Goran_M

Hi J and welcome to the freeware world. You might be hard pressed to find someone to spend time with you to help you with your animations. I mentioned in an earlier post somewhere that although Dan's tutorials are valuable, they are a very small stepping stone into the world of aircraft development. There is a LOT that has not been covered. This is by no means meant to discourage you from creating add ons, but it simply is not as easy as some people make it out to be (as has been portrayed in the videos). I can quickly tell you the problem you are having with the aircraft flipping on the runway. Your CoG is severely off. You need to adjust it in the weight and balance tab. Hopefully, another developer who has some time can help you with your animations. If I have some time, I wouldn't mind either. At the moment, there is simply too much going on with most, if not all the developers here. Best of Luck!

Goran and Theo's... As much as he drives me crazy, he is a very integral part of what we create and I couldn't do this stuff without him. (Now he's going to rub it in.)

Nuff said...! http://cg.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/50-amazing-architectural-renders/

Still a work in progress.

I'll double check on the current textures. But I can tell you now, the update has all new textures and there is no more colour bleed anywhere.

The pictures are VERY small. Can you enlarge the side view one showing the flaps. The texture issue on the top of the fuselage has been fixed in the update (Which is coming very soon). It's a result of some slight color bleed and is only visible from certain angles. ie. from the centerline.

We'll see how we go after the Saab. My immediate plans (and Theo's too, I think) is to go on vacation after the Saab is in the store. DC-3 is definitely next and then , who knows. We were looking at finishing off the Beech Duke as a side project to the 747's, but it's still too early to say yet. For now, we're eager to get the Saab and DC-3 finished asap.

I love that last one, Will! Very nice!

Gentlemen, Things have been VERY busy for Theo and myself. Mostly for me, as there has been "other" work I have had to take care of (Contract work can be very handy for some extra pocket money) as well as consulting for the Saab 340 and waiting for some more detailed photos of the DC-3. In that time, Theo hasn't had much to do, other than getting proficient at Gizmo and implementing some highly detailed code into the 747-400. Instead of frying his brain with constant programming, and after I went over some of the cockpit of the 747-400, I had him do some texturing for some of the panels of the 747-400. So far, we have the Hydraulics and Bleed Air systems just about fully coded, including the link between them. The Demand Pumps on Hydraulic Systems 1 & 4 are operated by the Bleed Air from the engines while systems 2 & 3 are Electrically operated. Also, Bleed Air from the engines supply Air Pressure into the Hydraulic Fluid reservoirs and this has also been programmed. The Auxiliary Pump will also be coded to run from the Electrical System. All this code will be used and, where applicable, modified to work with the 747-200. However, we're taking it one at a time and our number one priority is to get the Saab 340A out first, followed by the DC-3 while continuing development on the 747-400 and 747-200 respectively. We'll be posting a few screenshots of different areas of the various panels to start showing some progress in the coming weeks. In the meantime...

Couple of screenshots of the updated aircraft.

Hi James Going by what I know about the Saab and it's release, the DC-3 will almost definitely be out after the Saab is done. How long after? It's too early to tell at this point. I'll try for a Pre-Christmas finish.

Definitely not abandoned. Flight model has been adjusted. Completely new exterior has been modelled and re-textured and the panel (minus the gauges) has also been re-modelled and re-textured. Gauges have been re-textured to look a little better.. There are a few more things I need to add, animations and manipulators being one of them. I was also generously given some new custom sounds from Arty and they are quite good! I was actually planning to finish it off in the coming weeks. Shouldn't be too long. I'll make another few posts when it gets close. The Duchess update will come out at about the same time. G

Wow, thanks Simon. Much appreciated!

I can understand what you're saying, and I only just sent Chip an email addressing this very issue. I won't post what I sent to Chip (it was far too long), but I will say this. While I'm working on 2 different products (DC-3 and 1 contract job), Theo has been extremely busy programming the 747-400. Now I ask you, is that of any importance to you (as a customer/simmer) without a screenshot of it? Probably not. Shall I post a screenshot? Unless you want to see a bunch of numbers in x plane using a default aircraft as a test-bed, probably not. It won't make much sense. In case you're wondering, The actual script will NEVER be posted because code is meant to be strictly confidential. X Plane developers are ice skating uphill while trying to pull an extra 100lbs of weight when it comes to impressing the MSFS crowd. Whenever they talk about add on quality, they talk about PMDG (And rightfully so. Their systems fidelity is amazing!) So right off the bat, X plane developers have been pigeon-holed by the FSX crowd EVEN BEFORE THEY HAVE TRIED X PLANE. It's even happened in these very forums from X Plane users. So in saying THAT, we're even fighting an uphill battle against X Plane users who "wish" x plane has a PMDG quality add on. In all honesty, I don't mind that. As customers, you have every right to demand quality that you are willing to hand over your hard earned money for. And you want to see PMDG quality in x plane as much as, I think, most developers do. I have always maintained that competition is great for add on development and the community. So why are add ons taking a while to finish? Because YOU (the customer) WANT top quality add ons. YOU want PMDG level quality. YOU want study sim aircraft. WE want to give that to you. But to do that, we need time. If you want them finished earlier, spread the word about our products and buy more of them. Then we can afford a $50/hr programmer to code the systems that would take about 3 months to code. Doing the math, $50/hr @ 8 hours a day @ 7 days a week @ 3 months = a hell of a lot of money that many developers cannot afford. Especially when they have families to support. We can't promise release dates or estimates. What we can promise is high quality, even study sim quality add ons that are definitely on the way. All we ask is that you remain patient and let us do our thing. Feel free to ask questions. But questions that have already been answered (eg. When will it be released?) will be met with the same "soon" reply. As you were, gentlemen.

