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.

Hi everyone, I'm beginning my flight training soon(ish) in a C150, and of course plan to use X-Plane to enhance training a little. :smile: Now, there are two payware C152's available, one from Carenado and one from X-Aviation. Both look pretty solid, but they're older products, and in the case of the X-Avation one I'm not even sure if it works in XP10. If someone happens to have one or both of these, is it worth buying? There's a nice freeware version available too, which is what I'm using now, so the question is wether either of the payware versions are worth $25/$20 respectively by today's standards. Any help is appreciated. Cheers! Steve

As long as the NOAA plugin is active (all boxes ticked), you don't need to do anything in X-Plane's weather menu. The plugin basically sets the weather options for wind and such according to its own interpretation of the available information (METARs) - that's what you see when you open the weather section, and also the reason why you can't change anything there. Once you've installed the NOAA plugin and set up the RWC options correctly, you don't need to touch any settings - the plugin will automatically download the latest weather data every time you start a new flight. X-Plane's "real world weather" option basically does the same thing, except that its interpretation of weather data seems to be different: for example, instead of turbulence you often get a violent left-right yawing motion, and often enough there isn't any turbulence at all. With the NOAA plugin, winds and turbulence seem a lot more plausible IMO.

You don't need to remove the NOAA plugin, in fact I'd highly recommend re-installing it as it is (from my experience) still the most reliable weather source available. To get rid of the sudden weather changes, open the RWC menu (plugins > Skymax Pro > Real-world weather) and tick the boxes "always (ignore X-Plane preferences)" and "never change visible weather" (that's the important one!). This applies when using the NOAA plugin. If you'd rather use X-Planes built-in real weather feature, select "automatic" instead of "always", as well as "never change visible weather", and make sure that you also enable real-world weather downloads in the environment/weather section.

Well, you could possibly select the downloaded image files by color, then batch edit them with an image editor... but, frankly, I don't think the results would be any good. If the source material is badly discolored (or even covered by clouds/fog/smoke) no amount of editing will give them a natural coloration. Also, the color differences tend to be non-systematic, so you'd have to edit all the "border images" where two satellite images meet, manually - that would take weeks, if not months. The best hope would be to find a new image provider that has better source material... But in some places of the world there just doesn't seem to be any, or at least none that is publicly available.

I was fairly critical of the DC-6 when it was released, particularly regarding the engine start procedure and the sounds. However, PMDG have already adressed some of the issues (sound was greatly improved with the first update) and by now I have to admit that it is an excellent addon. As others have pointed out the DC-6 is a joy to fly, and quite a bit more challenging than your average Airbus or Boeing. The maintenance features (which you can disable, btw) are an added bonus that will remind you to operate the engines and everything else in a realistic way - otherwise you'll soon see the consequences. It's not quite on a level with A2A products on the FSX/P3D side, but pretty convincing nonetheless. Personally, I love operating all the systems myself, but if you prefer a more realistic approach you can let the AFE handle the jobs that normally would be the first officers and flight engineers' responsibility. In short I'd highly recommend it. Despite some flaws I'd rate it among the top 5 addons for XP, and you get a very good package with two models (cargo and pax), great manuals, tutorials and more, so the price is adequate too.

Ah, so you're using the default weather as a source for SMP/RWC? Admittedly I hadn't thought about that, always been using the NOAA plugin (until 10.50b the default weather was pretty much useless outside of the US). I'll give it a try now! :smile:

Thanks for your explanation José! In that case you obviously know what you are talking about. :smile: Interestingly, among the rare cases where I've encountered turbulence in Europe, were two flights across the Pyrenees, and it was some serious turbulence too!

Agreed! The Cherokee is a joy to fly and comes with some clever features: for example, you can put "inop" stickers on various instruments to practice flying without them. And it even has working circuit breakers. The Airfoillabs C172 is my favorite GA aircraft, but as Jim has mentioned it can be demanding performance-wise and with its maintenance features it may be a little too much if someone wants to focus on basic flying. Another option is the freeware Robin DR400 from XPFR which I've enjoyed very much: http://xpfr.org/?body=aero_accueil&av=18

Do you guys fly in the US? I tend to get some turbulence nearly always when flying in the US, but almost never in Europe (except in storms). I think I remember having read once that the data sources are quite different worldwide, and that the US has a lot more information available than most other places. Perhaps the new weather sources used in 10.50b can now provide wind information for different altitudes, but not for other conditions such as turbulence because such data simply isn't available outside of the US? (Remember that METARs are not the only source of weather information and don't contain complete data by far!) I agree that the clouds & sky look "pretty nice" with SMP+RWC. The problem, in my opinion, is that they always look the same - nice blue skies scattered with a varying amount of cumulus clouds, with the occasional thunderstorm cloud (which looks like a mushroom cloud after a nuclear detonation!) thrown in. Individually it looks great, but the overall impression is somewhat artificial for my taste. On the other hand, SMP+RWC have the very significant advantage of being persistent, unlike the default weather engine which can change from heavy overcast to cloudless blue skies with 50+ nm visibility within a fraction of a second... Having just tested the new AS16 for P3D has unfortunately strengthened my impression that weather depiction is still the weakest point of XP10. Let's hope that XP11 will improve on this.

Wow, this looks stunning. Among the very best X-Plane sceneries without a doubt! :smile: