X-Plane 9.20-Beta-8 is here!
 
We are getting good at this after about 15 years of practice.
 
We just have a few more bug-fixes here, and RC-1 will be coming soon  
if this beta performs well!
 
http://www.x- plane.com/ beta.html
 
Enhancements:
Airplane panels use about 25% less VRAM.
ITT goes up a hair for the engines that are running out bleed air
Bugs fixes:
Crash with object with no texture
3-d cockit view should pan correctly.
Black stripes on planet gone
Weird colors with DDS orthophoto scenery fixed
Water fixed for ENV loader
Generic annunciators are sharper looking
Generic instruments do not write to datarefs as much - this fixes  
some quirky panel behaviors.
track-ir starts the cockpit viewpoit at a more proper location
reverse-thrust commands should no longer be a bad thing for jets  
with no reverse thrust

X-Plane 9.00 Beta-9 is here!
 
http://www.x- plane.com/ beta.html
 
austin
 
Fixed:
vertical engine tapes working ok now
fuel TANK pressure is controllable in plane-maker
Closing the x-plane Window on Linux works right.
P180 RMI is drawn correctly
_LIT instruments will all come on at night.
No more black circle on the 777 panel.
No more half-light, half-dark 777 panel when changing time of day.
seatbelt smoking switch makes the bing noise
 
Enhanced:
Hot spots on some generic instruments can be rectangular.
New instrument names match the instrument list
Robin's latest data is included
more commands!

New Stuff for 9.20 Beta-10:
 
More commands, and some command re-organization of the commands.
Keys do not activate commands now whe you press them in the key-assign screen!
Enter fixes into the g430 now! (Could only enter navaids and airports before... sorry!)
Enter destination into airport screen, bring up the location map, and the airport ID is auto-entered for you there to do runway selection.
APU operative
Magneto control operative
Bug-fix in recip engine modeling was costing us 5% power, now fixed.
When you pan around using the q/e keys, if you have the 'default to full-screen' button checked in the rendering options screen, then X-Plane will do so coming back to the forward view with the q/e keys.
Background bitmaps in Plane-Maker fuselage screen align left-justified.
A handful of labels have had spelling and punctuation corrected, and the like.
The IOS screen has the airport-browser button that some people like (from the location menu) as well as the airport ID-entry field
New command: APU start.
The cloud layers can be made infinetly close to each other now.
Weather rate of change does not change weather when the sim is paused (it did before... oops!)
Cursors are better aligned to the instruments in the panel.
Comment saving in PLN won't copy comments randomly to instruments with no cmoments.
Show-hide filters on generic instruments work correctly even on array datarefs.
VOR range corrected - long-range VORs were broadcasting too far before.
Click on generic rotaries won't double-increment the dataref when the instrument has "mechanical lighting"
Preview animation of generic rotaries shows last animation frame.
Plane-Maker popup menus won't go off the bottom of the screen.
 
 
New airport rendering detail control in the Rendeirng Options screen. You can now control how smooth the airport taxiway curves and lines are. Check out KSBD with high settings to see smooth lines.
 
Control the CAR-traffic density with a rendering setting. You can now get an LA traffic jam even if the object settings are lower.

X-Plane 9.20 RC-2 is here!
 
http://www.x-plane.com/beta.html
 
heres the new stuff!
 
austin
 
A few improvements on the V-22 thanks to help from a crew-cheif on
the real plane
A few improvements in the linear-tape instruments for airspeed and
Mach number and the like
No more rain starburst pattern.
A few problems with replays and loaded situations addressed
Minor improvements in the EGT modelling.
New cmnds: Fuel pump: PRIME. HOLD DOWN the button to run the electric
pump.
 
