Eric Tomlin

Bryan, thanks for that reply. Looking back my post may have sounded a bit jerky and it wasnt intended to. I just wanted to point out that a functional RAAS system is excellent and highly desireable for us full scale cockpit builders (me an LJ45 guy, who also develops panels, etc.) and because we often fly with real copilots (me every friday night) we dont always need the virtual copilot and services found in your great products (which I've purchased in the past). In fact, I only learned about this RAAS system via a Youtube video where the system can be heard in an actual LJ45 landing and then back-taxiing at Turks and Caicos: ( ) I had never known about it before until talking with the pilot about the system- I thought it was incredible. He explained what it was and I was able to then learn more about it via Honeywell's site. I did purchase the Runway Advisor package over the weekend from Eric M. and it's fine for $8 but I really want a more complete system and will gladly pay a good bit more. Especially if there's a way to direct the sound to a 2nd sound card or over the network to a different PC. Thanks for the update and I appreciate the work going into these products. BTW, an FS2Crew would be neat for business craft too as there's tons of business jet guys that dont have full scale sims also. Since we fly mainly point to point with no gates I think it'd be a bit simpler to develop, but then again, probably not :-)

I just hope that this product can be used outside of FS2Crew. I am a LJ45 driver and there's at least 10 others of us waiting to have this developed but we dont need the airliner part. Great job so far!

Learjet 45- I've been trying to woo a developer to create a quality LJ45 for quite some time. I've been making LJ45 panels (full scale sim panels and components) and selling them like hotcakes all over the world over the past 1.5 years. I also work hand in hand with a software dev for the P1000 suite that we use in our full scale LJ45 sim but to date, we only have the default LJ45 aircraft to work with (which is actually pretty nice for default aircraft and works well when finessed a bit and then used in a full scale sim environment). If any developers are reading this and wondering and doubting the LJ45 viability, check out Hangar45 (www.Hangar45.net) a non-commercial site dedicated solely to the building on full scale LJ45 sims. If any devs would like to know more about the project and other pertinent info, you can contact me via EricT@FlightLevel180 DOT org.

I'm having the same kind of issues with my GFTQ module (note, it's not the factory TQ but the Remote Mount Kit, and is connected to my real LJ45 throttles). I can sometimes come in and fire up the sim and the throttles work. Then other times (like right now, which lead me to this thread via searching for a solution) it doesnt. I've already rebooted once. I think we can conclude it's a USB issue, but I have to say that before I recently rebuilt my sim (hardware) I never experienced this.

Thanks again Goran.

Ok, thanks for that detailed reply. Im still at a loss though for an explanation that if the idea behind BET is that if the aircraft is shaped like a real aircraft, then it should fly like that aircraft. At least that's what I thought the idea was, and there was little need for going in and tweaking all those items you listed. As I suspected, there IS a lot more to making the XP aircraft fly correctly (which makes plenty sense to me) but again I honestly thought the idea was that IF you could build a model in plane maker that was dimensionally accurate, then it would pretty much have the same flight characteristics. In fact, this is exactly how I interpret the claims made on the product website:"X-Plane works by reading in the geometric shape of any aircraft and then figuring out how that aircraft will fly. It does this by an engineering process called "blade element theory", which involves breaking the aircraft down into many small elements and then finding the forces on each little element many times per second. These forces are then converted into accelerations, which are then integrated to velocities and positions... Of course, all of this technical theory is completely transparent to the end user... you just fly! It's fun!X-Plane goes through the following steps to propagate the flight: 1: Element Break-DownDone only once during initialization, X-Plane breaks the wing(s), horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer(s), and propeller(s) (if equipped) down into a finite number of elements. The number of elements is decided by the user in Plane-Maker. Ten elements per side per wing or stabilizer is the maximum, and studies have shown that this provides roll rates and accelerations that are very close to the values that would be found with a much larger number of elements."Thanks again for your reply.

See, now this is the PERFECT chance for me to point out why there is absolutely no way to convince me that all the "blade element theory is superior" bull can be anywhere close to true. If the the BET concept is so good, so much better than look up tables, then how is it possible for any aircraft that's modeled even similarly to the real world counter part (like a C172) fly so horrible compared to a 3rd party C172 made for XP? If it's supposed to move through the virtual XP world based on geometry and BET, then it'd have to be a horrible C172 with all kinds of wrong stuff to not fly even remotely like the real one, right? If I am misunderstanding something please show me the light and how I'm wrong (as I have learned, I am often wrong!). In this case though, I have my doubts. Just please explain how a default aircraft could be so bad compared to 3rd party content when BET is in play. If I understand right, you could essentially have 3 different car manufacturers build the same body car (let's say a Corvette built by Chevy, Ford, and Toyota). Even though they may handle differently (due to the way the chassis is built) and have different performance characteristics, the way they behave in a wind tunnel if they had the same body, should be the same, correct? (sitting still in a wind tunnel here in this example). So, likewise, if you build a C172 for Xplane that has the same dimensions as a real C172, should it not "fly" the same as a 3rd party C172 as long as the performance tables for engine thrust is the same? Because remember, the body/shape is what causes the drag- so please show me where I'm wrong here.