Morten XPFW

Thanks guy's Yes, it works just like in real, we'll start showing more systems previews soon! M

Another in-sim shot. Note that this is Work In Progress. The light test switch is on to show you the annunciators. Click pic for high-res!

About the exterior, those decisions have not yet been made. But expect state of the art exterior. With regard to just using the flightmodel, time will tell. Since part of the flightmodel is plugin, we cant just remove everything. When we get close to release we'll start a forum where you builders can communicate with us and each other and find solutions.

We'll show you some shots of them real soon. The combination of accurate EADI and flightmodel enables you to fly CAT approaches MANUALLY (with Flight Director) with no problems with a bit of practice - just like the real thing! Even with crosswind and turbulence. Here is me in the realism CAT1 approach using the FD, crosswind from the left. (Who needs autoland ) http://www.xplanefreeware.net/morten/MOV/FRA3.MOV

FMC is doing well We also have a custom autopilot capable of autolands. About the CAT capability of the 733, Jan correct me if I'm wrong, but if I recall correct, the real 737CL is not equipped with the rollout function (rudder control on AP). In that case CAT IIIa would be the limit. The B733 has EFIS (EADI and EHSI) M

Thanks - for sure we'll do! Sounds like a great project Have any pics? M

The short answer is yes, we will do what we can to make life as simple as possible for those who want to build cockpits around this model. We will provide datarefs and whatever you need when the time comes. In addition to the systems, this aircraft probably has the most accurate heavy metal flightmodel ever made in any desktop sim. You don't want to miss out on it. Everytime I fly it, I feel like I'm back in the full motion 733 sim at FRA - amazing

M

And for those who wish to fly and operate this aircraft by the book, here is a great place to download FREE MANUALS We offcourse will include our own manuals and make tutorials etc. M

Ok, thought I'd show you this IN-SIM WIP shot that I took the other day. It really shows how good X-Plane is at rendering Note that for development reason we have removed some of the switch guards and a couple of other things on the overhead to make systems testing faster. Click for larger view.

All options are still open. Obviously, if this project is a success, which we hope and believe, chances are good there will be a next project. What it will be we don't know yet, but a NG is offcourse a good candidate since it has a lot in common with the CL on systems which are the big time and ressource consumers on development. At the moment we have 3 people coding systems.. So I guess it's bit up to the community and how it responds to the CL.

Our AoA is dead on in the entire envelope of flight, at all speeds, altitude and flap settings etc. In fact I think I can promise the most accurate flightmodel ever made for any airliner in any desktop sim to date, so yes, we are pretty confident about that

Thanks, Like we have mentioned earlier, the current work is in systems simulation. So while we can't show you much, we can tell you some things. As you know, PMDG recently released their 737NGX and I found this quote by PMDG about their 737. Indeed their work is unprecedented as it has not been made available to the public before, but we at IXEG are indeed going the same route also so that when this is released, x-plane will also present an unprecedented level of simulation that we feel will be right on par with PMDG NGX in functionality. With regards to our progress, most of the systems have been started and many are done. Most we can tell you about, but some will come as a surprise towards release So, today, lets talk a bit about a system that we have 99% done; The Electrical System; Our approach has been to model the electrical system after reality in code. Towards this goal, we have modeled EVERY electrical bus and every relevant switch and relay in the electrical system. We control the switching and relays in the same way the aircraft does so that if we decide to fail a single relay, then all downstream circuits are affected. Also, failing a bus means all downstream busses are affected and of course the generator load is affected also. By having all the electrical busses modeled with individual electrical loads, certainly turning off any device consuming electricity will affect the generator and thus the ammeter readout. If we wanted to, we could now easily model every circuit breaker and device and have it work properly by simply adding a few lines of code though we will not due this for practical reasons. All the important things will work properly though. For example, if you lose both generators and have to fly off of battery standby power, then only devices hooked up to powered busses will work just as in reality. Because we model the relays, we also model the delays associated with relay switching. This means that when you switch the power source from the GPU to the APU or to the generators, then we disconnect a relay before we reconnect another as in the real thing. This results in a very small window of time that the electrical bus is not powered and you can see that anything not powered by the battery will go dark for a split-second. It also means that any annunciator that lights up due to a lack of power will light up for a split-second. I should mention that we actually model annunciator light filaments that take a split second for the heat to dissipate from the filament causing the annunciator light to fade out quickly. This makes for very realistic effect. So for those of you that wonder why, just before push-back that the lights and air in the cabin go off and then again again? Now you know and we have that! These are real phenomenon that real pilots see and if they can perceive it, then we are modeling it. All our work is designed to be portable to future projects so that new airliners, should we decide to do them, will be developed that much faster. So in the video there's some things to look for that demonstrate our approach. (we'll start uploading highres shots of the overhead once texturing there is 100% done). First, you'll note the APU startup simulation. We wait for the APU to power up and when it does, you'll see the "APU GEN" light come up. Then as the APU is connected to the generator busses, you'll see the loads reflected on the APU ammeter. (amps values not yet calibrated, just test values). Now note the various lighting come on and off and the annunciators fade out as power sources are connected/disconnected. (We've exaggerated the relay delay a bit during development.) Also note how the instrument needles move, they don't just "snap" into position, but move just like they do in real. Then note that when the left generator is connected, it automatically picks up transfer bus 2 loads since generator 2 is not yet powering a bus and when generator 2 is turned on, it powers transfer bus 2 and generator one sheds those loads. You'll see this in generator ammeter one when generator 2 is connected. (Sorry, video turned out a bit darker than intended) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SYmiaGShCE As you probably have guessed by know, the IXEG 737 is built inside and out, the hard stuff first. Guess that's what happens when you put a bunch of engineers and pilots together.

