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These guys are breaking all the rules. Thank so much Pocket Rocket team!

I'm (virtually) mega and ultra rich so I have two TBMs (at least)...one at Santa Barbara and another somewhere tooling around Florida. I like to go to Santa Barbara and fly touch and goes (cuz, you know, I'm virtually mega rich) and then go back to Florida for some real trips...for the snakes and humidity, of course. It would be cool if I could have different frames in each place since touch and goes can be pretty hard on landing gear and it's such a pill to fly it all the way across the country to do touch and goes even if the airport is gorgeous. From what I see, you have to put the airplane there and then change the airframe. Wouldn't it be cool to have it do it automatically...keep one airframe at one airport and the other one at a different airport. Load up the sim and the right airplane is there. How cool would that be? Gregg

Hi, made a little HOLD script for the classic. https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/51057-ixeg-737-classic-hold/ Still a bit rough around the edges, but it works. Teardrops and all. All courses are corrected for wind and magnetic variation, but it has not been tested in very extreme situations. A flight with 80kn wind worked. Things that influence the size (and shape) of the pattern, bank angle, height (TAS!), speed, wind. (TAS influences the turning radius, not IAS) Things that may confuse my program, large changes in aircraft configuration during holding. Its only a little smart. PPOS PPOS is a hold pattern at present position, a simplified version of the PPOS of a Boeing FMS. Enter the desired inbound course, leg lenght, speed and altitude, and click HOLD. The aircraft will enter a holding pattern and will adjust speed and altitude. When the hold is active, you can adjust speed and altitude if needed, the program will anticipate the changes. There is no luxury option like in the real aircraft to enter quadrants and arm an exit. If you are cleared to leave the holding, to have to find the best position to leave the pattern and continue with LNAV / VNAV. The PPOS hold is terminated when you click the button, or when you deselect HDG SEL. The program anticipates wind, but with strong winds the pattern will start to look pear shaped, because turn radius will be influenced by wind. Other factors that will influence the hold pattern are speed and altitude. A speed of about 220kn is quite good for a holding. The bank angle the program uses is 30deg. If you change the bank angle during the hold, the program will adapt. Small bank angles will create a large pattern however. If you choose a inbound course that is very much different from the course the pattern will look a bit odd in the beginning. Best is to choose a course with as much upwind as possible. "HOLDING AT" This will allow you to search for navaid in your area, and use this as the FIX for the holding pattern. If you have the navigraph files (you dont need them for this option), an attempt is made to link a hold record with the navaid you chose. Beware to check the result of your search, especially the distance, this may give an idea if you found the right one. Some searches may find navaids very far from your location. HOLDING AT searches for waypoints,VOR and NDB navaids, near you. When you are satisfied with your choice, click hold, and the aircraft flies to the FIX and enters the pattern according the general rules. This may look a bit strange at first, but its just a teardrop or parallel entry. It can do nice teardrops "FIND HOLDING" This uses the Navigraph data to find a HOLDING, and tries to link this to a waypoint or navaid. This works well in general, especially if you use the Navigraph (moving) maps / charts with it. Otherwise it works as HOLDING AT, some data from HOLD records may be added for you to accept or override. Some holdings you can find by their name, and some by their FIX name. Beware, the searches may find results thousands of miles form your location. And yes, it will try to fly there From the test range:

That's pretty cool. For the record, I am finally back to working in the FMS, including adding the holds. I'm in the process of porting over to the ARINC 424 / XP1100 nav-data format, which should make things go much smoother for holds...accurate routes / entry....just about everything route related. But thanks for this script...it will be a bit before the holds features get distributed! -tkyler

Hi Dan. Thanks for your interest, I'm glad to see the frustrations with control setup are not just me. The plugin is in the Quality Assurance phase at the moment and I still have some research to do with regards to how portable the setup profiles will be. I'm hoping that profiles will be exchangeable between Windows, Mac and Linux clients so that we can setup a library of controller default setups. This will allow a new user to simply select "Saitek Pro Flight Yoke" from the drop down and get flying quickly and easily. This will be in addition to the ability for the user to save as many different profiles as they like for their own setup under whatever name they chose. The profile data is stored in a simple text file that is human editable and, importantly, will not be obliterated by a version upgrade. Hopefully I will have the plugin available for purchase in about a month. I'm thinking somewhere around the $10 mark. I have another unannounced plugin in the works that takes priority so this date might slip a little. Cheers! Ben.

