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X-Plane 9.00 Beta-2 is here for Mac and Windows! http://www.x-plane.com/beta.html There are really no words to describe how stunning this release is. I'l try to list the features below, but really they cannot do it
justice. I am trying to hold to my Thanksgiving-day tradition of releasing a
new X-Plane right before Thanksgiving so everyone can have a nice
turkey-day with family and then sit down to some nice new X-
Planing... and I think I have succeeded here... but be aware: The
servers simply can NOT handle everyone trying to get the new beta at
once. Plan to start you download tonite and hope it is done tomorrow. To avoid the long download-time, you can order here now.. the DVD's
will ship next week, though perhaps towards the end of the week,
depending on demand. http://store.x-plane.com/cart.php? [...] t_list&c=3 If you order X-Plane 9.00 Beta-1 on DVD now, I will give you free net
updates through the entire version-9 run, so NOW is really the time
to order, since you will get the most bang-for-the-buck, and the
updates will all be FREE. Also, this beta is really solid.. you
should have lots of fun right out of the box. X-Plane 9 Beta ships
with all 7 dual-layer scenery DVD's, which are all-new for version 9.
OK here is the feature-list... if this doesn't rock your world,
nothing will.
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Specs:
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We now have:
867 instruments
25,737 airports
25,866 navaids
88,367 fixes
18,008 scenery files (each file is one degree of latitude and
longitude)
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Big New Features:
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Frame-rate improved! ALMOST NO DELAY IN SCENERY-SHIFTING! (but you need a multi-core or
multi-processor machine to fully realize this benefit!) Now you can
fly around the entire planet without every having a significant pause
to load scenery... you can look at continuously-varying textures
across the whole Country from San Diego to New York and ditto that
world-wide. Imagine: You get into a light plane in San Diego and fly
it clear to New York, watching the terrain change from the green
coastal conditions to the deserts of the SouthWest, then transition
to the fields of the midwest, then forests of the Northeast, then the
cities of New York, right down to Central park greenery. It's ALL
THERE, and you can watch the whole thing in one continuous flight,
with hardly a delay to load scenery if you have a dual-core or multi-
processor machine. It is simply stunning, just like doing it for real. AMAZING NEW PLANES with INCREDIBLE DETAIL: We now have a new Cessna
172, Piaggo Avanti (you have been waiting for this one!),
ASK-21 glider, and even a Cirrus-jet! Be sure to load the Cessna,
Avanti, and Cirrus jet in the 'General Aviation' folder, and
hit the '|' key to check them out!
(We also have first-drafts of ALL the Vans RV homebuilts, so if you
are an RV pilot, you can use these as a quick-start to modelling YOUR
RV!)
Aircraft panels can be up to 2048x2048. Those who want to every bit
of detail on a B-36 or B-52 cockpit: Your time has come!
Check out the 'Example Airplane WideScreen' in the 'Instructions'
folder.
Use the left and right arrows to see the whole screen, or run in a
res of up to 2048x1024 to see more at once!
Now you see you can make very wide-screeen airplanes!
Of course, if you make the left half the panel the pilot's side, and
the right half the copilot's side, and split your output
to two monitors running 1024x768, then you get a pilot and copilot
display from one computer, and one copy of x-plane!
kind of convenient.
It gets better: If you want 3-D cockpits, the 3-D cockpit has 3-D
lighting for panel texture, to really make flight with 3-D cockpits
immersive!
Get in the Cirrus Jet and hit 'control-o' to see this. Then use the
mouse, arrow-keys, and page-up/page-down keys to move around the
cockpit while flying.
Try it as well in the Cessna 172 or Avanti.
The 3-D clicking into 3-D cockpit tracks a lot better as well, so you
can do full flight operations in 3-D... a real experience in the
Cirrus Jet!
(It's inside the 'General Aviation' folder)
Custom liveries!
Look at the 'Example Airplane WideScreen' in the 'Instructions' folder.
You can make all the custom liveries you want, with all the names you
want!