Flight model enhancement: We got RID of a variable that everyone was
mis-using: Critical altitude of jet and turboprop engines.
The critical altitude is the max altitude at which the engine can put
out full power or thrust.
Plenty of jets and turboprops have critical altitude way above sea
level: They can put out full thrust or power way above sea level!
BUT, they can only do this by going ABOVE 100% N1 flying high, or by
staying well BELOW 100% N1 when flying low!
In other words, these engines are air pumps: They can NOT make the
air any denser!
They can only continue to put out rated power in thinner air by
spinning the N1 up higher!
SO, if you want to have a flat-rated turboprop or jet engine in X-
Plane that has a critical altitude well above sea level,
then you have exactly 2 options:
1: Enter the true thermodynamic power of the engine in Plane-Maker,
and keep the N1 well BELOW 100% N1 to avoid actually hitting that power.
Only advance the throttle as you climb into thinner air to use the
engines' excess capacity to continue to put out full power during climb.
or
2: Enter a max throttle of OVER 1.00 in Plane-Maker. Take off at 100%
N1, and as you climb, advance the throttle so the N1 creeps OVER 100%
N1,
holding constant thrust as you climb!
 
In both cases, you will see an increasing N1 as you climb to hold a
constant thrust up to the airplanes' critical altitude... AS IN REALITY.
 
Now, for RECIP engines, it is a bit different! THOSE engines can be
turbocharged, and the turbo can AUTOMATICALLY spool up faster-n-
faster as you climb,
resulting in a constant engine horsepower as you climb with no change
at all in engine indications (other than higher cyl-head
temperatures, in reality)
So, we are leaving THAT critical altitude in place in Plane-Maker.
 
Double click time matches OS preference - easier to double click now
Menus drag and click like OS X and windows
Better framerate - up to 10%, depends on CPU, GPU
 
PAPI lights at LOWI go in the right direction
More translations
Dark areas and stripes fixed in Planet
Generic pointers don't jitter

X-Plane 9.20 RC-3 here now!
 
Minor, minor tweaks.
 
Grab it with your existing installer, or from http://www.x- plane.com/
beta.html !
 
austin
 
New Stuff for 9.20 RC-3:
 
A few little error-fixes. .. just minor tweaks.
Panel lighting correct for planes with 3-d panel and
ATTR_cockpit_ region.
Latest language translations
Pixel shaders should look less strange in cities.
Panel zoom is back to the way it USED to be (one 747 panel in the
center of Matrox).

NOTE ON ENGINE PERFORMANCE!
 
Here is the deal:
 
Some of you have noticed that JETS and TURBOPROPS do NOT seem to fly
too well in 9.20 RC-3.
 
This is actually a problem with EVERY X-PLANE IN THE WORLD EXCEPT
9.20 RC-3, and here is why:
 
RECIPROCATING engines CAN be turbocharged.
They do this by spinning little turbos as you climb into thinner air
to keep the SAME air pressure going into the engine.
The higher you climb, the faster the little turbos spin to keep the
air coming into the engine at sea-level pressure.
This is why we have a CRITICAL ALTITUDE in Plane-Maker: It is to let
the engine keep SEA-LEVEL power up to some higher altitude, by
spinning the turbos faster-n-faster as you climb into thin air.
 
Now, JET and TURBOPROP engines do NOT have this ability.
They do NOT have little turbochargers compacting air into them.. they
ALWAYS gobble up ambient air density.
As a result, the JET and TURBOPROP engines do NOT really have a
critical altitude: For a given N1, they will ALWAYS lose power as
they climb.
 
Now, those that have not yet thought this all the way through will
say: "BUT HOLD ON! I >KNOW< SOME JWTS AND TURBOPROPS HAVE CRITICAL
ALTITUDES ABOVE SEA LEVEL! I SAW IT ON THEIR WEB SITE! THEY SAY THEIR
AIRPLANES FLY AT 50,000 FEET, OR THEIR ENGINES GIVE FULL RATED POWER
TO 30,000 FEET!"
 
I do not deny that their web sites say this.
 
But they are only giving HALF the truth.
 
You see, for the JET or TURBINE engine to put out a CONSTANT power
from sea level up to 50,000 feet, it MUST spin a HIGHER N1 as it
climbs to compensate for the decreasing air density. The thrust or
power will NOT stay constant as you climb unless the N1 is INCREASING
during the climb to make up for the air density loss!!!
 
