CaptainAdlai

It suggested making a change to the turbulence setting in the P3D.cfg on their website, which I forgot to do initially. I changed it, and just did another flight with the program, encountering no issues. That said, I had also made a successful flight before my eventful one, so who knows... hopefully it was just a crazy, one-off problem. Landed in Nice after a bumpy flight out from Geneva.

That was what I figured, but wouldn't the problem have gone away when I closed the weather engine and set clear weather? Also, how would I reproduce it? I was using real world weather, so there's no guarantee it'd happen again, even if I setup everything the same way again.

Howdy, all! So I was just taking the Aerosoft A320 from Oslo to Helsinki in P3D V3.4, when I had to end a flight for the strangest reason. I took off, and all was well, besides a little turbulence. As I climbed, though, the wind started shifting back and forth as it sometimes does, but it started to get faster and faster, to the point where I'd have a tailwind one moment, and a headwind the next. Within a few minutes, it was switching every few frames. It seemed to be stuck in some sort of loop, since it was switching between the exact same two speed/direction combos the entire time. First I tried to just refresh my weather (which is FSXWX), but that didn't help. Then I set clear weather in the sim. Still nothing. I finally tried using FSUIPC (I'm using the free version) to "clear all weather", but still the problem persisted. Needless to say, it was wreaking havoc on the FBW, and even at TOGA power and with the nose down, I couldn't keep my speed up, which very, very slowly bled off. When I couldn't keep altitude anymore, I quit, having admitted defeat to the sim once again. I'm running V3.4 with the Aerosoft A320, GSX, Pro ATC X, and FSXWX. Any idea what happened, or how to prevent it from happening in the future? Thanks!

I'm curious about the number (if any) of major accidents our virtual pilots have. Do you crash frequently? Excluding goofing around, of course, who here has sent a bunch of virtual passengers to their graves? I've done it once. I decided to take some people on a fishing trip, flying a Falcon 50 on an IFR flight in Alaska. On the approach to Sitka, I was totally IMC, and due to incorrectly reading a chart, flew into a hill I couldn't see until it was just mere few feet away. It sounds stupid, but these pilot-error-type things are the biggest causes of real crashes. Needless to say, I was infuriated to crash a plane; I figured I'd never do it. I have an otherwise perfect safety record in the simulator, having not so much as blown a tire. How about the rest of y'all? Thanks for the info, everyone. Safe flying. B)

Unfortunately, that's not really possible. There is a tool called GA-Traffic that lets you select aircraft to randomly sprinkle around the world, which is really nice. It is, as the name suggests, only for GA stuff, so for airlines, I'd suggest WOAI. For military, you could look at MAIW. GA-Traffic - http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?DLID=&Name=&FileName=fsx_ga-traffic_releasecandidate2.zip&Author=&CatID=root WOAI - http://world-of-ai.com/ MAIW - http://www.militaryaiworks.com/ Hope it helps.

Today, we'll be looking at what it takes to create a custom AI traffic package. By request of a user, we will focus on FedEx, though the procedure works similarly for any AI you want to create. First, it's a good idea to grab the following tool: http://stuff4fs.com/open.asp?Folder=AIFP&JS=TRUE This is AI Flight Planner, AIFP for short, and is what you need to generate the flight plans. Next, you'll want to read the manual, which is here. http://stuff4fs.com/Applications/AIFP/AI%20Flight%20Planner.pdf To get started on creating a custom AI package, you'll need some flight plans. The latest FedEx AI can be downloaded in our library here. http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?DLID=&Name=&FileName=aig_fedex_summer_2013.zip&Author=&CatID=root Once you have this, you will require aircraft to fly these routes. Once again, we return to the library. You will need FedEx paints for the A300, A310, B727, B757, B777, MD-10, and MD-11. The download for the flight plans contains exact details on which aircraft you need. Technically, you can use any aircraft you want, so long as its name in the aircraft.cfg matches that in the flight plan. After you get all your planes installed (instructions on how to do this are included in their read me), you are ready to generate the AI traffic files. Just open up AIFP, and open the flightplan. Ensure that none of the aircraft turn up as red, and then click compile and save. Make certain that this file makes it into your scenery folder, or else your cool new FedEx planes won't be flying around. Also, if you're seeing red aircraft names, it means that nothing matches the name in the flight plan's list of aircraft names. That's all there is to throwing together an AI package. Thanks all, Hope to see you around here frequently! Adlai

