OC 4GB DDR-5 to match up better with the center PC GTX Titan (6GB DDR5). Frames are pretty decent, but some trades have to be made. HDR had to be switched off being the main concession. But generally frames are very high I would say 40+ up to 100+ depending on the complexity of the scenery being drawn, and the SkyMaxx weather rendering. God Rays is OFF in SkyMax, and most settings are dialed down a bit, as I also use HD Mesh. Never thought about being a computer engineer... now I "ARE" one. Prices fluctuate quite a bit on the Video cards. I was fortunate and caught one on the Jeff Bezos' site below 400 (after rebate). I am quite impressed with the Msi brand of video cards. Their 'twin-frozr' dual cooling pipes and twin fans is a GREAT way to minimize heat- and best solution I've found to date. Their GAMER edition cards are already overclocked "stock" and whisper quiet. The Corsair PSU (750M) is semi-modular, and fits in the same spot that the midget DELL stock PSU goes. Space is at a premium in the happy-meal over-the-counter PCs. Yes, I built the 'main' box. That's a lot less fun 'lately'. I'd rather be flying. Cheers.

The Sim Avionics dev team is 'looking' at the VRinsight MCP Combo II (they presently already support it's predecessor). Nothing "official" yet.

Sim Avionics has 'pieces' of software so that you can connect it to different displays. In a higher level of simming, you would have a separate monitor for the PFD/ND, another for the EICAS, and so on. To be clear, SA (SA="Sim-Avionics) has a SERVER piece, then several other pieces, a virtual overhead, a virtual FMC, a virtual MCP, a virtual clock, ND, PFD, etcetera. Your current system is very nice indeed. The way I built my current setup the HP ROVE (about $970 at Costco) 20" has an infinite number of positions because it has a built in tilt up stand, that can go from completely horizontal to a much higher angle when fully tilted upwards. In my system, the i7 2600k 4.73 with Titan is driving the center screen and XPlane at 4.73GHZ (overclocked). My old XPS9000 with i7 at stock speeds and a Msi GTX660 is driving the SERVER piece of SA, and also runs the RW hardware FDS CDU which in essence is a VGA monitor (1024x760) on a small screen (see my third video in this thread). At times I use this same PC to run the SA Virtual Overhead. The Rove 20" is running the PFD/ND/EICAS customized arrangement with the Virtual Flaps Guage (all part of SA) and directly below that, also on the ROVE is the virtual MCP panel. In the real world, this arrangement is backwards, the MCP would be on top, the PFD/ND would be underneath it. Since the ROVE is a touch screen, it is possible to manually tap things to change them, but honestly speaking, using the wireless mouse is faster and more precise. The "next step" would be to remove the Virtual MCP and use my VRinsight MCP II (Boeing) hardware. That piece of kit is being programmed by a buddy as we speak. When he has all the coding finished, that will be my play. I have a pair of Msi Gamer GTX 770s coming for the wing pcs, principally because they have 4GB Vram on board. Because I have elected to pile the HD Mesh and some photo-realistic sceneries in my setup, the WING pcs (NOT the TITAN PC) sometimes overload as the texture buffers fill and need to be flushed. This causes a (temporary but severe) stutter or unacceptable frames rate (sub 20) on the wings. This behavior did not start until I piled the freeware HD texture tiles and some other very complex scenery into my customized scenery folder. Important empirical tip: Make sure you put XP folder beneath your C: drive or in some other "unprotected" location on your system. Placing it only on your DESKTOP you may experience strange behavior when you try to move or modify files within the XP folder, an offshoot of Windows security. At least that was my experience. I would try to delete this file or that, and it would magically 'reappear'. Once I moved XP to be off the desktop and placed the XP Folder beneath the main drive letter, this strange behavior stopped. As I said previously, the 'ideal' setup for triple displays in XP (long-term) would be three Titans running off 3 PCs. That is a pricey path though. My wing PCs are Dell XPS 8500s, that model has been superceded (now) by the XPS 8700. Those have i5 CPUs and are not overclock capable AFAIK. The stock power supply is only 460 watts, thus I am upgrading the PSU to 750 on them to drive the Msi GTX 770 Gamer GPU cards. The Msi "Twin Frozr" cooling fans/pipes are the best air-cooling solution I've found for graphics cards. The 770s have recently dropped in price about $384 after 15 mfg rebate. There are two models one with 4GB and one with 2. Of course 4GB is the only logical choice for me.