So, there is NOT a 'critical altitude' for jet or turbine engines
because their power WILL lapse as you climb.
 
It is simply the case that many engines might turn only 85% N1 for
takeoff, 100% n1 at hi-altitude cruise, leaving a full 15% N1 in
reserve for hi-alt operations. Now THAT is the type of flat-rating
that jets and turbines do.
 
So, in X-Plane you should NOT enter a critical altitude for any jet
or turbine engine, because to do so is to pretend that sea-level air
is available to the engine all the way up to altitude.
 
Well, it ain't.
 
So, to avoid confusion, and improperly-design acf files in X-Plane, I
REMOVED the jet and turboprop 'critical altitude' variable form the
engines screen in plane-maker, and set the engine model in x-plane to
handle this case properly: lapse the power as you climb, as would
happen in the real engine.
 
Now, the next question is: If i have (properly and correctly) removed
the turbine critical altitude, how do you make a plane match the
manufacturers specs if it is flat-rated to give a constant power or
thrust up to a high altitude?
 
Simple.
 
Enter a the TOTAL TERMODYNAMIC THRUST AVAILABLE FROM THE ENGINE AT
100% AT SEA LEVEL as the engine thrust.
This may well be well OVER the RATED thrust or power of the engine,
but it is what the engine CAN DO (self-destruction aside)
 
Then, just take off at a lower N1.. JUST AS YOU WOULD DO IN THE REAL
PLANE, to keep the thrust within limits.
 
Than, as you climb into thin air, ease the throttles forwards to go
up to 100% N1 as the critical altitude approaches, and leave it at
100% N1 above that.
 
This is what the pilot, or FADEC, of a real plane would do, and this
is what you need to do now.
 
So, for all under-performing jets, this is probably because the
author erroneously put in a non-zero critical altitude in the acf
file, and that erroneous data is now being ignored. The plane needs
to be corrected by updating the engine thrust to the full thermo
abilities of the engine.. with takeoffs done at reduced N1 to stay
within the rated power.
 
austin

X-Plane 9.20 RC-4 is here!
 
wwww.X-Plane. com, same as always!
 
Just a few tiny tweaks to address a few issues people have pointed
out... have at it!

X-Plane 9.20 RC-4 is final!
 
If you have been holding off on 920 until it was finalized, then 920
has been declared final.. run your updaters now!

Greetings!
 
A number of people have suggested that X-Plane could be a fascinating
port to the iPhone.
 
I am sorry to say, but I do NOT see this as a possibility.
 
The screen size, lack of mouse and keyboard, and inability to plug in
peripherals, combined with certain CPU and RAM and video card
limitations that I cannot discuss specifically simply do NOT make it
feasible for us to port as advanced a program as X-Plane to such a
device.
 
Now, don't get me wrong: With the accelerometers in the iPhone which
can detect which way the phone is TILTED, it would be VERY fun to tilt
the phone around in your hands to fly the plane! As well, the little
displays on the iPhone and iPodTouch are so bright, crisp, and hi-res
that X-Plane imagery would look just WONDERFUL on such devices!
 
As well, the lure of being able to hold something as small as an
iPodTouch or iPhone in your hands, watching the X-Plane world zoom by
on the little screen as you tilt your phone to fly through touch and
gos, take-offs and landings, and zooming through the terrain of
Innsbruck would be very attractive to many... are you stuck in the
back of an airliner for 2 hours with your iPhone on you, wishing you
were flying instead of being stuck back in coach? NO PROBLEM! You
could pull out your little iPhone or iPodTouch and fly X-Plane right
in your seat, tilting the phone around to fly the plane!
 
So, I am very sorry to say that due to various technical reasons I
cannot get into here, we do NOT think it is possible to actually DO
such a port, so we will have to settle for running X-Plane on our big,
bulky laptops when we travel for the foreseeable future.
 