Then, in X-Plane, go to the 'open liveries' menu item (right under
the 'open aircraft' menu item!) and select the livery you want!
Moderate User-Interface overhaul. Every single menu and window has
been re-evaluated for optimum placement. Every windows has
been re-evaluated for optimum organization, with many changes. The
interface has a mildly different look and feel, and much
re-organization to be quicker and more friendly to use. This has
included countless changes, including:
-Fonts are now bigger and clearer... in fact this is the font that
was designed specifically for (the real) Charles De Gaulle airport!
-All interfaces to enter DIRECTION are are now done with round
compass-rose type interface .
-Interface to assign keyboards is now a dream: Every function can
easily be seen at-a-glance.
-Any function can be assigned to any joystick button as well. So now
any function can be assigned to any key and any joystick button.
Generic Instruments! In Plane-Maker, Hook ANY variable to ANY digital
readout, handle, needle, tape... ANYTHING.
You could, for example, have digital oil pressure or hydraulic
quantity gages... Just choose the generic LED instruments (in the
generic folder in the instrument list
in panel-editor of Plane-Maker) and select whatever variable you want
to attach to each digital readout! Using this technology, you can
finally view any variable you
want on the panel! This really lets you make your own instruments.
Now, I am adding a new variable and dataref: EFIS PAGE.
This is an integer that can go 0 to whatever, and you can hook it up
to a generic instrument rotary.
Find it here in the data-ref selector:
"cockpit2/switches/EFIS_page1"
"cockpit2/switches/EFIS_page2"
"cockpit2/switches/EFIS_page3"
"cockpit2/switches/EFIS_page4"
"cockpit2/switches/EFIS_page5"
"cockpit2/switches/EFIS_page6"
So, your generic rotary instrument can run the EFIS PAGE variable to
any value.
Great.
NOW, the NEXT thing you can do with generic instruments is set the
instrument to only be VISIBLE when a certain dataref is a
certain-value.
Let that dataref be the EFIS-PAGE variable and you can make multi-
page EFIS systems!
Look in the airliners in the 'Heavy Metal' folder in the
'Instructions' folder.
You will see a file ending in 'icon.png'... this is an image of the
airplane that will be visible
whenever you scroll thru the aircraft-selection window in X-Plane.
Now you can see what each plane looks like when deciding what plane
to fly!
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Major Scenery Improvements:
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Upgraded global scenery package! All new scenery files! That's 18,008
new DSF files! These new scenery files come with refinements in the
grid and about 20% MORE polygons to refine the terrain detail a bit
further!
So, these new global scenery files have 20% detail and complexity to
just push the envelope a little further.
Now, the more exciting features of this new scenery are that this new
scenery comes with European buildings and forests, as well as higher-
accuracy terrain!
As well, the version-8 scenery only went up to 60 degrees North
Latitude... The new Version-9 scenery goes up to 74 degrees North
Latitude for more Alaska and North-European flying! We now have better flattening around airports (especially coastal
ones). This means that runways always have gentle slopes and
gradients, just like real runways! Alaska, Hawaii, and some US territories now use high-detail road
data, for more accuracy in roads and the buildings that sit near them.
As well, roads are now auto-generated in non-US cities to create high
detailed cities... this gives countless thousands more buildings for
you to fly around!
We also have more regional scenery detail... we have European-looking
buildings in the right places, and the red soil of Australia, for
example!
Now, to render these cities more accurately, World-wide cities now
use smaller objects - means they look better on sloped terrain, and
means the US or European object
sets can be used anywhere in the world! (And users can make new looks
for cities using the library system!)
Look closely, and you will even see the occasional TRAIN running on
along! Also, be sure to turn on some level of FORESTS in the Rendering
Options screen... the forests are now pretty amazing, and truly 3-D! Water reflections! Get in the Canadair in the SEAPLANES folder and go
to KAVX. Then do a SEAPLANE TAKEOFF from the LOAD SITUATION menu,
then go to an external view... not too bad!
