Version 8.20

Version 8.20 is the next major functional version after 8.16/8.17.

OK what's new for 8.20?

TONS.

This is the biggest internal re-write we have ever done on X-Plane, and it is done to streamline and tighten the code, making it run faster and more consistently... we have really overhauled the way the sim works from the inside-out.

The Big Features:

Completely overhauled variable-storage and file-io systems designed to be more robust, fast, error-proof, and RAM-efficient. You will not really SEE this, except in faster load-times, and faster loading of objects, preferences, situation files, situation-movie files, FDR-file, logbooks, and everything else you could ever load! And you will have some small RAM savings too.

You can now GRAB AND MOVE ALL THE COCKPIT CONTROLS WHEN THE COCKPIT IS IN 3-D MODE! This applies to EVERY plane, whether the basic "default" 3-D panel, or you have a fancy custom cockpit.

How do you do this? Go to the joystick screen and set the joystick buttons to pan the 3-d cockpit around... and choose a different button to center it. Then, hit those joystick buttons to look around the cockpit... Then, while doing so, use the mouse button to click on controls! Cool! Of course, you can also hit "Control-O" to look around the cockpit with the MOUSE, but that makes clicking pretty tricky, as you will see! ;-)

As well, the full 1024x1024 panel can be used in 3-D cockpits, even if the sim is only in 1024x768 resolution!

Choose slung load OBJECTS in the Weight and Balance screen by choosing a Slung Load Object! The object format now has a label called "slung_load_weight"... see the EXAMPLE PLANE for an example. So now, you can design slung load objects with any textures and shape you like, and any weight you like! Then, just attach them to the craft in the Weight and Balance screen!

You can store your slung load objects anywhere you like in the X-System folder, and name them anything you like... The same folder as the aircraft itself is a handy, and recommended, location. Specify the Slung Load Attach Point in the Weight and Balance screen in Plane-Maker. How much weight can you lift in a Blackhawk, or drag behind you into the air in a Boeing 777?
You can now change the Autopilot and Artificial Stability system constants WHILE YOU FLY! Do this and watch the control deflections that result as you fly along! Cool! Access the various windows for this in the Special Menu.
In the various WINGS screen in Plane-Maker, you can hit a little checkbox to tune the planform of each wing! This lets you get all your little wingtip and curved wings and stuff without having to link together a bunch of litle wings.

New Instruments:

Thermometer to show atmospheric temperature WITHOUT considering compression heating. (Unlike the default thermometer which is affected by the compression and resultant heating of the air hitting the plane) ...As well, set the custom limits of the thermometers in the "Custom Limits" window in Plane-Maker to get them scaled as you like.
Afterburner level: Put the burners on lo or hi with this switch, found in the "Engine" folder in Plane-Maker.
Generator power switch for APU... let the APU have a generator to power electrical systems, or not.
New buttons in Plane-Maker: Magneto switches! Turn the left and right mags on and off with switches, like in the Piper Malibu.
Engine fire extinguisher button... Hit it to put out those pesky smoking engine fires. Of course, once you've hit it, don't plan on getting any power out of that engine!
More landing gear light options to be more realistic... this is being used by freight-haulers getting flight training in X-Plane that want systems-modelling perfect for their planes.

Flight-Model Enhancements:

Refined Reciprocating Engine model... The engine DRAG is what we are really tweaking here to get the power-OFF descents just right.

Seaplane water dynamics improved to understand the "slicing" effects of v-hulls thru the water.

Manifold Pressure and Fuel Flow tweaks now done to be a bit more accurate, based on Cirrus flight-testing.

More accurate indicated airspeed at high altitudes and Mach numbers... the TRUE airspeeds and Mach numbers remain un-changed but we now have a more accurate airspeed INDICATOR model that considers the compression on the pitot tube due to compression effect as you approach the speed of sound, as airliners do.

Zone of confusion! Huh? In a 10-degree wide cone over the VOR you will not get any signal from the VOR, just as in the real plane!

Specify the minimum prop governor RPM now in the Engines screen in Plane-Maker (No, you do NOT enter 0 here if the prop feathers... you enter the RPM achieved when the prop is pulled as far back as you can WITHOUT feathering it).

