Litjan

First, we established that everything is accurate in X-Plane. So no one needs to "update". If I recall correctly, Philipp implemented a dynamic updating to keep magnetic declination accurate (whereas before X-Plane was accessing a static table). There may be local variations (ore deposits, etc.), but by and large the value should be accurate to the degree. Second, a non precision approach is mostly governed by an external navigation aid, like a VOR or nowadays RNAV or GPS. Those are not susceptible to the "1/60" rule, you are either ON the defined approach radial/track or you are not. Magnetic variation will not play a large role here, especially since wind drift is likely going to have you fly a different magnetic heading than published, anyway. The one exception would be an NDB approach, here the bearing you fly to/from the station is actually derived from the indication of magnetic heading that you read off in the aircraft. If I recall correctly, the accuracy required is +/- 5 degrees for those approaches, a one degree course error at typical distances (max 10NM) that you submit yourself to the guidance of the NDB on an IFR approach would amount to 1000 feet off-track, that sounds like much, but with the obstacle clearance and high minima associated with NDB approaches, this would not be a problem.

Funny little anecdote: The plane I fly (747-400) is getting old, and the IRS systems are not getting any updates anymore. The magnetic variation database is getting old and outdated, and therefore we are not allowed to conduct IFR autopilot coupled approaches to certain airports, anymore, for example BGSF. The heading is actually off by one or two degrees against the chart at some airports, for example at EDDF I usually dial in 247 instead of 246 (the officially charted magnetic front course), it fits much better when flying the approach. But the tolerance is much bigger, and ultimately when flying an approach without reference to true ground track, you don´t know if you are flying a few degrees off course due to some crosswind or due to a wrong declination value. Keep the needle in the middle and the wheels on the pavement, that is what matters.

What weaklink said. Its fine. What is the Magnetic Declination at your location?Magnetic Declination in Lisbon, PortugalMagnetic declination in Lisbon, Portugal is -0.94. To instantly determine the magnetic declination at your location, go to magnetic-declination.comWe get these discussions every few months, and in 95% of all cases its users not understanding magnetic declination or the way that real world aviation sources treat and publish the varying declination, including slightly inaccurate ILS front-courses or VOR radial publication (notwithstanding great circle variation of magnetic bearing along a radial). In pilot school we made up mnemonics like "West is best, East is least" to remember if you need to ADD or SUBTRACT a declination value from a true bearing if trying to figure out a magnetic bearing.

Don´t take our word for it. Download the free and time-unlimited demo and try for yourself!

No, they are from the lockout switches that prevent the pilot engaging the autopilot while the yoke is deflected. They magnetically move to block the autopilot paddle switches.

Yes, it does. You need to change the search highlight (it is right next to the search field) to "City" if you type in a City name. If you search for it with the identifier (CYWG) you change the search highlight to ICAO (although ID will also work). If you want to search for it by name (James A Richardson Intl) you can leave the search highlight any way you like.

User error.

Good instructions are great - but you need 100% of all people to read, understand and agree to them, if you want 100% of all airports authored correctly. We learned from the Gateway that a good percentage of artists are willing to make good and compliant airports - but there is a sizeable fraction that does not care or is able to understand, and letting everyone manipulate the mesh together with a "comprehensive user manual" is like handing out scalpels in 1st grade after admonishing everyone to not cut into their fellow students 😅

Will be fixed - or at least vastly improved - with the next update after 12.4.3.

The problem is that if you make mesh editing accessible, the potential for messing it up is fairly big. We already have the problem with "always flatten" and to a lesser extent with the new FLATTEN polygons - airport designers adjust the elevation mesh to make the airport look good, but do not consider that having the correct elevation (of the runway thresholds) is extremely important. I foresee some type of validation that forces runway thresholds to not only be within a certain range of "official data" (CIFP) laterally, but also vertically.

Austin already implemented it (I would post a screenshot if Avsim did not insist on image posting policy more fit to the 80s than the 21st century 🫣). I believe it will be fielded in 12.5.

If you really use X-Plane as a professional training aid, it would be used like professional simulators are - with an instructor setting up a failure for you. This can be done in X-Plane by using the "instructor station", preferably networked to a second computer. Then the instructor can (just like in the Level-D simulators I have to go to every 6 months) set up a failure without you seeing it, and also set up the "trigger" (or trigger it manually). I agree that it would be nice to add a "fail either left or right engine at..." option. I will talk to Austin about it. Edit: Austin will look into it, the feature request number is XPD-18212

To my knowledge (fuzzy) you can only set failures up to happen at a certain event (speed, altitude, elapsed time, key press) OR totally random. What you are looking for (if I understand correctly) is to have a random of either left or right engine fail at a random point in time right "around" liftoff, right? I think you can only set up a random "mean time between failures", so the engine may fail during the takeoff run, during climb, cruise flight, landing or when parked...this is hardly helpful in training. I recommend getting a second person setting up an (unknown to you) engine to fail at V1 or maybe at 1 feet altitude - this is what real pilots practice, the engine failing at the worst possible time (an engine failure during cruise flight is a non-issue). Maybe someone could also write a lua script for this.