I no longer own the scaled-down VRinsight 737 overhead. The FlightDeckSolutions model is FULL SIZE and is an astounding piece of hardware, but it is CAD 4000. That was enough to stop me. But if we're DREAMING, well now! Thanks for the kind compliment. Making videos is a goal. It's a BIG time-burner though. Cheers.

Newest short vid demo of Glass Cockpit from FlightDeckSolutions Sim-Avionics and triple-screen triple-pc exterior displays 180-degree Field of View (FOV). Currently using Saitek Radio Panel, works well and BIG numbers, easy to read. BIG knobs, easy to turn. Would love to have the full lower pedestal, but that's down the road. Switching out the wing PCs video cards to 4GB Vram GTX780s with 750 watt Corsair PSUs.

That's funny! I don't care WHO you are!!

I understand. Best of luck on your project. The PRO line of FDS stuff is really breathtaking. Pricey- but really worthwhile, if you have the means. Yes, for the triple displays, in essence your are running 3 copies of XPlane. All of the SCENERY must be mirrored, and the ATC plugins must be mirrored as well. XPUIPC is the exception. It only goes on the MAIN PC, and can NOT be on the wings. Also, if you purchase the XP HUD, it ONLY belongs on the CENTER screen (you would never have a "heads up display" on a left or right side-window)! If you're going XPlane with networked displays and you are going triple PCs, you'll want good VRAM on ALL 3 PCs used in your display. My center PC has a GTX Titan w 6GB Vram. To do it right, I should have 2 more Titans on the wing PCs. I don't yet have that. I have 2GB GTX460s. In very heavy photo-real scenery I occasionally encounter a stutter on the wings because the VRAM buffers flood and have to be flushed. 4GB VRAM would likely be enough. That's going to be around $380 per PC plus a new Power supply on each PC to do that, just to gain 2GB extra VRAM. All told that's approaching $1000 to add 2GB of Vram on 2 pcs. I'm waiting on that one! $2500 to do it right with a pair of TITANS and a lot more power. Then I have a heat concern as the 'happy meal' wing pcs have consumer cases, poorly ventilated and poorly cooled.

See glass cockpit at 0:39 I want to encourage you to go XPlane. Long-term, it's the 'right' move if you're thinking of the triple display IMHO. Part of that is the fact that the displays can be done over a network, and each monitor can have it's own controlling PC. Recommended MINIMUM VRam on each video card: 3GB MIN, 4GB is better. The Titan680 on my main PC has 6. You need a lot of Vram for the HD rendering and large photorealistic textures. I haven't shot any footage yet with the new HD Mesh V2 for XP10, but it is beyond superlatives. Not knocking P3D, but just saying. If you want to someday build your own cockpit with the real deal instruments and MIP panel and glareshield, yada yada, you will be happier long term with XP, IMHO. Yes, Sim Avionics with XP64. Using the x737 64-bit flight model that is free download on XP org site, remove the interior cockpit plugin (Sim-Avionics does that task). You no longer see the cockpit view on your display. Your DESK is your cockpit. Thus I have the glass cockpit (shown in my daytime video I think). The glass cockpit is on a HP Rove 20" all-in-one PC. Amazing tilt-stand base, works ideally to place the displays at a 45 degree angle below the main view. The 'networking' feature that is standard in XP 10 is golden. I have each monitor set for 60 degrees Left: -60 Center: 60 Right +60 XPlane 10 must be installed on all 3 display PCs, and you need XP DVD1 in each PC or an XPlane USB key in each PC. When you add new scenery packs you must add them to all 3 PCs. The FDS CDU alone looks and feels like it came out of a real 737. (They also make a 777 model). FDS also makes an amazing 737 Overhead. It's CAD 4k, so it's not sitting above my monitors. But it's to RW scale. The FDS stuff is amazing. Nice people too. I regard Sim-Avionics as a game-changer and the 'key' to making it all work. Cheers.

