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Hi Folks!, I've just finished putting together a video titled 'Sights and Sounds'. The purpose of the video is to showcase the latest version of the 737-300 project as it stands today with some sound additions, 3D model enhancements, and just all around cool effects! Work continues daily, and we can all see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully you're all as excited as we are! Enjoy!

I agree - if I had a real 737 for a day, all I´d do is fly patterns with it. If I want to sightsee, I would take a C-172 to better see the scenery. Pattern work is where it´s at, taking off, landing, accelerating, decelerating, configuration changes... Jan

KBFI/KSFO A true first flight comes from boeing field.

To be clear, it reads metar info from external plugins *or* from X-Plane's built-in real weather system - you don't need an external weather plugin to benefit from Real Weather Connector. It will make SkyMaxx Pro's cloud formations much more realistic and immersive with or without one. Things like wind and turbulence are a function of the weather engine. Real Weather Connector's purpose is to tell SkyMaxx Pro about detailed cloud formations that surround you, so it can visually simulate them. Due to differences in how we might interpolate METAR information vs. how X-Plane or external weather engines might do it, I can't promise things like turbulence will correlate perfectly to our cloud placement. But it should be reasonably close, which has always been the case. The new "solid stratiform" and "broken stratiform" effects in SkyMaxx Pro 3 will be used if selected in the configuration, and if the entire surrounding area is reporting overcast conditions. RWC will add towering cumulus and also cumulonimbus clouds to the scene when reported. You don't need extended DSF on for them; clouds will be visible up to the cloud draw distance selected or up to the visibility distance being simulated, whichever is smaller. Screenshots below

The lights are tuned to Jan's liking

Just some VFR pattern work first. Expecting the unexpected

Insane! Watch how many copies of X-Plane 10 this simulation is going to sell.

Wow!!!! Open windows!!!!!!!!! Nice.... Wow I have no words....

The takeoff roll and climbout gave me goosebumps. I really felt like I was sitting in the jumpseat on that one...

orgasmic!!! :D :D

I just woke up because I dreamed about the IXEG 737. No kidding. Its 3 AM here and then I checked YouTube to find this. The only things I usually dream about are my wife and motorcycle. This is going too far lol

As much as I really, really, really want to talk about SkyMaxx Pro 3.1's new features - we haven't announced those yet! Stay tuned.

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!

Hi All, We've posted another video demonstrating some of the VNAV features during the climb phase. There are many different ways to control/affect the aircraft's vertical progress, including flaps, restrictions on speed and/or altitude and the MCP altitude knob. Follow along with Jan as he explains some of the features of the climb phase.

Folks, while waiting, I thought it would be nice to have a thread with some quiz questions regarding the 737 where you won't typically find the answer in the FCOM. Sitting in the cockpit with everything set up, how would you know if the spoilers extend when rotating the control wheel? Remember, the EFIS 737 doesn't have flight control displays. And no peaking outside the window!Assuming you have all static ports blocked (no altimeter). You took off, flew the numbers according to QRH and at some point levelled off. What ways can you think of to get an estimate of your altitude (MSL or AGL)? (Aircraft was just painted and someone did a really bad job during the preflight :-) )The F/O's course selector is not responding to changes. What could this indicate?If the airplane symbol appears in the lower right corner of the EHSI - what does this indicate?The CRT wears out and suddenly there is a color loss in the EADI. What implications could this have on landing in bad weather?You are having a very bad day (obviously!) and now all 4 CRT's are black/white (complete loss of color). Any implications?Let's start with that :-) Regards YD

Drop someone from the pilots window and time how long until impact!

I am planning an epic group flight the first weekend after release... Check it out here: http://www.xplanejunkies.com/ixeg/ #BeenWaiting5Years

Not sure if this answers your question, but our philosophy has been to 'hijack' X-Plane's native commands wherever there is a suitable one. E.g. if you have a joystick button assigned to the default 'TOGA' command, then that will also engage TOGA mode of the IXEG 737. For commands that don't have a suitable default counterpart, you will need to assign them using the X-plane Joystick & Equipment menu.

As does our 737 captain on the development team.

Really? I have been in the cockpit for few night takeoffs and I would say it's pretty spot on, especially for darker (less floodlit) airports (I am speaking to you EGKK!). It's literally one (or two) shaft of light that illuminates just 2 meters of the runaway ahead. I think it looks pretty realistic.

