Version 6.40

[Editor's note: No updates between 6.30 and 6.40. Looks like for now Austin is in a mode of fewer, bigger releases. He has been busy...]
 

NEW AIRPORT/NAV/FIX DATA
 

• New airports, navaids, and fixes from Robin Peel's huge new global nav database!


PLANE-MAKER NEW STUFF
 

• You can now set the SCALES and OFFSET for most every instrument!
• These new screens in Plane-Maker let you decide where each instrument starts and stops its travel, and lets you enter any conversion constants to get the output in different units!
• Want to measure airspeed in feet per day going counter-clockwise from 6 o-clock? OK!
• Combat version getting closer... Cockpit instruments noww availabel in Plane-Maker to really getting those weapon firing modes right...
• Fire mode (single, pairs, ripple, salvo) and ripple speed in drops/second are now controllable.
• Numerical input of cross-sections in plane-maker now possible for those that want to get those sections perfect.


WORLD-MAKER NEW STUFF
 

• Now you can start your airplane anywhere, not just on the runway!
• This good for starting at the ramp and putting the tower viewpoint in your cool control-tower custom object.
• AND you can put the tower viewpoint anywhere!
• In World-Maker, just set the starting-point of the craft up, and then in X-Plane you have a new option in addition to the VFR and IFR finals and Takeoff option: RAMP START, on which case you will use your special ramp startup location selected in World-Maker! Type 14 and 15 in the apt.dat file to edit for yourself.
• Custom object "footprints" are now shown! You can use this to position objects perfectly adjacent to each other, etc.
• Add new road, railroad, trail, and powerline segments now to get your roads and stuff perfect!
• Add taxiway lines for the runway as you like! Better yet, you can just quickly put the lines in place without worrying about making the turns smooth... in fact you may simply turn at a 90 degree angle with only 2 line segments... X-Plane will smooth the curves for you so the taxilines in X-Plane are perfectly rounded and smooth!
• Better airport editing in WM, with no more runways turning out a little different in X-Plane than in World-Maker.


X-PLANE NEW VISUAL STUFF

The new auto-gen takes us to the next level. It is totally customizeable. Right now, if you look in the bitmaps/terrain/city folder, you will see 4 different city types. Now, starting with X-Plane 6.40, you can simply do a TEXT FILE for each of these bitmaps that contains the locations and orientations of all the object you like... and any time that texture shows up in the sim, the objects you specify will appear on it! The result? You need only design ONE CITY POLYGON, and then that city design will be used every time that texture shows up anywhere on Earth! Now you can get cusomtizedd cities for the entire planet by only designing a few city blocks. Obviously, I have already done a good job designing the cities for you, but you are ready to improve or customize those cities however you like, adding all the buildings, trees, lights, parked and moving cars you like! Various randomization options are available in the file format (random building selection, random building and tree location) so that things do not get too repetitive! No two polygons need be exactly the same!

Now, you might be saying "OK, sounds great... I can make my cities just exactly perfect, but I want cities in DIFFERENT parts of the world to be DIFFERENT! No problem! Look at the CITIES folder you have now. Starting with X-Plane 6.40, that folder is labelled "city -90+90 -180+180". You see where this is going? The FOLDER NAME describe the latitude and longitude range in which to use the the textures (and resultant auto-gen objects). You think the citiees are different in Euraop than USA? You're right! Make a folder called "city +30+90 -010+030" to coler the lat and lon of the Europe region, and make the city textures to suit that region, complete with Auto-Gen text files described above to populate it with buildings, trees, cars, traffic lights, and anythig else you can think of! Now you are saying "Wait, what if I want to do a CERTAIN AREA of Europe differently!"

No problem! Just make another folder with a la and lon range describing an even smaller area WITHIN EUROPE and X-Plane will use THAT scenery instead! The rule is simple: X-Plane will always pick the SMALLEST REGION THAT IT IS INSIDE to use for scenery, so you may specify as many overlapping regions as you like with no fear of problems: X-Plane will always choose the smallest area you are inside of (the one most specific to your region) as you fly.

And it gets better: While I am doing some good USA scenery, Sergio Santagada is working on European scenery for you now, and we all know his work is the best on Earth.
 

• Runways are quite simply awesome, with new multi-textured skidmarks from Sergio.
• Runway lites look more realistic (dirty) whether or not you have texturted lites, and textured lites make all the obstacle lighting look better as well.
• Runways even follow the curvature of the Earth now! On Mars, with a big runway, and a hi-res monitor, you can even SEE it!!
• Water is nice.. it "waves".
• OK, it has happened: custom object light color 97 97 97 cycles through red, green, and yellow in an orderly fashion. Yes you can do custom object traffic lights now. And yes they keep time in the replay, so you can rewind and see if you ran the red.
• Afterburner glows goes inside the engine now as well, as seen from behind.