I received a comment on YouTube asking if this gauge is going to be a plugin or whether it is for a "special aircraft".. This gauge will be available as a stand-alone gauge that will work with any aircraft on Mac Windows & Linux! It is possible to integrate it with a 3D Panel if aircraft authors choose to do so. It supports a full suite of "command strings" for all the buttons so that the Bezel buttons can be mapped using either Generic Buttons or Manipulators. In some cases, aircraft with heavily customized 3D cockpits that have not been designed to integrate with the ST3400 will need to use the gauge in "Pop up" mode for optimal usage. The popup toggle is also activated with a "command string" so that it may be activated using either a joystick button, keyboard hotkey or generic-panel-button. So in summary; - Will work without mods on most 2D panels, drawing over the top of any existing gauges. - Will work on some 3D panels with no mods. - Will require integration with high-level 3D panels that use 3D instrument bezels, eg: the Mu2. - Will always work in Pop-up mode independently of the panel instruments regardless of the aircraft.

This is going to be payware, like most other things you will see coming from me. If you want us to step it up a level this is to be expected. I've invested a lot of time to bring this to X-Plane.

Hi Guys... Thanks for the comments... I'll take a look at getting Force Feedback in for maybe version 1.5 or 2.0 or something like that. It requires programming differently for Mac and Windows and I'm not sure if it's available at all on Linux, if it is - that's another whole suite of code right there. It'd be a great thing to add but it's not something I can just tack on. It'll take quite a bit of work. Cheers! Ben.

Hey Nils, thanks for the comments. It's a fun toy to play with - I think it will be awesome once it gets some momentum. I haven't investigated the Hard-Object issue at all... I'm really not sure, I suspect they aren't available. I might tie the bullet physics lib into this one day... that opens up -lots- of fun options. For now though I just wanted to show off the core technology. Due to the nature of this product I'll be releasing a public beta as soon as possible for people to play around with. The content will take a while to grow but it's kinda fun to make 'in sim'. Lots of instant gratification. Good to see you over here.. hope you like what you see. Ben.

Hey Wade... I'm looking at solutions to this general problem. A similar issue exists when porting profile data from one OS to the other, if I plug my xbox controller into my Mac I'll get buttons 1-20, if I plug the same controller into Windows I get buttons 80-100... or whatever. So, I'm looking at ways to discover/set the lowest button/axis number and then apply the profile data based on that offset. So basically, you'd have to do a minor little profile calibration instead of redoing the entire config. If you know, and memorize your lowest index buttons and axis it'd only take ~30 seconds. I'd like to avoid talking to the lower level HID/USB API's on a per OS level if I can... though I may end up poking around in them for Force Feedback some day. Another user has filed a feature request for input profiles recently with Austin, if he throws it into b8(unlikely) or 9.40 I'll probably reconsider my priorities with this one... I don't expect him to do it, but he might. Some other stuff has come up besides the above, that means the probable ship date on this one has been pushed back. I'll keep you guys posted if I update anything.

Feel free to read up on the whole thread Nick.

Thanks for investigating the FF stuff guys... I only have the rumble packs in my XBox pads to test with. *laughs* ..one less thing to think about.

His account has been left active so that he can argue his case if he so chooses.

..I made him a special group, if anyone can think of a better group name let me know.

Rafael... This is really boring.. Pack your bags and FUCK OFF.

Go back to your "Rafael Fernandez" account and make something, anything, with your own blood, sweat and tears. Hiding under another name is easy and not worthy of respect. Standing up and wearing the shit you've attracted with your behavior is far more admirable. Yes, you've got some work to do to restore your reputation but it's not beyond repair. If you want to play pull-aparts with other peoples stuff that's fine too, just make sure you label it clearly, like you have above. (Though, personally, I'd tag the image in BOLD with something like: "Learning to texture, FUSE IS XPFW WORK.", not a side note of "PS") Attribution is something you're going to learn a lot about in the next few years as you progress through high school and if you're lucky, college. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, we owe a lot to those that have walked before us, just remember to give credit where it's due. Respect is earned, not given. ...maybe this will help: http://www.darkscarab.com/tutorials/blender/car001.php It could be worse:

...that's why I call it PAIN-maker... people that say blender is non-intuitive and hard to learn need a good dose of PM. ;D

you mean people actually run x-plane???? ;D

..I like pizza. ;D

...this guy rocks.

Err... I'm pretty sure (99%) that QUADS support went out the window when we got OBJ8... A quad is just two tris, blender might draw them prettier but that's about it. Don't make me read the OBJ8 spec, it's too early in the morning.

