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Aircraft Update - Coming! : Challenger C300 10.50 by DDen
 
DDen has announced that his Challenger 300 Private Jet will have a 10.50 makeover. The developer always does a quick update to his aircraft once the latest X-Plane version goes final, but there are a few nice extra tweak's coming along here as well.
 


 
The upgrade will have an upgraded version of DDen's excellent "Reflections Plugin", the one now is very good, but a little too over shiny.  
 
Those amazing cabin and cockpit textures will get even better with new techniques in textures and lighting...
 

 
Internal natural cabin light with overhead lighting off is improved (nice)
 

 
Cockpit gets the same treatment and a better feel...
 
...  textures are improved for better resolution at lower levels.
 

 
The flight model will have a tune-up as well...  DDen's updates are usually very quick, and to keep informed on the progress of the update then go to the 10.50 dev page here:
 
Update for 10.50+ in the works on the X-Plane.Org.
 
______________________________________________________________________
 
Stephen Dutton
1st September 2016
Copyright©X-Plane Reviews: X-PlaneReviews 2016
 

 

X-Plane Version 10.50: What is new
 
Laminar Research has released version 10.50 of X-Plane. In this article we are going to explore what was part of the 10.50 release and the changes that are relevant to the simulator.
 
Closing of the door
Version 10.50 is more relevant than most X-Plane updates in the fact it could be the last version of series 10 of the simulator. Certainly there will be increment releases still coming in the 10.50 timeline and maybe even up to v10.55 or even v10.56, but otherwise the development stops here in what is this series version of the simulator. So did Laminar Research set out to achieve its goals and what do we now have in the original promises on the release 24th November 2011 of this current X-Plane version 10 or did they fall short.
 
My personal view is that Laminar certainly delivered on all the promises and a lot more on top for extra measure, so you certainly got your money's worth (in time) and you did get the constant revisions that make the simulator relevant and they delivered great value. Some areas are still not quite perfect, but in most areas the simulator is a huge and even massive step away from its v10.00 origins.
 
In reality X-Plane10 was a game changer for Laminar Research, and even in hindsight it was a precarious gamble to lift the simulator from its basic hobby based background and foundation, to be a more worldly product in that could be even be the "best" Flight Simulator system on the market, and even live up to founder's Austin Meyers boasts that X-Plane could mix it with the big boys.
All that risk was based on if X-Plane10 could deliver on its promises, but those risks were based on solid foundations and very good developmental ideas. 
 
So what where the X-Plane10 promises...
 
Better Weather A "Plausible" World with autogenerated scenery Global Lighting system (HDR) Detailed Terrain with accurate altitude data Detailed roads ATC - Air Traffic Control  
In almost all cases the v10.50 update touches on all of the above, so we will answer the final verdict on the promises as we detail the v10.50 update in detail.
 
Startup
v10.50 brings you a new startup screen, with white bands and the loading information that goes right across your screen.
 

 

 
But don't get used to it as it is only a temporary layout and the X-Plane11 startup will be totally different. It feels brighter (on a big monitor) and more basic than the older blue box for information version, there is possibly a reason for a change this late in the version run, but I really can't see why?
 
Updated default simulator aircraft
Throughout the X-Plane10 run the default aircraft that comes with the simulator have had a few revisions and updates. The biggest revision was two years ago in v10.30 when Laminar Research added in the Garmin 430/530 gps system.  This was an extra major feature not promised or charged for and no doubt it had a lot of developmental cost, it is now our main gps system and proud of it we all are. Another item that affected default aircraft was X-Plane moving to 64-bit and away from the 32-bit 2-4 GB memory restrictions. Again another v10 bonus that leapfrogged the simulator forward by a huge step, but then most aircraft that used plugins had to be adjusted over to the 64-bit format.
 
Two default aircraft have had a big workover in v10.50 in the King Air C90B and the Beechcraft Baron 58 (the Cessna 172SP has already had a big upgrade a few years ago).
 