More realistic downwash modeling... small things like antennae, for example, will NOT create too much downwash on large things like wings. You should be able to have plenty of large wings and small antennae without creating any flight model problems. As well, PARTIAL-ELEMENT downwash is now simulated, where only PART of a wing element is in the downwash of the wing in front of it. This takes Blade-Element-Theory modeling up to a new level, as we break the model down to even little PARTS of elements.

Better Biplane-Interference modeling... We even handle biplane VERTICAL STABILIZERS now! (uhhh.. if you ever have one).

You can now specify whether weapons are external or internal stores in Plane-Maker, to get them tucked inside with zero drag on the B-1 and planes like that, and external on planes like an F-16.

Auto-Flaps-Near-Stall option in Plane-Maker now better: The flaps deploy at the speed specified in Plane-Maker, and near the stall, and still deploy if you lower the flap handle as well, so the actual flap deployment will the be the maximum of the flap-handle request and the flaps needed to help avoid a stall... limited by the flap-motor speed as specified in Plane-Maker.

The engine pylons are now handled more like all other wings: You can set the chords and number of elements and any control surfaces for the pylons like any other flying surface.

Speed Improvements:

Scenery-loading should be faster because X-Plane now only loads textures when they are needed in flight, lowering load times. The texture-loading has been made as fast as possible, making the load-time in flight very minimal... try it out!

Now here is where it gets REALLY good: If you have TWO processors, or a DUAL core, then the SECOND CPU will load textures while the FIRST CPU runs the simulator! Therefore, you can load scenery and fly at the SAME TIME, really lowering scenery-load pause times.

(Hint: to get the fastest load times from DSF, shut off roads and objects.)

Object-loading is now faster... up to 10x faster for really really LARGE objects.

Even faster real-weather scan by over 40%!

Visual Enhancements:

Better HUD and runway lighting effects in bright-light (daytime) conditions.

Reduced-res textures (if you do not have the Extreme Res" rendering option) are now reduced via linear instead of nearest filtering. This looks better.

Texture Compression! This may improve your framerate, but it may not. It may let you run at higher texture resolution, getting crisper graphics. Your OGL card must support this.

Graphics in the Data Output screen automatically scale to maximize visibility of the variables THAT YOU HAVE SELECTED. This is used by the National Test Pilots School for data acquisition and training!

As well, open the Data Output Screen on second (or third or fourth etc) computer that is set up as an "External" anything and check the data you wish to see, and then go to the "Data See" tab to watch the data come across in real-time as you fly! (NOTE: For some of the more obscure data selections, you may need to select that data for output to the IP address of the External machine from the master machine)

Stratus cloud layers can now be any thickness. This lets you do West-Coast style IFR, where you go into a layer of some thickness, and then pop our right on top exactly where you expect... unlike the Cumulus overcast you find in the SouthEast, where the tops are variable by 10,000 feet on summer days.

Moon liting a hair more realistic.

General Enhancements:

LOTS of autopilot tuning to fly LOTS better. The default constants should work pretty well for a very wide variety of planes... Try those default constants if your plane does not handle to well on autopilot now with custom constants.

The whole new autopilot customization theory is now much better thought-out and organized... The constants now make more sense, give you more control, and have less modifications performed by the sim so that what you ENTER is exactly what you GET in the sim.

As well, the auto-throttles are a bit smarter now: They will not bust your N1 or EPR or RPM limits as set in the Limits tab in the Engines screen in Plane-Maker.

All the runway lights lights phase out smoothly as you fly off-axis and out of their visible cone, as in reality.

The propeller rendering is a bit different for any failed engines that are windmilling to give a visual indication of a failed engine. (This is something that you would be able to feel in the real plane, and possibly see as well, depending on the conditions).

New tab in the Engine screen in Plane-Maker to set the color of each arc, if you like.

New options in Special Controls screen in Plane-Maker:

Auto rudder deflection on engine failure.
Auto-stabilizer-deflection with flaps.

X-Plane should be more robust at finding real-weather to download even if the NOAA is putting up 0-size files for the current weather, as they do sometimes.

Plane-Maker: "Make Ellipse" button under each body section to get a quick round section.

Landing Gear screen in Plane-Maker: Specify the wheel separations in both the lateral and longitudinal directions for multi-wheel trucks. This lets you tune the gear for the 777, C-5, or whatever other plane you are modeling.

Choose the frequency to output data to both the disk output and the internet UDP output in the Data Output screen.

The IOS has a new option: Show Basic Flight Instruments. This lets the instructor see what the student is doing in real-time... kind of nice.