It is a nice idea, though... a VERY fascinating idea, so let's hope
that at SOME POINT in the future these little devices get strong
enough to run a sim like X-Plane! I will let you know when this
happens for sure, and port a mini version of X-Plane to that device
for sure! (Though it will still be quite a few years before this
happens, according to our best projections, so please do NOT expect
this any time soon).
 
austin

X-Plane 9 is here for iPhone!
 
As you SHOULD have been able to guess from my last email, X-Plane is
now here for the iPhone, and it is FUN!
 
The iPhone is not QUITE as powerful as a Quad-Core desktop ;-) , so I
had to really scale it down to a perfect little 'slice' of X-Plane.
 
You can choose from the Cirrus Jet, Columbia-400, Cessna 182, and
Piaggo Avanti, with flight physics that are about 95% as accurate as X-
Plane for desktop, so the flight modeling is really just amazing for a
little device of this size.. really just stunning.
 
You can drag the throttle up on the left, the flaps on the right, gear
and brakes on the bottom, and just tap the screen anywhere around the
center to bring up the menus. (One reviewer write that the app needs
to have settings... umm.. it DOES... he just did not tap in the center
of the screen to SEE them!)
 
Tilt the phone left, right, up and down for yoke control!
 
How such a tiny little device as this could run a sim like X-Plane, I
can hardly imagine, but it does, and running this sim is like having a
teeny little window into an alternate universe where a little mini
Cirrus Jet is zooming through the mountains of the Innsbruck, Austria,
as you tilt the little frame that shows you a windows into this little
virtual world.
 
Anyway, if you do not have an iPhone, you should get one. I can
honestly say that I am about 10% happier now that I have one... yup,
it's true! The interface, music (it grabs music from my iTunes) google-
map moving maps (with your position shown on the map, and a search
function that lets you type in anything, like 'sushi', and have little
red pins drop down on the map for every sushi joint in the area) are
just stunning.
 
You can be anywhere, any time, and always have your music in a
STUNNINGLY excellent sound system (i can not IMAGINE how they made the
sound quality so good), see where you on a map, type in any keyword
you want and have little pins drop down to every spot on that map to
mark whatever you are looking for, and oh yes.. it is a perfectly fine
(and best-looking ever) phone as well.
 
With the free card games on it, you can always shoot down a hand of
Solitaire if you are stuck in line or waiting for 10 or 30 minutes
anywhere, and now you can download and fly a cool little mini X-Plane
on it as well.. tilting the phone to guide your Cirrus Jet across the
sky.
 
Well, these are some amazing times... a device half the size of half a
deck of cards can manage a decent bit of your navigation,
communication, and entertainment wherever you go .. and has the
computing power to give some decent alternate worlds to play in, and
do it all with an interface that is just plain FUN to use. (and crazy-
easy).
 
You wanna find it?
 
Launch iTunes on your computer (mac or windows.. it makes no
difference).
Go to iTunes STORE.
Hit the HOME button at top of your screen (a little picture of a house).
Hit the APP Store button in the upper left.
Go to the GAMES category, SIMULATION sub-category.
Poke around until you find X-Plane.
Buy it ($9.99) and write a good review if you like it.
 
From a physics and graphics standpoint, I don't think anything else
on the iPhone comes close.. not even close.
 
Oh well, have at it! And tell everyone you know!
 
austin

X-Plane 9.21 RC-1 is here for Mac, Windows, and Linux!
 
We will call this a beta for a few days to make sure it is fine.
 
This just has a few little bug fixes (including the 'bad alloc' one
that was causing some people some headaches) and much better multi-
language support, which will help a lot of people out I think.
 
Anyway, grab it at:
 
http://www.x- plane.com/ beta.html
 
austin

X-Plane 9.21 Final is here now!
 
Mac, Windows, and Linux.
 
if you already grabbed RC-1, then you do NOT need to do anything..  
rc-1 is final.
austin

X-Plane 9.21 RC-2 is here for Mac, Windows, and Linux!
 
This should solve some rare crashes that a few of you were having!
 
Grab it at X-Plane.com and let me know how it goes!
 
austin