Keith Smith

Understood. If I was able to get some accurate information on the base load, and the actual component draws, would you be ok with me sending you that information? This plane is amazing, such a beautiful panel, but I think it would be worth investing some time to get the electrical component draws right...and I'm willing to do some leg work on that. X-Plane, of course, allows you to enter all the draws for each individual radio, light and switch...so there's a lot of potential there. Another quick question. I notice you have modeled the circuit breakers beautifully. Are those amp values on the breakers random, or were those from the actual photos of those breakers? If so, that's a great start.

Yes, that's the maximum draw per generator. I'm referring to the base load. What did you intend the base draw to be set to? Assuming all cabin lights are off, HVAC is off, avionics off, etc....I'm struggling to understand how the MINIMUM/BASE load would be 160+ amps in total (or 400 ramps as it is now).

Understood...but the amperage is dropping slowly, ie. 0.05 amps per second...then you would expect a slow, steady movement of the needle. This is not what happens. You can try it by letting the battery drain for a while (engine off, master on), then start engine, run the generator...and watch the generator output in settings->data input & output. As the battery charges, the generator load will slowly reduce...and you'll be able to observe what I'm referring to. If you'd like me to take a video of it, let me know. I'm guessing it's a rounding error or truncation of some sort. The needle doesn't move down slowly or steadily. Instead, every couple of seconds, it 'bumps' down a notch.

The gauge fluidity of the ammeter seems off compared to all the other engine gauges. Is it being drawn differently than all the others? I was doing some electrical system testing, and as the generator amperage was slowly coming down (it was just about done charging the batteries), the ammeter wouldn't move at all, then it would suddenly drop down a few notches (in one repaint, not smoothly)...then freeze again. This repeated all the way until it settled down to around 80amps (the new base draw that I set up in PlaneMaker). How is the gauge being drawn and why isn't it as smooth as all the other gauges?

I updated the base draws in Plane Maker to 78 amps, and monitored the datarefs closely during startup, it all seems more reasonable now. I have no idea if 78 amps is a representative base load, but it seems more reasonable than 200 per bus

Using 1.03 version of the JS32 in 10.20r3 (although this was also the same in 10.20b10. The 'base load on bus 1' setting in PlaneMaker is 196.0 amps. The base load on bus 2 is also 196.0 amps. This translates to close to a 400amp BASE draw. What should this value actually be? 78-100 is what I saw in the original post.

http://pilotedge.net'>PilotEdge is pleased to invite you to join us for the 2nd part of our IFR workshop series tonight, Feb 26, at 7pm PST (Feb 27 0300z). Tonight's workshop will focus on IFR Enroute procedures, including decoding enroute charts, MEA's, MCA's, holding, change-over points, and navigation techniques. It will last for 2 hours and will be held live on the DigitalThemePark Teampspeak3 server (ts3.digitalthemepark.com). More info is available here: http://www.pilotedge.net/workshops/ifr-enroute-procedures-and-decoding-enroute-charts The last workshop was held 2 weeks ago (they run every other Tuesday) and covered IFR Departures. That workshop is available here:http://youtu.be/fe3HFoEfNTc These workshops are available to the general public. You do NOT need to be a PiltotEdge member to attend. In fact, there's very little discussion about PilotEdge. These are simply a great venue for discussing procedures, techniques and regulations for real world VFR and IFR flying (in the US, at least).

64-bit Windows plugin is now linked from the plugin download page on the site. Mac plugin is in the works, pending some research on the availability of 64-bit build of our version of the voice library. We now support web-based filing of flight plans, too.

Nice work, Cameron. It's ironic, really, that of the 7 drive failures I've experienced in the last 20 years, 6 of them were in the same RAID system. Suspicious, no? I'm impressed that you had the offsite nightly backups. Great job.

I'd just love the see the shuttle launch off the back of 747 as it catches the wire, then have someone glide the shuttle over to the next carrier and land there. It's like the triple jump of X-Plane