Smooth fog! This allows nicer rendering in almost all flight cases. Earth orbit rendering much better, with auto-generated orbital images
to perfectly match the low-level scenery, and bump-mapping as well! So, the new scenery offers more detail, accuracy, variety, with
everything from reflective water and new fog (turned on in the
rendering options screen!) to smoother
transitions all the way out to a hi-detail bump-mapped orbit! This
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New Airfoil-Maker Features for Modelers:
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New option in Airfoil-Maker: finite-L/D!
What is this?
Simple!
You enter the aspect ratio and efficiency factor for the wing of your
plane,
and then (for the foil you have open) this screen will plot the lift
and drag after all the finite-wing math is applied
(considering the losses around the wingtip) and also the lift over
drag ratio of that wing.
This way, you can see what the lift and efficiency of the wing will
be when applied to the airplane you are actually designing!
This makes it possible to really do good airfoil selection. Controllable airfoil sections!
Go to Airfoil-Maker and click on the 'Camber' tab, and you can
visually set the airfoil camber and profile!
This is only done for LOOKS, but it means you can get your wing
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New Plane-Maker Features for Modelers:
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In Plane-Maker, you can specify that any part of the plane is not
visible, so it is not drawn... this can increase framerate!
Now, why would you NOT draw parts of the plane? Because you use a
custom object for the aircraft visual model!
If you do that, then you can run at the same or higher framerates
than before by having X-Plane NOT draw the physical geometry created
in Plane-Maker. New spoiler and speedbrake options for Airliners in Plane-Maker to
really get those airliner speedbrake, spoilers, and ground
speedbrakes perfect! New control phase-ins and phase-outs: See the "Control Geometry"
window in Plane-Maker, in the "Phase-Outs" tab...
This lets you set the controls to phase out smoothly above certain
speeds, or BELOW certain speeds!
This really lets you get smooth, accurate controls simulation for a
wide range of craft. We now have speedbrake 1 and 2 on the wings for different speedbrake
deflections, just like with spoilers and ailerons.
As well, we now have an option to have some speedbrakes only deploy
for GROUND deployments. Windshield wipers!
You add them in the panel-editor on Plane-Maker, just like any other
instruments!
The button to turn them on and off is in the 'buttons' folder, and
the wipers themselves are in the 'supplements' folder. New Pressurization option: Auto-pressurization. In the Systems screen
in Plane-Maker, this checkbox will automatically keep reasonable
pressure inside the craft at all times.
New Pressurization option: Automatically dump cabin pressurization
below 1000 ft radio altitude!
This is pretty nice, and exists in some planes. Check this to
automate pressurization systems in this regard. All airplane engine noises can now be customized to be different as
heard from the inside and outside of the plane!
This has been an oft-requested feature.
Look in the resources/sounds folder for the _inn and _out sound
files, which you may customize for YOUR planes as well.
Here are the naming conventions for the engine, starter, and prop,
inner and outer, for engine number 1, which you may run up to 8 of
course:
aircraftname_engn1_inn.wav
aircraftname_star1_inn.wav
aircraftname_prop1_inn.wav
aircraftname_engn1_inn.wav
aircraftname_star1_inn.wav
aircraftname_prop1_inn.wav
and:
aircraftname_afterburner_inn.wav
aircraftname_afterburner_out.wav
aircraftname_reverse_thrust_inn.wav
aircraftname_reverse_thrust_out.wav
Look in the panel-editor in Plane-Maker.
Look in the 'buttons' folder for the 'slider' instrument.
You can have up to 20 of these sliders in the cockpit.
They are 'slider switches'. In Plane-Maker, you can set the 'slider
times' in the 'Systems' window, third tab.
Those times control how long it takes the slider to go from full-off
to full-on.
In X-Plane, you can turn the slider switch off or on in the cockpit,
running the slider from 0.0 to 1.0 over the time specified in Plane-
Maker.
