Litjan

Vantskruv put it nicely, and I want to put my above post a bit into perspective. We at IXEG welcome our future customers voicing their wishes and opinions, this is what makes us strive to get as good as we can and also helps to steer our development (a little). What we don´t like is people turning our words around in our mouths, with thinly veiled attempt at slandering us or our product. Things like "You promised to release in 2015! You didn´t, so obviously you are henchmen from hell!" or "You said it would be a realistic simulation, but now you say the wheels don´t wear after many landings! You *=$§% liars!". If you don´t communicate along commonly accepted customs and protocols, don´t expect the communication to work well. If you are married, you know what I mean . I try to stay professional and just take into account that not everyone is bringing the same assets and social skills to the table - but I think you are still accountable for the things you say - and need to weigh your words a bit, even on the internet. It is really easy to make a fool out of yourself, been there, done that! Jan

Edited first post to reflect current state of development a bit more accurately. Jan

Please, please, please, please, please: READ my post again. Slowly. A third time. Ask if you don´t understand a word. I know English might not be your first language (it´s not mine either, so maybe I used a wrong word?), so please don´t jump to any assumption on a casual glance of what I wrote. Entertain the possibility that for the first time in your life you might be wrong or have made a mistake. I refrain from quoting my own post, because if you can´t comprehend what I wrote the first time, you will most likely not be able to if I just post it again. I never said we "drop" anything because it is not important or not used. I only said it won´t be in 1.0, and stated reasons why we picked feature X over Y to omit FOR THIS INITIAL RELEASE ONLY! So all your posts and bickering about this are just meaninlgless hot air and I refer back to Tom Knudsens initial commentary that still holds true: If you NEED a feature that we omit for 1.0, don´t buy it yet. Otherwise please don´t make me feel sorry for you and your lack of reading comprehension ability, every day I am mad or sad or sorry I can´t help Tom to finish the FMS and next thing we know we just might drop LNAV for 1.0. How about that? Jan

Hi there, I agree with you - the goal is a fully functional FMS, and no feature is so "unimportant" that we will simply leave it out "forever". But - as I said before - we need to omit some stuff for 1.0, or delay release even further. We opted to omit things that you can probably do without the easiest. Custom Holds: I have never, ever flown a custom hold AFTER I got away from that pesky instructor in the glaring Arizona sun in1993. Maybe a "hold at present position" (can´t remember, though), but if ATC asks an airline pilot to "hold at the R-155 at 35DME to LBE with 267 deg inbound, right turns" I would LOVE to hear the reply on the radio. Regular holds :I fly about every two months or less. Of course that depends on the destination/weather/time of day. If I had to fly a holding and my FMS couldn´t fly it, it wouldn´t even raise my heartbeat - I probably wouldn´t even have to put down my coffee! Just push HDG SEL as you come up on the fix, turn the heading bug in the direction of the hold to the outbound bearing (you can use a calculator, if you have to), push the stopwatch as you complete the turn. Maybe adjust a bit for wind. ATC won´t berate you if your inbound timing is 0:55 instead of one minute, they have other problems to worry about if they stick you in the hold... Offset: I think I said that before, only really used on Oceanic/African Ops. If you really have to, you can also do that with HDG SEL as a substitute. User created points in flightplan: This is something I do about once a year in real flying. If I am bored. Display of RTE data on EHSI: This is one I actually miss, as it greatly enhances situational awareness. Restrictions to meet, speeds to fly. I think we will have that fairly quick. Of course you can just look at the LEGS page to see the data... If you let 90% of your flight be completed by the FMS, you are either lazy, a bad pilot, or need to get an Airbus! Jan

Again, I can totally understand your stance and it is the reason why I made the post in the first place. I try to not be an "early adopter" on many things myself - especially in software development these days most software will get better and get cheaper - so it´s win win...if you can muster the patience and stand the fact that everyone else is already playing that cool new game, and you are still on Battlefield 2 . Your choice is perfectly valid and I am not going to convince anyone to buy this unless you believe that you are getting your money´s worth. Of course you can already play with 1.0 while we work on 1.1 - or you wait until 1.1. The money spent is the same, but you gain a few weeks of fun. Then again, we might bail to Mexico or the Carribean with the first week´s income and never fix this, that is your risk with a day one purchase! We will still be here when you finally cave in . Cheers, Jan

Da, da

Excellent, then my post served it´s purpose. Thank you for not berating us on missing feature "X", but to do what you feel is right for you and to wait until the project has reached a level of completeness that you feel appropriate. All the best, Jan

What you say has merit - especially when you consider that you can make a "simplified" airplane within a year or so - and probably sell almost as many copies as you would for a very realistic version. But I think we already have a good offering of planes like that in the X-Plane franchise. And we are not only in this to make money - for me it is mostly a hommage to the best airliner I ever flew. And thinking that the very first 737-500 that I ever flew just got scrapped in Tulsa breaks my heart. I hope that we can immortalize this great aircraft with this add-on. And I don´t want to immortalize a dumbed down version (although we do have to succumb to some X-Plane and flight-simulation realities, of course). Another thing to keep in mind: The 737 is a plane that was built to "simply fly". No overly complicated system logics, no constant fighting the automation (most spoken words on some airliner´s flight deck: "What is it doing now?" and famous last words: "It´s never done THAT before!"). Not on the 737! So I think if you are a casual user and just "want to fly" you can do so. The (real) 737 does not ask for much more knowledge or system manipulation than a King Air or a Citation Jet. Set the pressurization, extend the flaps, off you go. There is a lot more to know to operate it efficiently and with reliable safety, but if you don´t have to pay for the fuel or a new airplane...then you can get away with a bare minimum of procedure adherence. If you are a total airplane noob then don´t expect to hop in and fly some complicated circling procedure on one engine. But if you can fly the default heavies with some degree of success, you will certainly be able to get our 737 from A to B. Jan

