Version 8.15

So what's new with 8.15?  TONS, with special emphasis towards MORE FAA-CERTIFICATION FOR FLIGHT TRAINING.

This means my focus has been pretty tight on detailed modeling of engine temperatures and performance, electrical and vacuum systems, autopilot and GPS accuracy, and more powerful IOS (Instructor Operators Station, or "IOS" button on the MAP window in the OUTPUT menu). These are the type of things that have to be right on the money for FAA-certification, and X-Plane is now improved in these areas in spades.

So, with more powerful and accurate instructor stations, autopilots, GPS systems, and engine-modelling being the primary goals, and a TON of other cool little additions that people have asked for, here is the list of new stuff done for 8.15!

New Features:

Cool new feature: Run an IOS on a second monitor on your ONE computer!
Here is how it works:

• Go to the rendering options screen and check "draw cockpit on second monitor".

• Now, the cockpit will be drawn on the second monitor if you have a dual-head video card or a really wide monitor.

• Now, go to the OUTPUT screen and select LOCAL MAP... and watch yourself crawl across the map as you fly!

• Now hit the IOS buttons if you like, and you now have an IOS (instructor operators console) and can set the weather, failures, etc... all as you fly! Cool! When in this mode, the application of the key presses depends on what window your mouse is in, so you can move the mouse to a window to select it for key-press use!

1. LOCATION-FREEZE: This causes the flight model to behave normally, except that you DO NOT GO ANYWHERE!
   
   
2. DOUBLE-SPEED: This causes the flight model to behave normally, except that you cover terrain at 2x normal speed.
   
   Both of the these features are required for FAA-certification, because they allow the sim to be stopped or sped up to facilitate flight training.
   
   
3. QUADRUPLE SPEED: Do the math.
   

• Cool new option on the map screen: DRAG a plane (your or any other) to just MOVE IT, or CLICK (WITHOUT dragging) to do a full init to the speed and alt in the upper right corner of the map. Now, to take it to the next level, plug in a second monitor on a dual-head card and turn on the "draw cockpit on second monitor" option... Now bring up the map and drag your plane (OR OTHER PLANES!) around with the mouse and watch you or them move across the sky as dragged by the mouse!
  

• Zoom on the maps does a pretty smart job of auto-zooming on the profile (side) view as well, if you have that view checked in the upper-right. Also, the landing gear and flap deflections are now shown in this vertical plot on the IOS screen... this makes it a bit more thorough for checking your ILS approaches.
  

• The glideslope profile plot on the map view sets itself to whatever ILS frequency you have tuned (if any) to get the profile plot perfectly accurate. As well, landing gear and flap deployments are shown on the glideslope plot.

• Click on an airplane on the map (any plane) and a little dialog comes up that lets you change it's heading and speed and altitude. Do this to your plane, or any of the others.

• Anti-aliasing option! Turn this on in the rendering options screen to get anti-aliasing at various levels. It can be slow, but it does look good!
  

New Instruments:

• A new artificial horizon good to 90 degrees... nice to have for aerobatics.

• Round thermometer, as used in real Cessnas. Check it out in the supplement folder. (and, ALL thermometers show the actual temperature of the aircraft skin, which may well be well above ambient thanks to compressive heating!)
  

• New airspeed indicatior: Twin Needle. Used on some of the old fast jets!

• Flap linear LABEL... This flap indicator type is like the regular linear flap indicator, but actually labels the flap deflections in degrees for you.
  

• MAST torque for those helos... indicate the total torque to each rotor, no matter how many (or few) engines are going to it. This is available in round, linear, digital, EFIS, ECAM, the works.
  

• New "engine round ALL" for all engine instrument types... this plots the rpm, manifold pressure, etc, for BOTH (or more) engines all on the same gage, with 2 different needles available as well so you can tell which engine is doing what all on one gage.
  

• New handle in the handles folder to dump water ballast in the amount that you like.

• New "vac/amp" engine gage, like in the new Cessnas.

• New "GA" autopilot selectors for altitude and vertical speed that show the mode as well as the values you have entered.

• New "lo vacuum" warning lights, available per-engine.

• New handles for variable-sweep, variable-dihedral, and variable-incidence, so you can control all variable-geometry properties of the plane independently.

• New low and high rotor rpm warning annunciators in the annunciators folder, good for getting a visual warning when your rotor rpm is too high or low in those helos.

• Ice detection switch. (turn the detection system on or off)

• Ice detected annunciator to indicate if you have ice if switch is on and you are picking up ice.
  

Flight-Model Enhancements:

• WHOLE NEW FUEL-FLOW MODEL! You can now enter the specific fuel consumption is now more flexible... enter the SFC for the engines at lo and hi altitude, idle and half power. As well, enter the fuel flow ratio to maximum when the engine is at idle. This lets you get the most accurate SFC in all phases of taxi and flight, at different altitudes as well.

• Downwash and wing efficiency model improved a bit to handle more exotic cases.

• Co-axial rotor differential-collective for yaw control now available! Cool! Build a helo with co-axial rotors and spec out a differential collective in Plane-Maker to get yaw control without a tail rotor! This is used for at least one Russian attack helicopter. The setting is in the "VTOLs and helos" page of Plane-Maker.
  

