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A 'Sneak Peak' of Episode 8 of EPOCK SIM "Ultimate Survival Alaska' (as seen from XPlane V9) to be released tonight.

Luxembourg (ELLX) to Keflavik (BIKF) Add-ons: XPFR Luxembourg + SimHeaven.com ground textures + OSM2XP + R&P Boeing 777-200LR + Aerosoft Keflavik

\ That pretty much describes how i like to fly, or, in other words flying 10 feet above the ground doing mach 2.

Hello, Captains!, Today we're pleased to show you the official Saab 340A promo video! The video highlights a number of features on this aircraft, and also brings to light the fact we are using a brand new 3D sound engine called soundXtreme! This was developed in-house by X-Scenery to squash issues we felt were present in existing sound solutions. We will provide more info about the sounds on this aircraft in a bit, but to put it simple: the sounds on this aircraft are amazing. We felt this was a big part of the experience in order to make it real, and we went to great lengths to get every possible sound on the real Saab 340A to make this happen! This includes everything from all cockpit warnings, pump sounds, and exterior/interior sounds. Again, more on this part of the aircraft soon! Also present in the video is a number of unannounced liveries. This is still only some of the liveries we have in store for you, and we'll be sure to show all of those off soon too! The video has been produced by our talented friend Dave Robertson (aka redpiper1). Enjoy! Highly suggest you select at least 720p!