Hi All, ok let's go: Sitting in the cockpit with everything set up, how would you know if the spoilers extend when rotating the control wheel? Remember, the EFIS 737 doesn't have flight control displays. And no peaking outside the window!Hydraulic pressure change? - with the EDP and EMDP running, you shouldn't see a noticeable drop in pressure. Hydraulic Quantity indication decreasing (as fluid gets caught in the extended cylinders) - yupp Assuming you have all static ports blocked (no altimeter). You took off, flew the numbers according to QRH and at some point levelled off. What ways can you think of to get an estimate of your altitude (MSL or AGL)? (Aircraft was just painted and someone did a really bad job during the preflight :-) )GPS alt readout - yupp WX radar trick - yupp (actually learned this one at LFT!) Cabin depressurization - yes, I suppose :-) Military radar - yupp Formation flying - yupp, in VMC. Calculating time from takeoff and the medial climbrate (climbrate * time), you should get AGL. - ah but without static ports, your climb rate will be unknown. The IVSI will jump around based on IRS vertical acceleration data, but without a change in static pressure, it will settle down at 0 FPM gradually. If you have a OAT (or similar) and probably some ISA dev and temperature at ground, you may calculate the the altitude MSL. I'm just guessing here, as I've not learned the procedure for this, but it should be possible. - works as long as the atmosphere is behaving according to ISA. An inversion layer will tell you you have descended below your departure airport elevation :-) I can think of two more methods (one obvious). The F/O's course selector is not responding to changes. What could this indicate?Mechanical failure - yupp MCP freeze - yupp Elec bus failure - yes, in fact it's the battery bus that powers the right MCP CRS selector If the airplane symbol appears in the lower right corner of the EHSI - what does this indicate?Answer: indicates a frozen display. It's worth a try to switch both EFI to the opposite side. The CRT wears out and suddenly there is a color loss in the EADI. What implications could this have on landing in bad weather? I can't see the ILS glideslope magenta point? - the glideslope indicator will still be visible, it just won't be magenta. The colour is required for autoland, because the FMA is written in "green" and if that colour fails, you could not verify the autopilot status during a low-vis approach. - yupp! You are having a very bad day (obviously!) and now all 4 CRT's are black/white (complete loss of color). Any implications?This is mostly due to lack of airflow (equipment cooling). The CRT´s might shut down at a later stage, depending on how the internal temperature develops. Try to re-instate airflow by going to an alternate ventilation system. - yes, this indicates both SGs are overheating. According to my notes, both EADI/EHSI displays will shut down after 90 minutes. Ok a small follow up regarding the 'depressurize cabin to get alttiude estimate' trick: assuming you are somewhere at FL350 (ok bad idea to depressurize). Your static ports suddenly clear up and the IVSI is indicating that you are descending at 1500 fpm. Assuming the outflow valves are fully open and the cabin has had enough time to reduce pressure differential to 0 PSI. Both packs are off. What would the cabin rate indicate? 1500 fpm cabin descent?Higher than 1500 fpm descent rate?Lower than 1500 descent rate? And why? Regards YD

This is simply awesome. best product ever coming to X-Plane Wish I have the same resources/time spend on L-410... This release delays L-410 release

Indeed a winner here. I'd just like to see some passenger windows lighted at night. Speaking about sounds, will be some cabin crew announcements included like catering or turbulence warning. I know purists will dismiss my question as trivial but I'm one of those who like to feel in a realistic environment. Edit Regarding my last question I've found an answer in the not included features... Cabin crew interaction. Omitted due to time constraints. Planning to have basic interaction, for opening doors, for example. Need to get sound-samples first, basic infrastructure in place, though.Lighted windows would be nice though for external views.

Ah, good catch. The infidel video producer must have used another airplane previous to the 737 that left the altitude target at that value. We shall make sure to reset that when the 737 is loaded.

Don't worry about X-plane's native autopilot. The 737 autopilot is coded by us from scratch. Currently around 2000 lines of code and another 500 the MCP.

I'm excited ! guys; this is amazing work...

I love the attention to detail that has been put into the sounds. Good sounds are missing from so many add-on aircraft. <br /><br /><br />Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Um.......Weaping........Its just so beautiful.

Just want to see the pay now button.... Looks and sounds amazing.

"I would say you are more fck up than serious if so.." is definitely a judgment on a person who spends their time how they choose if I've ever heard one. You have no idea what one's circumstances may be, and it is neither in your place (nor mine) to judge any person in such a manner. Many people read these forums, and that can certainly be offensive to some. Please be considerate of feelings before you write.

That is correct behavior. Yes, GS will only engage when approached from below. Yes, there are. And you should always use the custom commands for the aircraft if available.

