The B737 Classic Project

[Simmo W]

That is so slick Morten! I like the team picture.

[crs]

Our website is now up

http://www.ixeg.net/

Hi,

Congrats for the website!

Are you planning to add rss feed for the blog?

Kind regards,

Kamil

Edited November 30, 2011 by crs

[RojanTrojan]

Well done Gents. Great website. Slick is definitely the word for it!

Rhydian

[Morten XPFW]

Thanks

Another blog (AC-system) is up and a couple of more pics at ixeg.net

M

[davidngr]

Thanks

Another blog (AC-system) is up and a couple of more pics at ixeg.net

M

I can't find it...

[Morten XPFW]

http://www.ixeg.net/blog/item/3-air-conditioning-system

http://www.ixeg.net/gallery

[meshboy]

Whoooooaaa. Nice photos! Love the scratches on the panels!

[skipper63]

Yeah, these are some very nice images from a state of the art aircraft! This will be the one to measure up to, once it is done.

Could have wiped off those coffee stains on the side of the throttle quadrant before taking those shots of the cup holder though;-))

[Morten XPFW]

New blog is up.

http://www.ixeg.net/blog/

[derek]

That’s more like it! An outside view. looks rather nice me thinks.

[Nicola_M]

Bottom of the starboard engine looks a bit odd, but nice to see an external view...

[Morten XPFW]

Yeah, this is early work in progress, so don't look too closely

M

[OlaHaldor]

Looking forward to this, Morten! I'm sending you a PM soon.

[meshboy]

it´s been quiet for a while. Any progress report or cool videos/screenshots?

[Litjan]

Hi everyone - we took a little timeout over the holidays, everyone spending some quality time with his families. There has not been much development for the last three weeks.

I feel that this also gave us a well needed rest and a chance to reasses where we are standing in the rapidly evolving X-Plane world.

The major new factor has been the beginning of the X-Plane 10 beta process. Initial hopes that our 737 would also work in XP10 with minimal adjustments have proven not to be true. On the whole the IXEG team is underwhelmed with the state of XP10 so far and we feel it would be futile to release a plane trimmed for X-Plane 10 right now. There is no doubt that XP10 will continue to stabilize and improve, but we think that this will take a while.

Jan

[clavel9]

Hi everyone - we took a little timeout over the holidays, everyone spending some quality time with his families. There has not been much development for the last three weeks.

I feel that this also gave us a well needed rest and a chance to reasses where we are standing in the rapidly evolving X-Plane world.

The major new factor has been the beginning of the X-Plane 10 beta process. Initial hopes that our 737 would also work in XP10 with minimal adjustments have proven not to be true. On the whole the IXEG team is underwhelmed with the state of XP10 so far and we feel it would be futile to release a plane trimmed for X-Plane 10 right now. There is no doubt that XP10 will continue to stabilize and improve, but we think that this will take a while.

Jan

Pretty much my conclusion after comparing some aircraft back to back in 9 and 10. I didn't feel that XP9 was "stable" until version 9.3/9.4 and there's no reason to expect 10 to be any different. The big question for developers in the thick of a big project is whether to finish the ACF and release it as 9-compliant or to push back the development cycle and just publish for 10. I ran up against the same problem when I was a co-developer on an ACF for XP8. By the time we were 90% done, XP9 had established itself and we would have had to rebuild the whole thing from the ground up to achieve the performance and handling accuracy we had got for 8.64. 2,000+ hours of testing had got us to within 1% accuracy with the 8-compatible ACF but we found it to be outside 5% accuracy in some critical areas in 9, even after tweaking. It might as well have been a different aircraft. We never finished it!

[meshboy]

You had a vacation that you all deserved very much.

My opinion is to release for V9 first and at the same time let version 10 become stable and then we should pay a little % for the upgrade. (maybe includes better lighting due to X-plane 10 engine etc).

Right now a complex airliner with 3D cockpit is a winner in both 9 or 10 either way. =)

if you need beta-testers i would be first in line. I have basic knowledge of the 737.

Edited January 17, 2012 by meshboy

[Litjan]

Well, just to reiterate - the project is still moving ahead as planned - whatever that means . We are all people doing this in our free time, and I think it is completely normal that real life takes the upper hand once in a while. We all have jobs with sometimes fluctuating requirements and families that come first and before everything.