Cameron was banned at x-plane.org because he questioned how often Nicolas flies the simulator after Nicolas had posted a series of screenshots featuring an aircraft over water. It's disturbingly easy to get banned, black listed, suspended or censored over there, which was a large part of the motivation for providing a new playground so that we can all sit around and enjoy threads like these. Indeed, I would go so far to say that, had you, Dave, started this thread at the org, when R.S. was a contributing advertiser, you may have found yourself black listed, banned, warned, etc. and the thread would likely have been deleted. As an ex moderator there, resigned of my own accord, I can say that I have seen people reprimanded for absolutely absurd things. As for your review, I am puzzled by the cling wrap effect... it's definitely rather glaring. As I own modest hardware I haven't tried any of the scenery, so I can't make any comparison, but it is certainly of some concern. I was going to suggest that it may be Gamma settings... but then the FS scenery you compared to is definitely designed for PC's and doesn't suffer from the same effect. The other item that I noticed is that in your review you do a comparison of an airfield (Tillamook) pre and post some processing you applied yourself to enhance detail. ( http://tinyurl.com/n6b77f ) This seems an odd choice of images to do detail enhancement with as the majority of the enhanced detail that you're pointing out will be filled in by x-plane anyway when it renders it's own airfield representation... I think an urban area with a similar level of "line detail" would've made a better choice. ... popcorn, beer, anyone?

Clarification: Nicolas informs me that the reason posted above is apparently not why Cameron was banned. However, from an outsiders point of view it certainly seems that way because up until that post was made Cameron had access rights. The straw that broke the camels back... As Nicolas did not mention exactly why Cameron was banned one can only guess at what could lead one to ban someone on the premise of something as trivial as a light jab at ones use of the flight sim.

Free Language choices: - C/C++ - Delphi/Free (Obj) Pascal - Python, with a third party plugin. (Sandy Barbour's) This is a great choice for learning/prototyping but users sometimes have trouble installing it properly. - One or two others. I'm very close to completing my Lua scripting plugin which is designed to make a lot of common plugin tasks very easy. I also have a .NET bindings plugin that I aim to finish one day. See the SDK site for more information: http://www.xsquawkbox.net/xpsdk/mediawiki/Main_Page The SDK is powerful and pretty easy to work with once you grasp the concepts. There are always lateral thinking exercises to do to achieve what you really want though. Tools: Anything that can build a normal C-style .dll, .so, bundle or dylib. The gcc toolchain works nicely on all three platforms. Visual Basic 6 is out. As are all the .NET "Assembly style" .dlls, without a wrapper. OpenGL for drawing. There's no audio SDK calls so it's kinda roll-your-own, most people use OpenAL or Direct-Sound depending on how much compatability they want. Plugins for aircraft can range from the mundane to the very complex. Hope that helps somewhat.

Quick Q: ... is 256 custom sound slots going to be enough?

...well I've been stretching the scripting engines legs by creating a test gauge with it. The gauge uses up 13 sample slots for aural warnings alone. I think 256 slots might NOT be enough. *laughs* This is "possible sound samples loaded and ready for use", NOT "voices playing at the same time". Most sound cards have a limit of about 32 hardware voices, high end cards have 128, software has no real cap, but you start chewing up CPU time. As for positional audio, we're definitely going to need that for things like subtle engine sounds as well as being able to move away from being in the cockpit and listening to the sounds go "past" with the air frame. Dataref triggers: This isn't like OBJ animations where you bind a sound to a specific dataref 1:1. This is a free-form scripting language with full logic/loop capabilities. It offers much more than simple dataref bindings.

I've been working hard to bring a Sandel ST3400 TAWS unit to X-Plane. Here's an Alpha Preview video. This gauge will be feature complete. If you'd like to see more info on the real unit, check it out HERE.

Everything is on permanent, possibly terminal hold while I sort out living arrangements and a new abode. Very likely involving a new job, a new city and other exciting adventures. Whether X-Plane factors into it at all is yet to be determined. It's been fun.

I have banned 'mickthebike'. - User is a continual spoon-feeder. Shows no initiative. - User never says thank you. - User never contributes anything of value back to community. - User is arrogant yet aware of laziness and continual reluctance to read the manuals to learn how to use the tools at hand. It is my opinion that the user contributes nothing of value to the community while contributing much annoyance. Goodbye.