Hello, Captains!, We're over here working feverishly as usual and I'm just finding a quick break in-between to provide you guys with a little preview on what to expect with our menu system for the Saab 340A! While this aircraft is complex by nature, we have taken a lot of things into account to make your life a little easier while inflight and prepping for a flight. So, let's get to it!... The Saab 340 menu's are all located in the Gizmo tool tray, which conveniently comes into view when you hover your mouse over the right hand side of the X-Plane window. While there are a number of icons that will pop out, we're going to focus just on the Saab icons, which are highlighted below in red: The first icon we have here is a '+' icon. This icon, when clicked, will pull up a window for the Condition Lever Joystick Assignments. The Saab has two condition levers, in addition to two throttle levers, so for those of you with hardware this will come in handy! In the below photo I have assigned one of the two levers to my hardware. The next item on the tool tray appears as three horizontal bars lined one after the other. This icon will launch the Saab 340A Virtual Checklist window, which is actually one of my favorite features. As complex as this aircraft is, and as much as we know a lot of customers don't like to read (come on, you know it's true), this comes in handy! I'll explain that in the following series of images. First, the window presented to you when you click the icon to launch the window... From the above image and for this example, let's click on the 'Preparatory Check' select button. This will then bring up that specific checklist, with a list of buttons and checkboxes. Below, I have clicked to view the first item on the checklist, and it takes me right to where I need to go on the overhead panel. No searching around, no reading the manual to figure out the location, and no scratching my head! Just verify what the checklist says and when I'm done, click to view the next item and let the camera take me there! Just for fun, I also wanted to show you what it looks like when you select to view the 'Walk Around' checklist... Okay, moving on to menu item number three in the tool tray we see a camera icon. If you haven't guessed already this launches a window to select pre-set camera views hardcoded into the product. This means that in addition to this, you may also make your own standard X-Plane pre-set camera views, but these will always be there for you! I'm going to walk you through what each view looks like. To start, here's the initial window you are presented with... Caution: Images contain razor sharp custom programmed EFIS display. And, the following images show where each button on this menu will take you to... Overhead Pilot VFR CoPilot VFR MCP Pilot IFR Ctr Panel CoPilot IFR L Side Pnl TQ (Throttle Quadrant) R Side Pnl Radios Continuing on with the next tool tray icon, we have a picture of a truck. This icon will open the Ground Support Equipment window. There are a number of visible features on the exterior of the aircraft that correlate directly to this menu. When you first load up the aircraft, the engines will be shut down and all of the 'Remove Before Flight' flags will be in place on the aircraft just like you'd find them in real life. Additionally, there are safety cones, chocks, and the ground power unit (GPU) selectable from this menu. It's pretty straightforward, but here's what it looks like... The next item in the tool tray available to you has the text that says "Saab TQ". This icon when clicked will open a very helpful menu which I think you pilots will use quite frequently and find very handy! This is actually a virtual window which shows a render of the throttle quadrant and the location of all the throttle and condition levers. Yellow represents where your levers are currently placed, while red represents a limit when in the air (flight idle). As you move your levers up and down, the yellow lines will animate on the fly and display a percentage value (also very important to know so you don't burn up your engines). When in the air, no matter how far down you move your throttle levers with your hardware, the red line will limit your throttle position from actually going below that point. This is a lock mechanism which is also present in the real aircraft. As soon as the plane touches down, you can then move below this red line and into the various positions (like reverse). A very handy feature, for sure! Moving along, the next available icon in the tool tray depicts charts. This is another really great feature on this aircraft! We allow you to create or download your own charts from the internet and place them in a folder. The charts will then be available to you in the Chart Selector window, where you can select the checkbox next to the chart you want, and it will actually place that specific chart into the chart clip on the yoke! Below shows a selection for Newark (KEWR). Note...in the below image there's an alignment issue with the selection vs. text, and it's just due to some code editing but I wanted to show you anyhow! Next up we have an icon of a speaker. If you haven't figured this one out by now, this is a menu for our 3D sound engine preferences (called soundXtreme). The Saab 340A has some amazing sound features included to really give you a great experience! Quite literally, we were provided the access to get EVERY aural sound from the cockpit, hydraulic pump sounds, interior and exterior engine sounds, button and dial sounds, stair sounds, flaps, wipers, recirc fans, you name it! I'll be sure to dedicate some time to further explain this, but I really can't stress enough how much the sounds in this product enhance it to a whole new level! The menu options for this window allow you to customize what sounds you would like to hear at what volume levels... The next item and icon selectable looks like a "play" button. For those of you who are short on time, or just want to get up and go (hey, the babies diaper needs changing, or sometimes you just need to use the loo), we haven't forgot about you! We realize the Saab 340A is a complex simulation with a lot going on and requires some reading if you really want to know how to do everything properly. However, some of you do not like that. We know this, and we want to include you in on this product too! As such, we have created an Auto-Start window for you. This window will quite literally move switches, monitor systems, and do the dirty work for you until all the important systems and engines are up and running so that the only thing you have to do is essentially move your condition and throttle levers forward to roll down the runway! For those of you who just like to watch and learn, we have made a Auto-Start interval input where you can tell the Saab how quickly you want it to flip switches during the startup sequence. This is great to slow down if you want to just get a feel for how things work! The following images depict a typical Auto-Start sequence... Last but certainly not least we have the User Preferences icon. This icon opens a window to allow user selection of certain data to be popped up on screen depending on an action taking place. This is REALLY handy for people who map these specific items to hardware, as the knobs (such as heading) are situated in the center pedestal. As virtual pilots, we don't have the luxury that real world pilots do to use our hands in one spot and our eyes targeted on another, so this helps heaps! I have two images to show you for this. The first image depicts the actual window that launches when the icon is clicked from the tool tray... And the following image depicts what happens if I select the 'Heading Selection Pop-Up' option, and then adjust my actual heading knob. You'll see in the upper left corner of the screen a real-time view of my current heading selection will come up until I have discontinued adjusting my heading. Really handy! A final word!.... In addition to all that has been mentioned above, night flying can be tricky due to dark conditions and these windows being bright blue. But, fear not! We have taken this into account for you, and during dark hours these windows will auto-dim so that you're not blinded. Think of it like a GPS when driving down the road. The GPS has a day and night mode, and we have the same here! So, that's a walk through of our rather expansive menu system for this product. We've tried to think of many scenarios that would initially be bothersome and implement them into easy to use interfaces instead! I hope you've enjoyed learning a little more about the Saab 340A, and that this helps you get a little more acquainted with the experience you're about to have! Cheers, and Blue Skies!

People read forums? I am truly shocked. All these years...