Support for the Garmin GPS-3 pilot... Try it out if you have one and let me know how it goes.

X-Plane will now do physics calculations with multiple hard polygons - straddle a Helicopter between two roofs if you can!

Better syncing of External Visuals to the Master Machine... allows for smoother external visuals in the really big multi-machine setups.

Marker Beacons are now fully displayed on the map.

Click on the map to place a compass rose on an airport or NAVAID or anything you like... and then the specs for that airport, NAVAID, or fix will appear in the upper-right of the map!

FMS/autopilot interaction tweaked a bit to be more accurate.

Many aircraft tweaked and refined a bit, especially the B-2 and the National Aerospace Plane... Can you get the B-2 around the Country? Can you get the NASP to a stable orbit? I can!

You can now label the Misc Bodies in Plane-Maker so you can easily see what all those little misc bodies are in Plane-Maker.

Replay mode is now accessible through Map screen... it's kind of cool to watch your little plane creep across the map replaying a flight you just flew!

More information is tracked in the situation movies, situation files, replayed flights, and external cockpits... much of it being increased detail for FAA-certification.

Hit "control-x" to leave little "markers" in your data output graphs... the National Test Pilot's School wants this to mark when various manuevers were performed and you can use it too!

New Artificial Stability option: Deflect pitch surface with alpha. Choose this option and the pitch controls (elevator or stabilator) will track the angle of attack of the airplane naturally-stabilizing a Canard configuration. This will work best for an all-moving stab, so the surface can really track the wind.

Enter your callsign for ATC to use in Plane-Maker, Viewpoint screen, if you like. Even though your plane might be a Cirrus SR-22, and the ICAO code might be SR-22, every controller on the planet will just call you "Cirrus"... Enter that in the new "call-sign" box.

OK now you actually have to pull the trigger to fire the laser weapons... they are not always on any more.

New joystick axis: Flaps.

Really Tiny Enhancements:

Custom Cockpits, and weapons, show on OTHER planes than yours now.

Rendering Option to lock the Master Machine to a forwards-only view or not.

You can now control the rotor pitch by UDP on helos.

Up to... ummm... 99 blades per propeller now allowed. Set in the Engines Screen in Plane-Maker.

3-decimal precision in texture-coordinate selection lets you get texture-selection to the pixel.

The chronometer in the King-Air gets the date exactly right.

Default texture regions in the Visual Texture Regions editor are now tweaked a hair to match the Instructions texture perfectly.

All the direct trim-control axis with joystick are now fully auto-scaled to perfectly match the trim authority of each individual aircraft.

The Custom Digital Limits screen in Plane-Maker now applies to the digital fuel gages as well.

If you have the speedbrakes set up as a joystick axis, then you get infinitely-variable control whether in a glider or not.

OK, fine. The little yaw string hangs DOWN now when there is no airspeed.

Engines have to spin at least 25% N1 to keep the pressurization system going.

QuickTime movies auto-scale for you so the image is never distorted... the aspect ratio always matches your resolution.

It is now easier to grab small handles on the panels in X-Plane, like the small mixture cut-offs in the jets.

Bug-Fixes:

Real-Time-Tracking-Offset in Time window changes local but not zulu time.

"!" key disconnects the autopilot.

ITT responds to fuel-flow only when the engine is actually running.

Old v-7 panels can handle higher-than-standard res.

Autopilot does NOT auto-set the heading whenever you engage it unless your plane lacks any sort of autopilot setting bug.

Tail-wheel lock operative.

All types of clouds should be synced across external visuals... Let me know if you can find a case where they are not.

You can now grab all the throttles and props with the mouse just by clicking in the center of the group even at hi resolutions.

Localizer back-course now has non-reversed deflection when the BACK COURSE autopilot button is hit.

More graphics features work on more video card.

Old Version-7 scenery works more like it USED to... with no impact on Version-8 scenery, thus giving the same terrain and no "floating roads".

IMPORTANT NOTE! HELOS WITH CCW MAIN ROTORS WILL HAVE TO FLIP THEIR TAIL ROTORS TO A LATERAL HEADING OF -90, NOT 90, TO GO IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. THIS IS NEEDED FOR THE MIN AND MAX TAIL-ROTOR PITCH AND THE TAIL-ROTOR CAMBER TO BE RIGHT FOR BOTH DIRECTIONS!

Version 8 Overview

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