Don Quixote

I didn't have too much time to fly the Winjeel yet, but I did manage a few circuits and so far I'm very happy with the aircraft. In fact that's an understatement, it's not merely good but outstanding. The attention to detail is quite amazing, as is the excellent interactive checklist. With the realism modes active it isn't all that simple to get the engine started (and keep it running) and the checklist helps a lot. Once you've managed to start the thing up, it flies beautifully and very stable, although not very fast . Also, I love the sounds and the raindrop effects! This is a work of passion, without a doubt! Thank you Anthony for (another) excellent addon. Some small issues I've come across (P3D 3.35, Winjeel 1.10): - Canopy won't open by dragging the handle (when unlocked), but it works by clicking the menu option. - I don't seem to have any touchdown sounds or they are just very quiet? - The reference power settings/speed/etc tables are a bit small to read Also, for Ezdok users, I've found that you should disable the random movement options (at least the 2nd and 3rd of the red buttons), otherwise you get a lot of bumping around (this isn't an problem with the Winjeel, but rather with Ezdok!).

Don't worry, I'm not trying to start an argument either. I just disagreed on the point that ORBX was "much better than any X-Plane scenery". I enjoy flying both sims and both have some pretty good scenery available. NZ is my favourite ORBX region too, by the way! :smile: Regarding FTX Vector, I'd recommend to wait a little before deciding to buy. While FTX Global (Textures) is a great product and well worth the price, Vector (roads and coastlines) still has some issues and IMO isn't as essential. Also, there are other products available (Flight1's Ultimate Terrain series) which do pretty much the same job, but IMO offers better quality. Also, it's available for different regions - so if you only fly in the US, for example, it would be cheaper to get UTX USA rather than Vector (which has global coverage). You can mix FTX Global Base with UTX without any issues, by the way. As others have mentioned it would be a good idea to go slow when buying addons.

Your list is pretty good. I'd say you are on the right track so far! The one thing that you should add as soon as possible is AS16. Weather is (IMO) the single biggest advantage P3D currently has over XP, and AS16 is (arguably) the best weather addon available at this time. FSUIPC is a must-have as well, although it's quite a bit different from XPUIPC. FSUIPC allows you to configure your input devices, buttons, keys etc and assign hem to various profiles, so you don't have to reassign your controls when flying different aircraft (similar to what X-Assign does). It also has many other functions of course. Rex TD and soft clouds are on sale for 50% off quite often, so it's a good idea to wait for the next sale. Another payware addon worth having is the Ezdok camera plugin. One thing I love about X-Plane is the camera system which is very flexible and easy to configure (quick views, etc). P3D's camera system on the other hand is a real PITA and feels like something left over from FS2002, which it probably is. WIth Ezdok it's pretty much what you get with XP's default camera system and the Headshake plugin. If you are looking for some high quality freeware aircraft, there's a good selection available. Manfred Jahn's C-47 / DC-3 is a must-have and can be found at Sim-Outhouse. If you need something smaller, French-VFR have an excellent C150. Have you actually tried X-Plane? While I love the ORBX regions, there are many stunningly high quality freeware scenery addons for XP which IMO rival ORBX or even surpass them in some cases. Particularly for the PNW area and Scandinavia, but also New Zealand.

I can't help you I'm afraid, but my throttle works without issues (also on P3DV3). I have my hardware throttle (Warthog) configured through FSUIPC. I second that request. Initially I tried moving it manually to another location, but it seems that isn't possible because the configuration menu is looking for the config files in the My Documents folder. I guess many of us have a (small) SSD for Windows and a larger harddisk for their flight sim and so on, and we'd generally want to keep any addons off the C drive due to limited capacity.

Thanks for the quick fix Anthony.

Heads-up for those of us who love radial engines: The CAC Winjeel by Ant's airplanes has been released! http://www.antsairplanes.com/winjeel.html For FSX/P3D/P3D2/P3D3. Note that there is a free Demo version available too! Admittedly, I've never heard of this aircraft before but it looks wonderfully ugly and quirky. As I'm a huge fan of Ant's airplanes, particularly the Eaglet and the Trojan, this is an instant buy for me. His past releases have been outstanding in every way, and I'm sure this new one will be even better. The feature list reads extremely impressive: Particularly note the parts about engine wear&tear, windshield rain effects (!) and structural icing effects(!!). Some high-profile developers should take notes...! Cheers, :smile: Steve

Yes, exactly. It models a lot of the aircraft's systems (such as oil, spark plugs, etc.) and almost anything can fail. I've had flap failures, fuel pump failure, instrument failures, and even an elevator failure (that one was scary!).

