avallillo

This did indeed get flamed pretty badly, mostly comments over on YouTube where there were a few negative video reviews. But few of the complaints are truly justified. Certainly you have shown us how good the external visuals are, and the only thing I would nitpick on the internals is the undersized scale of the passenger cabin furniture - it makes the interior look too big. It was big, to be sure, particularly for that era, but just not quite that big. Pilots already seems to be moving ahead with updates, so all may yet be well! And the comparisons to Captain Sim are completely unjustified - not even in the same universe! I suppose it is, in some way, a perverse tribute to how good things have gotten in the hobby that some can whine mightily over small imperfections..... BTW, Captain Sim was actually pretty good back in the day. Their 707 for FS9 was fine for the time, with only a few shortcuts taken that were noticeable to someone like myself, who had actually flown those. Today, of course, is a different story, although nothing really bad can be said about their external modeling and texturing. They just seem to be without those special developers who do the cockpit interiors! True talent is, apparently, in short supply....

Where is this update? I can't find it on the Pilots website...

I came upon this sad information very late - 5 years after the fact. I knew Eric from our mutual alma mater, American Airlines. I flew as an FE with his father Ray Ernst on the 707 on many occasions, and Eric and I flew together occasionally when he got to the 767. In addition to his obviously incredible computer skills, he was an excellent pilot and a great one to fly with. We often spoke of 767 PIC, which I had acquired even before I met him (and used to great effect each year preparing for recurrent training). His passing is a great loss to two worlds. Happy landings fellow flyer.

The Boeing 247, over in MSFS, contains the data to fly with the old 4 course Adcock ranges just like in the old days. Well, not exactly just like, since there are no geographic or weather influences on reception, which drove the old time guys nuts, but it is good enough for government work! They even include some files that port their station locations over to LNM. But they come over as TACANS, instead of radio ranges, at least in terms of the icon. There is an old thread about how to change the icon over to the regular range icon, but it is difficult to understand (at least for me!). First of all, the waypoints in my iteration of LNM contain tacans that are probably actually actual tacans; ie, they have three letter identifiers, whereas the others have 2 letter identifiers which would make them more likely to be the old 4 course ranges. Is that the key to knowing the difference? And if it is, how to go about changing the icon for around 700 such entries?

Thank you, w6kd, for your real world input and thank you for your service! I agree with you completely about the objectives and design of the T-38, although I suppose that we were fortunate in our year in the barrel, because the whole 53 or so weeks that I was in UPT at Craig, we had not a single fatal accident, nor even a major non fatal event. Part of the problems that cropped up in the 1980's may be due to the tinkering they did with what had been the T-41 program, as well as the ROTC FIP program, both of which I had gone through. I understand that for a time there was no preliminary screening at all, which may have led to a few weak students getting through the T-37 only to come to grief in the T-38. I do recall accidents in the T-38 at other bases and in other years than when I was at Craig, so there is certainly a lot of truth to what you say about its characteristics. I have discovered that if I bring the fuel down to around 1500 lb it will fly decently, although the simulation does not seem to like flying a very shallow glidepath like I remember we did in the real thing - it is always wanting to trend higher. And although it will fly at that lighter weight at speeds around 165 and green circle on the AOA, it does start buffeting more than I remember it did when the flare commences (I recall we did not do much of a flare, though, in the T-38 -- just a touch. On my initial solo, I had to go around on my own twice because I ballooned it a bit in the flare by pulling a tad too much, The T-38 solo is the only solo of my whole career that I specifically recall now; the rest are only logbook entries!) w6kd -- do you recall what fuel loads we carried on a normal training sortie (not a cross country)? I recall the thing had not too much total fuel capacity, only around an hour with a bit of reserve considering that we spent a good deal of time in burner on VFR training flights doing acro. It seems like 1500 lb total fuel on arrival back at the pattern may have been what we were landing with. I don't ever recall making a high gross weight landing, such as an immediate return after takeoff. But 45 or so years does dim the memories, even of a spectacular airplane like the White Rocket. In your era, did every student go through the 38, or had they already begun splitting the advanced phase into tracks, such as they have now? I will see if I can find some sort of proof of purchase and send it along so that I can take this over to the specialized forums. Again, I want to say what an overall great piece of work this is! It must be me, judging from the input from pilots who have flown it more recently than I have.

