Litjan

There will be no 1.0.8 - the next version will be 1.1. And I don´t think it will have the holding function in 1.1 - but we eventually will get it. Jan

Good find, lanmancz!

Hi Vitaly, I am afraid you are right. VR is the future, with some obstacles to overcome, of course. Austin loves to be the guy that goes against the flow - which can create great opportunities if everyone is running just because everyone else is running. But it can also lead to disaster if everyone else is running because there is a lion on the edge of the forest... He has some good guys on his team, though, and I believe as VR becomes more mainstream and initial problems are overcome, that X-Plane will go that way as well. Here is thinking of that lovely afternoon with beer and a great view on the Kreshatik , Jan

Exactly right. And even if the FMS "thinks" that you are somewhere else, both vertically and laterally, this does not affect the airplane at all. You could program in a flight from Beijing to Hanoi and then fly from San Francisco to Seattle and the plane would just fly perfectly (although you would need to disregard all information on the CDU´s and fly VOR-VOR). The FMS is just an "aid" - but not a required device like the FMGC on the Airbus fleet. In fact it is perfectly legal to fly the 737 with the FMS (and even the AP!) totally failed.Sure, some restrictions would apply (RVSM, RNP-1, CAT I only). It may also be an interesting fact that it is not legal to base your fuel estimation on the FMS - it is purely an additional information device. So even if your vertical path is totally haywire, as long as you fly the vertical profile in a selected mode and verify that the magenta line makes sense (no huge extrawide turns due to erroneous radius calculation) you are fine. Jan

The only workaround I could think of would be to hit the "reboot gizmo" button during flight. This should reload the current location database. Of course you would need to regain control of the airplane (AP defaults to OFF), but it can be done. I do it all the time, the plane is still at the same location and you just need to enter the rest of your flightplane while you fly on HDG for a few minutes... I would recommend practicing this first instead of flying for 5 hours and then messing it up. We are still working on enlarging the size of the loaded database for one of the next updates. Jan

Keep in mind that some people reported that sort of problem with one of the last windows 10 updates, too... Jan http://www.avsim.com/topic/495112-x-plane-is-very-jerky-windows-10-and-driver-issues/ http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/107858-windows-10-update-not-playing-nicely-with-xp10/

To tell you the truth, handling a multi-restriction arrival is not the strength of our current iteration FMS... The real plane does handle that a bit better - and we are planning to get there. To save yourself the frustration for now, do what real pilots do - don´t try to micromanage your descent with the FMS, but do the math in your head and fly the airplane, instead of having it fly you. This may sound like a lame excuse, and I understand that simulator pilots are obsessed with the fully managed flight - it is my fault that we have built the plane with the real pilots priorities in mind, and not the simulator crowd. We fully plan to flesh the VNAV part out in the future - but rest assured, if you get 100 real 737 pilots into a discussion about what VNAV will do during the descent, 98% will sigh, roll their eyes and twitch their shoulders up . And I was one of the 2 remaining ones that had at least a vague idea... Fly, don´t code! Cheers, Jan

Yay, waterboarding in Guantanamo Bay! Can I get that with all-inclusive? A bit of a spoiler, but we have fully custom: TCAS EGPWS (+GPWS) - no man-made obstacle look-ahead, though, due to lack of database in XP. running already on our 1.1 testbed. We are just waiting on some more features to be done to make it a worthy "full" updated, instead of a hotfix. There will also be a new gizmo version to accomodate the new MacOS, and too many other texture, sound and other fixes to list right now. It will take another few weeks, though - this time we really want to test the **** out of it. Cheers, Jan

I would be surprised if this had anything to do with our 737 - and if so it has nothing to do with the bug that Tom fixed (the plane not following the magenta anymore) Cheers, Jan

Yep, enter a new cruise altitude and if you dial in that altitude on the MCP before EXECuting, the plane should even fly a cruise descent (with -1000fpm) to the new altitude. Cheers, Jan

I saw some videos of the A320 by FSLabs and I am totally and utterly impressed - haven´t been able to spot anything even remotely wrong. However, I don´t have FSX installed and if you learned to fly on a 737 you don´t need any help in Airbus-Simulator-Checkrides Cheers, Jan

