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Hello Captains, Since the release of SkyMaxx Pro v1 one of the most requested features was to be able to see cloud/weather formations in the distance similar in a manner to what X-Plane default clouds are able to achieve (but at a huge cost of performance running those default clouds). Unfortunately, the X-Plane plug-in Software Development Kit has not made such a seemingly trivial concept very easy to achieve, as the weather "radar" X-Plane draws is actually only available to default X-Plane's own cloud system at a root level. Laminar has stated that allowing this same information to be accessible to plugins would require a certain amount of work they are unable to provide at this time, so we've sat in limbo contemplating what we can do to improve this (or how). It is with great excitement that we announce Real Weather Connector today after lots of work and research on how to tackle a perceived issue for the SkyMaxx Pro series. To be precise, Real Weather Connector will further enhance your flying sessions when utilizing real world weather from sources like NOAA, FSGRW, X-Plane's Real WX Download option, EFASS, etc. It will parse the METAR data downloaded from these applications and grid the SkyMaxx Pro v3 clouds to their respective locations. Don't think of it as a replacement for whatever you use to get real weather from. It enhances the experience by creating a more direct link between these apps and SkyMaxx Pro - and it also works great with X-Plane's built-in real world weather or any weather engine that drops METAR files. As an example: If you flew without Real Weather Connector installed right now your SkyMaxx Pro v3 clouds will draw clouds from METAR data download from apps like those listed above and create weather based on your EXACT aircraft location while you fly. What happens here is what some refer to as clouds popping in and out, miraculously changing from one extreme to another (like broken clouds suddenly disappear and overcast comes in out of nowhere). You won't see weather systems ahead or behind you, but instead the same type of cloud systems everywhere you look until you move to the next closest METAR location. With Real Weather Connector you will see weather systems in the distance! You will see systems behind you, to your left, and to your right all based on the real weather data you download. It makes for an amazingly immersive experience, and we're really excited to have achieved this! The finer details: Real Weather Connector will create weather systems based on downloaded Real World data from programs like those listed above. It will require SkyMaxx Pro v3.1. The version 3.1 update will be free to all existing customers and contain other enhancements we will announce soon. SkyMaxx Pro v3 will recognize when Real Weather Connector is installed and a new menu option will become available to select whether you'd like to use real weather data or not. Real Weather Connector will be its own product, but is dependent on SkyMaxx Pro v3 to run. A lot of R&D has gone into this to make this work. As usual, all SkyMaxx Pro v3 updates will be free for that respective product, but we need to be able to pay the bills for the development and time it took away from our families to create this Real Weather Connector add-on. A price will be announced at a later time. To be clear, there are more lines of code to produce Real Weather Connector than there is in SkyMaxx Pro v3. It's been that big of a project! We are currently in beta and trying to catch any bugs we can find (and we expect to find some with such a complex way to draw these clouds). We do not know how long this process will last, but we are working diligently to get it into your hands. Screenshots are below a few posts down as well as HERE! Happy Flying, and thanks for looking!

You obviously did. Didn´t watch the videos closely enough! Bad Dr. Nerdrage! Start at 02:00 mins, if you are the impatient type Here is my stance on setting the CG and Weight: When we initially conceived this aircraft, we had the serious simulation user in mind. The guy who wants to experience what the real pilot experiences. This explains why we handle the CG and weight stuff the way we do. Let me tell you what part the pilot has in determining and setting weight and CG. The pilot gets an estimated zero-fuel-weight on his electronic flight plan. Together with his First Officer he reviews all flight parameters, and if he works for a decent airline that care for the life of their passengers, and not only their money, he gets to determine how much fuel (in excess of the legally required minimum) he takes. Obviously he can´t overload the aircraft, and sometimes you have to make a call between taking more fuel and leaving payload behind. Once the loading is completed (and no, the Captain doesn´t tell every passenger where he needs to sit), he gets a printout of the electronic load-sheet. A bunch of numbers, along with the actual Zero Fuel weight, and the CG. He punches those into the FMS and thats it. No clicking on seats. No sliding bars to fill cargo holds. No neat little represenation of load and trim envelope, moving CG´s or stuff like that. Now we know that you guys dig that stuff, though, and we might get to it later, for now this first release is favouring virtual pilots, not the virtual loadmasters. Jan