Hi simeg, we are really not playing with you guys - I know it´s frustrating, and I am sorry if we cause you mental pain! We don´t want to say more than what we already said, sorry. Boy, I guess I start to understand Microsoft´s stance on community interaction... All the best, Jan

Well, a gentleman like you is certainly going to put money where his mouth is, correct? So how much would you be willing to put down to show us all the strength of your conviction? Jan

I think so, too - I have only heard good things about those aircraft... the truth is that I don´t really have the time to fly X-Plane for leisure, anymore :-( Jan

Can you specify what you think "icing conditions" are? Liquid precipitation is not icing condition. Just below 0C is not icing conditions. Real icing conditions are hard to find. You need: A.) Supercooled droplets (not snow!) - visibility below ca. 1500m or 1SM B.) Temperature between ca. -40C and -1C C.) A TAT (leading edge temperature) below -0C I am not sure if X-Plane models icing in low visibility - I think it distinguishes between "visibility" and "clouds". So you may have to be "in the clouds" (where everything goes totally white) to get icing, together with parameters B and C. If your airplane flies "too fast", then the TAT will rise so that no ice can build, even if the OAT is -10C... Jan

You are doing something wrong. The icing effects in X-Plane are definitely there. I just tried it. I get a marked increase in drag, and a marked decrease in lift. I attach a picture - try to display the same data on your screen, then hunt for icing conditions: Fly inside clouds with a temperature just below freezing. Careful: You must have a TAT below freezing, not an OAT. Also too cold - no icing. Snow won´t ice. All this is realistic. Also: Don´t have anti-ice equipment running (some planes might have this on by default). Jan

It will ice over if you enter icing conditions. Jan

When I started flying the 737 in 1996 I just missed out on getting rated on the -200 as well. So I can´t make any general comparison about flying the real derivates, however many pilots I spoke to said that the characteristics were indeed quite different. I can´t make any comparison about our model and the FJS one, since I don´t have any FJS aircraft. Jan

Been there, done that

We model the Sundstrand APS 2000 APU. It is FADEC controlled - and in our V1.0 it always starts up (below a certain altitude, iirc) and will not "break" if you don´t adhere to the various limits. I feel that this is realistic enough, because in 10 years of flying this plane I only had to refer to the starting limits only a few times (you can start it 3 times without any waiting, but then have to wait 30mins before the 4th and subsequent attempts). Usually the APU starts up just fine. the procedure is: Toggle APU switch to ON. Release. Ta-da! We plan to have a "wear and tear" model in future updates and versions - but I will vote strongly to not make it a "gamey" model. If you bust a limit, it usually does not mean that the affected component will fall apart into a 1000 pieces. The limits on operations are usually designed to keep the component running without damaging it in the long run. So if you have a limit of 2 minutes between start attempts, and you only wait 1:55, the starter most likely will not fail right away... I don´t think we will make this totally "realistic", because then you would have to fly the plane for thousands of hours before you see any "wear", but it will not be a "bust the limit by one degree and the plane will instantaneously combust" model, either. Some middle ground. Jan

Well, you know how that goes... "Ladies and Gentlemen, both the Captain and the First Officer had the fish last night. Now unless anyone can fly a 737-300, I am afraid that we have to cancel today´s flight to..." Jan

Ah, now I understand the question, it´s about the plastic speed-bugs, not about the orange speed cursor. No, you must set them manually - just like in the real plane. We don´t want to teach you wrong habits. If you ever have to fly a real 737, I want you to be ready for it, and not sit there and wait for the plastic bugs to move to the correct speeds . Jan

Now... what do you think?

Hmm, interesting. I didn´t think about that variometers are calibrated to a certain altitude. But that would mean that regular variometers (like on high performance piston acf) are also only accurate at a specific altitude? However they are designed to be used at a big range - from sea level to 20.000+ feet. There has to be some sort of compensation - pressure gradient per 1000´ of altitude is much smaller at 20.000 than at MSL. I imagine there is some sort of transmission that is affected by static pressure, thereby compensating different pressure gradients. Here is an interesting post that also describes how the orifice corrects for pressure and temperature changes: http://www.theairlinepilots.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=898&sid=1c06fdf9e75cfb858b57227f8e136307 Of course it is unknown to me wether such a (more expensive) instrument is also built into the cabin VSI. It really only needs to be accurate from 10.000 to 0 feet, if you want to plan the cabin descent rate to match the aircrafts descent path. This might be needed when using the Standby mode or even manual AC or DC mode. Above 10.000 feet cabin altitude you really only care about the absolute pressure change per minute, as this directly affects what you and the passengers "feel" as you try to get the cabin under control again. Cheers, Jan

I love the idea! Jan

Drop someone from the pilots window and time how long until impact!

My first guess was that the descent rate would be lower, since all the air has to rush in through the little outflow valve opening, but there are fairly big negative-pressure relief panels on the fuselage that make sure that the pressure differential can never be negative. So my guess would be: Also 1500fpm. Cheers, Jan

So... what are the correct answers? Great idea, by the way!