The B737 Classic Project

[Litjan]

If you buy 60+ aircraft Boeing will mount the wings upside down, if you insist  ;D

Jan

[clavel9]

This sort of thing is not uncommon. When BEA ordered BAC 1-11's in the late-60s they had all the switches the other way round  in common with their fleet of Tridents. It posed a problem when British Airways were formed as they acquired BEA's 1-11's and others from Cambrian and British Caledonian that had the switches mounted in the standard orientation.

[Morten XPFW]

No worries, there will be atleast 2 versions of the panel.  There are also

other instrument layouts, options and solutions that we are considering.

Also, if we do a -400, it has slightly different systems than the -300.

Isolated, flipping the switches around is done in a day or two, but first we want to

have one panel thats 100% stable and bug free so we wount have to do multiple parallel

bug-chasing and fixes.

[Albert Slovak]

Thank you Morten. Hope that panel will be accomplished accordingly with Boeing policy as an Boeing 737-300 CLASSIC (not Airbus 737-300 Lufhansa)  ;D

[MTR1994]

When you are planning to release a video in sim?

[Morten XPFW]

Thank you Morten. Hope that panel will be accomplished accordingly with Boeing policy as an Boeing 737-300 CLASSIC

No worries, our pilot said we already could sell a couple of the systems stand alone

for real training.  Thats how accurate they are 

When you are planning to release a video in sim?

We soon will start showing more in-sim cockpit stuff.  

Don't remember if I posted thisone here already, someone asked about

how we did the logic of the LED lights on the ECAM.

http://www.xplanefreeware.net/morten/IXEG/ecam2.mov

M

[NoutvanZon]

Just wanted to share this great picture:

[MTR1994]

Morten

In your model will be realized the flight crew of a function?

[Litjan]

Could you please rephrase the question? I am not exactly sure what you are asking and would like to give you a concise answer.

Jan

[Albert Slovak]

I suppose means "Cabin crew"  ;D and Cabin Crew Call button function

[Litjan]

Of course operating an airliner is not something you do by yourself (not unless EVERYONE on board had the funny smelling fish, except for you  ;D ).

We are still pondering if there should be certain interaction between the user and some "virtual" crew members. Nothing has been decided yet. We do cling to the intent of making this as realistic as possible, so instead of adding something that feels artificial and half-baked we would rather not add it at all. Simulating operating in a crew-coordination-concept in a realistic way is still beyond present-day AI and doing it right is a matter of long training and hard to get perfect.

So nothing is set in stone - but we are still not at that point of development by a long shot.

Jan

[MTR1994]

What can you say about the FMS?

[Litjan]

What can you say about the FMS?

It will have one. It is planned to be like one of the real ones (there are many options and versions). It will integrate with the systems (autoflight, IRS, etc.) like in the real aircraft. All map modes will be featured.

Work on it has started, but it is too early to show any pictures that would do the finished look justice.

Interesting but unrelated tidbit: When testing fuel consumption for the simple fuel planner we are going to integrate into the GUI I did a flight of about 300NMs.  We are putting in the values off the real flight manual. Those called for a fuel consumption of 1655kgs. Our model consumed 1631kgs. I did take-off from a 1500´airport (EDDM) and terminated my flight at 1000´ altitude. I think that´s where the discrepancy comes from.

Jan

[Dozer]

That's closer to the published value than I'd expect a real aircraft to be. Be careful not to make it too realistic or it'll be more realistic than the real aircraft and therefore become unrealistic!

[Litjan]

Good point  ;D

We will add a totally random fuel consumption option so fuel flow will change with the phases of the moon, or something. 

On a more serious note - real aircraft seldom perform according to published numbers, and we have a "factor" for every airplane that will adjust fuel flow accordingly for planning purposes. And of course the environment and actual flight path rarely match what is planned, so actual fuel use will vary widely. It is up to you to fly a bit more imprecise than me on my trial runs 

Jan

[Morten XPFW]

Right Jan, real engines wear makes them less efficient. With time the turbine blade tip get

burned off slightly and the gap between the blade and casing increases which again reduces

efficiency. So even the two engines on the same real acft will perform different.

We might make ours a tad different as well for realism  ;D

In XP the key to realistic burn is;

1. An accurate engine model In the entire envelope

2. An accurate drag model In the entire envelope

3. A pilot that can fly by the book

We offcourse have all of that  8)

[Nicola_M]

Morten,

As this seems to be the only place you pop up in, do you think you might visit XPFW and sort out pending requests for Betatesters occasionally? Two months' waiting for a response for the MD80 has probably killed any chance of me buying the 737 now, but there are others on xpfw waiting for the MD80 which you may like to process.

[dpny]

Morten,

As this seems to be the only place you pop up in, do you think you might visit XPFW and sort out pending requests for Betatesters occasionally? Two months' waiting for a response for the MD80 has probably killed any chance of me buying the 737 now, but there are others on xpfw waiting for the MD80 which you may like to process.

Far as I know, the MD-80 is long dead. Actually, far as I know, all XPFW projects are dead.

[Nicola_M]

Hmm, so I've just found out. However, there are 2 guys on xpfw still waiting for their MD80.

Maybe someone may want to put a sticky on the forum saying Gone Away or something, or close it.

At the bare minimum to disable the "subscription" tab so more gullible people don't fall for the betatest-the-MD80 idea.