IVAO and VATSIM are functionally similar (definitely try them out). IVAO has very sparse US coverage as far as I know, so if you're planning on flying in the US, the more realistic decision is whether you want to use VATSIM or PE. The plugins may not happily coexist, though, since they compete to grab the XP AI aircraft subsystem, so be sure to rename the plugins you're NOT using to a .bak extension or move them to another folder so that they don't conflict. You have the right idea regarding the difference between VATSIM and PE. There's also a few more small items: - 100% voice on PE, compared to text and voice on VATSIM - voice support for non-towered fields, not available on VATSIM for X-Plane - 300+ GA and military automated aircraft flying around 24/7...neither of which have much presence to speak of on VATSIM - all ATC interactions made available at the top of each hour and posted on the web site (http://pilotedge.net/audio) for later debrief and training The big question is how much of this is important to you. If ATC is a must-have and you're ok with the limited coverage area, PE is probably the right choice. If you're a heavy metal guy, you want to go long distance, and ATC is not a must-have, then VATSIM is probably the right choice. There isn't a clear winner for all audiences/markets, it really comes down to requirements and priorities. Once you establish those, it should be easy to pick. Given my position as the Founder of PilotEdge, people are surprised to hear that I'm very supportive of VATSIM. I'm glad it's there, its serves a market that I cannot adequately serve, and choice is a wonderful thing. What WOULD be a shame is another direct competitor to VATSIM. It's bad enough that there's already the VATSIM/IVAO split with overlapping coverage.

AJ, that's strange. I use speed mode in both of the CRJ videos that I've posted immediately after takeoff. Check out the sequence I'm using there and see if you're doing anything differently: (BUR-SNA) (SAN-LAX)

James, It sounds like you're on the right track. You can use the VOR receiver to get yourself direct to a VOR from your present position by just spinning the OBS until you get the needle centered with a TO reading on the to/from flag. Or, you can use it to join specific tracks to/from a VOR. It's the latter technique that's going to allow you to intercept a radial/airway, and is the basis of non-RNAV SIDs and STARs. Once you master that, you'll be well on your way to enjoying enroute IFR navigation. The VNY9 departure from the VNY VOR is cruel and heartless, don't start with that one as a study tool. Try the I-3 video (SNA to BUR) via vectors to SLI V23 POPPR SMO125R SMO SMO311R SILEX. You can see the I-3 flight in the PE training program as well as the cockpit video here: http://training.pilotedge.net/object/i3Rating.html You don't have to fly this online, of course, you can practice it offline and just shoot the visual into Burbank. I would recommend studying that route close using the low enroute chart and LAX area chart on Skyvector. Here's the route, all ready for your perusal: http://skyvector.com/?ll=33.96781440568889,-118.29794171372899&chart=469&zoom=2&plan=A.K2.KSNA:V.K2.SLI:F.K2.POPPR:V.K2.SMO:F.K2.SILEX:A.K2.KBUR Once you've studied the route and have it in front of you watch the video, pausing/rewinding as needed to process exactly what's being done and why. You'll quickly notice a pattern of "where am I now? where am I going next? and setting up the radios accordingly. The hardest part of flying IFR is staying 'ahead of the airplane'. That means being ready for what's coming next. Cessna, you're doing a great job helping him out!

AJ, as you correctly guessed, these are in the manual for the airplane. They're spelled out very clearly, too, because they're so important. When it comes to higher end payware aircraft, you're really best served by spending some time reading through the manual before firing them up. You'll save yourself a LOT of time. When I bought the CRJ2 and JS32, that's exactly what I did...I read or at least skimmed every page of the manual to find out what I'd need to know to get the most out of the airplane.

Cruster, agreed...but I'd argue that it shouldn't be necessary. I spoke with an MU-2 pilot and he looked at me like I was an idiot. He says the rpm will be rock solid during cruise and that you won't hit the prop governor's limit at cruise speed. Wind and pressure changes should have nothing to do with RPM. There....I said it As I said, it appears to be a blade angle limit that was set in plane maker. The governor already has them as coarse as they'll go (something that is transparent to the pilot), so as the airspeed picks up, you essentially have a fixed pitch prop because it can't make them any more coarse, and the RPM creeps up. This should not be happening afaik and should be corrected by giving the prop governor more room to work.

Horani, thanks for the feedback. If one of your goals is to pracitce listening to ATC communications, the most efficient way to achieve that is to listen to our ATC recordings which are updated on an hourly basis. Better still, try the recordings that cover the entire previous day. Many of our listeners use these during their commute in the car, bus or train to/from work as a training tool. We may well expand beyond norcal/socal at some point. When we do, it's very likely to be as a result of a commercial customer. Some of the customers we're talking to are talking about some fairly large commitments to the network. They may well allow us to expand. I'm adament that expanding within the US for retail customers doesn't make much sense because it will send our costs through the roof, creates very few NEW training opportunities, and ultimately, will just reduce traffic density in existing facilities. Now, outside of the US, I could see that being different because there are certainly pilots in Europe who are not going to use PE in its current form because of the coverage area and operating hours issues. Something tells me we'll be 24/7 before we expand, so it'll be interesting to see what the European traction is like once the hours of operation ceases to be an issue. It's interesting that you'd mention the UK. I was under the impression from years ago that the UK generally has great coverage on VATSIM/IVAO (simply due to the limited size of the airspace) and that our offering of guaranteed ATC presence would not be as of much interest. Perhaps I'm wrong?

