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OK. time for a heads up. I'll start by quoting myself from almost a year ago; So, things are developing as we expected Those of you that are following the 11.10 beta know that Austin now has implemented DOWNWASH. Downwash is simply put air that is deflected downwards behind the wing and is one of the factors that produce lift. So behind the wing, the air flows at a downwards angle. HOWEVER, the downwash area is not just limited to the area just behind and above the wing, and I bet most of you do not know the magnitude and forces that are in play. Have a look at this photo (Below) I took a while back. You can see (on the very dirty A321) how the air moves around the wing, puts things in perspective. Upwash (in front) and downwash (behind). So if you thought the air just rushes by your passenger window horizontally, you were wrong. As you can see, the direction of the air even far above and away from the wing is not horizontal. This downwash area also extends all the way back to the tail and (can) hit the horizontal stabilizer. And this is where things get complicated. The downwash hitting the tail will cause an UP pitching moment. How much depends on the aircraft geometry. An aircraft with a high tail like an MD80 will hardly notice this, while a 737 will notice some even though the tail is 2-3 meters above the wing. So this affects normal flight. ALSO, when an aircraft is landing, it enters what we call ground effect (GE). Many believe GE is one effect, but there are atleast 3 that we need to take into account. One of them is affected by downwash and change in pitching moment. When an aircraft approaches ground (less than 1 span) altitude, the downwash angle will get more shallow. This causes less downforce on the tail and you will get a nose DOWN tendency which will affect your landing. Also, it will affect your takeoff where the opposite happens. This is very complex stuff to put it mildly. So what is going on right now? We are working with Austin providing documentation and tests to get the magnitude of these effects right. It also means that we will need to recalibrate the 737 to get it back to where it was. The good news is that Austin now has implemented the designers need to save the aircraft for the new effects to take effect. In other words the 737 will perform as expected until we release an update with the recalibration. So nothing for you guy's to worry about. We do NOT recommend you open the aircraft and save it yourself. Most likely you will be out of trim in cruise and overpitch on takeoff etc. M

We are still checking out the new changes that you get by saving the .acf in X-Plane 11.10b5 (and later). It seems that the new downwash model is making the stabilizer more effective - this isn´t wrong, but our model is not tuned for that (yet). So you will get a lot more tail-downforce in regular flight, and will therefore need more "nose-down" trim to compensate. You will find that you run out of "nose down" trim in a lot of situations (during approach, flying faster than ca. 260kts, etc). I recommend NOT saving the .acf in the latest betas. We are flight-testing the changes, and will incorporate appropriate modifications to retain the flight-model that we are so proud of in 11.10, while taking advantage of Austin´s improvements. Cheers, Jan

Dear pilots, We are very happy to announce that our DC-9 project, after a lot of hiccups and delays, is finally back on track, and we are working at full speed! The members of our team have experience in real aviation and engineering world, like Aerospace Engineering and flight dynamics testing, pilots, and software programmers. Also we are happy to inform you that part of our team, is a very experienced ex-Swissair DC-9 pilot to ensure the accuracy of the aircraft! Major features: 1. The model will based on DC-9-32, in Swissair’s configuration. This will be the base configuration during development. 2. Accurate flight dynamics, using NASA's simulation tools! 3. System’s simulation to the level that you can/need to operate the aircraft with use of the real aircraft’s manuals. 4. Highly detailed and accurate 3D model. 5. FullHD realistic textures with advanced PBR materials. 5. Fully custom dynamic lighting. 6. Many liveries. To our best, we will match cockpit colors with the liveries. 7. High fidelity sounds, implemented with X-Plane’s new future, "FMOD". 8. VR support from v1.0.0. with full operational manipulators We have opened a dedicated Facebook group, where we will post updates regularly. and discuss with you the development of this project. Feel free to join in! https://www.facebook.com/groups/530615907278229 Enjoy