X-PLANE NEW FLIGHT-MODEL TECH STUFF
 

• New engine type: tip rocket! These are the rockets on the tips of helo rotors that turn the rotors without any need for a tail-rotor! They look pretty funky at night with the rotor spinning round and round with flame shooting out of the tips!
• New VTOL control option: Differential collective with pitch input: This is used in VTOLs with engines fore and aft of the CG to control the atitude of the aircraft in hover. Design your own heavy-lift 4-engine Osprey now with very precise pitch control by increasing or decreasing collective pitch on the front or aft rotors in hover. No more need for cyclic control!
• New VTOL option: LIFT FAN! Here is how it works: A drive-shaft is connected from the JET ENGINE to the FAN. When engaged, the jet engine sacrifices some part of it's thrust to drive this driveshaft which is connected to the fan. In this mode, you get less thrust from the JET engine (because it is turning the driveshaft hooked to it's turbine), but the shaft is turning the lift fan, which uses up the power to produce thrust itself! This is how the (real) F-35 works! (the jet engine is in the back, the lift fan in the front... they engage the lift fan for hovering flight only)


Now you can simulate it in X-Plane! Here is how it works: You specify what percentage of the jet engine's output is sent to the fan, and designe the fan just like you design any propeller in Plane-Maker. In the sim, when you transition to vertical flight, you can wtch the prop visibly spin up as it starts producing lift for you! Only in X-Plane, that's for sure!!!

Example: If the jet engine puts out 20,000 lb of thrust, and you duct HALF of the output to the drive-shaft, then the jet engine will now put out only 10,000 lb of thrust, and the fan will absorb the rest of the power. Does that mean the fan will put out the remaining 10,000 lb??? NO WAY!!!! The fan accelerates air at a much different rate, over a much different area, with a much different efiiciency and speed range than the jet, so the fan will be no means put out 10,000 lb! In fact, if you design the fan right, you may get that fan putting out 20,000 lb of thrust! Voila! A 20,000 lb het engine is now putting out a total of 30,000 lb of thrust!

You are now hovering in a 30,000 lb airplane with a 20,000 lb thrust engine! "Impossible!", you say? NOT AT ALL! The jet engine accelerates a LITTLE BIT OF AIR a LOT (small engine face, exhaust at near Mach-1, which is efficient at high speed) but the lift fan accelerates a LOT OF AIR A LITTLE (big fan face, exhaust at maybe 100 knots, which is much more efficient at low speed). So, since the fan need only run at LOW SPEED (you don't need to HOVER fast!!!) you get a lot of thrust augmentation by ducting the jet's output to the fan!!

Now the challenge: Huch more lift YOU can get by ducting power OUT of your jet engine(s) to the fan that you design???? You design the fan in Plane-Maker like you deisgn props. If you play your cards right with the fan radius and size and design speed and RPM and fan airfoils, HOW MUCH MORE THRUST CAN YOU GET??? Find out with X-Plane!
 

• Reverse-flow over wings, and props improved. This helps in those backslides, helos, and high-speed autogyros.
• New blown flap improvement: Blowing speed found for you based on the throttle reduction you decide... and also you can blow air over ALL the control surfaces to keep flight control effectiveness at low speed.
• Flap-deflection with pitch and roll for high-lift manuevering.
• Engine idle thrust and tire rolling friction coefficient tweaked to get that taxiing just right in the heavies.
• Improved wing-tilt modelling: All element locations now found when the wing tilts for steering.
• Transmission drag now taken out of helos and VTOLs.
• Thrust-reverser lockout on the props if props not full forwards, as in reality.
• Auto thrust-reverse on touchdown, as used by Swedish Viggen fighter.
• Lateral cyclic with heading input, for helos like the CH-46 Chinook, and other new prop and rotor control in Plane-Maker.


X-PLANE NEW TECH STUFF
 

• UDP data input smarter: When you send stuff in that takes control of various functions (like ADF or GPS or flight director) X-Plane is a bit more careful about only handing over control of the exact features you sent data in on, not any other features.
• New UDP mesaage you can send: CHAR, followed by a single char 0->255... will act as a keypress.
• Better weather handling: Real-Weather gives high cirrus clouds for high thin clouds, and turbulence from thunderstorms is appropriate to your altitude in the clouds.
• More joystick button options as always... This time a button for landing lights is thrown in.
• 2 different aural warning systems selectable in Plane-Maker: One for airliners, one for fighters.
• More data output including map range and GPS mode.
• New instruments including AOA gage for the military jets.


OPTIMIZATIONS FOR FRAME-RATE
 

• Even with all the new stuff, thanks to heavy optimizations, we have a frame-rate IMPROVEMENT in almost every area!
• General-case frame-rate improvement: 1%
• With roads and cars frame-rate improvement: 12%
• Runway-intensive (big airport) frame-rate improvement: 14%


BUG FIXES
 

• VOR to/from correct.
• Thermals work properly.
• No more "slamming" from runway changing elevationd underneath you at the env-file-switch.
• FMS advances past lat/lon fixes when you use those as waypoints, and GPS indicates you are using a lat/lon fix.
• No more problems blowing the tires from jetting back and forth on the replay,
• and nosewheel steering right even on moving surfaces like the carriers and frigates.
• Hardware throttle on your joystick now works for all planes including VTOLS.
• No more manifoldpressure going above ambient in normally-aspirated recips when the prop is pulled back.
• Scale is perfectly accurate on the round radar alt now.
• Yes spoilers now work in replay.

Version 6 Overview

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