Beechcraft Baron 58
 


 
The revised aircraft are now easily payware quality. Great detail and with very few bugs, they fly great especially this lovely Baron 58. They are however no Carenado level of quality and features and you notice the missing menus, VOR distance and better sounds.... but they are free after all.
 


 
Outwardly the aircraft looks the same as the earlier version when you first get into the aircraft, but your eyes deceive you.
 

 
Put the Baron 58 aircraft side by side (v10.30 to the left and v10.50 to the right) and the detail differences are absolutely huge in quality (look at the door frames and rivet work in the engine cowlings), instruments are cleaner and clearer as well. So there has been a complete overhaul of the design.
 
King Air C90B
 
The chances are the King Air C90B was your first serious aircraft for doing professional VOR flying. The Boeing 747-400 had limitations once you cleared away the wow factor, and the tiddler 172SP didn't have any speed. So when you came into X-Plane the C90B it was where you learnt to manually fly, navigate and get in that first longer serious flight. I did, and the memories still linger.
 


 

 

 
The revision throws in more quality and the refinement is very high, again up there with payware money. Only things that are not up to scratch are the low idle sounds, and too much power for taxiing. Even if you pull back the mixture to idle and almost feather the propellers, you are still constantly on the brakes to slow the C90B down, on hold and ready to take-off with the levers all forward...  it is like holding back a pack of rabid dogs.
 
Global aircraft enhancements in 10.50 include better prop disc visuals and they now work correctly in the replay mode, auto-pilot can now hold a basic rate of turn, elevator deflection in trim has been refined, stall warnings are now more realistic and the crash limit has been reduced from 20g to 10g. Finally developers can insert datarefs to adjust the volume on the radios, this means different volumes for different radio channels and thankfully there will be no over loud shouting anymore in your ears. 
 
On both of these aircraft the deal feels more towards X-Plane11 than X-Plane10. Get them ready and get them up too scratch and that has certainly been done here, but the surprise here is the default and the icon of X-Plane10 in the Boeing 747-400, there has been no update there and that is the aircraft really needs the attention after nearly five years flying, and surprising also because it is by far the most flown default aircraft in X-Plane by 5% of all flights in the simulator...  I'll shake my head on that one.
 
ATC - Air Traffic Control and A.I. Artificial Intelligence
The X-Plane ATC system feature has been a difficult one since day one of X-Plane10. To a point it was put into the Laminar "too hard" basket for years until the feature had to finally have the much required attention or be dropped for a third party plugin version.
 
A big part of the X-Plane ATC is the "Artificial Intelligence" or A.I. feature and as they are both very closely interlinked and so we will look at them together.
 
My earlier periods of interaction with the ATC are mostly consisted of multiple swear words and mostly I never used the ATC. A period of the personal challenge of mastering the ATC did result in a truce between the feature and myself, but the famous "you are off course!" alert showed that overall the bugs were too notable to be worth the more grey and the less hair than I have now.
 
At its core the ATC - Air Traffic Control is very clever and even very good, but it is also hopelessly complicated and very buggy. No doubt a third party plugin like X-Life could do the whole idea better (the interface is excellent), but the ATC was an X-Plane10 debut feature and it had to made to work at least at a reasonable level.
 
To a point I think that Laminar have succeeded with the ATC in v10.50, and no doubt it is still very basic, however it does work well with a few tips and hints.
 

 
There are no changes to the "Flight Plan" input panel. But the route codes can still be tricky to input. I found sometimes if you cut and pasted in the route it wouldn't accept it and at other times it worked fine. To be sure if it refuses to file then add in a few waypoints and then press return to activate the flight plan, if accepted then go back and input more waypoints and so on...
 

