Emalice

Hi there. I suppose that for the panels, your friend uses the plugins from Sparker ? The lighting problems comes from that : the dataref used by Sparker is in conflict with a custom dataref used by Tom for his MU-2. Tell your friend to turn on "panel lighting" and "avionics" switches on his saitek panel BEFORE he loads the MU-2 and he should be fine.

I think you may very well have to revise this 0.9% number very soon. Since there has never been, so far, a fully modeled, entirely functionnal cockpit (not even Peter's fantastic A380), 100% users have to deal with what the model let's them deal with. What I mean is that it is geeky enough to handle a flying supercomputer in real life, it is twice as geeky to fly one on your desktop (the geekiest is assuredly developping one ). Give this geeky crowd a screenfull of bleeping lights, moving needles and pushbuttons that do "something but what ?" and they WILL play with it. Personnaly, after some hours logged with peter's A380, qpac's A320 and x737, there are so many things labeled "I wonder what this does but I can't find out because it is not modeled". This generates some frustration. This frustration will soon be resolved with your release, and I think all the work spent to please the 0.9% will be used to its fullest by 75% of virtual users. As for the release date, it was already dawning on me that it would never be ready for christmas, but it's cool, my wife will be very happy already with XP10. Oh, and just for the sake of it, I am ready to pay 4x the price... Thanks for the great work, keep posting plenty of pics and vids to help us deal with the waiting. Yours faithfullly, a 0.9 percenter. p.s. by the way, do you have any estimate on the price-range for the finished thing ? Please ignore this question if you feel you cannot give an accurate estimate yet.

Hi. Yes, that is exactly my problem : I think I get a grasp of what individual controls do, but have no real clue as to what their combined effect will produce on the engine. I will read your tutorials avidly and probably experiment a lot. And yesterday's adventure did grant me some nice gliding practice ; I thought it was some overheating while climbing over those mountains, but it turned out that X-plane decided to fail my plane (to be more precise, I had the "jet-A in prop engine" failure). Now I am not sure if the consequence of the failure was an overheating which I did not address properly and led to the burn-up, or if it was directly an engine shutdown. Unfortunately, there are not many airports in the south Rockies and my gliding practice ended the hard way. E.

Oh boy, it is so nice to log in and find so many great answers, I am starting to love this forum. Ok, thank you for the info on the graphical temperature monitor and the fuel tanks. I have many questions about this. Re the landing light, it looks dim in the day, but it illuminates the runway alright at night. I will tweak it in planemaker anyway, just for the looks. The taxi light, however, is useless, it illuminates the taxiway about 50 meters ahead, so you are totally in the dark (ha ha) when turning corners. I will tilt it down, and spread out the cone, not just for looks this time. About the altitude thing, the ceilings seem pretty low. I guess it is to minimize risks. I mean, tourists go from sea level to Bolivia every year and don't suffer hypoxia. I suppose you cannot allow a pilot to feel even light headed for a few minutes. Okay, now onto this temperature thing. I am trying to understand the influence of engine controls on temperature. So, three controls for the engine : throttle, mixture, and rpm through the indirect effect of propeller blades pitch. What I know so far (ok, what I think I know) is that with throttle you control the admission of fuel/air in the cylinders which will detonate and produce work and heat. Work is measured by the manifold pressure, heat by the temperature probe. If I increase prop pitch the engine will output more work, so I suppose produce less heat. If I have a rich mixture I increase the combustion reaction and produce more heat, until the point where oxygen becomes insufficient, choking the cylinder so engine efficiency decreases and I guess heat as well. When I lean the mixture, temperature should go down as well. With throttle, it seems straightforward : the higher the throttle the higher the temperature. But this will affect airspeed, which probably has an influence in cooling down the cylinder head ? Ok, now, what I would like to know is the effect of all three combined. It is probably engine specific, but surely there are some general principles worth knowing ? Also, what is rich of peak and lean of peak ? Is rich of peak the peak in temperature for a rich mixture, i.e. the most you can ask of your engine before it chokes on unburnt fuel ? And, how do you tune your mixture by using the temperature readings (my current strategy is to lower the mixture in cruise flight until the engine faults and then increase it a tiny bit) ? More tricky now : lets say I am cruising at 8500ft, lean mixture, low rpms (2100 ish), 80% throttle doing 150kts IAS (that was yesterday night). Then, because of some stupid guy that put mountains between california and nevada I had to climb to 10500ft. I applied full throttle and adjusted attitude to reach Vx (yeah, those mountains suddenly popped up in the close distance, I mean, come on !). Then I saw engine temperatures rising high. Now, what should I do to try to keep the temp low and not loose speed (or worse, height) ? Hmmm, do I talk too much ? Thanks guys. E. p.s. @Steven, unfortunately, this is indoors painting, I need another excuse ;-)

Hi all. I treated myself yesterday with this wonderful plane, and I believe it is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. There is just one soft spot in this package, IMO, and it is the documentation that comes with the plane. I will just mention the reference card that does not show the landing speed... (I know you can find it in the checklists, but come on, it's not exactly some superfluous info). I would have loved a more extensive description of the dashboard for example and some legible performance charts. But well, this is just really because I had to find at least ONE defect, and it is not even about the plane itself ;-) Apart from that it is superb, and I really like the way it handles, you can tell it has some personality. I am curious about a few things, maybe someone can enlighten me : 1) the engine monitor thing in the middle (the one that looks like an equalizer display, or an audiogram, well, you now, the graphics thing), I can tell Y is the temperature, but what is X ? i.e. what temperature is this indicating ? Why six separate readings ? (okay, I must confess my laziness, I did not turn the "instrument description" option on) 2) It is the first plane I fly where you can only select one tank at a time. So I am curious as to the practical reason that makes a plane manufacturer decide not to include a "both" fuel selector. Also, what is good practice with this ? Do you switch tank a) when you notice a tendency to roll, b ) when above a given difference in fuel quantity c) every so many minutes ? 3) What about the landing light : it looks very dim, my bedside table is brighter than that. I doubt anyone can spot the plane on approach on a rainy day with this kind of light. Is that an issue with the original ACF or some setting gone wrong in plane-maker ? 4) What max-altitude can you hope to fly at in a non-pressurized aircraft such as this one (supposing you are not equipped with any kind of oxygen supply) ? 15,000 ft (wild guess) ? 5) Below the fuel pump switch it says that take-off and landings do not require the pump on, but only if fuel pressure drops below green (and at start-up, of course). But when would that happen ? When the tank is almost depleted ? In case of carburetor icing ? If the fuel line gets clogged ? Also, where is this pressure measured exactly ? 6) Can someone tell Carenado that my wife hates them ? (I was supposed to do some painting this week-end, but I guess I will be too busy flying). Cheers, Emalice