Goran_M

BTW, I might mention, to avoid going crazy while working on the Saab, I actually started on the Duke and DC-3 around July last year. I was only working on them maybe 2 days out of every 3-4 weeks. Just for a change. It's like eating the same cereal every day for months. Sometimes you just want something else before going back. The F-14 was an aircraft I always liked and only considered doing it about 2 weeks ago. I plan on making the DC-3, F-14 AND the Duke, but which one comes first will be decided by the poll. Of course, if the scenery gets voted for, then I'll do that first but if not, then I'll do it at a much later date. Anyway, the beginnings of the DC-3 and the Duke. (Duke exterior is done except for the control surfaces but cannot, for the life of me, find the screenshots.) DC-3 exterior Duke Panel Oh yes...Theo was BUSTING to tell everyone about the DC-3 in the aircraft request thread in the General Discussion. He eventually HINTED that it was being made by SOMEONE.

As we near the finish line for the Saab, I thought I would post this. I plan on doing a side project. When I say "side project", I mean something that can occupy my time while Theo textures the 747-200 and -400 (which will take about 2-3 months). The modelling for the 742/744 is about 90% done so I will have a lot of time on my hands while they get textured. So to keep me occupied, I have managed to collect a lot of documentation in the last few months on a few aircraft I would like to make. However, I would like to leave the final decision to a poll. This side project will start after I finish some other work. 2 jobs that will take priority for January are the Duchess update and Sundowner update. These updates will be the last for these 2 aircraft. I'm not limiting myself to the shortlist. If another choice is very popular, I will consider it. I have a large amount of documentation on all 3 of the listed aircraft. Look forward to seeing the results.

If you saw the old Saab cockpit screenshots, I think they would shock you. Theo refuses to look at them. It's testament to how much faith Cameron had in us as developers to criticize our own work and to make something that people would be happy to spend money on. You're welcome. Just enjoy it when it's done.

No one is verbally bashing you. But you said this will be your last purchase of these products. It carries an "I'm being ripped off" tone. We're trying to make you understand that you should not be disappointed in paying the extra $5. We (Cameron and all the XA developers) want to do this for a while. In any case, have fun with Eric's scenery. It's unlikely you will find anything that can match it.

I had a hard drive crash in December of 09. Because of my misplaced confidence in Windows, I never backed up my work and lost all my documents and work in progress files. I was fortunate that the majority of my work was backed up in dropbox. I tell you something. I would have paid a hell of a lot more than 5 bucks to get it all back. $5 is a small price to pay for a valuable lesson learned. The scenery itself is MUCH cheaper than anything else out there for its size. X-Plane.org is obviously bigger than X-Aviation. Yes, they offer free re-downloads. Guess what...They sell ad space on the front page. At last notification sometime in 2009, it was $100 a month for a banner. There are 9 banners on the front page. $900 a month would go toward a very nice server. Not to mention the commission Nicolas charges his developers and other payments he might receive for newsletter ad space. And the fact that all the payware at the org is less than 100MB in size. Consider the $5 an insurance payment for a 2+GB file that is stored on a separate server.

Makes me wonder if people will complain about shelling out $5 for a dinosaur in x plane. I'll give it 1 thing...it's an x plane first.

But does it have custom sounds and plug ins? If not, I'm not interested. I noticed it doesn't have a feature list.

Ha, thanks Kamil. I can only take credit for the modelling, flight model and making all the gauges and switches work. Theo is the one that textures everything, although it does have to get my OK.

A few more night time landing screenshots. It's getting very close to finished. Few more flight model adjustments, final testing with a European Saab pilot, fix any bugs that might show up in that part of testing and it's done.

I think it's because of the glare from the sun. Try it again from a very close up view and from the side and see if it still disappears.

I actually did a grass landing in a Sundowner after my first few lessons about 13 years ago. Scared the living crap out of me when the instructor did it first, but wasn't so bad after that.

We're getting very close to final testing. Theo's wrapping up final areas of panel regions while I have been working some crazy hours on the flight model, ironing out any bugs (and there were quite a few), making sure all animations work accurately and getting the manual done. Testing shouldn't take more than a week as most of the bugs were taken care of in the last month. Depending on what problems the testing exposes will depend on when it will finally be available. A few more screenshots to show a nearly fully working panel...

Please take screenshots and show me what is happening on the screen. What was the situation right before the crash? Heavy scenery? Heavy weather? What are the settings you are using for the sim? A screenshot of the settings page would give me volumes of information. What version of X Plane are you using? Regards to the prop, it has been fixed in the new set of instructions I posted. If you are nervous about using planemaker, then we ask you to be patient until the new update comes out in about 2-3 weeks. Most importantly, we need to know your systems specs. As a first "try", move all your preferences out of your x-plane/output/preferences folder. Restart the sim. You will have to set your joystick calibration and button assignments again. If this fixes your problem, then permanently delete the preference files you moved. If not, move the preference files back into the preferences folder.