Making our living with our daytime jobs also decouples another motivational factor to a certain extent: Money.

This has two effects:

A.) Quality goes before release-date. This is good, I think.

B.) We don´t go hungry until release-date - this is somewhat of a detrimental effect to progress. If we don´t feel like it, we don´t work on it and still don´t suffer.

So what motivation drives us? Money to a certain extent, of course - but as I explained in a previous post, we won´t get rich with this. Not even reimbursed appropriately.

I think foremost the motivation driving us is some geeky satisfaction in pulling this off, working together with friends and delivering a product that makes us proud and many users happy.

Of course we always knew we are developing in a timeframe that puts our release into XP10s territory. The initial problems with the early beta´s did somber us up quite a bit. Yes, there are a bunch of cool features, but right now it reminds us more of a muddy construction site with the architect standing on the side, fiddling with some oversized blueprints than the gleaming glass-steel-and-concrete palace we where expecting. The promise is there - it just needs to materialize. And we were pulling up in our moving van with all of our furniture in the back...

Just an example: For our development it is important to shut down and restart the simulator many times a day. Even with my brand-new SSD starting XP10 takes longer than FSII from Sublogic took on my old 1541 floppy disk drive (2:40min)... So for now we are developing on XP9, and there is no plan to change that so far.

Another issue is frame-rates. Yes, I can get good rates in XP10 if I shut down the eyecandy. But we all know how that goes. No one wants to do that, and then everyone complains of low frames. And our 737 WILL need some computational power, and if you start out with 25fps to begin with... not good.

Nothing is decided as to what platform we are releasing for intially. My personal guess - please don´t hold me accountable for that - will be XP9 initially and XP10 later on.

A word to alleviate fears of this project dying down - unlikely! We are too far into this and have spent too much time. Even if we dumped what we had right now out on the market it would already be a fantastic airplane to fly and operate, even while lacking some systems. So unless the sky caves in or the martians invade, you will get your hands on this

Jan

[clavel9]

Of course we always knew we are developing in a timeframe that puts our release into XP10s territory. The initial problems with the early beta´s did somber us up quite a bit. Yes, there are a bunch of cool features, but right now it reminds us more of a muddy construction site with the architect standing on the side, fiddling with some oversized blueprints than the gleaming glass-steel-and-concrete palace we where expecting. The promise is there - it just needs to materialize.

Very well put.

[Litjan]

To ease the waiting time for everyone, we have added another video that shows the final part of a dual-channel autoland approach.

You can view it either at our blog or on our youtube-channel.

Here is a direct link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZj3a6DwH_g&context=C39b3a84ADOEgsToPDskJvPSg2podgypyhrssYiem4

Enjoy, Jan

[jamesbaby286]

Awesome video! This in fact does ease the pain of waiting for more news, objective completed.

How'd you get the camera doing what it is doing?

[Litjan]

Oh, I am using TrackIR - can´t recommend that sort of device enough for realistic operation in a 3D cockpit...

Jan

[karingka]

That looks really impressive! Nice job!

[guym-p]

Nothing is decided as to what platform we are releasing for intially. My personal guess - please don´t hold me accountable for that - will be XP9 initially and XP10 later on.

I think that's the right decision. Keep a watching brief on XP10, but develop for XP9, otherwise you have to react to XP10 changes constantly and you lose sight of a clear development path.

[Emalice]

To ease the waiting time for everyone, we have added another video that shows the final part of a dual-channel autoland approach.

You can view it either at our blog or on our youtube-channel.

Enjoy, Jan

Dear Jan.

Can you please stop posting such videos ? I am in ER right now, and I just heard my surgeon order a Rolex over the phone. Here is what happened :

0:00 : beginning of the video.

0:26 : my lower jaw slammed violently against the desktop : cracked bone and three teeth awol

0:41 : fell off my chair, broken hip and twisted wrist

0:48 : something in my brainstem snapped, now one leg thinks it is Patrick Duffy (try walking with that AND a broken hip)

1:02 : my eyeballs caught up on fire, severe third degree burn, may see again in 6 months.

Yes, put plainly : awesomeness can be bad for you.

Thank you.

E.