There are a few possibilites. First, there's the freeware Maintenance and Income Tool (http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/released-m-i-t-maintenance-and-income-tool.434351/) This plugin can create random failures and also checks for damage (i.e. landing too hard). It's been a while since I've used it but I think you can configure the random failures rate as well as most other things. I think this may be just what you are looking for. There are other tools available as well, such as Perfect Flight (payware), which can create random failures as part of it's features. Last but not least, if you want a truly realistic simulation of failures in GA aircraft, there's no way around A2A's range of GA offerings. They have a full maintenance and failure simulation and are well worth the price. Also highly recommended is the Aerosoft DA-20 Katana 4X, which is every bit as sophisticated as the A2A addons.

The shots from ORBX look great, no question about that. I fly both P3D and XP and one thing that always stands out are trees - the FTX ones are excellent and varied, while the ones in XP are, err, not quite as good, to put it mildly. I think better trees in XP would do much towards better looking scenery. But. :wink: While the rural regions look great in P3D, the landclass based urban areas are far less satisfying IMO. It works reasonably well for North American areas, where most cities are arranged in blocks, but for european areas with it's twisting and turning roads and rows of buildings, they all look like random cut-outs somehow grouped together. The result is "an artist's impression of" but usually does not resemble the real thing. With W2XP it's possible to see the actual buildings, or at least something resembling them. This is a massive help for VFR navigation! Also, the 3D roads, bridges, streetlights and so on are amazing during a final approach. Car traffic is a lot better in XP compared to FSX/P3D as well. Also, don't forget that the screenshots on the FTX website are always hand-picked examples of particularly nice places (obviously, they're advertising something). But even in some of the best FTX regions such as New Zealand or Alaska there are places that get less attention and don't look half as good. In the end I'm hugely grateful to the developers of W2XP, Ortho4XP and other scenery tools for their work. While the results are not always up to FTX level of quality, they are highly competitive IMO and available for all users for free. (By the way: I wish the weather engine would get more attention in XP. Active Sky 16 is incredible and the primary reason for me to go back to P3D. Let's hope XP11 will improve in this area!)

That would be great indeed! Those offset reflections have been around for ages...

Thanks Lukasz! I've bought the Carenado and after applying the tweaks from the .org I'm quite happy with it. Now it correctly pulls to the right while climbing, which it didn't before the tweaks. It's not perfect but then again, with the staggering amount of 1 (one) hour of experience in the real thing I may not yet be the most qualified person to judge. Thanks for your suggestions guys! Cheers! :smile: Steve

Thanks Michel! That looks indeed very much like what I'm looking for. :smile: If anyone else is interested in the tweaks, I've just contacted the author (the screenshots and files have disappeared from the thread) and he has kindly re-uploaded the files here: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/67606-c152-ii-v2/&page=4#comment-806477

Strange that we're getting such different results. But I should probably clarify my statement - saying that X-Plane's real world weather was "not even close to reality" was poorly expressed on my part. In fact, the clouds and visibility are both pretty good! Considering X-Plane's limitations when it comes to cloud depiction I'm quite happy in this area. My issues are mainly (variable) winds and turbulence. In these areas, IMO it indeed isn't close to reality. When using the real-world weather option I get perfectly smooth air in most cases, never any wind gusts, turbulence or anything of that kind. It's like the old "on rails" kind of flying we got in FSX before there were any good weather engines... With the NOAA plugin it isn't perfect either but more plausible IMO. Anyway, everyone should use what they feel is best for their simming. My observations are mostly for GA flying, too, so perhaps it's a completely different case with airliners flying at high altitudes. Weird, the python interface and NOAA work well for me with 10.50b7... Perhaps you had an old version installed?

Thanks Jozeff, I think I'll get the Carenado then. Looking through the X-Aviation forums for the 4Forces C152 it appears that it hasn't been updated for years and probably doesn't even work with XP10... I'm not a huge Carenado/Alabeo fan, but they do keep their fleet of aircraft updated (or rather, Dan Klaue does), that's a big plus in my book! And of course they do look great, no question aout that. Cheers! :smile: Steve

We'll have to agree to disagree here. In my opinion X-Plane's interpretation of turbulence and variable winds is way off. I've tried disabling all lua and python plugins, using just SMP + RWC + X-Plane's real world weather, and most of the time I get perfectly smooth air, no matter the weather - alternatively I get wild left-right yawing instead of turbulence which isn't realistic either. I was flying today and X-Plane's weather isn't even close to reality... The NOAA plugin isn't perfect either (as you've mentioned, the visibility changes are ugly) but the winds and turbulence are a lot more convincing from my point of view.