Thanks for the kind words. Blew my mind too :dance:

No matter what ultimately happens, PMDG is the "MUST-OWN" airplane for any platform, and I applaud and encourage Captain Randazzo and his team. This is wonderful news and will be a real shot-in-the-arm for XPlane enthusiasts.

+1

Well, you need to assess your commitment level. I was happy for 2 years with one monitor flying my desktop and using the 3D cockpit graphics. Then I realized that switching back and forth to try to see what was what in the virtual cockpit and trying to look out the windows was an issue. This setup is wildly better (for me), but it had a cost associated - both in dollars as well as time. I encourage you to try it... in XPlane it works really well. XPlane renders more smoothly, and the glass cockpit displayed on the new 20" HP ROVE all-in-one (see my videos) is a game changer, because the PFD and ND are directly below my outside view, all information is available all the time during flight. This takes the immersion levels to a far higher level than before (for me), and makes landing using complex maneuvers such as circle-to-land a real joy because now you can line up and roll out much easier. What I did was get 3 PCs, the 'main' one and 2 happy meals (from Sam's club, Dell 8500s i5s). The Sim-Avionics is running on the network on my old i7 (not the main XP pc), and the glass cockpit is on the HP Rove 20" all-in-one, which has a nifty tilt base so you can set it below your monitor array. All monitors are elevated about 4" above the desktop on black metal stands from Staples. CDU is on an actual FlightDeckSolutions hardware CDU, also controlled by SimAvionics. Airplane model is the XPlane 737 supplied by Sim-Avionics. PM if you have questions. The happy-meal wing PCs did not come with monitors, and they had GTX620 video, which is garbage. I bought a pair of MSi GTX660s, which provide decent frames from Amazon. Even 2 pcs will up your game. I encourage you to pursue your dreams.

The early verdict from the media (taken with a grain of salt) is that some of the foreign airline pilots are overly-reliant on the automated procedures (ILS approach) and are uncomfortable with or unused-to hand-flying the entire landing (Visual approach). The ILS for the 28's at KSFO had been turned off because the runway threshold was being shortened. This forced a visual-only landing protocol for those runways. Sadly, the Asiana pilots were used to the ILS landing (almost fully automated) approach, and had real problems judging the proper descent speed and altitude on the visual. It has been suggested that the three of them basically ignored the minima airspeed and by the time they realized they were going to be short (of the proper touchdown point), the plane simply couldn't accelerate back to climb speed and wound up with a tail-strike short of the runway. The issue is a a touchy one. No matter which side of the automation question you are on, both people and automatic equipment are subject to failures and errors. Some foreseeable, others preventable, still others we haven't even thought of yet. How about the pilots that landed their Dreamlifter at the wrong airport? Kevin is correct - automation will come, because it costs less. And the marketers will figure out a way to make us accept it. Honestly, when you consider what airplanes cost to purchase, fuel, staff and maintain, it's astounding to me that ANY airline even exists, much less makes a profit. Oftentimes the government is involved via subsidies. And of course the airlines negotiate fuel prices far into the future (think Southwest) and don't pay what PP's do at the airport for fuel. A Boeing retiree told me that Boeing could almost give the planes away for free, and make it up off the parts sales. Every nut, bold and DZUS fastener on modern (U.S.) airplanes has to be F.A.A. certified. So that really limits where you can buy the parts, and has an upward impact on price points for those parts. When I recently toured the Everett, WA. KBFI plant, I was shocked at the MSRP for the big Boeing jets. Sure, I know they 'cut deals' based on order size, and other factors, but still, it's a BUNCH of bucks to buy a new airplane in your choice of colors, including OnStar and heated seats!