It's been publicized before. The answer is that we have been there, done that. Not only is it a support challenge due to the vast amount of "flavors" of Linux (which FEELS like instability to a support person due to inconsistencies), it's also an ROI issue. For what we need, it's not as simple as pressing the "compile" button. There's many libraries that need to be in order for various items prior to this, then there's just the general bug sifting. Once that's out of the way, the support headache just adds the icing to the cake. I have had MORE Linux issues from LESS Linux sales than I have from Windows users over the years from a technical runnable product standpoint. I'll give you one thing...ya'll are passionate and vocal about your OS. That said, we've dipped our feet in those waters before and know what it's like from experience already.

Well, apart from Richard RMS Stallman and a few posters on this topic, it's a silent army, obviously... Others, like me, sigh, shake their head, and pay the Microsoft tax to be able to run this long-awaited Cityliner. Despite the efforts of Laminar Research, the SDK team and numerous add-on developers, it takes just one must-have add-on like this to spoil it for Linux users. And so the X-Plane Linux army shrinks from 4% down to 3%, and so there is even less reason for future Linux development. A chicken-and-egg problem... You will probably tell me that there are reasons that I don't know anything about, but I wonder if the obstacle is technical, or if it is fear for difficult support questions because of the numerous Linux distro variants out there... Anyway, you can count me in for the Saab 340A, but I will let my hair grow like like RMS, in silent protest!

The entire study level simulation is, yes. Limitless, to say the least.

Can't have people taking it all too seriously, now can we?

Oh. My. God. I think I'm in love

"a heart full of love"

Sorry for the lack of news. I'm deep into C programming at the moment so there's not been anything complete or demonstrable to report. I'm really pleased with the statistical performance in XP10.21. Performance in XP9.70 is good, too, but it all seems to "click" in 10. Now I'm working on systems plug-ins. You may remember from earlier news articles that there are 400 individual steps necessary to get a Comet Series 4 from absolute stone-cold start to take off and climb-out. Without any plugin whatsoever, just using built-in X-Plane datarefs, I could complete 135 items on the official check list — as demonstrated in the YouTube videos I published quite a long time ago. When you read the real check list, you quickly realise that a large number of items are about communications with aircraft and ground crew administration, which are not simulated in any way in X-Plane. Also a number of visual checks where there is no failure mode in X-Plane, therefore checking them is irrelevant. So I will never achieve a ratio of 400:400. Even so, it's an interesting ratio. The motivation behind the plug-in is not to increase that number, although that will happen as a matter of course. It is to make those things that do work function better. For example, in the YouTube video, I had used a lot of generic light switch datarefs and sliders in order to be able to move levers to satisfy an item on the check list, but the levers didn't actually do anything. Now they will. I appreciate that this will be of no interest to some users, therefore there will also be a cheat button, effectively skipping to the end of the check list. Progress is steady. I've finished the flight instruments — debugging them at the moment. The DME radios are now completely separate from the NAV radios, and the distance function works over a longer range than the standard X-Plane instruments. All radios require not only the relevant electrical bus to be live, but also the inverters and radio power switches at the navigator's station; the navigator's station has its own independent ADF radios (ADF 3 and ADF 4). That only describes a limited area of the whole plug-in, but it gives an idea of what I've been up to recently. The next steps are to sort out the electrical supply, and the fuel and hydraulic systems. At this stage, I am not going to replicate historical navigation systems like LORAN or DECCA. That's a big project that's outside the scope of the Comet model. It requires the infrastructure of transmitters and their correct geographical locations as well as the simulation on board an aircraft. I don't have that information, so it would require a fair bit of research and correspondence before any work could actually begin. I have been discussing this with other members of the UK X-Plane Development Team: we're all interested in aircraft from this period, and it would be great to have this equipment available, but we haven't begun to assess the scale of the task. I am also in quite a busy period with my "real" work, and will be on assignment abroad for the whole second half of September, which will cause something of a hiatus for the Comet project — but I'm still very much on the case! Guy.

Four empty websites and a forum with 10 users, half of which are family? What exactly are you offering X-Pilot?

Wat? :/

Well, if he's better then you got NOTHING to worry about! Why would you ever want anything subpar? Sounds to me like you're covered, and there's nothing to worry about. It is this mentality that you have just shown that helps seal the deal and makes us feel comfortable with our decision. Enjoy your X-Plane flights!