It was indeed a handful back in the day, in the first dozen or so lessons, which is why in UPT the student started out his or her T-38 training on instruments in the back seat (at least when I went through). Landing an airplane that is going as fast as this one does would be a challenge even today, after flying over 20,000 hours in jet transports. That being said, however, I do not recall any mild buffeting on approach. We were aware of the "pebbles, rocks, and boulders" of the high angle of attack regime, but I have no recollection of being in that regime on a properly flown approach, even in the flare. Now it is true that we did not have AOA information, and all of our flying was done with reference to airspeed. Perhaps we were flying it faster than it is now being flown using AOA, I have no idea. On the other hand, if real contemporary T-38 pilots are augering into the ground, that should be a master caution light going off! Even allowing for possible unfamiliarity with PC based flight simulation with its utter lack of feedback cues other than visual, I would not expect a professional pilot current on a type to repeatedly crash an MSFS simulation, if it was accurate. Some years back, about halfway between today and when I graduated from UPT, I had the opportunity to "fly" the USAF Link Trainer for the T-38 - the same ones we flew in 1972. Although by no means as sophisticated as a modern Level D simulator, they were state-of-the-art in the day. The link did not misbehave on approach when I flew it (around 1995). jcorstens hits the nail on the head - if the real plane flew like this it would indeed be a student killer (and an IP killer as well!), and totally unsuitable as a trainer. The safety record of the Talon and the IP comments jcorstens quotes prove otherwise. Make no mistake - this is an outstanding piece of work, and the appearance and operation (with the sole exception of takeoff and landing) is superb. When that virtual cockpit pops up onscreen I feel like I have traveled back in time to 1972! Indeed, the T-38 is one of two airplanes (the other is the Boeing 727) that I really wish I could fly one more time before I put the "W" under the lubber line of life. If only............. Where are the support forums of which you speak? At Milviz' website I find only a general sort of forum with but a single page....

I have had the T-38, both the original and now the advanced versions, for a few years now, and I have had the devil's own time flying both of them. Now if I had not flown the real thing for over 100 hours in UPT I would perhaps not be so nonplussed, but either this thing has some serious flight model issues or else (and this is always a possibility!) there is something wrong with my computer or my disk version FSX installation (I had the same problems with it in FSXSE back when I had it installed in both). Now I must confess up front that although I have time in the real airplane, it was all done back in 1972! So I may have forgotten a thing or two over the intervening 46 years! But in truth the T-38 is not an airplane that you forget. It flew beautifully. So does this one, above about 300 knots. But I always encounter horrendous stall buffet below around 175 knots, and it takes full burner to drag it to the flare. It also buffets at rotation at 150 knots or so. The real thing did not do this back then! If it had, the Air Force would have had a much bigger pilot shortage a lot sooner than they got one now, because all of us would have been killed trying to fly it! Kids with just 100 total hours, most of that in the T-37, were able to learn to fly this without much fuss. In my class (Craig, 72-08) we did not lose anybody in the T-38 phase, although that may have been a bit unusual. But the airplane did not buffet and fall out of the sky below 170 knots - I recall our final approach airspeed being somewhere in the vicinity of 150 knots and over the fence even slower than that. On my computer the airplane will not fly that slow at all! I have thus never really had the opportunity to fly this airplane much, since each flight begins and ends with death staring you in the face! I don't know if it is my computer, my FSX setup, or my stick. The computer is a middle of the road Dell XPS with an I-7-3770 at around 3.5ghz with 8 gig or RAM, and an NVidia GTX 1050Ti with 4 gigs or VRAM. The stick is the very nicd Thrustmaster HOTAS (not the one that looks like the real thing and costs as much, but rather the simpler one).. I should be able to fly this thing down final fully configured at less than MIL power at 150 knots with no buffet whatsoever, and make at least 30 degree banked turns in that configuration. Again, if memory serves. We did not have the AOA gauge back then and used the airspeed, but had no problems with that at all. I recall never experiencing any buffet in the real thing except for the lesson involving accelerated stalls, where we induced the buffet deliberately just to experience it. Ideas anyone? Does anyone else have this same problem?

The seat is not the absolute governing factor, although the only exception I can think of would be a line qualification for a new Captain. In that event, the check airman (always a Captain at my alma mater) is in command, of course, since the "Captain" in the left seat, while type rated, has not completed the IOE required under the regs. In actual practice at most airlines that use a bidding system based upon seniority (which is just about all US airlines, at any rate) the crew positions are bid positions. The PIC is the Captain who was awarded the Captain bid for that trip that month. There are instances, usually at the beginning of a downturn/furlough cycle, when a qualified and current Captain can no longer hold a Captain bid and must revert to holding an FO bid. In this relatively rare circumstance you might find two qualified and current (on the equipment) Captains flying together. The PIC is the one who was awarded the Captain bid for that trip. The other fellow is the FO and is paid as an FO unless some other section of the contract is in play, such as pay protection. (The sections of contracts governing pay can be mind bogglingly complicated! It took a school several weeks long to train new crew schedulers about the pay and credit sections of the pilot agreement. Most pilots are not intimately familiar with all of the provisions!) At my alama mater, the PIC was also indicated on the flight plan. FAA regs require this - all flight plans, even a VFR plan for a Cessna, require the name of the PIC.