I was on page 1 of this thread, reading through all the posts and immediately figured it was an over-rpm issue. As I pointed out a few weeks ago, once you're in cruise up at altitude, you have to work hard to stop the RPM from creeping up (I still haven't gained an understanding of why this is). The prop governor appears to get the blades to a certain angle (based on data output to the screen) and no further than that. Once the governor can't move the blades beyond that point, it's essentially a fixed-pitched prop, and as the speed increase, so too do the RPMs. Ultimately, you have to pull power to stop keep the speed down, which, in turn, keeps the rpm managable.

Thanks Horani. In this specific case, for the short term, it will only be two sims, so not a big impact on traffic. There's a high school aviation program coming online at the end of the month with 7 sims flying just once a week. We have another big aviation high school in the works with 30 sims that will fly 5 days a week. With more of the universities coming online throughout the year, they will have a definite impact on traffic, too. Lastly, we're starting to knock out quite a few flight schools (one sim at a time). When they ramp up, they will add 10-20 aircraft to the concurrent load as well. So, in short, yes...good stuff coming. I still maintain, though, that the value of the network doesn't change a great deal with the addition of more traffic. I know that sounds odd and is the benchmark by which online networks are usually measured. However, in our network, 30 people online doesn't guarantee that they're going where your going (unlike other online ATC networks where each facility has just one or two airports that draw traffic). Additionally, I suspect one reason that traffic is a good thing on those networks is that it translates to staffing. Well, we're staffed 15x7 no matter what, so that's a non-issue as well. I say all this because I've flown on our system when it's busy and when it's not busy, and there's lots of training value to be had either way. It really depends on what you're looking for, I suppose.

Horani, if you're willing to reduce your rendering options in the short term, you can make it work on 32-bit Mac. I sometimes get the feeling that people forgot that XP was ever 32-bit

There isn't a 64-bit build of the current version of the voice library that we use. So, we have to move to the new voice library, which requires every one of our customers to upgrade on the same day..not something we can do without a lot of coordination. Once they've done that (or at the same time, I suppose), we can release the 64-bit mac plugin. Unfortunately, I have a critical commercial project (read: about $12MM of sim hardware that's being connect to the network) which I have to make a priority. That will be completed in a week or so, then I can return to this issue, which is the 2nd most important thing right now.

one of my favorite recursive acronyms, a mail reader called PINE. it stands for "PINE is Not Elm" I use recursion fairly heavily when writing XSLT style sheets for handling XML data, but not as much in the OO languages. It can produce fairly elegant code, though, when properly authored.

Marc, a friend of mine purchased a Cessna 172 cockpit/fuselage from a salvage yard and got the real flight controls from the airplane working in X-Plane, even the original trim mechanism. It's a sickness, to be sure Here's a video of his cockpit: The panel itself is pretty simple, as you can see, he doesn't have standalone instruments yet.

Came across this guy's channel this morning: http://www.youtube.com/user/jfarango17 Let's cut immediately to the first one involving the hot female Captain: Beyond that, though, here's a nice tribute video with some nice cockpit footage: Javier, you really nailed the interior of this airplane! I appreciate it even more having seen these real world videos.

15x7 coverage. We had 16 people flying around the other night (unusually busy). Horani has it right, though, the drones will keep you on the lookout for traffic if you're below FL180. We do have some commercial customers coming online in the next few months that will likely change the face of the network quite a bit (ie, consistently high traffic), but even without that, it's still valuable. The fact that you get can guaranteed ATC presence and quality is probably the most important point. If that isn't important to you, then the rest of the features will probably not be enough to pull you in, but if you do want that ATC on a reliable schedule, and you want it to be high quality every single time, there really is only one game in town as far as I know. I have to admit, when I fly on PE (and full disclosure, it's my network!), I really don't pay too much attention to whole else is flying. I use it to train and stay sharp, period. Whether the radio is busy or not, I have plenty to do in the cockpit between all the freq changes, flying the airplane, etc. Check out this short IFR flight from SNA to BUR to see what I mean:

I did start on it, and it's looking good. There are a couple of other issues which are going to conflict (not directly related to the plugin) that I have to take care of first. It's high on the list, though.