I got sick of remapping my joystick buttons all the time. X-Joystick allows you to save and load profiles for different controllers, aircraft-usage, etc. It also allows you to save different non-linear values for different aircraft. I have a few other features planned too. Here's a sample of the GUI so far:

I have modified the DRM license server so that it will recognize machines that have registered before. If you lose your license key or need to re-install a DRM locked product for some reason, you should be able to get your old key back without the need to contact X-Aviation. If your machine configuration has changed significantly the 'fingerprint' we generate will probably change and the machine won't be recognized. If this is the case, contact X-Aviation support and we will look at it on a case by case basis. We're working towards allowing you, the customer, to manage a pool of machines with a reasonable level of freedom and flexibility. Apologies to anyone who's had to put up with any teething issues.

...thanks for the feedback, im not real sure why it does that, maybe the self check is smarter than I thought. Would it be too much to ask to get you to take this up with the author of XFSE directly? I have way to much on my plate and the new code is pretty clearly commented where and why it's been changed. Code mods are released as BSD license (free to use, however you like..) or whatever suits the XFSE license better.

Both of those fields contribute valuable Copyright information to the package. It was an old trick to download someone else version 7 ACF, change the textures, change those two fields and re-upload claiming it as your own. These fields only increases in importance with payware. When you buy a product you expect quality support. If "the customer" modifies the product and somehow forgets about it and then starts reporting bugs it's frustrating for everyone. (Opening a 9.5 acf in Plane Maker 9.4 'just to change that field' could potentially lead to issues... who knows. History says it's safer to assume yes.) Our plugins work nicely with our products and they ensure quality support by clearly identifying a factory-sealed product. I've gone out of my way to extend a 3rd party plugin so that it can co-exist more easily with everyone's aircraft, everywhere, right out of the .zip. If the patch is adapated, in the near future, you can look forward to almost never having to tweak that field ever again. You're welcome.

...gear isn't detailed enough, start over.

...been doing too many hours lately, sorry for the grouchiness. It's quiet because they're busy.

...I still say the gear needs more detail.

I'll drink to that *cheers*

H Guys. I appreciate the interest but I can't reveal anything ahead of time. User expectation is a heavy burden to bear and I have enough to deal with already. It's fun to spring surprises on you guys too. Thanks, br.

Most people find the turbulence a little bit too strong and too constant. I don't think there's much you can do to tweak the built in real weather.

Hi Guys. I'm planning to try and release Gizmo updates monthly. That leaves me a week until April when we will all see Gizmo 10.4. Apologies to the patient Linux people who are still waiting. All Operating Systems will get the 10.4 update at the same time. At this time it will be a new .zip to download - not an in-sim update. In future I'd like seamless, easy in-sim updates.

...he's actually just trolling airliners for photos and pixelating them a bit so they look photoshopped.

They're probably using the much over-hyped "JERA" "technique". Basically they use a small rocket engine to work around the sound limitations of X-Plane and they make a huge fuss over it, with special labels and custom acronyms, ultimately its just a bullshit hack, if we labelled every tech-work-around we use to get stuff done we'd end up with product names six miles long.

Hi Guys. This definitely seems to be an issue with Gizmo. I'll get a new version out soon that addresses this, but, for now, as Gizmo is only being used for contacting the license server, once you have registered your product feel free to simply disable Gizmo "in sim" by going to Plugins > Plugin Admin, finding Gizmo in the list and disabling it. Once disabled you should be able to fly as long as you like with no FPS leak. Sorry for the hassle.

...abacus beads.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abacus

...Mid7night's got a payware A-4 in the works, dunno what the diff is with the K, perhaps, within the confines of X-Plane, the difference is a bit of fuel and a .obj?

Jacob, I'm sorry but I had to remove the images you posted. ImageBam uses explicit adult imagery in its banner ad's. This is an all ages site. Thanks for your understanding. Ben.

...that's just evil.

Captain. Please accept my apologies. The version of Gizmo as shipped -does- cause issues. This has been acknowledge elsewhere, it's an OpenAL thing. As author of Gizmo, my recommended course of action for now is to simple disable Gizmo by renaming or moving the Gizmo.plugin folder after your registration has been completed. There will be a new verison of Gizmo shipped soon that has resolved the sound and performance issues. It has been heavily debugged and tuned for use at Oshkosh and is currently getting hammered every day. Trial by the hottest of fires. Sorry for the hassle. I hope to release some updates soon that will make up for any bad impressions Gizmo has made on people.

...a fix will be out soon, I'm just trying to get the particle systems to work nicely.