Typically these days there is only one "Captain" on a crew, at least at US airlines. Northwest once carried two Captains on their long haul crews, but this probably had as much to do with the fact that once at Tokyo that augmented crew became two regular crews, to roam the Orient for a few days before pairing up again to head for home as an augmented crew. There is only one "pilot in command" at a time, regardless of qualification. At my airline, where augmented crews consisted of one Captain and several type rated FO's, I was in command for the entire flight, even when I was in the bunk. Any command decisions were referred to me. This is probably the case just about everywhere. It is based upon FAA regs and enshrined in company regs as well. N4GIX is correct - pay is computed by the minute from block out to block in. Everyone aboard, pilots and flight attendants, get paid for each of those minutes, at rates that obviously depend upon crew position, equipment (in the case of pilots) and longevity with the airline. This is, of course, more for accountingn purposes than anything else, because as was mentioned, time spent preparing for a flight (and that could be more than an hour for long flights) is not part of pilot or F/A pay calculations. The hourly rates in the contract are what they are in part to provide some phantom compensation for all of that "unpaid" time. Some of the newer airlines have tried flat rate pay schemes, or even montly salaries, but for the most part that sort of thing has not worked out in the long run. With the hourly (actually,as I indicated minute-ly) pay system, the onus is on the pilot to fly in order to get paid. With flat rate systems, golf courses around the world might get crowded as pilots enjoy not having to hustle up some flying time to increase the bottom line!

I sent an email yesterday.

I may have to uninstall and reinstall again. There are a number of problems with the panel as it is, including GFC700 will not capture altitude, no Flight director on GFC700 panel, A/P won't respond to heading select mode on occasions, and A/P does not disconnect - you get the tone but the A/P is still engaged. Only way to kill A/P was turn off avionics bus switch (this is realistic, by the way, since killing avionics bus 2 is one way to shut off the A/P in the real airplane!) Does uninstalling via the windows control panel take care of everything, or are there additional deletions that need to be done?

I'll try the delete. When I press enter after entering the name, nothing happens. TV

Thanks! Will do! TV

I recently installed the latest iteration of the G-1000 panel, after having uninstalled the previous version. I now get messages on FSX startup about multiple items of some sort having the same names. When I click each message sequentially, then FSX starts apparently normally. The messages reappear after selecting a Mindstar G-1000 equipped airplane. Again, clicking each iteration of the message appears to clear the way for normal operation. Is there something wrong with the installation? On another topic, I would like to create some user waypoints. The only way I can find to do this is by using the MFD cursor. Whereas in the real thing you can create them via the User Waypoint page of the Waypoint chapter, that does not seem to work here - I cannot get the cursor beyond the waypoint name. In addition, I cannot delete any user waypoints - the page menu has no content; no "Delete User Waypoint" items. Is this just part of the way things work on this simulation, or am I missing something here? Tony Vallillo

I still fly it, and indeed it was the problems the LDS767 had with Win8 that caused me to downgrade my new computer to Win7, where it lives peacefully now! I am always somewhat bemused by the fixation with "new" graphics, and/or 2D panels that crops up so often. No doubt it is true that the LDS 767 is by now an older product, and perhaps there are newer offerings out there with more eye candy. But this thing still flies remarkably like a real 767; and I know whereof I speak, having flown the real thing for 9 years. Having retired in 2008 (off the 767; the 777 never went anywhere I wanted to go, and the money, while a bit better, was not enough to entice me to eschew the delights of places like Rome and Buenos Aires!) it is now the only 767 I can fly! Better still, since the product is indeed on the older side, it depicts the airplane as I flew it, and not in some upgraded version that came along later. I have heard that there are several other offerings (including at least two for X-Plane) of airliners that have a similar level of detail and realism (especially systems and navigation) as the LDS 767 does, but since I never chose to fly the 737 or 777 I have no interest in doing so on a PC based simulator. The 767, as an airliner, can do everything that any of the others can do, and it had just the right amount of automation - not too much nor too little. I do agree with other responders that an LDS 757, were it to appear shortly, might well have missed the market by now. Even so, I would definitely buy it since it would likely be as detailed and realistic as this previous offering is. Any FS airplane that flies well and operates realistically can never really go out of date! It was well worth flying back in the 767PIC days, and it remains so to this day. An outstanding simulation of a truly outstanding airplane. Tony Vallillo