I understand the 'logic' in what you say. I also think only time will tell if less really is more... yes, it costs less with no FO. But is it safer? or even "as safe". I submit that there is no way to prove it, because you cannot prove a negative. You can't prove that more near-misses (as an example) are avoided, or other disasters-in-the-making that the cockpit crew overcame, are reduced with fewer people in the cockpit. Of course management doesn't care. They only care about co$t$.

Everyone has an opinion on this issue- and it's refreshing to hear from both sides of the aisle. As a systems engineer and programmer, let me tell you the truth about computers: They're wonderful. They're great. They save time, money and lives. Until they break. And every last one of them WILL break. It's a law of physics. We're not even talking about hackers (or worse) getting involved in the brave new world of ground-controlled aircraft. So the words "Fail Safe" are no more true in a single-pilot system than in the current implementation. Our present system has worked well for so long, we now assume that "less (pilots) is more (efficient)". (The single-pilot clean sheet proposal) It is until it isn't. Then people die. Argument is that under present system, dual pilots cause crashes. Greater automation is proposed as a solution. Of course, we have NO STATISTICS to back up that assertion. It's simply a way to cut costs. Period. Marketing types will say it's better, safer, yada yada. Less is more! It worked for paper products like tissues and toilet paper, it should work just as well in another industry! And you can't prove how many fatalities were PREVENTED by having that second pair of eyes in the cockpit. Only the crashes are tallied. A lot of the close calls never are. The failures during flight that the pilots worked out, one doing the flying, the other guy trying solutions. I prefer to have the experts onboard. Not playing Super Nintendo from company headquarters. I'm just sayin'

First: May I strongly recommend you consider doing a FULL SYSTEM IMAGE BACKUP and do them FREQUENTLY? By doing so, you are protected from situations much as you find yourself in now. We've all 'tried something' and then 'tried to go back' (to what we had before). When we cannot go back, we are rewarded if we have a full system backup, because then we can REVERT our machine to exactly what it was X days ago... be it 1 day, 2 days, 2 weeks, or 2 months.... Acronis.com has a free 30 day trial of True Image Home 2014, which is a great choice for the home user. License is "per PC", so if you have several machines, you will want to consider the multi-pack (3-users). Given that all computers will fail 'someday'... you don't want to be that guy who has no backup and then blows 100s of hours on reinstalls. Acronis also has a 'try and decide' feature which allows you to go back to what it was before you installed the new bit of software... I suggest you look into it... or not... depending on your patience levels.

Ok, so tell me this: How does a pilotless plane land on visual approach? What if the ILS beam is turned off/fails and the weather is inclement? Ground shear? What happens when a small private plane materializes in the fog that didn't show up on the TCAS for whatever reason? And that small plane is flying head-on course into the airliner? I laughed about I wouldn't be me... that's the truth, no? At least trains run on tracks. Airplanes have unlimited directional paths... and those paths may include other objects that aren't "supposed" to be there. Birds, Deer (on the runways), other planes (in the air or in the wrong place on the ground). I submit that the guy on the ground who is watching over things simply can't react in every possible scenario - and you need the First Officer. NUMBER ONE cause of aircraft accidents: Pilot FATIGUE. What if the guy on the ground dozes off? Who's watching HIM??

Well, this is highly interesting and well thought out - great comments one and all! No doubt the airlines would love to reduce crew, eliminate toilets, and have us all fly standing up the entire time, much like sardines. People actually said they WOULD fly without a restroom onboard, and some even said they would fly in a "crouch" position in return for a lower fare! Really?? Arguments can be made for both sides of the drone question, but the reality is, I don't see human beings placing their lives in the hands of robots or ground pilots, or all-computer flight deck. Yes, they were able to eliminate the engineer and the navigator. Yes, they likely COULD set up total ground control. But even if they try to dump the first officers, I don't see the public going for that. What if the one and only pilot had the fish? Or a heart attack? Possibly 50 years from now, we will have transporter beams, I think that technology will eventually be developed. Smart guys are sitting in a room right now talking about quarks and quantum mechanics, and "black hole" theories. How far are we from disintegrating an object, transporting it via a 'worm hole' in space, and then reassembling it at the other end? No, it won't happen today, but it may happen down the road. Now, doing that with a living organism as opposed to "freight" (objects) is a bit more problematical. Until that time, I don't see the cockpit crew dwindling. As far as the huge demand for pilots... I am sure there are plenty of souls willing to drive the bus. They may not all speak English as their first language, but believe me, there are the bodies out there!