Right, we have been working on systems and flightmodel for about 18 months now. The 3D part is "trivial" in comparison on a project of this magnitude. Thats why we focused on the systems and flightmodel first. Those are the showstoppers - as you learned from the CRJ project. This is where XP lacks design capability and knowhow. Even though the NGX systems appear impressive, we already spotted a couple of errors and cutting corners in their systems, so it's not perfect either PMDG has been working on this acft for many years, so they have a head start, but we'll catch up - atleast thats our goal.

Impressive videos As for the IXEG 737CL, time to bookmark this site; http://ixeg.net/ I can assure you, x-plane will have a 737 the sim world will notice.. M

Not sure I get the connection with the 737 here, but Peter and I have both been on vacation, so sorry about being late on processing requests. With regards to XPFW, Peter is still working on some freeware projects, the 757 and 767. Also there is Tom working on scenery, me on the PA28, so XPFW is not dead. Sorry to hear you wount try the 737, have a feeling you might change your mind down the road though when we release more information about the project Please contact me directly or over at XPFW for XPFW related stuff so we can stay on topic here.

Right Jan, real engines wear makes them less efficient. With time the turbine blade tip get burned off slightly and the gap between the blade and casing increases which again reduces efficiency. So even the two engines on the same real acft will perform different. We might make ours a tad different as well for realism ;D In XP the key to realistic burn is; 1. An accurate engine model In the entire envelope 2. An accurate drag model In the entire envelope 3. A pilot that can fly by the book We offcourse have all of that 8)

No worries, our pilot said we already could sell a couple of the systems stand alone for real training. Thats how accurate they are We soon will start showing more in-sim cockpit stuff. Don't remember if I posted thisone here already, someone asked about how we did the logic of the LED lights on the ECAM. http://www.xplanefreeware.net/morten/IXEG/ecam2.mov M

No worries, there will be atleast 2 versions of the panel. There are also other instrument layouts, options and solutions that we are considering. Also, if we do a -400, it has slightly different systems than the -300. Isolated, flipping the switches around is done in a day or two, but first we want to have one panel thats 100% stable and bug free so we wount have to do multiple parallel bug-chasing and fixes.

On another note, in the sim (XP) the two position ON/OFF overhead switches are a click only. So this means - unlike in real - the pilot "action" will be exactly the same regardless of reversed switches or not - just a click. So the difference will be a lot smaller in the sim than in real where the pilots have the switch positions "programmed" in their fingers and it feels wrong moving it the opposite direction.

Right, we offcourse had this discussion in the team already. We came to the conclusion that after everything Jan and LH are doing for this project it was an easy choice. Besides, LH has a major fleet of them, the largest in europe i think, so here it's "common" We expect the aircraft to have many professional users, so if there is a demand for the other version, we might make one. Maybe we'll make a -400 with the other one, we'll see

We are very happy with the result - and - as your link suggests, polytext has it's downsides. But thanks for coming with suggestions M

Ok then Below the fully functional 737 Pneumatics system In-Sim. We'll give you more details on the systems soon. The plan is to start showing a series of short "educational clips" of the 737 systems so you will be prepared when the big day arrives

Yes, the site is under construction. Nothing there yet but the URL is; http://www.ixeg.net/ Thanks for noticing the details. We have put great effort into details like this to make the instruments work just like in real. the digits are animated in a way that creates the appearance of little LED pixels that go on and off. Same effort has gone into the rolling digit's like the altimeter to make the numbers shift exactly like real. So even experienced in-type pilots will have a hard time finding inconsistency's in our instruments Small video clip of the ECAM in sim. ECAM video

Right Jack, too early to tell exactly how "heavy" it will be. Our goal is for it to perform acceptable on an "average" system. No fps problems so far as you can see