Zurich so rainy today

I completely agree with you (and your wife )! While being aware that my own expectations are propably niche-in-a-niche among simmers, i can't stop asking myself question: why simmers care so much about wingflex on the exterior model, but never really notice serious bugs/disprepancies in the FMC? Do majority of us treat X-Plane as a game, not a sim? The best 15 minutes i had in X-Plane this week: Flying online i was approaching my destination airport in LES Saab. While being handed-off from ACC to APP i realized there's something wrong with my NAV1 radio. It did not catch signal from a nearby VOR. Let's try another station. Nope, didn't work. Let's see if i can receive same VOR on the NAV2 radio. Yup, works fine. The airspace is busy, i am told i'm number 4, given various speed restrictions and headings (as well as own navigation to arbitrary fixes that we're not part of my flightplan). Doing all the necessary descent/approach work on the Saab, as well as maintaining awareness of your position is very time consuming on it's own. So, how am i establish on the ILS without my primary nav radio working? Visual approach was out of the question due low overcast layer... And there goes the study sim fun - five minutes later i was handed-off to tower while descending on the glideslope with autopilot on. Because the developer choose to focus on the systems in the first place, i was able to transfer autopilot nav source to the co-pilot's side. The autopilot followed the ILS from secondary nav receiver correctly announcing "LOC2" on EADI. And then i could still remain the left seat and monitor the approach/land just by selecting "2ND CRS" on the DCP. The ATC remained unaware of my problems. How cool is that? I wouldn't try this on any (so praised) payware Boeing or Airbus released so far for X-Plane. I mean, how can people not see the difference? Does looking at the (proverbial) wingflex proves more satisfactionary?

A couple more shots from the other day... Frank (Sundog) took these while flying around the Orlando area. There was a fog bank present in sim, just as there was in real life at the time, and it was cool to see!

Implemented in the future. We have a strong engineering model for implementing an incredibly diverse array of failures and realistic management of such will require a fair amount of effort to be at the level we want. -tkyler

We already have 1 layout modelled and textured. I'm currently in the process of going through it and taking advantage of an encyclopedia of photos we received late last year, re-modelleing and re-texturing certain areas, but the actual configuration is pretty much what it looks like in the screenshot.

I meant to post about that, actually! We are currently implementing some changes to how the clouds will "color" when this product is active, so this is still work in progress and WILL be adjusted prior to release.

We also have alot of features that nobody else have Seriously, it is not very hard to make, but at the moment we have set a list of set target functions for v1.0 and a target (internal) release date, so our focus is that list until after release. After that it's time for us to start working on those "nice to have" lists and "gaming" aspects.

Hi All, Doing more testing today around Florida and Colorado. Just thought I would post a few more pics doing some long haul flying and enjoying the weather! Looking back towards Denver at FL370 with an overcast layer behind us. Approaching the Gunnison, CO area with a nasty storm ahead. This went on as far as the eye could see!

Eddie, there is zero doubt in my mind you are in a minority of thousands on this. You can try and make a valid situation in your head to hash or argue this out, but truth be told, pilots do not dictate load counts. Prices and ticket buyers do, and the initial desire in creating this product was in no way to develop a 'Super Duper 737-Classic Financial Economy Edition' product where you could dictate what seats a family of four purchased. The randomizer is, in essence, quite realistic to what a pilot would receive after a boarding process. The numbers for CG and weights are what he cares about. Knowing that a person is in Business class is the least of his worries (other than job security ).

No offense guys, but this is being blown way out of proportion. Let it be made clear this product was and still is a labor of love from the get-go. This is important to know, because the lead technical advisor on the product not only is obsessed with X-Plane (sorry, Jan ), but also the 737-300 as a whole (even after thousands of hours in the aircraft and moving to the Airbus in real life now). He's flown the real deal for years, as a Captain, and is the most qualified of any of us to speak on the necessity of something like this. Truth be told, even if it were forced to be a set "passenger total" in your head at all times, this is not a deal killer, and if it were, Jan would never (I repeat: NEVER) let any of the team get away with it. Besides, the randomizer for the Load Sheet portion of the GUI is there for good reason. I'm sure in due course things like this will be added if deemed truly necessary and the demand is there. No one is forcing you to purchase this until it meets your needs (if that ever happens). Until then, you'd be missing out on something rather amazing to experience in sim. There's really no sense in trying to argue this right now. In my opinion, the fact there is already a load sheet randomizer option in the menu I previously showed kind of makes this argument rather silly, but to each their own. We'll see what the future holds.

I don't have a screenshot handy, but it looks great. First time I tried it, I thought that SkyMaxx Pro had turned itself off somehow and I was seeing some sort of weather map representation from X-Plane. But no, it was SkyMaxx Pro's clouds, just in very realistic weather patterns. As with the current version of SkyMaxx Pro, you control how far out the clouds draw to strike your own performance / draw distance tradeoff. As Cameron alluded to, we're introducing a few more performance tricks to make sure more people can turn that cloud draw distance slider up high enough to get the full experience.

Just to provide an update, Real Weather Connector + SkyMaxx Pro 3.1 is totally decoupled from X-Plane's internal 3-layer limitation now. Internally weather is represented by a grid, and each cell of that grid can have up to 6 layers of clouds at any altitude. Development is moving fast The only limitation is the METAR data itself. If the METAR has been changed by an external weather engine to fit within X-Plane's default 3-layer system, then that's the only information we'll have available to us.

Hi, I'm really excited with this. I asked Frank numerous times to develop something of this sort and I am very glad that he finally succeeded. Congratulations, Frank, and thank you. José

Thank you very much for this promising improvement of X-Plane experience… Wishing you all the best and offering my support if needed…

In this regard it's a standard X-Plane limitation (even for the default clouds in sim, as you know). We see this flaw, and we have ideas, but that is not something figured out/implemented for now. Lots of tricks up our sleeves for the future though! SkyMaxx Pro simply draws what it's told, and the 3 layer limitation is part of that. EDIT: We now have 6 layers. This post can be dismissed. :-)

Ok sounds good Can't wait for the new update then! Cheers, Blake

This is encouraging, is there any progress in the limited layers of wind and cloud of XP? Sometimes you know there is an overcast layer at 3000ft but you won't see the cloud until you are around 6000ft in descent Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not really, no (at least not here). We're doing everything we can to maintain performance and put in whichever tricks we can. Wait for more info on what's in SkyMaxx Pro v3.1 to understand what we're achieving!

Please note this is considered work in progress at all times for now... (Click for larger image)

New iMac testing...

Hopping to Lisbon. (Livery by me, grab it at the org)

Todays flight consisted of a LFPG-KSFO (Paris-San Fransisco) flight, using a United Airlines 767-300ER with Winglets. This is a real flight, and is one of the longest 767 routes currently in service! Takeoff from Paris! A nice cockpit shot over the North Atlantic Coming into SanFran, note the skyline in the background On the ground, seconds away from being at the gate, with her bigger brothers and sisters

Went on a Qantas montage the other night. Jar A330 from Christchurch to Sydney first, followed by Flight Factor's 767 from Sydney to Melbourne.

Did my first 767 flight today! From Dulles to London on United, as usual.

Random slides out of my todays online flights. 14:20 zulu over Ukraine, just reached cruising FL340 "Orange four-one-three, Pulkovo tower, winds 290 at 7 gusting 13 meters per second, continue approach, number two" Following 737 to the apron as the aircraft on final is instructed to go around due traffic on the runway City of lights at Amsterdam Schiphol airport Gate E4

My point exactly. For that video alone they even had to zoom just to show it! Anyways, thanks for actually posting a video rather than going on about nonsense. I'm sure the team as a whole will do as Jan said and asess the necessity of this after release.

You're back! Got that video yet? You're busy talking about ultra realism, all the while you previously showed me a 767 wing to model after. I've got the 3d modeler open just itching to put this in for you! I need your 737-300 video from seat 14D stat!