The Air Traffic Control (ATC) system in X-Plane 12 has had a major re-vamp compared to that of X-Plane 11. This article will highlight some of the major changes and point out some of the more subtle ones to try and give you an idea of what to expect.

General New Features

• 6 distinct regions (Asia, Australia, Euro, India, USA and Global)
• Male and female selectable pilot voices
• Reception strength varies with distance from the transmitter, and intervening terrain
• AI now wait for controller instructions to be spoken before obeying them

One of the major changes, which may also be one of the least noticeable, is that there is now a system of global regions replacing the previous single global control region which modelled US-specific rules and messages. Having separate geographic regions means that different parts of the world can use voices that sound locally appropriate, but more importantly regions can have distinct messages and standards. To go with the regional variation in accents, the system now supports more than one voice per region, giving more variation as well as both male and female voices. Male/female selectable voices are available for the pilot too, in the Sound settings page.

The quality of the received audio now takes the distance from the controller, relative altitude, the type of controller, and any blocking terrain into account. In other words, if you’re close to an airport with clear line of sight, you’ll get nice, strong, clear reception. If you’re miles away and flying low behind a ridge, you’ll struggle to hear what the controller is saying. When AI receive instructions from a controller they will now wait until the transmission is complete, rather than executing those instructions the instant the transmission starts. This is one of many small changes which don’t really affect anything functionally, but hopefully add to the realism and feeling of immersion.

Dialog Features

• Branching menu-based commands for more complex calls
• Menu order prioritises the most important or likely calls
• Dynamic calls, tailored for the current situation
• Push-to-talk radio handling
• See the name of the current listening station
• Can plan a route using either VORs or airways
• Click to tune ATIS frequencies
• Dialog can be moved, resized and popped out
• Message history can be scrolled
• Usable in VR
• Choose whether to see messages just for you or for other aircraft also

The ATC dialog, and the way you interact with controllers, have completely changed compared with X-Plane 11. The new dialog contains both the controls for making radio calls as well as the message log, which can be scrolled. As with all other windows, it can be resized, dragged and “popped out” to become a normal OS window which you can, for example, put on a second monitor. You can resize the message log and command areas within the window to suit your preference using the horizontal separator, and the dialog also fully usable in VR using controllers.

You can choose to have this dialog automatically open when you receive a message, and automatically hide itself again a short time later if you don’t interact with it. It will also partially hide itself, leaving only the translucent message log visible, if you open it manually. This allows you to leave it on screen for the message log, without blocking your view. You can also choose to filter out calls to other aircraft, although you will of course still hear them on the radio.

The available commands have changed from being a few task-specific options in a fixed sequence to being a dynamic, prioritised, context-sensitive menu system. Only calls that you can actually make at any time are shown and in general, the most relevant or likely calls are at the top of the list. This should hopefully make it much easier for people unfamiliar with ATC to just dive in and give things a try.

Some commands have multiple options, for example requesting a VFR departure type or requesting an altitude change. When you select one of these, a new set of options will be shown giving the next stage of the command. Commands may have several stages. The full radio message is transmitted when you have given all the required options. Sometimes the options will change, for example when requesting a landing at a nearby airport from a regional controller. Again, only options that are relevant and valid will be shown. If you need to build up a command in multiple stages, the resulting command is shown in full in the dialog, above the option buttons.

The new push-to-talk mode allows you to use the ATC dialog without taking your hands off your controllers. If you assign a controller button to PTT – typically the trigger or a dedicated “transmit” button – in the “Joystick” settings page, this will change the way the radio message menu system works.

When you hold the transmit button, the ATC dialog will show itself if need be and you will be able to navigate the radio options using the controller’s hatswitch, which would normally control the view direction. The message is transmitted when you release the PTT button. Unlike a real aircraft, you can hold the transmit button down while another station is transmitting with no problems, so you can start to build up commands even if the radio is busy.

On the second tab of the ATC dialog, you can see a list of nearby controllers and ATIS transmissions. You can tune your radios directly by clicking on one of these lists; a controller will be set on COM1 if it is operational, otherwise COM2, and an ATIS transmitter will be tuned on COM2’s standby frequency. ATIS on NAV frequencies will set NAV1. This tab also has the controls for enabling auto-tune and auto-readback. Auto-readback is a simple shortcut where every ATC message that requires you to read it back as confirmation, is handled automatically. Normally you would need to explicitly use the “Readback” command.

Auto-tune is another convenience feature which will set the correct radio frequency for you when you are handed off between controllers, or the most likely frequency if you’re not currently talking to any specific controller. The most appropriate frequency is shown in the controller list using an asterisk.

Finally, on the flight-plan tab, you can change basic details for your flight and set the destination airport and requested cruise altitude. As with X-Plane 11 you can specify a particular route, but now you can also get the dialog to generate a route for you, either from VOR to VOR or using airways. Whether low- or high-altitude airways are used depends on the requested cruise altitude if any choice exists.

Regional Features

• Varied accents per region
• Multiple voices for controllers, both male and female
• Phrases can change i.e. “point” vs. “decimal”
• Default transition altitude per region
• Units (currently only pressure) per region
• Untracked VFR squawk code per region
• Potential for more region-specific changes in future

As mentioned earlier, each region has a number of different voices to try and add depth and variety. More importantly, regions can vary both values and messages. For example, in the US, the word “point” is used while elsewhere in the world, “decimal” may be used instead. Right now there aren’t very many of these varied words and phrases and it’s hoped that they will expand in future based on feedback.

Other constant values can also be defined per-region. The default transition altitude that’s used when an airport doesn’t specify it is regionally-defined, as is the “untracked” or “VFR” squawk code. Now that the systems are in place to easily manage regional variations, more can be added very easily.

