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Captains, Beginning tomorrow you'll be able to enjoy SkyMaxx Pro v4.5! This is a pretty nice update we're excited to get out to you, and we're hoping you enjoy it as much as we do! Of things to note, you can expect the following: Procedural sky box (based on the Hosek model) to accurately simulate sky colors for any time, place, and weather Improved blending of distant clouds into the sky Cloud draw distance increased by 20% Stutters with high cloud draw area settings reduced More realistic and distinctive representation of “HD cloud puffs” stratiform clouds More variety of cloud shapes and positions New, much-improved cloud textures for “crisp” and “soft” cumulus clouds Added glare effect surrounding the sun Our own ephemeris model, for accurate placement of the sun, moon, stars, and planets at night Accurate moon phases and orientation of the moon Various bug fixes and graphical polish By replacing X-Plane’s skies with our own, it enables us to make the lighting on our clouds more consistent with the skies you see behind them. The screenshots below show what you can expect. This results in better blending and color continuity, which makes the clouds seem much more natural and realistic. This is a big upgrade to SkyMaxx Pro, and will be offered free of charge to existing SkyMaxx Pro 4 customers running X-Plane 10 or X-Plane 11. A few images to show what this update will look like. It's especially gorgeous in X-Plane 11! We'll see you in the 4.5 skies this weekend!

We're just waiting for some updates to Gizmo before it can be released. Stay tuned; shouldn't be much longer. It will be compatible with both XP10 and XP11. Meanwhile, a couple of shots I took from around 35,000 feet:

Captains, It's crazy to think X-Aviation has been in business for 10 years already, but that's the reality and time really does fly! When we first launched X-Aviation it was somewhat during the "pioneering" time of payware add-ons for X-Plane. At that time, one of the only ways to combat piracy or keep overhead costs for server bandwidth down as an e-commerce shop was to restrict download attempts. So, when we launched X-Aviation we naturally had this built into the store and it has remained a part of the system from the get-go. We have always maintained a process of allowing our customers to click the 'Request Reset' button once the download expired to get your links refreshed, but this has understandably been less than ideal for our customers and even for us from a support load standpoint. We live in a content-driven world now, and bandwidth has become cheaper compared to 10 years ago. More importantly, we understand the sense of instant gratification the Internet brings, so having to request a reset for a download can be a real pain. It means you need to wait for one of our staff to manually verify the link and have it reset, sometimes taking a few days for that link to be refreshed. With the above said, we have coded up a new download system for our store. Effective immediately, all aircraft and object based scenery downloads will be unlimited and without an expiry date. This policy affects all of your purchases, new and old. We have dedicated many resources to various aspects of our products and store, but this is one area we neglected to bring up to speed until now. It's not earth-shattering news, but it should be very welcome news to you, and we sincerely hope it removes a pain point for you and your desire to have a seamless flight simulation adventure using our products. Thank you for your past patronage, and we're looking forward to serving you more in the future! Blue Skies!

Some screenshots from around europe

A little story from my last flight. Had a interesting flight yesterday between LSZH (Zurich) and ESSA (Arlanda) during a VATSIM event, when a failure was triggered. Its fun to (try) troubleshooting and find out what has happend without looking at the logfile or the failures menu. (All picture is taken on ground just to illustrate) I had about 400-500nm left on my flight to ESSA when I got this master caution. I obvious have some issues with flight controls and the hydraulics. So my next step is to look at the overhead panel. The first I notice is that both hydraulic pumps for SYSTEM B is indicating LOW PRESSURE. And I noticed the indicators for the flight controls, but my main concern was the hydraulics. So I checked the pressure and quantity for SYSTEM B and confirming that I have a total loss of that hydraulic system. So I was thinking, what to do, what to do. I had no problems flying the aircraft with the autopilot. And everything else worked fine. My next step was to check if the QRH was covering this issue. And it did. Luckly for me. First two steps is to set SYSTEM B FLIGHT CONTROL SWITCH to STBY RUD and set both hydraulic pumps for SYSTEM B to off. So far so good. Still flying. And I made a decision to continue my flight to my destination as planed, it was after all a nice VATSIM event with alot of traffic. I started planing my next steps. What system have I lost ? How do I handle that ? The QRH says this. Systems that are handled by SYSTEM B is. Outboard flight spoilers. Autopilot B. - No issue for me, flying on Autopilot A. Yaw damper. Alternate nose wheel steering. No issue SYSTEM A is covering Nose wheel steering. Normal brakes. SYSTEM A have to handle the brakes, and that means that Autobrake is INOP. Manual braking only. SYSTEM B is also covering flaps, so alternate flaps have to be used. The QRH says I should plan for a FLAP 15 landing. Not sure why, but could be performance issues with a go around or if I lose of a engine, since I cant retract the flaps with the alternate system. Active runway for landing at ESSA this night was 01R (2500 meters). I did ask ATC for 01L (3300 meters) for landing, but it was denied (shame on you ATC) So 01R it is. Winds calm. VREF with FLAPS 15 was 144knots + 15. So my approach speed would be 159kts. The QRH says that alternate flaps extension from flaps 0 to flaps 15 takes 2 minutes. So had to plan this and make sure I was able to set flaps 15 in time. On the approach. At < 230kts I enabled the alternate flaps. Set the flap lever to desired flap position and extend flaps on maneuvering speed schedule using the alternate flaps position switch. Landing checklist: I was able to set the flaps in time and the landing went fine. You can learn so much from the failures IXEG have made availble for us. And a 2 hour "boring" flight from A to B can be pretty busy when you need to start troubleshooting and flying the aircraft at the same time. Pretty sure I was doing a lot of mistakes, but it was great fun From the logfile. The flight on vatsim: https://vataware.com/flight/5926fe4253523315c9000008

I'll take a look and see what I can do.

I have the sliding only just after pushback and after starting one engine. I pay attention to not pushing and turning but only pushing straight else the plane is likely to crash. Once both engines are on I can safely taxi to the holding point. And once in the air the plane is working fine with the only annoying exception of the (almost non existing) drag, but we understand it's a known problem with xp11. So here the trick is to start an early descent enough to slow down properly and intercept the g/s leveled. Continuous descent approaches are a bit tough actually atm. [emoji4]