[Morten XPFW]

Morten,

As this seems to be the only place you pop up in, do you think you might visit XPFW and sort out pending requests for Betatesters occasionally? Two months' waiting for a response for the MD80 has probably killed any chance of me buying the 737 now, but there are others on xpfw waiting for the MD80 which you may like to process.

Not sure I get the connection with the 737 here, but Peter and I have both been on vacation,

so sorry about being late on processing requests.

With regards to XPFW, Peter is still working on some freeware projects, the 757 and 767.

Also there is Tom working on scenery, me on the PA28, so XPFW is not dead.

Sorry to hear you wount try the 737, have a feeling you might change your mind down

the road though when we release more information about the project 

Please contact me directly or over at XPFW for XPFW related stuff so we can stay on topic here.

[FirstOfficerTom]

Would just like to express my continued support for the IXEG team for this project, can't wait for the release, you guys are doing a great job

[Morten XPFW]

Thanks,

Like we have mentioned earlier, the current work is in systems simulation.

So while we can't show you much, we can tell you some things.

As you know, PMDG recently released their 737NGX and I found this quote by PMDG about their 737.

The PMDG 737NGX features an unprecedented level of systems fidelity. Developed over three years with technical input from Boeing and a team of real-life 737NG crew and maintenance advisors,

we have painstakingly modeled nearly every system on the real aircraft in a fully dynamic and realistic manner.

Raise the wing spoilers and watch as the virtual hydraulic fluid moves through the system and

causes the pressure and quantity to change in real time. Turn on something as small as a single

exterior light and watch as the electrical load indication changes to reflect the increased power draw.

The PMDG 737NGX is a living, breathing machine.

Indeed their work is unprecedented as it has not been made available to the public before,

but we at IXEG are indeed going the same route also so that when this is released, x-plane

will also present an unprecedented level of simulation that we feel will be right on par with

PMDG NGX in functionality.

With regards to our progress, most of the systems have been started and many are done.

Most we can tell you about, but some will come as a surprise towards release

So, today, lets talk a bit about a system that we have 99% done;

The Electrical System;

Our approach has been to model the electrical system after reality in code. Towards this goal,

we have modeled EVERY electrical bus and every relevant switch and relay in the electrical system.

We control the switching and relays in the same way the aircraft does so that if we decide to fail a

single relay, then all downstream circuits are affected. Also, failing a bus means all downstream

busses are affected and of course the generator load is affected also.

By having all the electrical busses modeled with individual electrical loads, certainly turning

off any device consuming electricity will affect the generator and thus the ammeter readout.

If we wanted to, we could now easily model every circuit breaker and device and have it work properly

by simply adding a few lines of code though we will not due this for practical reasons. All the

important things will work properly though. For example, if you lose both generators and have to

fly off of battery standby power, then only devices hooked up to powered busses will work just as in reality.

Because we model the relays, we also model the delays associated with relay switching.

This means that when you switch the power source from the GPU to the APU or to the generators,

then we disconnect a relay before we reconnect another as in the real thing.

This results in a very small window of time that the electrical bus is not powered and you

can see that anything not powered by the battery will go dark for a split-second.

It also means that any annunciator that lights up due to a lack of power will light up for a split-second.

I should mention that we actually model annunciator light filaments that take a split second for

the heat to dissipate from the filament causing the annunciator light to fade out quickly.

This makes for very realistic effect. So for those of you that wonder why, just before push-back

that the lights and air in the cabin go off and then again again? Now you know and we have that!

These are real phenomenon that real pilots see and if they can perceive it, then we are modeling it.

All our work is designed to be portable to future projects so that new airliners, should we decide to

do them, will be developed that much faster.

So in the video there's some things to look for that demonstrate our approach.

(we'll start uploading highres shots of the overhead once texturing there is 100% done).

First, you'll note the APU startup simulation. We wait for the APU to power up and when it does,

you'll see the "APU GEN" light come up. Then as the APU is connected to the generator busses,

you'll see the loads reflected on the APU ammeter. (amps values not yet calibrated, just test values).

Now note the various lighting come on and off and the annunciators fade out as power sources

are connected/disconnected. (We've exaggerated the relay delay a bit during development.)

Also note how the instrument needles move, they don't just "snap" into position, but move just

like they do in real.

Then note that when the left generator is connected, it automatically picks up transfer bus 2 loads since

generator 2 is not yet powering a bus and when generator 2 is turned on, it powers transfer bus 2 and

generator one sheds those loads. You'll see this in generator ammeter one when generator 2 is connected.

(Sorry, video turned out a bit darker than intended)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SYmiaGShCE

As you probably have guessed by know, the IXEG 737 is built inside and out, the hard stuff first.

Guess that's what happens when you put a bunch of engineers and pilots together.

[michelebk117]

I have the PMDG 737NG and I waiting to start the AoA training which should be very detailed. If indeed you are produce something equivalent to the PMDG it will be fantastic. I am looking forward to compare the two and I really wish I can abandon FSX for good.

[Morten XPFW]

Our AoA is dead on in the entire envelope of flight, at all speeds, altitude and flap settings etc.

In fact I think I can promise the most accurate flightmodel ever made for any airliner in any

desktop sim to date, so yes, we are pretty confident about that

[michelebk117]

I am glad to hear that ! We really need a real simulation where we can learn how to operate and managing the 737 systems as per FCOMs and where careless setting and flight will result in potentially dangerous consequences. As I delve in the operating of the PMDG I am very please with the amount of details and the reality of the systems. It seam your creation will follows the same path so I am definitely on board.

Thanks again !