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IXEG 737 Progress Update - December 1st


tkyler
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The last couple of days have been bug chasing for route editing features, mostly as it applies to VNAV calculations.   The ability to edit the route in almost any circumstance is very important to simulating real operations.  For example, the kinds of things we test are like so....give these a try on other products   ;)

 

1.)  Enter a SID only, fly it on LNAV.....then enter an approach while in flight, EXEC....change your mind and enter a new destination airport while flying...select a new approach.....EXEC...begin flying that approach, shortcut to some point further down the approach for grins, EXEC.....enter a SID from the airport you are on approach to..... while on that approach (wipes out the previous route), EXEC... (plane should go into 'climb' phase and begin climbing)...and fly that successfully.

 

2.)  Enter too high a cruise altitude for a short flight (KLAX > KTOA)....the FMS give you a "UNABLE CRZ ALT" warning and then calculates the intersection of the climb/descent "peak" and will change from climb to descend mode automatically as you pass this virtual intersection.  OR you can begin to lower the cruise altitude on the CDU and as you do, you can watch the T/C and T/D symbols get closer and closer until you can visually see that you can make the cruise altitude.

 

3.)  Fly a route on LNAV past a DISCO......lnav cuts out...AP needs to revert to hdg and pitch modes....then fly past the point on the other side of the DISCO...it (and the disco boxes) should automatically sequence off the CDU and you should be able to re-engage LNAV and continue on.

 

4.)  Bunch of other crazy tests...

 

Jan is the toughest beta tester I have ever seen...the stuff he does to try and break the FMS is ridiculous.  If he can't manipulate it almost exactly as he does in real-life...he cracks the whip!   Folks want to learn what its like to operate the real thing.....that means it has to be like the real thing.  You know how stable and flexible the real thing has to be?

 

That being said, there are several FMS features yet that we will not ship with V1.0 simply due to lack of time.  Most all of these features though are 'fringe features' and certainly do not detract from typical operation most users will utilize.  Putting those features in post 1.0 will be as much a matter of team pride as anything as most of the features will rarely get used.  Still, we can't help but keep at it.

 

As for right this moment,  we're just finishing up a 'flight plan loader"...that will eventually be able to load and save routes.  If you want to get a head start on your favorite routes, the format is rather self-explanatory.  (format subject to VERY slight changes) Gear up!

 

-tkyler

 

post-5-0-64394100-1448990178_thumb.png

 

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I don't know.   I am putting in 12 hours a day, do not have another job in sight...this is it until this thing is out!   If its not December, it will be as fast as possible on the other side of the new year.....I'm not slowing down and I can not tell you at this time that it will NOT be December as we are on a very productive pace.  We'll know more in a few weeks.  If 5 more days past 2015 are required to add much needed stabililty, then we'll take the 5 days rather than ship a product with a known bug.  We're close, moving fast and we'll let folks know in a few weeks where we are.

 

-tkyler

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It does seem rather ironic that this plane has a very high likelihood of being released within a week of the start of my ATPL ground school, where I'll have no chance to fly this because I'll be too busy learning the inner workings of the real thing... Not that I'm against it obviously, but it does amuse me

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Hi tkyler

 

Thanks for the news. This plane really looks awesome!

 

But don't kill yourself in expecting too much perfection. My theory is that if we need - let's say - time T to reach 99% of perfection and twice that time T to reach around 99.5% of perfection (you know it'm talking about the logarthmic scale), so if i were a developer i would publish a product at time T, since a lot of users feedbacks will help reach the 99.5% point much more faster than within the team i guess.

 

So it's just my opinion, but of course i don't want to force you doing something you dont want to. But i guess that during the christmas holidays a lot of users will have time to test that product and give some good advises, so that you can publish a bufgix much more faster :)

 

Whatever: i really appreciate your work and the status reports you give us. And i want to thank you for that. You are a huge contribution for the whole X-Plane community. Thousand thanks!

 

Cheers

Franz

Edited by frankbyte
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Curious, what FMS functions will not be in the initial release? 

 

Good question!

 

We will not have the hold page up yet...where you can enter holds wherever you want.  Neither will we have procedural hold entry paths drawn (in magenta).  That, of course, requires a bit of work depending upon your entry angle.  Also, we do not have "abeam points" implemented.  We have all the infrastructure in place to implement it...just not enough time.    Um....what else......we do not have an 'offset path'.   That is more common on oceanic routes and so shouldn't be missed by most.    I will say we have designed our code to handle most anything, so we are not in so deep that we can't address whatever a real FMS can do in the future, its just a matter of picking and choosing after 5 years.  Our FMS development has gone through some ups and downs (it is our first one) and we are shooting for a high level as we have some catching up to do.  That being said, we are really happy with what we have so far.  If Jan can conduct a flight with it as normally as he does in the real word...we're in a good spot!  We are hoping to get a last video in before release that showcases the FMS features in a real world scenario (you know that Jan ALWAYS has problems on his flights). ...if you're on a Lufthansa flight and the pilot says, "Hallo, I'm your captain Jan Vogel"...get off the plane!

 

So....I've been at it for about 14 hours today and spent the whole day programming in "flight plan loading and saving".  We will be implementing our own flight plan format initially, (*.ixg) and it should be available on onlineflightplanner.org at some point.  Ideally, we'd like to be able to read in multiple formats, but alas....we have to draw the line for the initial release.  At the least, you can save your routes (with some limitations) and can share these text files if you like.   We will be providing a "coroutes" folder that holds "company routes" flight plans for the initial release.    Ok, back to it, this was just a break to blog about today's work.

 

-tkyler

Edited by tkyler
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Good luck with the project, and thanks for keeping us informed.I'm trying not to buy anything until you release the IXEG :)

Jude

 

Me too! Hahah! :) 

 

And thanks Tom for your update, it will be the most awesome plane rolling out for X-Plane, people already sleeping infront of the IXEG hangar, waiting when the doors open. :D And don't mind a few bugs up-on release, perfection is not always needed to be perfect, look at the 787. A good looking plane (not in everyone's opinion ofcourse) but a few BATT bugs causes fire and they fixed it later on. :P

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The last couple of days have been bug chasing for route editing features, mostly as it applies to VNAV calculations.   The ability to edit the route in almost any circumstance is very important to simulating real operations. 

 

I'm currently working on our custom FMS so I know very very well what you mean, one of the toughest development tasks I ever worked on.

Keep up your great work!!!

 

alfamike

Edited by AlfaMike
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A question - those of us using PFPX or similar sorts, as I understand we will be able to save the routes in notepad as necessary? 

Of course it would be neat to be able to use their save rte function at some point in the future, but I guess thoughts about such things are a bit of a way off?

Very impressive work indeed, may the force be with you. 

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We just today finished a "save/load route" feature into the FMS CDU so you can save your routes.  The format is proprietary and we are working with a few flight planning resources to provide our format (*.ixg),  however, we are going to try and implement the import of other formats...notably .fpl and .fms, if we can squeeze it in in time.  Ideally, you'd just copy all your flight plan files into a folder we provide and we'd be able to read them as long as the file names were unique (no  LAXSAT.ixg   vs.  LAXSAT.fpl), etc.  Right now, its all about time.  We will keep moving just as rapidly after release to keep adding in features.

 

If anybody wants to send me their .fpl file from PFPX, we can certainly give it a try.

 

-tkyler 

Edited by tkyler
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