I came late to the flight sim party, I've been flying online for about 2 years or so, and already nearly 600 hours. So, you can see I fly often. Sometimes 6 hours a day! It's a constant challenge trying to ramp up my simulation immersion levels. I have to say the quite recent addition of the full-scale Flight Deck Solutions (FDS) 737 FMC has taken my breath away, along with the commitment to triple monitors and triple PCs running XPlane 10.25b3 in 64 bits. I met a guy who just completed an 18 year full-scale 737 cockpit restoration, where everything works right down to the power trim wheels in the TQ... and I guess you could say that would be my ultimate goal. Honestly, what I experience now is hard to argue with. I enjoy all of it, including the pre-flight planning and filing, getting the weather, and flying end-to-end with ATC from blocks-to-blocks via Pilot Edge. It's hard to imagine getting any closer to reality, unless I was actually able to fly a full motion Level D sim, or sit in the real deal (which is never going to happen in this lifetime). I have flown private planes briefly, and enjoyed it, but I couldn't get too excited about the airspeeds in a civilian prop. The idea of jet flight is what captivates me, the power during the climb... the effortless grace and the joy of flying the genius products coming out from Boeing.

A lot of members weighed in on this topic in another thread- and because it was off-topic, I have decided to create a specific thread on the subject. The military is making great use of drones, and of course someone on the ground has to fly the drone, but that person is NOT on the aircraft. Several questions come to mind - and it seems problematic that any government oversight agency is going to cave in on drone ops in a CIVILIAN commercial aircraft anytime soon for a number of reasons. An Avsim member has commented that most commercial crashes are PILOT ERROR, which argues in FAVOR of drone ops. OTOH, I have a hard time envisioning a DRONE PILOT being able to handle sudden and unexpected in-flight emergencies "in time". Unlike flying a sim, the drone pilot is commanding a ship with REAL human lives at stake. Since that drone pilot is NOT ABOARD the plane, one could argue he or she is not truly INVESTED in a 100% safe outcome record. Others may postulate that COMPUTERS would control this brave new world of flight, obviating the need for human pilots, even on the ground. The immediate question arises, is "FAIL-SAFE" an oxymoron? Arguably, no computer system known is 100% uptime with no failures of any kind. In addition, ambient warning sounds heard in the cockpit are unlikely to be heard on the ground. Other tell-tale handling and performance problems that occur in flight may be undetectable by the BIG BROTHER SYSTEM on the ground, or if they ARE detectable, a bad outcome may already be unpreventable by the time the minor sounds become severely loud. For these and a host of other reasons, it still seems clear that there is no substitute for the men and women in the cockpit, notwithstanding the problems with the current system. The idea of 'two' pilots instead of just one is a way to attempt to deal with issues like substance abuse, depression and other forms of mental illness, distraction, health problems being hidden by the pilot, and so on. Of course we still have crashes, and no one has figured out a sure-fire way to deal with pilots who are simply flying off course (think civilian PPs) with no transponder, mixed in with poor weather and/or overloaded airspace. Then you have the weather, which alone is no small threat. I'd still take a pilot with a ton of military flight hours at the helm in lieu of an unseen mainframe on the ground, or a combination of the mainframe and a drone pilot on the ground, all day every day. There is no substitute for expertise, and courage. Just ask Sully Sullenberger. Hard to picture a 7-minute flight ending well post bird-strike with some guy at company headquarters flying the plane with a joystick. Or a computer. The computer can't look at the Hudson and pick a place to ditch. The number of what-ifs in flight are simply too many to be able to be programmed into some lines of code. The coders in our membership will probably nod their heads on that one. Your thoughts?