New VFR Features

• Flight Following
• Traffic proximity warnings
• Fly circuits at airports that support it
• Low pass request
• Touch and go request
• Zone transit request
• Occasional position checks done by the controller
• Different message flow for VFR flights at FISO airports
• Request landing at an underlying controlled airport from a regional controller
• Downwind/Late Downwind and Final calls
• Change approach type between full-stop, low pass and touch-and-go
• “Changing Frequency” and “Request Frequency Change” calls
• “Request heading to” nearby airports call

One of the main development areas for ATC in X-Plane 12 was to greatly expand support for VFR flight, both in-air and airport-based GA-type operations.

Flight following for unplanned VFR flights is now supported. This is handled as a “traffic service” level – there will be traffic advisories if the controller is not too busy with other calls. When receiving flight following you will be allocated a squawk code and will be able to make some requests of the controller. You will also be handed off to other regional controllers as you enter their airspace, and from time to time the controller may request a position check to make sure you’re still awake.

Most airports, although not all, will allow you to request circuit operations – to fly a circuit, request a low pass, or a touch-and-go landing. An airport can be defined as supporting circuits using a new data value in WED but, even without that, X-Plane 12 will take a guess based on the characteristics of the airport and the region.

Another major change to the way that airport towers work is that there are now two types – the existing “fully controlled ATC”, which would correspond to major airports, and “FISO/Information” type which will be much more familiar to small-field GA pilots outside the USA. These two types have different messages, different abilities and different phrases. As with the “circuit operations” state, whether a particular airport’s tower is full ATC or a FISO can be set in WED but, if it isn’t, the simulator will guess.

If you find yourself receiving some unexpected messages, or not receiving expected ones, when talking directly to an airport it’s worth remembering that the airport’s control type may have been guessed or even explicitly set incorrectly. You can check what type of control an airport has in the Map window; if you click on the airport to bring up the details, there is an item on the second tab called “Control Type” which will show either “Controlled” or “FISO”.

New IFR Features

• Request altitude change
• Request course diversion
• Request vectors direct to destination
• Relayed clearances when filing a flight plan via a FISO airfield
• Improved vector creation to prevent 360-degree turns
• Can request cancellation of landing clearance
• Request conversion between ILS to VFR landing
• VFR or ILS landings are issued based on current airport weather
• Option to select a specific gate for arrival

Building on the existing IFR features of X-Plane 11, several new calls were added to support common things like in-flight route changes and diversions. With the addition of FISO-type airfields, you can still file an IFR flight plan on the ground but it will be relayed from the nearest controlled airport.

Quality of Life Features

• All calls are now spoken
• Radio Check
• Repeat Last request
• Request altimeter settings
• Request regional weather
• Request weather at waypoints along a planned route
• “Uncertain of position” call
• Interact with ground operations (pushback etc.) with the radio instead of a dialog box
• Better prioritisation of messages
• Push-to-talk, especially for VR/HOTAS users
• Auto-readback
• Dedicated readback command
• Consistently different allocation of squawk codes
• Ability to change tail number without filing a flight plan
• AI can take over at many more points during the flight
• Show ATC controller boundaries on the map
• Improved generation of taxi routes
• Improved handling of taxi route speech
• Many more airport names with abbreviations spoken correctly
• Controllers will use abbreviated tailnumbers if possible
• Support alphanumeric flight numbers
• Pronunciation of numbers
• Option to show your route on the map

These changes are less to do with the pure procedural functionality and more for depth, variation and just removing rough edges.

In X-Plane 11, some of the ATC menu choices didn’t issue any radio call; you simply got the tower’s response. Now, every ATC option is implemented as a radio call where you will hear the pilot’s transmission before getting any response from the controller. Several radio calls now exist that don’t affect your route or intentions, but which are all valid calls that are often used. The “radio check” call, and several others for requesting information, fall into this category. If you’re using a planned route in the simulated flight computer (i.e. the X-Plane G1000 or similar), this will be used by some of the radio calls to add options or information.

You can now request ground services – pushback or service trucks – by radio, on the airport’s ground frequency. The old “Ground Ops” dialog does still exist, and now has additional information on the ETA of ground support vehicles. Using the options on the Ground Ops dialog will also issue radio calls rather than use telepathy to relay your requests. As mentioned above, readback can now be handled automatically. While this is definitely not a “real life” feature, it can reduce the workload if you’re unfamiliar with ATC in general or simply want to chill things down a bit. There is also a new bindable command dedicated to readback for those who still want to manually respond but also want the process streamlined. The “Readback” menu item will always be the first item in the ATC dialog menu if you choose to respond normally.

Squawk codes issued by different controllers will be in different ranges, instead of absolutely every flight starting at or near 4701. The code ranges should mostly remain consistent between flights, letting you get used to the expected range from any given airport or regional. Controllers are now much more aware of the significance of different types of messages, and even the same message at different stages in the flight. While the radios can still get very congested if you have many AI flying, controllers will try hard to get the important messages to you on time. Tail numbers can now be changed for VFR flights – you no longer have to file an IFR flightplan – and, for planned flights, you can set alphanumeric flight numbers. Most radio transmissions will use abbreviated tail numbers, except on the initial contact, if possible.

Many parts of the speech have been improved and made more flexible. For example, many taxiway and parking spot names can now be spoken instead of using the phonetic spelling; numbers can be abbreviated in some cases (i.e. flight number 1234 would be “flight twelve thirty four”); abbreviated airport names (“muni”, “co.”, “AB”) are mostly expanded.

