Dozer

PilotView is, I think, the most important X-Plane plugin. I wouldn't be able to use 3d cockpit aircraft sanely without its presets!

Do you have any ice particle effects on the frozen model and textures? (Just kidding )

How's it going? It's an exciting project! Have you come across Teensy USB boards? They are extremely easy to interface with X-Plane, you could use them for the bits and pieces which aren't in the hands of Project Magenta. (Gear status lights for example, landing light switches, etc).

(from xkcd) I reckon if there were only two people using X-Plane, there would still be at least two rival community forums

It's masterful work. Have you encountered any problems from X-Plane's magnetic-declination model? I've heard reports it is outdated, and as VORs are aligned to magnetic North, if X-Plane's idea of magnetic North is wrong, the VORs will be misaligned. This is not a problem which should be in the scope of the IXEG 737, but given the amount of work you're putting into the navigation systems, you're more likely to be affected by this than anyone else. A solution I began a while ago: rewrite decades-old public domain code which implements the IGRF and WMM magnetic declination models into a modern C++ class which can be used by a plugin to give good declination values for anywhere at any date between 1900 and 2015 (and able to be extended when new magnetic data is released). Then reimplement radio navaids from scratch. So far I have half an ADF system and some spherical-harmonic functions I don't understand but have weaned off of global variables.

I learned an amusing fact about Sim City and Microsoft. The original Sim City was released for DOS back in the time of the dinosaurs. When Windows 95 was in beta-testing, Microsoft discovered that Sim City would crash when running in Windows 95. So, Microsoft decompiled Sim City, stepped through the code, and discovered a bug in Sim City: it was trying to use a section of memory immediately after declaring it no longer needed that section of memory. Under DOS/Windows 3.1, the data would still be there anyway and the program would run. But Windows 95's memory allocator acted more quickly and the data would be overwritten quickly. The solution? Add code to Windows 95 which detects Sim City, and if Sim City is running, run the memory allocator in a different mode which stops Sim City's bug from making Sim City crash. Because if Sim City crashes in the new version of Windows, people will blame Windows for being buggy, even though it's Sim City's bad behaviour which causes the crash. I'm impressed by old Microsoft's commitment to maintaining backwards compatibility. Apple for example are merciless about allowing non-conforming programs (which use some undocumented, unofficial feature for better performance) to break when they upgrade the OS. I got this from Joel Spolsky's blog here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html Scroll down to "The Two Forces in Microsoft" - it's a long post.

Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. Nothing like OpenGL to keep your head warm! On all the many occasions (both of them) when I tried to learn to use it, I couldn't even compile the Hello World example.

Yep. One user can fly, the other can drool at the roller gauge animations! It might be possible to use SCS to make a cockpit-sharing link. It's on my list of 'things to look at soon'...

The problem is, the worthwhile X-Plane aircraft are worthwhile precisely because they override default X-Plane behaviour with custom plugin-based stuff. One solution: systematically replace the entirety of X-Plane's simulation with plugin code, except for the underlying flight model and the display code. I've made a start on this - I've written about 1/3rd of an ADF tuner...

Negative flaps (ie, an upward deflection) is used on some sporting gliders - I understand the purpose is to reduce the lift and drag from the wing. This is pure speculation, but perhaps it's to reduce the induced drag on the wing when the aircraft is accelerating on water? So the aircraft can accelerate faster on water, maybe.

I found some pictures of the Heinz corporate jet! The livery changed sometime between 2003 and 2010. http://www.pictaero.com/en/pictures/picture,77891 http://www.plane-mad.com/aviation-photos/view/h-j-heinz-company/gulfstream-iii-iv-v/london-luton/819.html

Goran, are you comparing wire to fishing line?

Who wants to make a Heinz corporate livery for the MU-2?

Shhh. If Tom comes in here and says "It's really really nearly here now guys, about 30 minutes more work to do!", you can be sure that all the water pipes in his house will immediately burst and he'll spend the next fortnight sorting everything out. The universe is conspiring against the v1.5 update, be sure of it. The only way Tom will ever get it out the door is if he uses extreme stealth and secrecy. Ideally even he himself shouldn't know when v1.5 is completed and shipped, but that would be difficult. Tom, I recommend you insulate your brain from the universe while working on the MU-2. Do all your work inside a Faraday cage, or if that's not possible, ground your brainwaves by covering your head with aluminium foil. Then, copy the v1.5 update onto five separate USB sticks, put each stick in a separate envelope addressed to five other X-Aviation staff, and send them to be posted while simultaneously uploading the update from your own computer. Otherwise THEY will know, and conspire to prevent the update being released.

How did the conference go? Was it successful in converting MSFS developers to X-Plane?

That's inspiring. Thanks for posting!

I was halfway through the second post before I realised you weren't talking about Microsoft Flight! I'd like to get a decent PC and start flying RoF again. It was fun.

Excellent. I've just downloaded your Archer from the .org - did you do similar clever things with that one? It was published after the long ground-handling discussion I think. I don't think I'll have the chance to fly it until tomorrow.

Eh, not upset - I know three things about the police in my family's native Australia. (I live in London.) 1) They carry handguns into town centres where they enforce jaywalking laws. 2) They allegedly spend a lot of time setting up hidden speedtraps on the roads outside of town. 3) They, very very allegedly, will 'harvest' a drug dealer's merchandise and sell it themselves as described above, setting the dealer up to get only a minimal fine and no prosecution so he can live to be harvested another day. Allegedly. Anyway, here's some actual aviation humour, from the PPRuNe ATC Humour thread:

Believe me, I'm anxious to replace my shonky old PC. It's just a matter of cost. Living in two of the most expensive places in the UK other than London is, well, expensive.

I thought it was "Take this badge, go visit this drug dealer, impound 99.95 grammes of marajuiana and fine him for possession. You don't need to arrest if it's less than 100g. Keep the rest of what you find, don't report it, and sell it onwards yourself." I don't know how reliable a source my sister's college friend is though. Hang on, where's the flying or the humour gone...

Very nice! I recommend this article re flying across the Himalayas. Can't wait for good weather simulation in a desktop sim... http://www.avweb.com/news/pilotlounge/PilotsLounge_135_DaveHertel_IFRFlying_201502-1.html

Plugin hackery? Hackery? HACKERY?? Are you casting a slur on my noble profession, sir? (I don't have anything useful to say about drop tanks, in case you haven't realised. I am merely passing time...)

Thanks for the explanation! It's a 3GHz Pentium 4 from about 2005. The OS is Windows XP 32-bit. I'm pretty sure it's a 32-bit processor - could be wrong though, but I don't think so...

There's not many aircraft in the sim which can drop tanks.