Laminar Releases Version 10.04 Beta 1

Laminar Research has released a new version of X-Plane 10, so get those updaters going! The list of fixes/additions includes:

ATC:

AI Aircraft now climb/hold altitude better dramatically reducing the frequency of hearing ATC yell at them.
Protect against aircraft doing something WAY out of bounds like departing instead of taxiing or holding short.
Stability improvements
Step descents dramatically improved
ATC should now tell the user what approach they're setting them up for
ATC "Radio" box text color tweak
Fixed AI aircraft names

Lots of tuning and tweaking to make everything just right here in this release:

Plane should be able to hold still quite a bit better during runup, and not slowly drift with the brakes on!
Manifold pressure model is now improved to be more like real planes.
French and Spanish translation improvements to make the menus a hair more accurate in those languages.
Better vertical resolution of the NMEA strings for newer (real) moving maps that plot vertical paths as well.
More resolution in the FDR replays, so even little RC drones with small movements can have their paths recorded perfectly.
Cylindrical projection should be able to handle changing the screen-res on the fly with no problem now.
Better metar parsing: X-Plane should not be confused over various comments in the metars about the wind.
As well ATIS should report the visiblity accuratley in all cases. Earlier versions did not report the very low-vis cases correctly.
And, an option to re-scan real-weather to go along with re-download.
The heat-blurr rendering effect is now offset by the exhaust offset specified in Plane-Maker, which is useful.
As well, the heat blurr now draws for ALL planes, not just the one you are flying.
As well, you can specify the exhsust offset PER ENGINE!
Proper cloud textures used even if you have both cumulus and cirrus layers at the same time.
The yaw-string is visible for the gliders and helos.
A-I airplanes should be a bit more robust, really adding power if needed to get out of ditches or up hills, and not having systems break, rendering the plane stopped or otherwise motionless.
TCAS system should only call out guys with their transponder on...and the AI should only turn on their transponder for flight, not taxi! This is getting down to a pretty crazy level of realism, here.
New failure: brown-out! In the upper right of the first page of failures.

A pretty nice failure for helos, added for use in real military training now!

Aircraft and Attached Objects:

Aircraft can now have any number of attached objects; the interface is revamped to show this.
Attached objects now have per object control over LOD, shadowing, and pre-fill. These options let you tune your plane for maximum performance. Click the "More Info" button in the Plane-Maker screen to view a description of what the settings do and how they should be used.
The 747 and CirrusJet now have some of the pre-fill and shadow options set to improve 3-d cockpit framerates; we'll work through the other planes during beta.
Wing flex for v9 planes now defaults to off; this prevents graphic errors when the attached parts aren't authored to flex with the wings.
Plane-Maker taxi lights don't shine into the interior of the P-180.
Fixed culling and drawing of OBJ-based weapons in the sim and Plane-Maker

Other random stuff: