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Glider winch is slower, and spools up over 5 seconds as in reality
-
Joystick axis assignment allows throttle, prop, and mixture 1 and 2 to
be independently assigned
-
Taxiways plot properly even if they are wider than they are long, as some
people have designed
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A-320 back into the fleet for a light airliner
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Plane-Maker shows the thrust vector changing when in "show with moving
controls" mode
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Spoilers and speedbrakes now reduce lift like they should
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Drag rudders render correctly both sides
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Some thrust ability was lost from slower-moving propellers, now further
tuned for better performance
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Runway thresholds correct
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Tail rotor failure will not take out other systems as well
-
Custom ITT limits apply correctly in the panel
-
FMS only sets altitude for the autopilot if the autopilot is set to track
the fms (lnav and alt modes on)
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GPS takes you to NDBs, even if they have very short (only 2-letter) identifiers
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multiplayer chat operative
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Earth airports do not show up on Mars in World-Maker
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New autopilot button: knots/mach. Hit this to select speed in knots or
mach number. if you do not have this button on the panel then it is autoset
-
Autothrottle speed control now set to nearest knot, not nearest 5 knots,
for FAA-certification
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PFC throttles, props, and mixtures tuned to allow full-scale deflections
even if the potentiometers are a bit noisy
-
Tandem rotors and other unusual cases of craft that have propeller pitch
varying with stick and rudder control input track their pitch properly
in all cases now
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PNG panels no longer leave drag marks in Plane-Maker
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Inner marker beacon plays with a more consistent rythm
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Normal vectors correct for objects
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Big radios now get big fonts to match
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World-Maker should save right files
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Monitor Gamma is now tuned on Windows.. things won't look so dark.
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You will get a higher refresh rate from your monitor in Windows.
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The slip ball is operative in the electric horizon.
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Aircraft are not over-G'd during bumpy startups on the runway if you were
in flight, etc.
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New apt.dat file from Robin.
Operational stuff for you to know:
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For the the autopilot to fly the GPS, you now have to put the autopilot
on LNAV mode, and set the HSI to GPS or CDU.
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This way, the autopilot follows the HSI, and you set the HSI as desired.
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Starting with 7.15, X-Plane spawns multiple threads to do multiple stuff
at once. (Right now this is only during init, will be for lots more stuff
soon). These threads are then set to work on multiple processors IF YOU
HAVE THEM. If not, the threads all run on your one processor. thus, getting
multiple processors will be useful but not needed. This applies to G4's,
G5's, and Windows machines. (multi-processing stuff courtesy of Ben Supnik,
by the way)
Optimizations:
-
Faster loading... X-Plane startup is now 15% faster (the apt/env load is
28% faster with multiple processors). This is thanks to memory-mapped file
I/O and distributing the load across multiple threads... and thus multiple
processors if you have them.
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This speeds up all the load-times of World-Maker too!
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2 processors will speed the load times, and soon (of course) speed up other
stuff too!
Fine-Tunes:
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Better autopilot tracking of the localizer, GPS, VOR, and headings.
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Visible drag rudders like on B-2.
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Windsocks bigger for aerial viewing.
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New option in the viewpoint screen in Plane-Maker: "Has marker beacon audio".
This determines whether or not you hear audio beacons, which you won't
in the old classic planes. This is auto-set to TRUE if you have the beacon
instrument on the panel to make it easy for you.
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Prop governor more resistant to overspeed.
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Start-times right on the money for those turbo-props.
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See the analog limits screen in Plane-Maker... you can have the airspeed
indicators (or any other instruments) have double-scaling at the high end,
like the airspeed indicators do in real jets and turboprops.
-
Instructor using IOS station can control the fuel and jettisonable load
and fixed load and center of gravity of the pilots machine, and the pilot
still burns fuel and can jettison any load the instructor gives.
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Artificial damping option in the joystick screen is smarter... it helps
return the craft to zero roll and pitch. This is still artificial though
so still is not recomended.
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In World-Maker, indicate if the tower is a visible default one or not.
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Alpha-tested objects are handled better... they look nicer by blending
smoother.
Bug-Fixes:
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Failure-screen has right labels.
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Autopilot: GPS and VOR both ARM until the CDI comes off the peg, then CAPTURE,
like a real autopilot.
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No more problems with certain runway textures showing up wrong at lower
tex-res settings.
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AOA cue scaled right no matter the instrument size.
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Carrier ILS operative no matter the boat heading.
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If you ask for vectors to the carrier or frigate when in the middle of,
say, Iowa, ATC will not give you vectors clear to the fifth dimension to
find a carrier.
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Helo FADEC does not get confused by failed engines.
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Helo clutches should not kill the engines.
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Thrust vector and slat setting stored in the replay movies, etc, but the
movie format has changed to make this happen.
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Correct runway-types selected in World-Maker.