Hi Nils, could it be that you are running out of fuel? This would cause the APU to shut down...but using the GPU should still work, of course. Another problem could be that you are not connecting the APU generator or GPU - the battery would eventually drain and after that there is no way to connect AC power to the airplane anymore (the breaker is powered by the battery). In the real plane you would have to connect a DC source to enable that. What mmerelles wrote is very plausible, too. We have had many reports of Saitek Panel or other hardware users that mapped a switch to some sort of function (like avionics, battery switch, etc.) and that would mess with the 737´s system... Viele Grüße, Jan

I am not the expert on this - but for us to enable something like this, we would have to have an opportunity to read weather at certain locations, and I doubt that X-Plane provides datarefs or an interface for that. We have worked around obstructions like this before, but I don´t even know what that prompt REALLY does - I have never pushed it in 10 years of flying the real 737...(-> low priority feature) Jan

No, that is not related. We expect our plane to keep working in XP11 - but I am sure there will be a thing or two that needs to be adjusted - or some new features that we can make use of. I don´t think there will be a 1.0.8 - we have enough new content and fixes ready on the sideline to warrant calling the next one 1.1 - we are "just" waiting to get some more FMS fixes in. Once those are done we will need to do a thorough flight-testing, we would like to avoid the "fix two things, break one new" we used to have during the frantic hot-fix run. Cheers, Jan

...and the weather request we will most likely never be able to add...

I can´t comment on that without having a separate controller for my tiller myself - but keep in mind that there is no "speed washout" for the tiller, and a full deflection equals 80+ degrees, while the full rudder pedal nosewheel steering angle is only 7 degrees. So it will feel very springy with most hardware... Cheers, Jan

I think the default X-Plane command is "mixture more rich" or something like that... Jan

Hi John, are you talking about the TMA (Thrust Mode Annunciator)? It announces the maximum currently available thrust (not the FMS flight mode) - so while the plane is not at the same altitude as the MCP ALT (even during descent) it will show CLB. Cheers, Jan

I will check on my end to see if I can recreate what you are seeing...will take a bit, though, I have to work the next 5 days... Cheers, Jan

If you are in VNAV you will see that our plane intially gets a bit "over" the calculated path, then dives down to re-capture it. The real plane plans a smoother initial curve - this is something we skipped to avoid the complexity - VNAV is hard enough to calculate as it is. We may add that at a (much) later stage... Jan

The initial part of the descent is "constant MACH" - and since the speed of sound gets bigger with warmer temperatures, you will see that the indicated airspeed keeps going up as you descend. So in a way you are not only descending, you are also accelerating! In addition, the "glide angle" for a constant airspeed is also constant - but you have to remember that at high altitudes the plane is moving a lot faster than indicated. (TAS > IAS). So you will also get a much higher ROD for the same angle. These effects are portrayed well in X-Plane, and it is not unusual to see 5000+ fpm rate of descent in the real 737 when descending at constant MACH at high altitudes. The passengers (and pilots) are unable to feel "high ROD" - you could descend at 20.000 feet per minute and no one would know (at least not for a minute or so...) Jan

Hi john, mmerelles is correct - we still have some issues to work out with the VNAV part of the descent - it can still be easily confused by multiple and complex descent restrictions. We plan to improve that - as a workaround I suggest going to autopilot modes that give you more control (V/S or FLCHG) so you can adhere to your desired descent path. Cheers, Jan

This approach is a "RF" (radius to fix) approach that only very advanced FMS versions can fly. The version number we model can not. Cheers, Jan

No, there is no "pipper" for runway or taxiway alignment in the 737. And it would not work in most cases, since usually during an approach there is some crosswind, and also the 737 does not taxi "straight" (it has a slight slack in the wheel castors, so it looks like it is crabbing during taxi) There is a guide on how to set up the correct seating and head position in the real manual - but there is nothing to help you judge alignment in the lateral position (just sit straight and look straight ahead) . Cheers, Jan

Whatever works for you! Happy flying, Jan