 
Two new items added into the ATC interface has highly reduced the work load. The first one was in v10.45 actually at my request and that was a reply to the ATC controller was done with just another return key click. The problem was that before this every time you had to use the mouse or cursor to click on the reply or repeat the instruction back to the ATC. this meant taking your attention and hands away from flying the aircraft to do that instruction, and repeat that operation five or ten times early in the flight and it would mean mostly you would fail in your timing or keeping up with the constant ATC instructions, it was mind numbingly hard to do, and even the real pilots only have to press the radio button on the yoke to activate the radio and not manually use a pointer.
 
Now if the instruction is highlighted you just press return to reply the instruction and in a high work load period it works really well, however the instruction is not always highlighted and you still have to use the pointer to do so...  but overall it works very well.
 
Another ATC change is the with the pop-up "Nearby Air Traffic Controllers" frequency inserter panel that added in v10.40. On the panel there is now a checkbox to allow to "autotune" in the next correct frequency you require. This is a huge time saver as some radio panels can be awkward to get to. A note though is that the pop-up panel still has to be opened to reset the next frequency. I use a key command toggle (A) to open and close the ATC panel in two quick keystrokes to do the action.
You can debate if these aids are cheating? Should you do all these instructions manually like you in an aircraft environment? My answer is that in a basic GA then you should not need the aids, but in a standard larger two crew aircraft then in most real time cases the pilot not flying does all the radio work, and in this scenario then yes the aids are valid.
 

 
The optional taxiway arrows are a great idea, but they do totally depend on if the airport scenery ATC routes and taxiway flows are correct. In most cases you just don't know? In many cases most scenery payware developers do note the ATC work has been done, but in most if not all cases it is a lottery ticket. Laminar Research note they can't enforce all global airport sceneries to have conforming routes because it is a skills area were as many of the scenery developers are very good but many are not, but I feel it should be a heavy standard in passing the scenery for distribution or give us a tool or note that the scenery is certified with the correct layouts. I think this aspect is one of the biggest drawbacks to the ATC, A.I. aircraft and the taxiway arrow features in working effectively.
 
The number of A.I. aircraft assigned in your aircraft/situations/other aircraft menu can have a big bearing on your flight. If you set a high number of say 15 to the 20 limit, then the wait and hold times are long until your turn comes around. Ditto the amount of ATC commentary going on in your ears and not only on the ground but certainly in the air, but you may like this high ATC commentary activity (until it goes wrong). I found about five to six was better if you want a quieter flight. Another issue with the constant high number of calls is that your last instruction soon zips up the screen and disappears, so if you forgot your last instruction or heading change then you are in trouble, I have asked Laminar for a "request" command to do just that, there is the "report last transmission" already on there but It doesn't show when you really need it.
 
The ATC still currently has bugs that I will note but will probably be addressed quickly.
 

 
ATC will clear you for takeoff and then in an instant then clear another aircraft to land? You can go now or wait until the runway is clear... the second issue is that I set the A.I. aircraft to be mostly single aisle aircraft in the B737 or A320 categories and the ATC wanted them to fly at FL400 or Forty Thousand feet (climb and maintain FL 400), when they didn't the ATC kept on asking them to so, over and mind-numbingly over again in the shades of the nasty "you are off course!" coming back around again.
 
A tip is to follow this mantra...  reply, action then change. First is to reply to the instruction, then do the action (heading or V/S) and doing both quickly will keep the ATC off your back, but it is a bit backward in the way you usually fly. If you are given the instruction to go to a heading and then changing to an altitude, there is a lot of work to be done. So in most cases the ATC is quickly on your back as you are still going through all the motions.
 

 
The problem one is the change in altitude and your normal sequence is to change the altitude counter and then hit the V/S button and do the pitch change, but that path course is too long. The only way (at this point) around the ATC is to adjust the heading, activate the V/S and pitch to get the aircraft to start the climb or descend and then finally set the altitude counter, which is not very realistic. But the system demands that the both actions are noted quickly, but with practise or skill you can allow yourself to set the altitude earlier and be ready if you are good at it. Checking out the A.I. airport circuits on the local map can also prepare you for what heading and landing direction the ATC is going to give you can also help with ATC timing.
 