Thanks for that, Dozer I'm sure many will appreciate it. Goran

If it happens again, could you list what happened prior, what you did to try to correct it, fuel level in each tank and the position of all engine levers, fuel crossfeed and carb heat. If it's only happened once or twice, I'd say it has something to do with the sim (which can happen but not often) BTW, I posted a small set of instructions to make the flight model a little more accurate. This may eliminate the tach problem. http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php?topic=1611.0 Only the screen works for the stormscope. It was just something we added as it was available as a generic screen in X Plane. It's only functionality is to display storms.

I must admit, I am guilty of working on the Saab today. :-[ Can't help myself.

Just finished a crazy 2 days here. Have a happy Christmas, all. Remember, all diets are off! I should know. I ate enough in the last 2 days to feed a family of 4 for 3 days. Goran

When I was training for my GFPT, and learning procedures for descent, I was told it is very important to "cycle the engines" (push the throttles to full power for about 3 seconds then bringing them back to idle) every 1000 feet while descending to get rid of any ice that can form. It's actually more common than people think. Try it when descending in the Duchess in sim.

In future, could you please supply screenshots with your problems. It's hard to know what is going on when I don't have enough info. Now, to address the problems you are having. I have tried the idling on the ground for at least 5 minutes and the temp gauges did move very slightly, so there is engine heat modelling. They stayed within normal operating temperatures as per the flight manual. I also took it up to FL130 at approx 130kts and temps were also fine. See screenshots. Note the times in my system tray. On the ground... In the air... Fuel Gauges use default Fuel datarefs and they have been coded by the X Plane programmers to show current fuel levels regardless of power. To make them go to zero with the power off would require plug in work. The electrical modelling in x plane is more basic than any developer would like. This includes the way the loadmeter snaps in some cases. ADF has the same issue. These are X Plane issues and can only be changed with plug in work. I will stress, they display accurate readings. I'm not sure why the HSI Gyro is drifting for you. I modelled it to specifically not drift. I tested this also and had no problems with it. I'll have Theo look at the audio panel buttons as that was all his department. The Stormscope is not a weather radar. It will not show cloud the way a weather radar does. Set your weather to extremely heavy thunder, cloud, rain, etc and it will work. Post and Flood lights will be swapped in the next update. I tried a few braking scenarios and the brakes work fine. Are you using regular braking or maximum braking? I will also mention as a small footnote, please do not mess around with the flight model. The temperatures were doing some odd things when I was programming the gauges using x planes datarefs and flight model limits. I got them working accurately but trying to change any figures in the planemaker flight model temperatures will totally screw up the temp gauges in the actual sim. That's why I always tell people, DO NOT ALTER THE FLIGHT MODEL (ACF FILE) ON YOUR OWN IN ANY WAY UNLESS YOU ARE FOLLOWING SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS MADE BY ME. The smallest change you make could have an exponential effect on all other related systems and will make a huge impact in the sim.

I have made a set of instructions for anyone wanting to update the flight model of the Duchess themselves. Keep in mind, this is only a flight model update. All cosmetic updates and turn co ordinator update will be done in the next 2-3 weeks. Any questions, please let me know. To get the instructions, please click HERE

Could you confirm you had all levers on the throttle console fully forward when you recovered from the stall and that carb heat was ON. I just tried 3 power off stalls and could not replicate the problem. However, I did try it with carb heat off and had engine trouble. Turning the carb heat on recovered the engine to normal operating speed. I doubt it is a Duchess bug and I will explain why. When animating the gauges, Blender doesn't recognize the 180° angle. It only recognizes up to 179.999 and then it goes straight to -179.999 and back up to 0. That is Blenders circle and it is a pain to work with. Especially with circular gauges. The way I animated the Tach gauge was positioning both needles at 0 BEFORE adding an armature to it. The armature moves the needle through its animation and also has the dataref attached to it. So both needles were animated in the exact same way using the exact same values, EXCEPT for the part number of the dataref used. They both use the same dataref (same line of code written by the x plane programmer) but part numbers are given (where available) to distinguish between part number (engine number) 1 and part number 2. So eliminating everything and assuming you had all levers fully forward and carb heat on, I would say the problem lies elsewhere. Redline and Blueline indicators on the ASI will be added in the next update.

I'll be looking further into the turn co ordinator issue early next week. There will be a final update sometime in January.

Just looked through the documentation in the POH, my notes from my flying school days and wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_coordinator All co ordinated turns are to take 2 minutes. They are not supposed to be "rushed". It sucks that it's capped, but that's the way it was. I might actually check out if the "plane" stops moving past the 20° mark. If it does keep going (so as to accurately hold the aircraft at a non capped marker point) I'll fix it for the next update.

The hole is most likely a casualty of the last export I did for the cockpit object. Stray mesh. The same thing happened to the overhead lights. Also the "plane" on the HSI glass looks to have been unknowingly moved closer in when I swapped the stormscope and HSI around. There is an update in the works. Flight model has already been worked on. Only minor things need adjusting. I'll fix up these cosmetic issues after the Saab is done.

The turn indicator, from what I remember in the POH, only shows a turn indication and that turn indication only goes up to 20°. The instrument only tells you that you are in a turn. For the angle of turn or any details of the turn, the artificial horizon should be used. I will check into it, though.