An option has been added to the Developer menu, “Toggle Air Traffic Paths”. This will show a green line in the map window for your expected route, as well as that for AI aircraft. If you need to file a bug report for any behaviour which might be related to your route or position, most commonly not receiving a message or not being able to make an expected transmission, knowing the exact route is a great help in diagnosing the problem so a screenshot showing the map with this route visible is invaluable.

New Airport Features

• Airports can choose to offer circuit operations
• Airports can be set to be either fully controlled or FISO/Information, with different flow and messages
• X-Plane 12 will guess based on the region and airport characteristics if no specific type is set in the airport
• Existing transition altitude data per-airport is now used

To go with the per-region transition altitude support, the existing but previously unused transition altitude value that may be set per airport is now used.

New Controller Features

• Real-world data covering thousands of controllers and airspaces
• Broadcast of regional QNH changes
• Improved ATIS broadcast
• “Special” ATIS updates
• Much improved terrain avoidance for routes
• Spoken terrain warnings from controllers if you’re IFR or receiving flight following
• Improved handoff between all controller types
• Much more checking of frequency overlaps between nearby controllers
• Many fixes for cross-dateline operations
• ATC should notice and respond if you simply fly on without responding
• New “Ready for Departure” calls where appropriate
• “Turn Left/Right” added to heading instructions
• “Vacate Left/Right” instruction after landing

Along with the new region system, recent Navigraph data has been included giving worldwide ATC coverage whereas X-Plane 11’s coverage was limited to a handful of large cities in the USA. This means that boundaries and frequencies should be at least approximately those seen in the real world.

ATIS services have been updated to use the correct phrases and are now aware of “special” ATIS updates, where a new recorded message is created outside the normal hourly update to cover significant weather changes. AWOS messages have also been updated. If you’re listening to a regional QNH controller you can expect to hear a broadcast if their regional QNH changes.

Terrain avoidance services have been added. While there are far too many situations to fully test this, it should be much, much rarer to be vectored into terrain whether that’s during takeoff, cruise or landing. In some cases, especially in difficult terrain, you may find that the ground clearance is less than it would ideally be because there is still no awareness of published approach and departure routes which may go around rather than over an inconvenient hill.

If you are flying an IFR route, or are flying VFR with flight following, you should receive terrain avoidance warnings from the controller when necessary. It should now be much harder to get into a situation where you simply stop receiving messages from the controller. Handoff between controllers is now much more flexible, handling all combinations of IFR and VFR flight, different flight stages, and different airport control levels.

Summary

There are many more invisible changes for stability and consistency. Some of the changes listed here are very large, affecting the whole system, and should be seen as providing a basis for future improvements. Others may be sufficiently subtle that you might not notice until they’re pointed out. The hope is that the new system is both accessible to beginners as well as being rich enough for professionals.

Despite all these changes there are still things which need to be improved or are even completely missing. Prioritising these is greatly helped by receiving feedback, whether that’s a missing radio call that you think should be included, incorrect phrases or procedures, even just a mispronounced airport name.

The post New ATC Features in X-Plane 12 first appeared on X-Plane.

The post New ATC Features in X-Plane 12 appeared first on X-Plane.

The X-Plane 11.30 experimental flight model includes changes to:

• Downwash modeling
• Body drag and side force
• Propeller and propwash modeling
• Ground effect on helicopter rotors

The post X-Plane 11.30 Experimental Flight Model Mode first appeared on X-Plane.

The post X-Plane 11.30 Experimental Flight Model Mode appeared first on X-Plane.

Just Flight, a popular add-on developer, has recently begun developing aircraft for X-Plane! Just Flight is well known in the simulation community for hosting events like the annual Flight Sim Show in Cosford, England, hosting a marketplace for add-on developers and developing a line of their own high-quality add-ons. So far they have released three stellar aircraft models for X-Plane 11 and we are excited to see what they have coming up! We had the opportunity to sit down with several members of the Just Flight team to discuss this new project.

What is Just Flight and what is its role in the flight sim community?

“Just Flight is a developer and publisher of Flight Sim add-ons, serving the community for the past 23 years. Quality is our watchword at Just Flight, right through from quality of the products all the way to the quality of our customer service and after sale support. The past few years has seen us shift more towards in-house development by increasing the size of the development team and also we’re happy to be working with some reputable third parties to help create the content via the coding or the art. Along with these products that get published via our own website we’re also open to taking other products to simply resell on our website. With an ever-growing number of Just Flight subscribers (around 80k) currently and many followers on Social Media Platforms (over half a million FB followers) we believe we’re the ideal outlet for both publishing our own and reselling other people’s titles. We also organise and host on an annual basis the world’s biggest Flight Sim Show, Flight Sim 2018, this year on Saturday 6th October at RAF Cosford Museum. This has gained in popularity from year to year, with over 30 exhibitors and around 1600 show visitors in attendance.”

Flight Sim Show 2017

How large is your team that focuses X-Plane development?

“It varies depending on the project but there are an average of six people working on an aircraft, specialising in areas such as animation and PBR material creation, to sound design and flight dynamics. In addition to the development team, we also have a couple of people working on the comprehensive manuals that we supply with every aircraft (which include systems and panel guides and a full flight tutorial). We are continuing to grow our development team in order to meet the exciting opportunities and growing demands offered by the X-Plane 11 platform.”

Favourite Just Flight X-Plane project to date?

In the year since we started developing for X-Plane 11 we have focused on converting our range of GA aircraft, and the PA-28R Arrow III (our first release) has been the most popular GA aircraft so far. It’s the perfect aircraft for training or touring and offers a good step up in complexity from simpler aircraft like our C152. Our current favourite is probably the PA-28R Turbo Arrow III/IV as it has superior performance and the T-tail configuration just looks great, but our upcoming Hawk T1/A will be hard to beat in terms of performance, handling characteristics and pure enjoyment – especially when flown in VR at low-level!