• MUCH-improved calculations for finding the supersonic drag on bodies! X-Plane is EXCELLENT at subsonic, high-aspect ratio-wing flight, and EXCELLENT with all types of subsonic engines, but the spuersonic model of the fuselages and bodies has been pretty poor in the past (too loosely approximated). Now, we do a good job of tracking the supersonic compression shocks and expansion fans, and skin friction, all the way along the fuselage when supersonic. I have tried an idea like this before, but now the implementation is much "harder to fool" with strangely-shaped bodies, and is more accurate in general.

• Free-turbine engines indicate fuel pressure UPSTREAM of the condition lever... all other engines measure fuel pressure DOWNSTREAM of the condition lever. In other words, the fuel pressure for free turbine engines will be hi when you turn on the fuel pump, no matter the condition lever location, as long as you have fuel in the selected tank(s)... But for all other engines, you will actually need to advance the condition or mixture lever to get fuel pressure.
  

• See the Engines screens in Plane-Maker... ITT, EGT, and OIL T can all be in degrees F or C... This lets you tweak the units per-airplane, and also gets the atmospheric ambient temperatures affecting the various aircraft temperatures just right.
  

• As well, enter the maximum amperage, voltage, vacuum, etc that the systems can provide... time to get all those systems just right!

• As well, enter the green-arc values for all of these systems to get the gages labelled just right without having to make custom gages.

• As well, enter the green and yellow arcs for fuel flow, manifold pressure, EGT, ITT, etc etc etc to get all the gage marking on those systems just right without having to make custom gages. As well, specify lo and hi-end redlines. (some systems, like oil pressure, have LO-end redlines as well as hi-end redlines).
  

• Left and right magneto failures.

• More electrical system detail: Multiple batteries are now simulated (one per engine)...

• Add multiple battery switches to turn of or off per battery, as the generators and batteries all respond properly.

• Nosewheel steering enhancement: The self-centering tendency of the nosewheel is now simulated, resulting in much better and more realistic ground-handling at high speeds.
  

Graphics Enhancements:

• Improved cloud rendering

• Improved night-vision in panel-mounted camera and weapons cameras and HITS display.

• In Plane-Maker, set the texture coordinates of every propeller and engine pylons differently for multi-engined planes, if you like.
  

• Yaw string is now red, as typical in real gliders.

• Arcs on the engine gages and airspeed indicator look a little nicer now... X-Plane does some anti-aliasing on the arcs.
  

• Full ELUMENS dome support ( www.elumens.com )

• Other planes leave their nav and strobe lights on 24/7, to help you see them.

• The runway lights are now visible a bit farther than the runway in foggy conditions... the lights cut through the fog a bit, as in reality.
  

• The q/e keys change the views on the external visual, not your cockpit, if you have an external visual selected... This is so you are changing the view you actually WANT to change when you hit those keys.
  

• Go to the Landing Gear tab in the Visual Texture Editor in Plane-Maker and you will see you can now edit the texture area used for the STRUT textures, to get your gear struts just right.
  

• Customize the cockpit night-lighting colors for your plane in the Viewpoint screen in Plane-Maker.
  

• Cool little view indicator that tells you which way you are looking is an option in the rendering options screen.
  

Minor Enhancements:

• Cinema Verite (camera-shaking the way it would if held by a real person) is now an option in the View menu... turn it on or off at will.

• Situation files now save the PLANET you are on, as well as everything else they always have.

• Option to load scenery or not!

• Garmin 430 improved a bit... a few more details are like the real thing

• Joystick button to turn ignition on or off, as well as toggle.

• Many de-clutter options on the map page to look at what you want to see, no more or less.

• Fuel Flow gage shows gallons per hour instead of pounds per hour in recip engine airplanes, pounds per hour otherwise, as in real jets.
  

• New joystick button option: Reset to runway... It puts you on the last runway you manually reset to.

• New joystick button option: Toggle 3-d "virtual" cockpit

• Maps in the Output menu can now be IOS or regular, with glideslope or without.

• No more autopilot disconnect on touch-down!

• If you leave the autopilot on glideslope mode clear through touchdown, then the autopilot will disconnect glideslope-tracking on touchdown, like a real auto-land autopilot would. (Autopilot is more accurate as well, especially in tracking crosswinds on the localizer)
  

• The autopilot will follow the GPS when the flight dir is set to ON and the HSI is set to GPS even if you have gotten a full-scale deflection before you engage it. Helps with flying the GPS on autopilot.
  

• FMS will only skip to the next waypoint in your plan if you come pretty close to it, causing it to do a better job of following complex flight plans with many waypoints without skipping ahead in the plan.
  

• Auto-throttles operative with PFC hardware.

• Hit the d-> button on the FMS at any time to reset your course from your current location to your destination when flying the GPS... this is useful if you wander off course for some reason and want a new direct plot to your destination... really quick to do... I do it in the Cirrus all the time.
  

• Also, the autopilot flies the GPS courses lots better now.

• x/y/z location data output outputs the vector speeds now as well.