Then, simply hook any part of the aircraft object up to the slider
float dataref in your 3-D object-editor to watch it move in X-
Plane... this would be used for doors, refueling booms, canopies, etc.
So, we finally have a very easy way for you to control variables to
drive doors, refueling booms, or anything else you care to model in a
3-D editor and hook to a dataref.
One more detail: By default, SHIFT-F1 will toggle slider #1, SHIFT-F2
will toggle slider #2, etc, up to SHIFT-F16.
Custom parachute texture now possible for any plane:
aircraftname_chute.png Plane-Maker aircraft object export includes a few polys to show where
the landing gear is. 'Insert' section button in Plane-Maker so you can insert a section in
the middle of your fuselage or nacelle or misc body or whatever. Completely different throttle-governor and fadec systems are now
simulated!
Go to the Engines screen in Plane-Maker to equip the plane with
either, both, or neither system.
Put switches for either, both, or neither system on the panel.
Run either, both, or neither system in flight based on the switch
positions.
Now you wanna know: What's the difference between a governor and a
fadec?
Here is the answer:
The THROTTLE GOVERNOR runs the throttle up and down as needed to hold
the operational rotor rpm on a helo.
The FADEC maintains the optimal fuel-air ratio in recip engines,
keeps the engine from over- or under-revving in recip engines,
and keeps jet engines from exceeding their max allowable power in low-
alt and lo-temperature situations. New button in plane-maker SYSTEMS screen: Autopilot altitude-hold is
ALWAYS armed.
Checking this button ON is the modern convention, used in the G-1000,
for example.
With this type of autopilot, you simply enter any altitude you want
in the altitude window, and as long as you are in VVI, PITCH, or
LEVEL-CHANGE mode,
the plane WILL level off when it hits the altitude in the altitude
window. In contrast to this, older autopilots did NOT do this. They
would simply fly
any mode you gave them forever, and hold altitude if you hit the
altitude button. UNcheck this button to obtain that functionality. Speedbrake extension and retraction times are now customizable in
Plane-Maker! Custom limits for transmission temperature and pressure now settable
in Plane-Maker Engines screen, and new instruments to show them (in
the round engine instruments folder). Plane-Maker: Default to 9 vertices per side for the fuselage.
Plane-Maker: Main aircraft screen is hi-contrast now to really see
the aircraft design better.
Plane-Maker: Running Plane-Maker in hi res gives you more room for
editing the airplane fuselage in top and side views. Check out the SYSTEMS window in the DEFAULT menu in Plane-Maker.
You can now assign various different electrical systems on the craft
to run on different electrical buses.
Now you can really get all the right systems to drop out when a bus
fails!
Simply specify what bus each system is on, and if you lose that bus
in flight, those systems will go down with it! Different standard and emergency max throttle.
IF there is an engine failure, then you will get the emergency max
throttle value!
This is done in the real Eclipse jet. Engine markings can be chosen for APU N1 in Plane-Maker 'Engines'
screen, 'Markings' tab... Seems sort of 'minute' but it was requested! New trim option: "Trim extends maximum control deflections"
Most systems should NOT have this box checked! This is because the
trim only changes the resting-point of the controls,
NOT the maximum deflections! But, SOME planes MIGHT use the trim as a
floating nuetral-point for control deflection that
allow the controls to EXCEED their normal, zero-trim limits! Check
this box in that rare case. Cool new feature: Auto-Wing-Sweep with Mach number.
In the 'Special Controls Screen' in Plane-Maker, you can enter a lo
and hi Mach number for the wing sweep.
Do this, and the wings will automatically sweep smoothly between
those two Mach numbers.
This really makes planes like the B-1 easier to manage! 3-D cockpits can use 4 sub-sections of a large panel - save VRAM if
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Flight-Model Refinements:
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Carrier cat-shot operations significantly improved. The force-model
should really be more accurate now. The helo rotor-brake force is now tuned to be more appropriate for a
real rotor-brake. Braking-model refinement. For light braking, there should be no
little skid at the end of the stop, like there is for heavy braking
under ABS. Speed-brake lift-reduction model improved a bit. Jet engine throttle response gives more fine control at high N1, as
is needed to fly jets. Hydraulic pressure systems modeled a bit more accurately. Propeller dynamics a hair more accurate for props with swept blades Angle of attack of wing elements in propwash now consider the
propwash angles of tilt-rotors as well!