PMDG's NGX was over a year late. And they also ignored many peoples requests for an update on progress. And that's just an add on. Patience. You will NOT be disappointed!

Everyone has choice. That's what I love about our society. My remarks were based on my experiences with the CRJ and what I know of it. As good as the Challenger looks, it still has the dreaded default FMC. Because the Take Command! series is an XA exclusive line of products, the CRJ represents the best that XA has to offer. Pauls comments seemed to purely criticize Cameron's choice of brand name. That, in itself, serves no purpose and it is also threadjacking the Challenger thread. Double whammy. Paul, please choose your words a little carefully before you go insulting the owner of the forums who actually came up with the Take Command! brand and line of products. Hope you enjoy the Duchess, Will. Theo and I are always open to feedback.

And what name would you suggest? Or would you just categorize what is the most realistic aircraft in x plane into all the other various quality payware that is out there. Some of which I wouldn't even think of paying for. The way it IS categorized is telling people that it is at a point where it can stand above all the other payware that is available. Perhaps you could share your experiences in promotional marketing with the rest of us?

I think there are a few of them at x-plane.org in the download manager. Just do a search for "Leading Edge Sim Duchess" We don't have any plans to make more repaints at this time. We may make more in the future.

I used to think the same as you when I was a student pilot. The blades of the propeller do not go to a full 90° perpendicular to the wind. There is still an angle relative to the wind direction and because of this, the propeller does windmill. Theoretically, if they even went to 89°, there is an angle there that the wind could take advantage of and start the propeller windmilling. Even in the video you posted, the propeller started windmilling quite fast towards the end. And also, because the Duchess has constant speed propellers, it is able to do a windmilling start as long as there is electrical current going to the magneto's and the mixture is set to rich. However, it is recommended that the propellers are not feathered to perform a windmill start. The major factor in all of this is the Constant Speed propeller design. It's operation is very different to that of manually adjustable propeller pitch or Fixed Pitch propellers. That, along with the counter rotating engines and T-Tail design (which is out of the way of the engines slipstream) make the Duchess one of the safest twin engine GA aircraft in the world. For a more detailed explanation of Constand Speed Porpeller Design, please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant_speed_propeller Just to re-iterate, I am certified to fly the Beech Duchess aircraft and that, coupled with consulting with my old flight instructor who has about 2000 hours in the Duchess, feel confident that the way the x plane Duchess was designed and operates is 98-99% accurate.

Apologies in advance because it seems there may be a language barrier here. If I understand you correctly, you are thinking the props don't feather because they keep windmilling. Everything was done to make the props feather correctly and to the correct feathering angle. There are certain limitations, graphically, within x plane and this will affect the appearance of the prop. To confirm you have fully feathered 1 prop, check the RPM gauge. One of the needles will be much lower than the other one. If you'll notice in the video, the pilot has the red mixture lever AS WELL AS the blue prop lever pulled all the way back. If the mixture lever was pushed forward, enriching the fuel mixture, the engine would actually start. It would still be a lower RPM than the other engine if it was still fully feathered, but it definitely would start if fuel was turned on. I hope I have answered your question. Please feel free to clarify if I haven't answered your question properly.

You cannot stall the engine in the Duchess by feathering the props in flight. The Duchess has constant speed props and they can be used to actually start a stalled engine in certain circumstances (an example would be flooding the engine from the engine running too rich for the altitude). You can confirm that the props are feathering by having the throttle pushed full forward and watching the RPM drop as you feather the props. If you want to deliberately kill an engine, pull the red mixture lever or levers all the way back or cut the fuel to the engine by turning the fuel supply off using the fuel control on the floor.

Yeah...don't you have work to do, Theo? :-*

You could always dump Snow Leopard and Lion and go for Windows 7. -ducks-

Many thanks, James! Make sure you check out the Saab 340 thread as well. That will be our next product off the ranks. 2 years in development and from what I have seen so far in sim, 2 years well spent. Many screenshots have been posted for everyone to have a look at.

Hi James I have made a DIY update set of instructions. http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php?topic=1611.0 Please don't mess around with the flight model too much. It has been made with many details from the actual POH. Have fun.