Just Flight’s new T1/A Hawk

Does the Just Flight team have access to the aircraft that it develops in real life to fly and study them?

Yes we do, and that is a critical element in allowing us to develop aircraft that look and behave realistically. The ability to access a real-world example of the aircraft is an important consideration when we are identifying new aircraft to develop and that can sometimes be very challenging when looking at commercial airliners and in-service military aircraft. Once we have found an aircraft, we take hundreds of photos covering every part of the exterior and cockpit, and record sounds, speak to aircrew and ground crew and generally collect as much reference material as possible. The reference photos are vital in recreating an exact copy of the real-world aircraft, right down to specific scratches and dirt.

The PA-28R Arrow from Just Flight

In what ways does your team use X-Plane’s attention to reality to enhance its products?

X-Plane’s attention to reality manifests itself in its use of PBR (for materials), HDR (for dynamic lighting), Blade Element Theory (for real-time CFD-like flight dynamics), FMOD as its audio infrastructure, integrated VR support, and a very powerful plugin architecture, just to name a few. Each of these categories is fully taken advantage of by Just Flight’s X-Plane development team.

PBR materials are authored right into the product through a development stage we call ‘materialisation’. Here, we use cutting edge software to paint the plane in 3D, according to its material characteristics. So, for example, diffusion and reflection characteristics are linked to the material’s roughness, and thus, there will be no unrealistic discrepancies between how the material reflects the environment and how it reflects light, as they are correlated according to laws of physics. HDR allows us to create lights that dynamically illuminate the aircraft. So for instance, you can create a gimballed light, which, when moved in its socket, will illuminate different parts of the plane’s interior dynamically. FMOD allows for extremely flexible audio authoring, so we’ll use the FMOD sound engine to enhance the overall auditory experience. So, for example, we make sounds emanate from particular positions in 3D space, or use side slip angles to affect the volume and direction of the wind noise, or allow for outside sounds to spill in through the windows and doors as they’re opened.

Plugins are a key part of the realism of our aircraft. They allow us to add a significant amount of functionality, above and beyond the features available by the simulator alone. This adds depth and realism, allows us to create instruments that would otherwise not be available in the sim, simulate events such as spark plug fouling or vapour lock condition, and even allows for end-users to edit configuration files to set, for example, their own strobe light pattern, or which elements should be off by default when starting the plane from cold and dark, or set weight and balance in a more visually intuitive manner via a custom pop-up window, or a dynamic checklist.

What’s up next for Just Flight?

The Hawk T1/A Advanced Trainer was just released, it is our first non-GA product for X-Plane 11 so we are excited to see the feedback from the community (there has been plenty of excitement so far). The next aircraft will probably be the PA-28-181 Archer III which will be the final variant in our range of PA-28 aircraft. The Archer III is based on a privately-owned aircraft with modern and capable IFR avionics, so it offers something a bit different from the previous PA-28s. Following that will be the Duchess Model 76, our first twin-engine aircraft, which should be the perfect step up from an aircraft like the Arrow III in terms of complexity. We intend to bring as many of our in-house aircraft across to X-Plane as possible so you should see a variety of types in the future, from vintage military jets to airliners.

The post Interview with Just Flight first appeared on X-Plane.

The post Interview with Just Flight appeared first on X-Plane.

Answer: Laminar Research doesn’t have an actual title policy, so depending on the time of day and who I’m talking to I’d be a software developer, analyst, avionics researcher or flight instructor. My main responsibility in X-Plane is avionics and navigational data, so everything that helps you to get where you’re going. To put it simply, I tinker with all parts of the aircraft that don’t have air flowing over or through them. Simulating flight physics is Austin’s department, but when you touch an instrument in the panel you are likely using some code that I had my hands on.

Q: Can you provide a little background on yourself?

A: I joined the X-Plane team in 2013 to bring the Garmin GNS navigators to X-Plane 10. My first programming experience was in Q-BASIC on Windows 3.11 back when I was in 5th grade. Mostly I wanted to have the computer do my math homework, because I’m still not good with mental math today. So that’s why I enlisted my computer, switched from BASIC to Turbo Pascal shortly thereafter, briefly tried C++ and then got stuck with scripting languages and web stuff for a couple of years until returning to C++ for good. My first foray into flight simulation was with the MS Flight Simulators 5.1 and 98, and my first encounter with X-Plane was with X-Plane 8. Up until 2008 I used FS and X-Plane interchangeably, but with the advent of X-Plane 9 I found myself using X-Plane exclusively, mostly because I’d gone from only using a simulator to creating content myself, and found X-Plane much easier and more straightforward to develop for. Back then I was part of a group of freeware developers who created the vasFMC that could be used with both FS and X-Plane aircraft. In 2011, I joined forces with Javier Rollon to create the CRJ-200 add-on aircraft, which was groundbreaking at the time and still holds a special place in my heart, because it’s such a special and quirky little jet. The next year Roman got me on board with FlightFactor where I worked on the 777 and later 757 aircraft. This was the last big aircraft project I was part of, then Ben enlisted me to work on X-Plane, where I have been responsible for avionics and a few smaller projects since. During my time at X-Plane, I also started my real world flying career, starting with my private pilot license in 2013, then instrument rating, multi-engine rating, commercial pilot license, flight instructor certificate, and finally instrument instructor rating in 2017. This year I’m looking at becoming a multi-engine instructor and I also want to get a seaplane rating, which I’ve wanted to do ever since I went to the seaplane base on Lake Winnebago at Oshkosh. These days I try to spend at least one day of the week away from the keyboard and out in the air instructing, to always keep the feedback loop between real world flying and X-Plane running.

