Hathaway

Yes, it is meant to be like that because FSX actually turns off AI traffic at high time compression settings. So when auto-compression causes a drop below 16x you will inherently come across that "loading" screen as the AI traffic is re-loaded.

Is this a persistent problem, or a one time event? I'm noticing you are currently showing a tailwind. Were you keeping an eye on what the winds were doing at this time? Occasionally when wind directions between vertical levels are strongly different, the crap smoothing by FSX results in your airspeed dropping because you cannot accellerate sufficiently fast to keep it up as the wind swings around you. Do you have any aftermarket weather engines running? You certainly shouldn't have to use FLCH nor adjust your V/S manually during a properly configured VNAV climb, so I'd investigate other aspects first.

I'm betting it had more to do with the posting of the copyrighted "Boeing Performance Manual" than any "hitting close to home".

If you are willing to sacrifice a touch of visual realism, you can actually. Just turn on the option to always show the physical throttle position, then while A/T is engaged match the physical throttle position indicator to the A/T commanded throttle position. Then if A/T is ever disengaged for any reason, you'll be commanding the same thrust setting.

I am not sure how one "sets a livery as default", so let me guess: You downloaded the Unpainted livery, then either did one of the two: (1) Modified the aircraft.cfg file so that the unpainted livery is under the [fltsim.0] heading or (2) Renamed the Texture.PMDG_u folder to Texture.pmdg or (3) Copied the contents of the Texture.PMDG_u folder unto the Texture.pmdg folder Do any of those describe how you "replaced the original PMDG texture"?

The only aspect of it I would use would be performance calculations to determine appropriate de-rates. Otherwise, I have no interest in trying to view charts within the virtual cockpit. I print 'em out or view them in the ol' acrobat reader on-screen.

It's highly recommended to not set any advanced add-on aircraft as the "Default" for free-flight when FSX is first opened, if that's what you mean by "default". It can lead to many undesired issues (not to mention a slower FSX startup time). Regardless though, to select other liveries, just be sure the "Show all variations" check-box at the bottom of the "Select Aircraft" browser is checked and you should see all liveries.

Not for the vast majority of us who can press "Shift + 2" Why on earth would you let some software kill off the Shift+2 shortcut? And are you really totally prevented from simply re-assigning it? It seems like that would be the best solution to your problem: It's only one step to get at your CDU with a key assignment, and it doesn't negativley impact framerates for the rest of us who don't need a new click-spot.

Switching over to UNICOM to announce your arrival intentions to the Leesburg Executive Airport traffic?

Except, as discussed in the 777 intro documentation, your viewpoint in the actual aircraft wouldn't allow you to look at the EICAS message without turning away from the external view either. Having every portion of the main panel in at-a-glance sight as well as a view of the outside is in no way more realistic.

In most of the videos people are using EZCA, but you can try the built in VC views by pressing 'A'. You'll find pressing 'A' three times will have you looking directly at the overhead panel with no head twisting needed. Hold 'Shift' and press 'A' three more times to come right back to the pilot's view in the VC.

I would say that estimate leans towards the absurd based on the chatting in the AoA release party chatroom. Seemed most everyone was getting successful downloads with only a few having problems. The thing is, those who it worked for, aren't flooding the forum here complaining, so all you are seeing are those who had problems. Additionally, from those who I have spoken with about issues, no-one who used PayPal had problems while those few who did, did not use PayPal. It may well be a fluke, or it could be that PayPal's massive financial transaction infrastructure can handle the traffic a lot easier than PMDG's already loaded-up servers. I would ask if there are people here in this thread having issues who used PayPal, and if not, I would suggest new purchasers go with the PayPal option. Edit: Huzzah! Hypothesis defeated based on a new post just a few up!

No. Ground vehicles are beyond the scope of the B777 and can be added with their own ground enhancement add-ons if so desired.

In and out of checkout after some slow processing in about 10 mintues and the download took a grand total of 8 minutes just a few minutes ago. Not bad at all if you ask me.

JaneRachel Whittaker gave a great post describing it with some discussion in the thread thereafter. Check it out: http://forum.avsim.net/topic/415050-beta-notes-you-dont-have-time-to-fly-longhaul-think-again/

So far, I've not ran into any problems, and the performance is exceeding what I expected (even before the overclock), so I'd say quite happy with it for the add-on combinations I'm using.

If you want to squeeze out the funds for the i7 and GTX 780, you'll be guaranteed good performance, but it may be overkill to ride that bleeding edge. I personally just rebuilt my system last week with a Z87 motherboard, i5-4670k, and GTX 680, OC'd the CPU up to 4.5 GHz on a good air cooler (Phanteks), and put Windows and FSX on a SSD. (These moves will cut your video card price down from around $700 down to around $400 and shave the processor from around $350 to near $200.) So far I've got FSX with UTX, GEX, REX, and Opus installed and the PMDG 737NGX runs with the frames pegged at 30fps (where i've got the limit set) almost all the time, even flying into MegaAirport sceneries like Frankfurt, it jumps around in the high 20's but often still pegged at 30. Unless you plan to go with more taxing add-ons than these, then you could scale down if you're funds are tight. And be weary of stepping down the vid card or the processor alone, based on NickN's writeups one or the other could become your performance bottleneck, so pairing them appropriately is the best way to maximize your spending.

At first I wanted it released ASAP, but now I'm kinda glad I've had some time, as I just rebuilt my 6-year old AMD Athlon 64 x2 6000+ with a GeForce 8800 into a i5-4670k with a GTX 680 and a SSD! Given that I got used to pretty low quality settings and sub-20 framerates, I plan to be blown away once I get GEX/REX/ASX installed, optimize FSX, and overclock my processor! Given that I'll be finishing up optimizing this week, I'll guess that the 777 will be released this Friday, because the world revolves around me, obviously. B)

About the implementation of a chemtrail system?

I would suggest a third possibility: The animation of the fans is fine, but when diplayed in FSX at some arbitrary frame-rate, they might create "strobe-light" style effects when converted to a standard video file playing back at 26 frames per second.

Big difference being, NASA was spraying inert particles, like Alumina, meant to seed clouds, not toxic chemicals to kill off / dumb down the population as the nutters suggest regular contrails are.

I'm guessing the deal is that SB either isn't going to or isn't allowed to store the data from each cycle continiously (so anyone who ever bought one will always be able to build flight plans based on that data set). Instead, based on the interface in place, I'm guessing that Navigraph keeps the current and last cycles available on their servers and SB queries that data remotely, and once they are no longer hosted, back to the base AIRAC cycle.

You would be mistaken about saving fuel. Recall in our discussion here we mention the "Optimum" cruise altitude. It isn't as simple as "higher is better", the optimum altitude for fuel burn is lower than the maximum altitude you can reach, and increases as you get lighter. When you fly above the optimum altitude, the increased AoA required to maintain altitude results in an increase in induced drag and thus increased fuel burn. So in actuality, step climbing saves you MORE fuel than simply climbing as high as you can as soon as you can. To be fair, it sounds like you might be misinterpreting what the pilot said and might be mixing a few different concepts together. Step climbs aren't forced by any wing issues or lack of power, but are a natural result of pursusing an optimum altitude as it changes with your aircraft's weight.

No, you are being "attacked" because you blatantly insulted everyone who uses 3D virtual cockpits by labeling them "amateuers". You're not the victim so you'll find no pity here. Just be more respectful next time and the discussion won't go sour. B)

I think that's the whole point of his post.