rcmarple

This certainly helps explain the "payware lag" that developers have had to contend with to upgrade v11 acfs to the brave new world of v12. Imagine having someone work for months fixing lighting/flight model or whatever, only to find it changes again? 

*** Message to developers - I DON'T MIND PAYING FOR UPDATES - keep at it 🙂 ***

Saved me some dollars there - you're right, the original release looks to be way better so sticking with that. 👍

Switch it off, then switch it on again - good luck!

Brilliant review for a plane I've been waiting years for - Valley now has a completeness about it!

Huge thanks to the Just Flight team for not just bringing this over to X-Plane, but making it better with PBR, those amazing sounds, the flight model and all the other goodies and details 👍

XX176 did you say? 

I have a fix for the mottling on existing liveries - just delete the NML files in each objects folder 

Before:

After:

Great summary of the year as usual and I agree with most of what you say . The default clouds now give me better looks and better FPS than SkyMaxx Pro for the first time so it's now been parked in my "unused plugins" folder - together with WT3 (which is a bit crashy on my rig).

I'm actually very excited about what I hope will come in 2018 - a stable XP11 for devs and maybe the first OrbX releases? Hope the MD11 makes it out of the hangar in 2018 too...

Damn - you made me buy another one. Great review, great screenshots!

DAMN - You made me buy another plane 

I think the new graphical features in XP11 will support your move to Windows as your simming platform Stephen. Hope the meagre 4GB card in iMac-zilla will hold out for a few more years...

EDIT - PS: the mistake was relocation of some aussie airports to Canada!

An absolute Gem!

Get some Vicks on it - get well soon!

30% of X-Plane users (the best 30%) are on the Mac platform according to this data from Laminar 

Great review and got me reminiscing about the travelators in the T1 multi-storey - almost as much fun as watching the planes!

Gamechanger. So much innovation and new stuff here and a total surprise - brilliant! A real breath of fresh air and a landmark release no doubt. We'll be saying "remember when Airfoillabs released their 172" for the next decade. Off to check my oil...

The gloss looks amazing. Like you said, not all aircraft need to look this shiny but I think it suits the Challenger really well. I did try putting the plugin into another acf folder but quickly "undid" that particular hack... 

 Gotta try these things haven't you!

I just disable the whole global airports folder - too big a job to keep on top of what's in there. As an avid hoarder of custom packages (2,226 and rising!), I've disabled most of the "stock" aerosoft packages too.

SCENERY_PACK_DISABLED Custom Scenery/Global Airports/

Just bought it and it looks like v1.1 is quite different from the one you reviewed? Single download for starters and the wheels touch the ground!

Sorry to hear about the Mac calamity   and thanks for all your detailed reviews again - although you keep costing me money as I'm forced to buy them all...

Get yourself to the "fruity store" at Robina and I'm sure they'll turn it around for you as quickly as they can!

Cheers for the link to the static add-on Mario. I tried to add my own in OE and ended up hosing X-Plane 

Must.

Stop.

Tinkering.

Congratulations and I'll echo others comments - you know how to describe the nuances of each piece of work, call out the unique and special features and generally encourage us to part with our £££s and invest in the payware economy! You've also saved me a few quid by telling it how it is when developers can do better...

For me, the best review has been the I would never have played around with the auto-hover so much if you hadn't called this out in your review:

Like all your reviews, this has the "scene setting" info to get me interested, the install details, critique of the modelling detail, a walk through of how it flies and excellent screenshots of the included liveries - all your screenshots are fabulous and really add to the articles!

Well done on the first year and thanks for all the effort and time you're giving to all of us!

Stephen - thanks for all the work you and the crew put in to your reviews. I've spent more on payware this last year because of the time you all put in to highlighting what's worth spending a few quid on to make XP even better. You really bring this stuff to life with your writing. Enjoy your New Year break on the Gold Coast and raise a cold lager for me in your local surf/sports club!

Cheers and Happy New Year!

LNAV has crashed me to desktop a few times too - but I wouldn't say my FMC programming was complete in any way so I assumed it was just being fussy. One to keep an eye on I think...

This Sea King is SO MUCH FUN - easy(ish) to fly with the auto-hover thingamajig and the start-up sounds are incredible!

How does it compare to the 320s from Hager and the NEO? I'd guess the comparison with Hager is closer as no 3d pit yet and both seem to play close attention to systems (by licensing Torsten's plugin work?).