Q: What was your first experience that got you into aviation or X-Plane?

A: My first successful landing was on an FS 4 running on an IBM PC clone, and it was at the Oakland scenery if I remember correctly. That must have been around 1994, and it got me hooked on flight simulation at a young age. My first time at the controls of a real aircraft was in an FK9 ultralight aircraft in 2002, and then in a Level-D Full Flight Simulator of a 757 in 2006, but I never pursued a real pilot’s license seriously until 2013.

Q: What type of computer set up do you use? Any hardware or accessories you couldn’t live without?

A: Most people would be shocked to hear that I do 90% of my work on a nine year old computer. I have a 2009 Apple MacPro “The Cheesegrater”, which I only recently retrofitted with two more powerful 6-core server processors and tons of RAM. It is by today’s standards ridiculously underpowered in the graphics department, but since I don’t develop scenery or rendering features, I rarely run X-Plane at anything but the lowest possible graphics settings. With twelve cores though, this machine churns through compiling X-Plane from the source code faster than anything else. On a typical day, I recompile and startup X-Plane probably 50 times, but only fly for a few minutes at a time. That’s why I still prefer running the quiet monster. I do have a typical “gaming” PC as well though, complete with VR-setup and lots of blue LED lighting. I don’t use it very much since it’s too loud so I can’t hear myself think when working.

For flight controls, I have a Russian VKB Cobra joystick, that I bought in 2012 and take with me to every public event or show where we have an X-Plane showcase. For the past 6 years, countless people have torn, punched and abused this joystick in every conceivable way and it still works flawlessly and looks almost pristine. It is absolutely the best joystick I’ve ever had.

My desk setup consists of three 4:3 screens, but the setup is also very focused on my work-flow rather than a traditional flightsim setup: The left screen is connected to my Mac, the right one to my PC, and the middle one switches between them, along with the other peripherals, by means of a digital KVM switch. This way I always have two screens on the machine I’m working on, and one screen to observe any tasks the other machine is crunching on in the meantime. The picture shows my desk less chaotic than usual, and because it was taken after hours, with a glass of Riesling that is necessary when reading the forums. Yes, I’m guilty of browsing X-Plane.org under the influence.

Q: Does this differ greatly when using X-Plane for work vs. fun?

A: For fun, I use my gaming PC, and I crank up the volume on the speakers. But then again the time I use X-Plane recreationally is probably only an hour a month or so. For winding down, I find train simulators endlessly fascinating, and I also enjoy the odd round of old DOS games, which thanks to DOSBox and archive.org have survived. I guess I simply spend too much time in real airplanes these days to fly virtual airplanes for fun.

Q: What’s the most exciting part of working on X-Plane for you?

A: The most fascinating is the instant transfer of experiences. Many times I flew a real airplane in the morning, and something happened that made me go “hmm, that is strange, I wonder how X-Plane handles this”. Then in the afternoon I’d work on getting X-Plane to do that exact thing. This is why new features keep cropping up in X-Plane whenever I get to fly a different new aircraft.

Then, I love to dig into manuals and documents like the FAA TERPS manual, which I read more often than a sane person should, simply because I want to know the “why”. The AIM teaches you the “what”, and this is what you learn when you become an instrument rated pilot, but reading the TERPS you get the “ahh, that’s why!” experience.

I do have a hard time finding the right level of understanding that a normal instrument student should be taught, and tend to upset DPEs with “well, actually …” rants. That’s why my Youtube channel should probably be called “more than you ever wanted to know about flying IFR”.

I’m also endlessly fascinated by reading real world airworthiness directives and manufacturer services bulletins when it comes to avionics. It is fascinating to see that often the very same problems arise in real world avionics that I deal with in X-Plane.

Q: Do you have a favorite aircraft to fly, or a favorite location?

A: My absolute favorite aircraft to fly was Austin’s Columbia. This plane handled so well, was so incredibly easy to land, and still powerful and fast. I flew it across the width of the entire United States twice, and loved every second of it. The Evolution he currently flies is much faster, but that’s its only feature. I only fly the Evolution with Austin with me, ready to take over if needed. Apart from Austin’s ridiculously fast aircraft, I enjoy flying Pipers. I prefer the handling of the Archers, Arrows and Comanches over their Cessna counterparts, which I find harder to land. I also think the Cirrus SR-22 is way overrated and don’t care for its feel very much.

The most beautiful flight I ever did was from the Grand Canyon, crossing Arizona to Durango, CO, and then flying over the Rocky Mountains via Pagosa Springs to Pueblo. It was in the fall and the colors were incredible! Looking back, flying a Columbia 400 over the Rockies was clearly the epitome of my flying career so far, and I can imagine few things that could surpass that.

In X-Plane, I absolutely love our new default C172. While I don’t care very much for flying the real thing, the model in X-Plane is just so great. The textures, the sounds, the way it feels, the carefully crafted model, the way this all comes together in VR is just perfect! This is the plane that when I put on VR glasses for the first time, gave me the greatest “Wow, I’m really here” experience.

Q: Do you have a favorite plug in or add on?

A: My X-Plane installation is very vanilla, I only have a few add-ons that I use to help with compatibility testing. So when it comes to using X-Plane, I’m usually just flying the C172 and the default scenery, and of all places I usually fly to the airports that I use regularly in real life as well. And here is the part I love about X-Plane: The airport sceneries! Every airport I’ve been to has a hand-crafted scenery nowadays. Even the Lexington County airport in South Carolina, which is the most insignificant little strip of asphalt you can imagine, had someone go “I can make an accurate scenery for that!”. It’s amazing how many people use World Editor these days. My overall favorite scenery is probably KCUB by MisterX, which is just spot-on, though I think it lacks models of Austin and me standing somewhere!