Dang, this is serious stuff. Here is my guess, without looking at the AMM and being corrupted by flying Airbuses for 4 years : Sitting in the cockpit with everything set up, how would you know if the spoilers extend when rotating the control wheel? Remember, the EFIS 737 doesn't have flight control displays. And no peaking outside the window!Hydraulic Quantity indication decreasing (as fluid gets caught in the extended cylinders) Assuming you have all static ports blocked (no altimeter). You took off, flew the numbers according to QRH and at some point levelled off. What ways can you think of to get an estimate of your altitude (MSL or AGL)? (Aircraft was just painted and someone did a really bad job during the preflight :-) )Either get into the ACMS and do an Alpha lookup of geometric GPS altitude (MSL). This would also work with a handheld GPS like your mobile phone, if you have an APP for that. You could use your weather radar with a tilt of 0. The beginning of the "ground return" in NM divided by 3.3 is approximately your altitude AGL in thousands of feet. Another way is to get a radar station with altitude readout (military) to scan you, or to have a friendly plane come up and fly alongside ;-) The last possibility is to depressurize the airplane and use cabin altitude indication. The F/O's course selector is not responding to changes. What could this indicate?Some mechanical malfunction of the transducer, or the MCP locked up (usually goes along with altitude going to 50.000 and the altitude alert blaring...). It could also be an electrical failure of a certain bus (no idea off the top of my head which one) If the airplane symbol appears in the lower right corner of the EHSI - what does this indicate?Never seen that conciously or heard of it. The CRT wears out and suddenly there is a color loss in the EADI. What implications could this have on landing in bad weather?The colour is required for autoland, because the FMA is written in "green" and if that colour fails, you could not verify the autopilot status during a low-vis approach. You are having a very bad day (obviously!) and now all 4 CRT's are black/white (complete loss of color). Any implications?This is mostly due to lack of airflow (equipment cooling). The CRT´s might shut down at a later stage, depending on how the internal temperature develops. Try to re-instate airflow by going to an alternate ventilation system. Let's start with that :-) Regards YD

Hi All, Today we began testing a new beta of Real Weather Connector which offers up some more refined clouds and colorations. These are the first tests in such a scenario when utilizing Real Weather Connector. The screenshots are taken at a range of altitudes during climb out from an area in California. Final screenshots are take at FL300.

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!

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.

Zurich so rainy today

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.

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

You mean something like this? Enjoy!

Personally, I fly the plane from the cockpit, not from seat 10a staring at a wing that might occasionally flex. If I made money from Youtube or Twitch videos it might be different, but I want a totally immersive cockpit, jumping out of that to watch the wings totally breaks that immersion.

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.

Well, here's a link to a video where you can observe some wing-flex on B733: https://youtu.be/B0eihNQqafw?t=2m35s But it's very subtle indeed and I'm not sure it's even possible to tranfer such fine flex movements into X-Plane without it looking too cheesy.

Winglex IMHO should never be a priority. There are other features that could be added that would be better than wing fkex.

You're not really helping the case here. I've asked you to help out. Jan, whom you are referring to, also agreed with my followup post on lack of wing flex. A wing will naturally have some sort of flex. That flex is POINTLESS to model if it can essentially not be easily seen. So, again, I ask you to please find us a video of a 737-300 showing the amount of wing flex you're looking to have modeled. I couldn't find any on YouTube. Plenty of 737-300 wing videos out there, just none with flex, even in turbulence, so I'm asking you to now help out in understanding what you feel is worth modeling from a real video of the real aircraft which you find.

Yes, full support, including editing, adding or deleting restrictions, changing runways, adding transitions, etc. Also correct "magenta" including turn-radii, bypass behaviour, etc. Also conditional waypoints like "when passing 800..." or "fly until intercepting radial..." Correct fly-by and fly-over waypoint behaviour, etc. Jan

Thanks for the list. I would have liked to see the 3D pilot's added to the exterior view and opening windows and doors. Will look forward to them in the future.

At first I thought to myself, "wow, that's a pretty long list for something that's been in development for 5 years," but I see that most of those things are just eye candy and other minor stuff. Not that I don't care for those, but I can definitely live with that for the time being (especially if I finally get a reliable and accurately represented 737 in X-Plane). In fact, IXEG being such honest and transparent developer means much more to me than a having wing-flex or what have you. I have but two things to add, though: 1) "3D Pilots in Cockpit - not added because we don´t have a good model" - I think you'd make for a very good model, Jan! (pun intended) Joking aside, I see your concern, but I'd still rather had not-so-good looking pilots in the cockpit (outside view only that is) than having to look at unmanned aircraft sailing through the sky. I guess nobody will inspect them from up-close anyway... If you were talking about having a copilot sitting on his seat in cockpit view, than I agree completely. I think CRJ200 had that and I would just turn him off instantly because he looked like that "automatic pilot" from "Airplane!" movie and ate FPS for breakfast. 2) I see "optional eyebrow windows" are not on the list. So, will they make it to 1.0 provided we already have options for winglets and steam gauge engine instruments? I have a livery in mind that I'd like to make and unfortunately it ceased to operate before they even started retro-fitting the plugs. As always, thanks for your hard work guys, my wallet is ready!