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Here's what is happening. After living though one of the worst headcolds I've had for quite a while over the last week, I was finally able to focus on the update (non-functioning gauges) Files have been submitted and were about to published. However, I saw another question posted about the fuel selector, and we've decided to add that fix into the update as well. The fuel selector will take less than a day to fix and that will be the final addition. Apologies for the delay, but head colds really suck! EDIT: Fuel Selectors are now fixed. Working nicely. Expect an update very soon.

Sunday Beaver Update 1 Hello all, as promised I will provide development updates more frequently now until the release. I plan to do it at least once per week and most probably on Sunday. So here it comes: This week work on the external model continued. A few objects had to be re-organized to make animations more easy and the normal and spec maps had their first iteration. They look good so far, but a few cosmetic changes need to be done here and there for the rivets. When this work is finished, the Beaver high resolution maps will get the first livery. I hope I can present the first picture in my update next week. If not it will come very soon after it. Besides that, I continued with cockpit and cabin animations and I would say that aprroximately 80% of the cockpit and cabin animations are done. The main work was on plug-in coding this week. I am coding the engine start-up behaviour so it will be as real as possible. So yes, you can count the blades until you switch the mags to both. In addition to that, I am coding my own physical models for Cylinder Head Temperature, Oil Pressure and Oil Temperature. I don't like the way it is handled in standard X-Plane/Planemaker. Inside Planemaker you can play with some numbers in order to get the instruments to show some reasonable numbers, but this has nothing to do with the specifc engine you simulate and it is also kind of a blackbox thing and I don't like that. I want to have full control in all conditions, and I can only have it by using a plug-in. So I am writing my own simulation here. You have too be careful to not run your engines hot on ground, while using too much power on a hot day. Also angle of attack will have in impact on the airflow which is cooling the engine etc. Not fully done, but I am getting there. My standalone electrical system is also almost finished. The X-Plane standard electrical system is not used anymore. I also implemented a more realistc battery charging behaviour. The only thing missing is the temperature effect on the battery. I am currently doing some research here and I am planning to simulate this effect as well. So you have to be careful if you run your starter on a cold day. The battery might drain quickly. Another thing I did was going through a few big audio recording files. A friend of mine did a recording session on a real Beaver for me and I am going through the material in order to extract and create some proper sound files, which can be used for the simulated Beaver and yes, I have that typical engine idle sound of the Beaver. Hope this was interesting for you and stay tuned for more...

Everyone take cover!

This CANNOT be a serious question.

Hello, all, This will serve as a formal forum announcement that we have released the version 1.1 update for SkyMaxx Pro. All customers who have purchased SkyMaxx Pro up till now have been sent an e-mail by X-Aviation with complete instructions on how to obtain your update. We have made this a very simple process! For those that purchase SkyMaxx Pro from today forward, your purchased download will already be updated to version 1.1 for you. What if I didn't get the update e-mail? If you did not receive your update e-mail don't fret! X-Aviation has updated our system to allow all customers to update with ease, regardless of whether you received an e-mail for the update! Here's what to do: 1. Login to your X-Aviation account here: https://www.x-aviati...talog/login.php 2. View your past order history invoice that contains SkyMaxx Pro purchase on it. 3. At the bottom of the invoice you will find a blue highlighted link to your update that says: "SkyMaxx Pro". There are some important fixes and requests implemented in this update. The following is a list of additions/fixes included: What's New / Changed: Huge performance/FPS increases in both HDR and Non-HDRClouds now have uniform tone mapping between both HDR and Non-HDROrbit textures are now visible when SkyMaxx Pro is usedNew dawn and dusk transitions rids of black cloud appearanceOvercast 'High' settings now uses volumetric metaballs for a better lookVisibility setting issues have been resolvedAs always, thanks for being a customer with X-Aviation. We appreciate your feedback and support! Enjoy these latest updates, and stay tuned to the forum as we continually announce the latest happenings.

Id like to share some more real world goodness, another look at low visibility with SkyMAXX:

What can I say

Of course you can Colin Im looking forward to CYNJ

Oh no guess who bought Sky Maxx Pro Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Really happy with the results, Sky Maxx 1.1 rocks! I noticed also that with many clouds, God Rays, etc, my system constraint generally moved from my CPU to my NVidia 780 card. Running on 3 x 27" monitors I am getting about 30 FPS flying around Hawaii, and the clouds remind me of my actual trips to the islands. Thank you! John http://www.johnmiranda.com/flightsimulator.htm

Yeah, I know it.

Cheers, thanks for posting those! That shot with the low visibility towards a low sun looks very real; I know from experience that landing towards a low sun on a hazy day can be pretty hair-raising... Thanks! --NoJoe

Taking the CR200 From Quebec City to Montreal on a cold December evening

Forgot to mention in my last post that I also made a new hangar for the B-29 here are some pictures of it

For the same reason that the default FSX aircraft are not of the same standard as a PMDG product. Laminar focuses on the flight dynamics and image generator, they do not focus on a specific flight manual and system simulation. Default aircraft are good enough to let you practice basic airmanship. These are general simulators that let you explore a very wide variety of aircraft. A complete systems simulation like the Saab takes years and thousands of lines of custom code to develop.

Really? Seems to work okay for me. With the hd2 mesh your hardly need photosceneries.

1.1 was just released. It doesn't solve this weather pause (inherent with X-Plane), but it solves FPS issues as well as a multitude of others. You may want to check it out! The pausing is caused by the way that X-Plane loads real weather. It is highly dependent on one's system how long such a pause will last, however, it is even present in default clouds. The reason you notice it more here is because SkyMaxx Pro will load no two clouds the same, thus it takes more time for your CPU to compute what goes where and your GPU to draw these newly rendered clouds. The pause takes place when real weather decides it's time to load new METAR data from the closest station. The way to solve this will be a weather injector in the future. I personally don't have bad pauses, but a number of users do when the new real weather loads. We're continually looking into this, but for now, X-Plane rules how this takes place and we're stuck in its "cell".

You guys are probably getting sick of these.. but Im not. And this is my only outlet! Just departing Geneva.. For this one I tried putting the cumulus layer much higher, at like 20-25k. That way my FPS would still be decent around the heavy Geneva area..and then once I got up into the clouds it was fine because It wasnt drawing so many ground textures. Still using Very High res.. some cockpits are just too detailed for Extreme. Also an important note with HD mesh my VRAM jumps up to 3000 easily even in mountain areas.