Q: What do you see for the future of flight sim development?

A: VR is here to stay. We are currently seeing only the first generation of headsets, and while they are not perfect, remember the first generation of smart phones (Nokia Communicator, anyone?) and see how far we’ve come. I’m not suggesting it will replace screen-and-joystick desktop simulators completely, but I think “VR or screen” will be just like “Joystick or Yoke” in near future, just another option that some people can’t live without while others could care less. That’s why supporting VR is now as important as supporting a joystick. I’m in awe of what Chris, Ben and Sidney have pulled off to make X-Plane an awesome VR experience, and to the haters I say “You get better fps for your screen from it, so stop complaining”. I’m also happy to see how X-Plane is now the platform of choice for so many third party developers who create amazing content. And though it sounds surprising, I’m happy for P3D, Aerofly, FSW, Infinite Flight and all others to be here as well – remember how boring the years before that were? The world of flight simulation used to be buzzing with contenders like Fly!, Flight Unlimited, ATP, AS2 and when they all died out, we had years were almost no progress was made and basically everyone was just using an outdated Microsoft product. I’m glad we are in the second golden age of flight simulation now, with so many competing platforms where we all push each other to keep on improving.
So in one sentence, the future I’m looking forward to is wireless headsets that allow you to walk around your aircraft without becoming tangled up in cables, and lots of great simulators to choose from that run in them.

Q: Anything else you’d like people to know?

A: Unlike Ben and Tyler, I measure my development time in amount of tea consumed, not coffee. I love myself a Second Flush Darjeeling, a Nepal TGFOP or the occasional Ceylon and on a good day with lots of code written I probably go through two liters of it. My wife likes to point out that I’ve become completely immune to caffeine. Youtube commentators also demand I should limit my tea intake during screencasts. Clearly, they have not considered the negative impact that this would have on my output!

The post Behind the GPS: Interview with Philipp Ringler first appeared on X-Plane.

The post Behind the GPS: Interview with Philipp Ringler appeared first on X-Plane.

New Features

WMR is now officially supported. Note that it requires installing the additional “Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR” from the Steam library.

No controllers, or simply prefer using the mouse? No problem! Now you can toggle a VR mouse cursor that functions like the standard X-Plane mouse cursor.

VR now uses a new “realistic yoke” option by default. The yoke functions like real life: tilt your wrist left or right for roll, and push in or pull out to control pitch. (You can switch back to VR beta 1’s “ergonomic yoke” in Settings if you prefer it, and adjust its sensitivity.)

Finally, you can now customize your controllers in the Settings > Joystick screen.

The post X-Plane VR Updates first appeared on X-Plane.

The post X-Plane VR Updates appeared first on X-Plane.

The post X-Plane Planning Session Q&A first appeared on X-Plane.

The post X-Plane Planning Session Q&A appeared first on X-Plane.

Alex Unruh: I have been dabbling in flight simulation for as long as I can remember. I’m pretty sure that I’ve been an aviation nut even longer than that! My first exposure was Graphsim’s F/A-18 Hornet 1.0, which I ran on the family’s Macintosh LCiii. I played that and A-10 Attack for years until we finally upgraded to a first generation iMac in 1999. It was during that time that I discovered a demo for X-Plane 5 bundled in with those CDs that you used to get in Mac magazines. Even though you could only run the sim for five minutes in demo mode, I was hooked. My builder self was drawn into Plane Maker early on. It was like throwing the entire Lego bin on the floor every time I opened it up without the problems associated with stepping on loose pieces late at night. I would spent countless hours building, modifying, and testing things that I had created. Could I build a jet truck and get it to Mach 1 by the end of the long runway at Edwards AFB? Could I build my favorite fighter jets? The answer was yes on both! Version 5 tinkering became version 6, version 6 became 7 and I kept playing in the sandbox, building my skillset, and learning all I could about aviation.

During my first and only year of music school back in 2005-6, I probably spent way more time than I should have developing commercial liners for the X-Plane Freeware Project including the Boeing 717 and Boeing 727. When it was clear that music school wasn’t going to be where my priorities were, I went back home and started work on a graphic design degree. I kept up with X-Plane during that time and started working on the Boeing 777 with a good friend of mine. That became the XPJets 777 which we had intended to keep developing post freeware release. After years of trolling around with odd X-Plane projects here and there, and another intensive art degree (this time in ceramics) in another state later, I was picked up by Laminar Research through an old X-Plane Freeware colleague of mine. I am currently serving as art director at LR.

Q: What type of computer set up do you use? Any hardware or accessories you couldn’t live without, or a 3rd party program or tool you find invaluable?

AU: I currently do the bulk of my X-Plane design work on a 27inch retina 5K iMac. I also use a MacBook Pro for development on the go. I’ve always been a Mac guy and I don’t see that changing for the foreseeable future. Blender and Photoshop are my go to tools. As long as I’ve got a trackpad, I’m good to go anywhere (ditched the mouse years ago, never looked back).

Q: What’s the most challenging part about creating for X-Plane?

AU: Two answers: If I’m building aircraft, the most difficult part of any build is modeling the systems to a sufficient degree that they reflect their real world counterparts. In some cases, it’s a one to one… X-Plane just gets it and does it the right way from the get go. In most cases however, real world systems are orders of magnitude more complex. As artists, we’ve got more tools now than we ever have including an in-house LUA scripting plugin and increased flexibility within X-Plane and Plane Maker to do what we need. Even with that, its still a walk down the rabbit hole every time I open up a LUA file.