This can make propwash over the wings much more accurate! Aircraft moments of inertia now found a hair differently, which may
be a little more accurate. Auto-slat-with-stall now brings the slats out earlier to prevent the
stall before it starts developing!
This should also prevent oscillations from the slats just coming out
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General Features Having to do with Aircraft Operations
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Buildings with helipads on top are hard... Land on them! New autopilot mode: "Maintain current heading, altitude, and speed".
This is selectable as a joystick or keyboard command. This is a quick
'hold it all right here' mode.
The autopilot will drop out of glideslope mode if the heading mode is
engaged, as in reality. HUD and EFIS airspeed and altitude tapes can handle thousands of
knots and hundreds of thousands of feet. All systems fail if you crash the plane really hard. Kind of more
accurate, I guess. Eject is now shift-space. No more A-I planes in multiplayer games! This may help multiplayer
sessions go a bit better, without any electronic voyeurs peeping in
on you and your partner.
If the A-I DOES fly, though, he is smart enough to start up the
engines and stuff. Nosewheel-steering centers during retractions, as in reality. Autopilot mode annunciators are now correct for the system they are
modeled after. They were a hodge-podge of coloring and mode
indications, but now properly show the ARMED
versus ENGAGED states. (Remember: you ENGAGE wing-leveler, pitch-
sync, heading, vertical speed, and flight-level change,
and you ARM altitudes and nav courses and glideslopes... and those
things CAPTURE if you intercept them while they are ARMED!) Thermals are now at different places different times you run the sim
to make them a little more interesting to find! Parachute is tracked in replay. Hit B in a seaplane to lower the anchor. We had this long ago but I
took it out because people kept
deploying the anchor in their seaplanes, dragging to a stop, and then
calling it a bug in X-Plane when the plane stopped because they did
not know that their anchor was dragging out there!
Well, I put the anchor back in, but this time with a text message on-
screen to TELL you the anchor is deployed! EFIS horizons go to 90 degrees pitch. If 'Cinema Verite' is on and you are in 3-D cockpit mode (control-o)
then your viewpoint will move with the G-load. You can now have 500 waypoints in the FMS. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
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General Features Having to do with Simulator Operations
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Multiplayer a bit better: Planes show up on the map with the last 3
digits of their ip address, and there will be no artificially-
intelligent traffic in a multiplayer session.
1 IOS can control many copies of X-Plane. This is nice if you have a
lab of X-Planers flying around, and there is one instructor to
orchestrate the chaos.
Real-Weather can now handle russian metars, which are in meters per
second. Hmm... OK. The mouse cursor auto-switches over the numerical data-entry boxes so
the mouse tail does not hide the number... sort of nice.
All forward and reverse replay modes are available. PLENTY of new commands for the joystick and keyboard... check them
out in the joystick or keyboard setup windows. Straight up and down views are now accessible by key or joystick or
View menu. The frequency-list in the upper-right of the map that shows the
frequencies for any airport you click on now can show all the freqs
for that airport, no matter how many. Quicker load-times for the same amount of data! This applies to
scenery, situation files, fdr files, the works. Move the mouse over any column in the FDR screen to see a description
of that column of FDR data. Checkboxes at the top of the data output screen to enable the various
different types of data output...
This lets you enable or disable all the output of a given type at
will, without having to re-check everything. All custom scenery packs can live in ONE FOLDER in the 'Custom
Scenery' folder.
So, just drop any custom scenery packages into the 'Custom Scenery'
folder.
That's it.
Yer done.