Hello all! I've been wondering if anyone here will make a nice looking 777, FlightFactor's rendition was comprehensive in the systems, but not so much in visual accuracy. This is my first legitimate aircraft project, It will have a few short comings in terms of detail (but my aim here is to attain the highest level of modelling accuracy), I used Hiroshi Igami's 777 (from POSKY, they're now TDS) as a base, then redid the engines, wings etc and remapped and retextured any model thats used. UPDATE: I scrapped most of the modelled redid the aircraft, starting with the most popular choice at the moment: 777-300ER, check latest post for latest images! One thing about 777s that I like is the wing flex, and FF unfortunately didn't simulate that very well. My wing model is sliced into 7 sections to ensure a smooth and almost-seamless flex. The landing gear also is sized correctly (hehe) and isn't a 200ER landing gear (theres no wiring and no cantilever system in the front). Yes it's going to be freeware, it's a learning project for me, a project launched after being dissatisfied of FF's 777, and also learning to animate. Without further ado, here are lé screenshots for you to feast on. Many thanks to: Jeffrey Chen: for his help advising about animation Goran Matovina: for advising me about the fan blade animations (stuck on it for days) Hiroshi Igami: for his model, and continuous assistance and support in this project ____ Possibly released under Aerobridge Studios.

We are starting to get questions about this so I thought I'd start a topic to explain and clarify how things work in XP and what you can expect ahead. As you know all of us at IXEG are old timers and have been developing aircraft since XPv5 or so, (like 15-20 years ago) and have been through this process many times before. Since it's been years since XP10 got released we assume a big portion of the current user base have not experienced a new XP version run change and what this actually MEANS to your favorite aircrafts. Basically, in a new XP run, it is "tradition" for Austin to implement lots new flight model stuff. Some new stuff, some big stuff, some minor tuning here and there of various things. Typical ones are; Thrust (engine) Lift Drag Ground model Controls etc. Also, this usually takes place throughout the entire beta phase (where we are now), and by experience will continue through to at least XP 11.1 when things start to stabilize. During this phase, XP11 is a moving target flight model wise, and attempts by the designers to chase austin's tail and "fix" flight model related stuff is a waist of time because chances are big things will change again in the next beta. So designers tend to hold off for a while before we start looking at it. THEN at some point we start looking at it, and usually we discover more errors/bugs/new stuff in the new FM, which again leads to debates with Austin and hunt for documentation. Also, it is tradition for Austin to tune stuff that he does not mention in the release notes, so there are usually a few surprises. Further, LR policy is that the designers have to prove they are right, and LR is wrong, not opposite... So sending Austin emails like "Hey, the thrust has changed 20%, fix it!" is not going to change anything. So basically you have 3 choices as a designer; Prove to Austin you are right (takes a lot of time, knowledge, effort and documentation) Reverse engineer your own flight model (Also takes a lot of time and effort) Pretend your aircraft is performing just fine, ignore user reports, and do nothing So basically, as it looks today, all quality aircraft will have issues that needs to get fixed moving from 10 to 11. For those aiming at the highest level of accuracy in the FM (like IXEG) designers *might* need to do a complete recalibration of the aircraft. This is not a trivial task as you can imagine, XP's FM is far more complex than e.g. FSX SOOOoooooo, what do we know at this point about XP11 PB8 that might/will affect us; Drag has changed Ground model has changed Engine model has changed As we digg deeper into XP11 we might find more things, but we'll see. Like I said, this is perfectly normal It is just a phase everyone has to go through and everyone needs to be patient. Kind of like moving from FSX to P3D from a designer point of view. There is no "quick fix", this is hardcore engineering and programming. The good news is we will do all this work for free, and in the mean time, we recommend using XP10 if flight model is important to you M

And you can be proud, the best flight model ever !

Just a small update, playing with rain again Also, finally finished the CG calculation, so if you're not careful, you can easily tip-over the L-410