If I’m building scenery, the real challenge isn’t with the scenery objects or with the texturing, but it is fitting everything within the proper framework, especially in regards to autogen. Good AGBs and AGSs are magic, and it takes such a high level of craft, attention to detail, and creative problem solving that to date, autogen is some of the most difficult work that I’ve ever had to do.

Q: The best or most rewarding part?

AU: This is actually a tough question. Every milestone is rewarding. The first time that you see all of the objects and textures in the sim animating properly is a great moment. The first time you get the cockpit geometry in place is a great moment. The last line of code, the last 3D manipulator, testing the last generic instrument… they’re all great moments. I think that what ultimately does it for me though is the first time that I’m able to see my airplane at night with all of the 3D lighting, billboards, LIT textures, and lighting controls in place, especially in the cockpit. X-Plane’s night lighting is so good, that it really can take you there, out of the simulation and into reality.

Q: What’s your favorite creation?

AU: My favorite creation tends to be what I’m working on or what I’ve just finished. As of right now, my favorite is the 737NG for X-Plane 11. It has been such a terrific learning experience (I learned to code!) and to see everything come together including the new integrated FMS from Philipp, it’s just at the top of the heap for me. Whether or not it stays my favorite remains to be seen. I have a distinct feeling that my next project may eclipse it.

Q: Who or what do you look up to or get inspiration from?

AU: I would say that I draw my inspiration from reality, from the real thing. There is something magical about watching planes come in on approach. Whether it be the noise, the condensation wake, the wings bouncing through rough air or standing in the wake turbulence, I am all about doing justice to the actual aircraft. When I start a new project, I drown myself in images and videos of what I’m making. I study every curve and pour over the details. Pretty soon, I begin to appreciate the character of what I’m working on. Replicating that character, getting the face just right, it is something that takes immersion and a great passion for aviation.

I approach texturing from both a technical and a painterly approach. The foundation is technical, but weathering is different. It tells a story, and I get to decide what kind of story I’m going to tell, until the thing that I’m working on starts to develop a life of its own. Then you just run with it. In the end, it is all about bringing the aircraft to life inside the simulator as convincingly as possible.

Q: What’s the most important thing for new artists or people just get started with X-Plane development to know?

AU: My advice to newcomers to X-Plane development is simple. Start small and stick with it. Begin by modifying existing aircraft or perhaps build something from your imagination in Plane Maker. Maybe you start by giving your favorite aircraft a new paintjob. Perfection is never the goal. The important thing is to build up your skill set so that you can handle more ambitious projects later on.

If you’re already an artist familiar with the 3D workflow and texturing, start with a basic aircraft. Work through the process, work through the tool chain, and go to the communities for feedback and advice. Stick with it until you’re comfortable with Plane Maker, the ins and outs of datarefs, animation, avionics, flight dynamics etc. Once you’ve mastered everything on the small scale, take it up a level. Increase the complexity. Solve new problems. It’s a rewarding process.

I’ve spent the past 17 years using X-Plane in some form or another, and the past 12 years developing seriously. I’ve been using Blender and Photoshop for about 13 years now and am still learning. While I have had breaks due to school, I’ve always come back to it. There are plenty of good resources out there, communities of great people to answer your questions, and worthwhile projects to be done. That is ultimately the great thing about X-Plane. If you can imagine it, you can make it.

The post Interview with Alex Unruh, X-Plane Art Director first appeared on X-Plane.

The post Interview with Alex Unruh, X-Plane Art Director appeared first on X-Plane.

Chris Serio: Official title? Mobile Product Manager/Senior Software Engineer/Mobile Marketing Manager/QA Lead/Social Media Specialist/HR Manager/Expert Scotch Drinker/Professional Ranter sums up the daily duties.

Q: Can you provide a little background on yourself?

CS: I’ve been contributing to LR since 2008 but I’ve been programming since 2000 in some capacity. My official background is in Electrical Engineering, not Software or Computer Science, but you can learn anything quickly when you do it for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. I also have a Commercial Pilot’s License.

Q: What was your first experience that got you into aviation or X-Plane?

CS: I got my first flight in a Piper Cherokee back in 1997 as part of the EAA’s Young Eagles program. I grew up about 2 miles from a small GA airport and my house is on their downwind leg so I was always interested in aviation. My dad used to take me to airshows too. After the “first flight” I was hooked and my buddy and I signed up for ground school and started our flight training while in high school. We were absolutely obsessed with aviation.

When I wasn’t flying for real, I was flying FS98 and X-Plane. They each had their strengths and weaknesses. I used flight simulation heavily to practice. When I moved on to my instrument rating, X-Plane was especially useful. I’d practice approaches non-stop and then when I got in the real plane, they were routine so I was able to save a lot of money–which was huge because I was only 17 and still working 3 side jobs to pay for my own training.

Q: What type of computer set up do you use? Any hardware or accessories you couldn’t live without?

CS: It may surprise people but we pretty much all have average hardware…not super machines. It’s important that we do most of our testing and development on the type of hardware most users have. My main development machine is a 2013 27” iMac. I also have a PC for Windows and Linux work. It’s just barely average to today’s standards. It’s a Core i5-2500 3.3GHz with a GeForce GTX560Ti and 16GB of RAM. I also have a 2012 Macbook Pro and a desk that’s absolutely littered with every iPad/iPhone and popular Android device you can imagine.

For accessories I have a Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS, CH Products Pedals and a CH Yoke as well. I did a lot of development on making the V10 Desktop joystick back-end more modernized so I needed a device with a ton of buttons and the Thrustmaster looked perfect for that.

Q: Does this differ greatly when using X-Plane for work vs. fun?

CS: What is this ‘fun’ you speak of? 🙂

Q: What’s the most exciting part of working on X-Plane for you?