Easy. File-open dialog for aircraft shows the aircraft name and description
from Plane-Maker viewpoint screen now... kind of nice. New UDP message: DREF. Look it up in the 'Sending Data to X-
Plane.html' doc in the instructions folder.
This lets you send in any value to any dataref in X-Plane! Very
powerful! UDP messages continue outputting, even when X-Plane is only replaying
a movie. New internet output: Send camera image! this sends an image from X-
Plane over the network... an S3TC compressed raster image, at the
same res and speed as the Quicktime movie preferences
you have in X-Plane. This will be very useful for researchers wanting
to look at IMAGERY from X-Plane for various auto-flight or pattern-
recognition research. 3-D flight-path gives lines from the wingtips now as well so you can
see the roll in the replay. With thanks to Jonathan van Tuijl, the automatic selection of
vertical field of view is now more accurate... it was just a hair off
before! Better sync between the master machine and external visuals and
cockpits: In-sync rotors and stuff like that. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
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Hardware Support
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G1000 support more complete and thorough (I am talking about the REAL
g1000)... this includes the VNAV functions used in Cessnas!
We now allow more joystick buttons and axis as well.
The mouse wheel zooms on the map. Kind of convenient. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
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// New Instruments
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There are countless new instruments, but here are some hi-lights: New button in the "Buttons" folder to turn off the camera (either
camera instrument or tv-guided weapon)... This is kind of convenient
if you want to turn it off for higher frame-rate.
ROUND trim indicators. Because somebody wanted them. Jet engine percent thrust gage, as some planes have. HUD digital alpha and G-load, as some HUDs have. Carb air temp and oil quantity gages. New round flap AND slat indicator. Kind of nice.
New fuel gages... like analog gages with rolling tapes. Kind of nice.
A handful of new radio gages, including an airliner-style audio panel. New standby airspeed with digital scrolling tape for airliners. New fuel pump type: Pump per TANK.
Just have as many pump switches as tanks, and any time you hit one of
these switches, you are turning on the pump from that TANK.
This is commonly used in larger aircraft. New instrument: Autopilot power switch.
Surprisingly, this is NOT really so needed, because we have had
autopilot disconnect keys and joystick buttons forever,
and you can just set the flight director to 'off' to disable the
autopilot... but now you have a switch as well. Improved instruments for the IOS... That's the 'inst' tab at the top-
right of the IOS. New instrument: APU ON light... A single light to indicate if the APU
is on, as in some jets. New annunciator: Slats Deployed! ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
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// New Commands (assignable to any joystick button or key) and Data
Output
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There are countless new commands, but here are some hi-lights: Commands (assignable to keystrokes or joystick buttons with the
custom commands menu, of course) to do countless new things,
including landing, taxi, nav, strobe, and beacon lights, pitot-heat,
adf frequency toggle, and many other things as well,
such as CENTERING the landing light and alternate static air. New data output option: Camera. This sends out an rgb array for the
frame of the size, and framerate, specified in the QuickTime movie
output!
This is just like QuickTime, but you send to an ip address instead of
the disk! This is cool if you want to use X-Plane to send camera-like
imagery to another computer! Tandem-rotor, single-engine helos can now have their collective
controlled with function keys.
You can drag 'backwards' throttles (like on the roof of a seaplane,
which operate backwards) with the mouse.
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// New Failures
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There are countless new equipment failures that have been requested
by various professional customers from Cessna to Japan Air Lines to
instructors to freight operators.
A few of them are: Failures for all 10 gear accessible. Fuel tank vent blockage now simulated: Block access to any fuel tank
in the Failures windows. Two prop governor fail options!
Fail to fine pitch, fail to coarse pitch! Cool! You should be able to
guess what happens in each failure case, and the effect on the plane. Fun new equipment failure: Smoke in cockpit. Try it! Oil pump failure will run the temperature up as well. Engine fire failure: You still get thrust for a few moments, but not
for too long! The engine is melting! Static port failure takes vvi to 0, as it typically should. New failure options: Water in fuel, and aircraft fueled with wrong
type of fuel!