Hi all, After about one year of silence, I would like to once again welcome myself to this forum. Over the next few days, I intend to release a considerable amount of content, starting with a guide on putting together a custom AI package. Following that, I'll be doing some reviews, mostly focusing on FS9 stuff. Hope to see this forum get more populated, and sorry about the absence, Adlai

Turboprops are definitely a lot of fun! The trick to finding good airplanes is to look beyond the "Best Sellers" pages of websites. Tim Conrad has several great freeware aircraft, including a few turboprops, from the A-29 MIL trainer, to the Russian An-32 airliner (and a few others in between, such as the PC-6). VirtualCol also has some decent turboprops, such as the Fokker 50 and ATR-42/72. The VirtualCol aircraft, while not amazing in any particular area, are not bad either, or anything close to it, and are also non-expensive, at around $10 each. Certainly worth it if you can spend $10 and want a turboprop. One you might try, and a favorite of mine, is the Saab 340 by FFS. It includes the Saab 340 Argus (AEW/C), the Argus without radar, the 340A, 340A Cargo, and the 340B, along with just about every (real) livery you can imagine. The external model is great, the 2D panels look nice, and the VC has good enough modelling and textures to keep me satisfied. More importantly, the flight modelling and systems are very realistic, and it does a good job representing a turboprop (Majestic currently has the only "true" turboprop for FS, though). The tricky part is acquiring the Saab. It is not officially distributed anywhere, meaning it must be downloaded from a third party source. The legality is a "grey area", and as such, I cannot endorse acquiring it this way. That said, it is certainly a great airplane, and worth looking into if you like turboprops. Another great freeware bird is the IL-18. It has a nice model and textures, well done flight modelling, and a good panel. The VC is also really well done, with a very realistic systems simulation. Hope you enjoy these fun turboprops,

That depends on how the author designed the AI model, but yes, in most cases, that is how it should be. Also, if you like watching AI, you might notice they sometimes deploy their spoilers in flight (as is normal). What isn't normal is that they'll (appear to) be using reverse thrust!

Most AI models have the reverse thrust animation tied to the spoilers. This is because the AI will not use reverse thrust when landing, but they do arm their spoilers, meaning that it appears they use reverse on landing when the spoilers deploy. The same applies to flaps, except for that they are connected to the beacon light rather than the spoilers. When they turn on the beacon, the flaps deploy, and then retract after reaching a certain speed.

The best freeware 757 panel is currently the one supplied with JustFlight's "757 Freemium". It features a mostly functional overhead, and a simple FMC with no VNAV ability. Nonetheless, it could still be considered very usable, and is free. Simply download the "Freemium", and then alias it's panel to the POSKY model.

That last shot with the C-130 was amazing. Great job on all of them!

Yup, I've been happily puttering around in the BAC 1-11-200. I forgot to mention that you must use your keyboard shortcut for "Starter 3". Just pressing the button won't work, except on the -510.

This, my friend, is a great idea. Where do we sign up? With all seriousness though, I would be interested in writing articles. Will there be any special requirements, or do we simply need to be able to dig up nice freeware, and then write about it?

The APU not workking on the BAC 1-11 is a known issue when porting it into FSX. To fix that, you're going to want to download the file named "DM_1-11.cab" here. http://www.cbfsim.co.uk/cbfs_bb/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=24145&start=60 Simply download the file, and stick it into your panel file for the 1-11. Allow it to overwrite the previous version. The APU will now start, run, and operate as it should.