CS: X-Plane is unlike any other simulator out there because it’s not a flight simulator…it’s a world simulator. EVERYTHING has to be simulated just right in order for users to really feel like they’re in the real world. This means there’s never monotony. You’re always working on something new. Weather, physics, user interface, sound, controls, social media, missions, air traffic control, lighting…it’s all constantly evolving. In other jobs I’ve had, you did essentially the same kind of work over and over again and I would find myself getting bored.

Q: Do you have a favorite aircraft to fly, or a favorite location?

CS: In real life, I love to fly Piper Warriors, Arrows, Mooney and Cessna 172s because they’re readily available and “affordable” though I use the term very, very loosely. I have had experience in turboprops like the Cessna Conquest but mostly smaller GA planes. In the simulator, I love the King Air. I like how rugged and durable it is. It’s like a flying SUV. It’s a multi-purpose aircraft. If anyone reading this wants to bribe me for X-Plane features with some flight time in a real King Air…I can be bribed rather easily. 😉

Q: Do you have a favorite plug in or add on?

CS: Dataref editor? I don’t use X-Plane for leisure that much…if I have free time it’s usually spent trying to get ahead on more work, so I don’t use addons much any longer.

Q: You’re the lead on X-Plane 10 Mobile, and it’s about 1 year old now. Do you have any thoughts about how it changed over the year? Were there any surprises or feedback you weren’t expecting?

CS: I’m not ashamed to admit that I was partially wrong about what I thought users wanted. My goal for the product initially was a mobile flight simulator that was easy enough for a non-aviation-geek to use, yet deep enough in realism that even real world pilots could enjoy themselves…but users wanted more depth than I expected.

We actually do listen to feedback even if we don’t always respond directly to it. It was quickly apparent to me that we needed to add in all of the complexities that users wanted while doing it in a way that’s not frightening to new users. That’s been our new focus for a while now. It’s always a very difficult challenge on a mobile device. We’re limited on device performance, download size, memory and most of all, controls. Using a touch screen instead of a full keyboard + mouse + joystick poses some difficult challenges. Users often ask for MORE scenery, MORE planes but make the downloads SMALLER, make things FASTER. It’s difficult to find the right balance sometimes.

Q: Any insider news you can share about what’s coming up for Mobile?

CS: I can’t give away any secrets just yet but I can say we’re working on some major improvements that users can expect around the spring time as a free update. I think all users from beginners to professional pilots will be impressed. We’re also always working on new aircraft that will be available for in-app purchase. We have some really cool planes coming up!

The post Meet X-Plane Developer Chris Serio first appeared on X-Plane.

The post Meet X-Plane Developer Chris Serio appeared first on X-Plane.

Jan Vogel: My interest in aviation started in childhood, probably when I clenched my fingers around the chainlink fence of the Kiel-Holtenau Airport at age 5. It culminated with getting my Airline Transport Pilots License at age 26, flying jet airliners for a major German airline ever since.

LR: Why did you decide to start making scenery & how long have you been creating X-Plane scenery?

JV: I have always had a vivid interest in personal computer based flight simulation, ever since flying FSII in 1984 on my Commodore 64. Back in those times, the flying areas were very limited, you often had a few airports to fly to. That always bothered me, and I guess it planted the seed for scenery design later on.

In the late 1980s we had “scenery disks” that would expand those areas, but still didn’t contain all airports in the enclosed area. I ended up marking the aiports on my flying maps with a coloured pen.

Needless to say that I still had to go to any airport I passed by, and I was intrigued by the special architecture and layouts of airports. The markings, lighting, the signs, terminals, airside and landside structures. All very clean and functional, yet every airport is different and has a special character!

LR: What’s the most challenging part about creating scenery?

JV:The hardest part is really just starting out with scenery design. A tool like WED is very powerful, but also hard to learn and there are a million little things to know and consider. The scenery and layering in X-Plane is also complicated, and it takes a while to understand why and how things do or don’t work out. Persistence and frustration tolerance are both required skills.

LR: What’s the best or most rewarding part?

JV: Definitely when I get feedback from other users. The biggest motivation for me is the idea that I am helping with something and that people enjoy my work. This used to work pretty good when I still posted my scenery on some public download pages, now with the Scenery Gateway I just have to believe that people have fun with my airports.

I also enjoy the part when I first fire up the sim to check my creation in 3D – it is a little bit like taking a sculpture out of the mold for the first time.

LR: Do you have a 3rd party program or tool you find invaluable?

JV: Just one word: WEDbing

LR: What’s your favorite scenery creation?

JV: I would have to limit my selection to scenery uploaded to the Scenery Gateway, not scenery that uses third-party libraries or photoscenery. I think it is easier to make great scenery with those tools, but to make good scenery with the hopelessly limited Laminar “Lego-Brick” library that we designers still have to suffer today is something entirely different and requires being inventive.

The best scenery I have seen on the Gateway is EDDN Nuernberg Intl by BEDA, he is a very good designer with patience and an eye for detail. Check it out!

LR: What’s the most important thing for new artists or people just getting started with scenery development to know?

JV: Where to get help at first! Don’t just dive in, watch the instructional videos, then start experimenting with a SMALL airport (not KDEN!). There are some great forums out there that cater to scenery design, and you can tap into the knowledge of more experienced designers there. Then again, real men never read instructions or ask for directions!

The post Scenery Creation with Jan Vogel first appeared on X-Plane.

The post Scenery Creation with Jan Vogel appeared first on X-Plane.

The post X-Plane 9 for Android is now free first appeared on X-Plane.

The post X-Plane 9 for Android is now free appeared first on X-Plane.