This feature was requested by a freight company that uses X-Plane to
train their pilots, and found that Aero-Commanders
being mis-fueled with the wrong type of fuel was actually the most
common cause of Aero-Commander accidents! Better organization and accuracy for the NAVAID failures in the
failures page.
Fail the glideslope only of any ILS, the localizer only of any ILS,
the marker beacons only of any ILS,
or fail any NDB or VOR!
And heck... We don't stop there! You can even fail the DME PORTION
ONLY of a VOR and still get VOR signal, but no DME!
Now here is where it gets cool: In the audio panel, you can monitor
the morse code of nav 1 or nav 2
to see if that NAVAID is working. Do this by hitting the nav 1 or nav
2 button on the audio panel.
Now here is where it goes crazy: Hit the DME BUTTON on the audio
panel while nav or nav 2 is selected, and you
will hear the morse code of the DME PORTION OF THE NAVAID!
Then, if you fail the DME of a VOR or ILS that normally has DME, then
you will NOT get the morse code for the DME
when you go to monitor the morse code of the DME!
As well, you can fail the VOR or ILS transmitter on the ground
(second tab of the Failures screen),
but leave the DME transmitter on the ground working, so you get DME
but no CDI! Then, when you monitor the morse code
from the audio panel, if you do NOT have the DME button checked when
you hit the nav-1 or nav-2 button, then you will NOT
get a morse code, but if you DO check the DME button on the audio
panel, then you will get a morse code because
the DME is functioning, even though the needle deflection is not
working!
And now for the final step: Turn OFF the nav1 and nav2 selections on
the audio panel, and ONLY turn on the DME.
Now, you will monitor the morse code of the STANDALONE DME, which is
an optional avionics instrument, separate from
nav-1 or nav-2.
WHEW!
So you can fail any part of any NAVAID, and use the morse code
selections in the audio panel to see what parts of what
NAVAID are working or not!
And now for the final little touch: the DME makes a higher-pitched
morse code signal than the rest of the NAVAID.
You will hear that if you ID the DME portion of a VOR-DME or ILS-DME. Seaplanes or landplanes, the engines now fail if they get under water!
So be careful in heavy waves in those seaplanes! ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
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Format-Changes
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The "Copilot" name modification in the "Internet Setup" window is now
a FOLDER name modification, not a file name modification.
In other words, if you have a separate airplane running on a separate
X-Plane computer for the copilot's panel, then the NAME of the PLANE
should be the SAME, but it should sit in a FOLDER with the name
suffix that you specify at the bottom of the "Internet Setup" window.
This lets you simply copy the main airplane, modify the panel a bit
to be the copilot's panel, change the folder name, and be done. CUSTOM COCKPITS WITH CUSTOM HUD AND AIRSPEED INDICATORS WILL HAVE TO
UPDATE THEIR ARTWORK TO LOOK RIGHT. SEE THE REFERENCE IMAGES IN THE
RESOURCES/BITMAPS/COCKPIT FOLDER AS ALWAYS.
A number of the key-commands are changed! This is to allow more
commands with good consistency. Small addition to the FDR file:
Tight after the NAV frequencies, we see 2 new columns: nav-1-type and
nav-2-type.
Use 0 for none, 3 for VOR, 5 for Localizer, 4 for ILS. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
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Bug-Fixes
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King-Air fuel-flow gages properly calibrated.
Forest fires visible on external visuals.
ATIS accurately reports temperatures even if they are negative.
If you drag an airplane across the map with a slung load, now the
slung load goes with it! ;-)
Magenta course line back on the Garmin 430
Accurate gps distance on Mars. Hey, somebody asked about it!
No more flights disappearing from logbooks, hopefully!
Fixes and navaids appear properly all the time... They used to not
always appear when you were RIGHT at longitude +/- 180.
Roads outside the US that go through the water are deleted or routed
along the coast.
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![[:joce]](https://forum-images.hardware.fr/images/perso/joce.gif "[:joce]")
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