• Aide views show a little top-view of the plane with the view direction at the top of the screen to help show what way you are looking... nice to have in those side views. Turn this option on or off, at your option, in the rendering options screen.
  

• Aural stall warning option: Go to the viewpoint screen in Plane-Maker and set whether or not your plane has an aural stall warning... this used to be hooked to the stall INSTRUMENT, but now you can have a stall instrument, or not, and an aural stall warning, or not, individually.
  

• Audible avionics cooling fan... hit the master on and off when the engine is not running and if you are on the ground you can hear it.

• Whenever you go to open an airplane, all applications now start you off at the last folder you were looking around for airplanes in... makes it quicker to open planes usually.
  

• Real-Weather: If the file reports visibility 9999 (6 miles or greater) then we go to the max allowable vis you have specified in the Weather screen.

• Press the CENTER of the barometric pressure rheostats in the cockpit to auto-set to 29.92... kind of convenient.

• Improved PFC hardware calibration... Now, you can set a center offset AND a nullzone for your joystick or PFC hardware.

• New failure option: Runway lights! It's in the failure screen along with all the other equipment failures.

• Custom limits screen on the radio altimeter now lets you set how high the radio altimeter can actually indicate.

• Volume sliders for many different groups of sounds... people ask for this pretty often.

• ATC takes wind into account when assigning all headings.

• If a machine in multiplayer, or acting as external visual, does not have the same plane as the other multiplayer or master machine, then the sim will just load the default acf (747) and not give an alert message.
  

• 2 Vfe speeds available now... one for the first notch of flaps, one for the rest, as is common in light planes.

• There is now an audible rotor OVERSPEED horn to complement the underspeed horn.. the option is in the Special Controls screen in Plane-Maker
  

• The linear VVI now has a agent auto-pilot command display on it, as requested.

• The map now shows the runway numbers for the airports... kind of nice.

• The Set Weather window really shows the whole weather system for the area, with you and the terrain in it for reference! This lets you really see how your plane will interact with the thunderstorms and stuff.
  

• Set the torque gages to be in ft-lbs or in percent in the new engine limits screen in Plane-Maker.

• Set the real-time tracking offset so you can be in Daylight Savings Time or not.

• Better carrier and frigate and oil rig placement... we really put them in large bodies of water now, not just little streams and rivers!

• There is now a new plane in the Austin's Designs folder: "The Demented Loner". Check it out. I got this idea from a recent episode of MythBusters.
  

• The airport name and plot in the "place aircraft by airport" dialog now gives the airport ID and elevation.

• The "AI Flies" is now operative, and improved a bit over previous generations.
  

Bug Fixes:

• Engine START sounds not played unless the starter REALLY IS WORKING

• EFIS VVI properly scaled... oops!

• Cabin pressure VVI now works correctly in both directions

• Finite-deflection times for controls no longer interfere with trim

• Various improvements in multiplayer robustness, including lan party-support for up to 10 players at once.

• Real weather SCAN operative even if DOWNLOAD is not

• Large linear engine instruments scale correctly.

• Specific-Instrument failures fail all instruments.

• Entering lat/lon into the FMS results in a clear, accurate fix display in the GPS

• Sending the various vehicle name/location UDP messages handled more smoothly and with more robustness.

• More Garmin 430 details... hit the CLR button to always go quickly to map mode, and de-clutter as well.

• Bug-fixes for scenery that did not load early enough, and some roads that went up above the ground.
  
  
• The Avidyne PFD turn-indicator now scales nicely.
  
  
• Bug where the default "at-rest" attitude of the aircraft would sometimes incorrectly be set to 90 deg is now fixed.
  
  
• The shifted weight in the Weight and Balance screen is now added correctly regardless of the number of fuel tanks.

• Look at the LAYER-2 of the WEATHER RADAR in the CUSTOM folder of the cockpits folder... the size dimensions of that image now determine the visible area of weather radar returns in the weather radar instrument, so if you customize the weather radarinstrument for your cockpit, then be sure to set the size of the layer 2 to determine the area of weather radar that you want to see.
  

• The little amm/volt button that makes an ammeter show voltage also now makes a volt-meter show amperage! Anyway, it's a little more useful now. Real King-Airs have them.

• ENV Taxiway lines are now drawn.
  
  
• Tall OBJs with hard polygons should work better - before they didn't take the earth's curvature into account, so the hard poly's physics representation and graphics representation were misaligned (graphics right, physics wrong).
  
  
• ENV "wetness" in V8 now matches V7.
  
  
• I think the "NaN" bug is fixed. I ran WorldMaker over all 18,000 or so Glos ENVs successfully last night without a NaN error.
  
  
• RC3 fixes two bugs introduced in 815: failure to reload scenery when flying east-west at some latitudes, and strange elevations of highways. I think highway elevation is better than 811 for ENVs in most cases, but there are still a few ENVs that create some really whack-O results.
  
  
• Please note: ENV and DSF road elevations are totally separate in implementation and in code. So DSF road heights should not have changed at all and continue to be bizarre both due to DSF internal problems and airport flattening.

Version 8 Overview

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