I fully believe - and have stated so numerous times - that stepping out of the add-on-hoarder and endless-tweaker-and-tinkerer mode can be felt as a great weight lifting of your shoulders. Add increased performance and stability to that equation, and for many it becomes a viable option. Let´s not forget that there are two types of add-ons. Systemic and use case only. If you add something like Simheaven, it is systemic, you use it with every flight and have it´s effects affect you, for good and for bad. If you have an add-on aircraft, usually you only "use" it while you use it - so in my book, having 1000 add-on aircraft is not a problem, while having 5 "systemic" add-ons may be on the brink of unacceptable performance impact and instability.

Laminar Research is acutely aware of the desire for "3D grass", but they have not found a method to implement it yet with the acceptable compromise of looks and performance. I think this should be warning enough for anyone tempted, there is a saying that something seems "too good to be true". Now it has happened before that a third-party dev accomplished something that Laminar could not (for whatever reason), or did not want to do, and a certain third-party addon caters to a special preference in some users...but every time this happens, I would be wary and carefully check reviews, especially if it is payware.

A first "dipping of toes" can easily be made with getting a used headset, someone upgrading to a high-end one will likely let go of an older headset for a nominal price. Keep in mind that with X-Plane´s current performance, buying that "8k per eye" headset is pearls before swines, as you won´t be able to run high-enough framerates to enjoy it, not even with a 5090. I am running a Pimax Crystal Light and find that I need at least 40fps per eye (= 80fps natively) to "enjoy" VR, where its not laggy, framerate is even more important in VR because you will pan your head rapidly and if you are chugging along at 30fps, it is no fun. A great feature is the ability to change your graphics preferences depending on whether you run VR or 2D - I can (significantly) dial down my VR settings to get me like 80fps (which splits to 40 in VR), but still enjoy almost "all sliders right" in 2D and get 40+ fps, which would be unplayable in VR. The only downside is an extended loading time when switching, because the scenery needs to reload for many rendering setting changes.

One thing to check the freq quickly is to click on the ILS "feather" in the default map (set to IFR)

It should not matter, since the frequencies are not the same for both runway ends. But just in case, I tried with "disable non used ILS" option on, and 08L transmitted, even though runways in use were 26...

The frequency is 110.55 in X-Plane and it works in 12.4.3 (I just tested it) - so you may be doing something wrong. I would suggest trying a less complex aircraft, setting up a modern airliner to receive and display ILS indication is not trivial.

Thats the spirit! Setzen!

That is correct, I work as a contracted technical advisor for Laminar Research and also make airports for them. I have flown in reality to LIPZ many times in my life - and visited the city as well, I have seen it. When I fly to LIPZ in X-Plane, I do not do it to look at Venice, I do it to experience the challenge of operating an aircraft and to end the flight by hitting the runway at the correct spot with the correct parameters. It does not interest me what the city of Venice looks like, if I want to see it, I will watch a YouTube video of it or travel there myself. Please do not misunderstand my statement. I have NO objections to making the scenery more life-like, using Orthos, Photogrammetry, anything like that. As I said - I do not care, but I certainly do not "prefer" the default scenery. I also know that I am "far away from what many simmers want in a flight sim", there is no need to remind me of that - I have already stated that I am aware of my outlier position in the post preceding yours. Cheers, Jan

You are German, like me, and so you are maybe not aware that you are not using the correct word here - although the German "effizient" means the same thing as "efficient". Effizienz (Efficiency) is a measure of how much effort you need to put in to get a certain result. It is not a measure of the total effort required. If you build a car that needs 100 liters to drive 100 kilometers, that is not "very efficient" by todays standards, but if other cars were to need 2000 liters, that is suddenly very efficient! So if your goal is to store the whole world in ZL14 Orthos and it needs 10TB... you can not say anything about efficiency, it is simply the way it is. If you can do the same at 1 TB, you are ten times as efficient, but if another method needs 1000TB, then it is very efficient, compared to that. The words you are looking for are "feasible", "practical" or "worthwhile" and "cost-effective". If having that kind of storage requirement is being "worth it" - every user must decide for himself. It depends on your financial abilities and the importance you place on having "real world" scenery. I think that the goal of a flight-simulator is to replicate the real world as closely as possible, and to my knowledge there is no better method for that for now than orthophotos and photogrammetry. There may be more "efficient" ways to store or stream that data, but the actual data fidelity is simply higher than other current technologies, including the current autogen method used by X-Plane. Don´t get me wrong, I have never used any autoorthoscenery and I am totally happy with the default Global Scenery in X-Plane, but I would fully accept that I am in a minority and that realistic, true-to-earth scenery is of utmost importance to the majority of users, and there is no alternative to "real data" (i.e. Orthophoto). What the way forward for LR will be is not decided, yet. But you can bet that they will try to get as close as possible to having the "real world" appear outside the window.

Is that like the 10$/hour free-parking garage?

The last few pages of it have been all "You´ve chosen to ignore content by..." for me - try the "ignore" functionality to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, it´s very relaxing! 😆

Please don´t be surprised if I don´t react to further posts from you - I simply can´t read them 😂.