Overall the ATC is now quite to very good. It does allow for mistakes and will align you up ready to continue with your programmed (GNS) flightplan. The controllers are still very, very impatient and are still asking "are you still there?" And you really need a bit more time between the instructions and the actions. But with practise and a rhythm you can finally turn the ATC into fun and it is not the huge headache it was.
 
A.I. Aircraft
The A.I. aircraft feature in X-Plane has been given attention as well. They should now fly and land more realistically. The A.I. parking at gates has had a big workover as well in not only making sure they appear but are also more highly randomised, they now also load by their correct category as well in say heavy or regional aircraft. You can select to have have the parked aircraft appear or not via a tickbox on the Render Options "Stuff to Draw" panel.
 

 
But like I mentioned is that the A.I. aircraft totally rely on the airports ground routes to operate correctly. If they don't then they still behave badly as noted while doing this review.
 

 
More times it was wrong than right, they still taxi too fast through terminal areas and the odd aircraft still plummets to the ground in the distance. Here it is parking in a carpark and queuing up at an empty airport. When it works A.I. it is very good...  but in most cases the hidden disjointed WED airport routing lets it all down.
 
Autogen
Autogen or automatically drawn objects has had a fair amount of attention with v10.50. One of the big features of X-Plane10 was the "Plausible" World concept, it is clever and highly realistic in terms of using your computer's rendering system resources to recreate a realistic world to fly around in. In parts I have found the views unnervingly very realistic, but in other areas wanting.
 
In 10.50 two areas have been covered. One, is the earlier original autogen has been tightened up with mostly the actual ground areas around the objects (houses) to make them fit in better.
 

 
From the air the autogen does look more complete, but too many of those open spaces still remain. My object settings are "Too Many" here, and set just under the extreme setting that you really need but that setting uses just too much framerate.
 
The second and new feature is that the autogen now has tall buildings again, but only in limited regions.
 

 
This is Memphis, Tennessee and the overall the cityscape was impressive.
 

 
Buildings are highly realistic, original but use only the U.S. data for the scenery... In English that means for now it only work in the U.S. But in reality it is in the other parts of the world that X-Plane really needs this feature and not the U.S., but it is very good.
 

 
I found though that the tall building autogen fades away very quickly? A few miles out and they are skeletons, and by the time I was flying over Elvis Presley's Graceland the cityscape had gone?  In reality they should be visible (with the right visibility setting) for quite a distance to make it realistic, because there is nothing like seeing a cityscape from the airport when you have just landed, taking off or overflying the city, so it is at this point all a bit wasted unless you do low GA passes. 
 
So the autogen is still a little way off the completeness mark. It is five years since it was introduced, and it does work, but still very patchy and mostly still focused on the U.S. but the full total potential of the feature is certainly in there. If anything in X-Plane11 is that Laminar should throw a lot more resources at the autogen art, but then again I said that four years ago.

Weapon System
X-Plane is noted as an aircraft simulator and Laminar Research are very anti-war. So fighting aircraft and killing things in the simulator has been usually relegated over to the game industry rather than simulation.
But the gaming industry is a huge business and war focused simulators are very popular in their appeal in mustering our basic (if male) instincts that goes a long way back to slaying mammoths.
 
So Laminar have added in a lot of weapon system functions into v10.50.
 
Weapon selection is now better with flashing selected armaments. You can now also steer or aim in a direction a gun, even with a second joystick can be added in to do the delivery job. Unguided bombs and rocket numbers have been added with up to 24 bombs and 99.999 rockets!  that is if you can carry that heavy load.
Air to ground bombs and missiles can now be laser or GPS guided to their targets. Either by a gun/bomb steering with a joystick axis or by locking in on a target and then firing letting the bombs or missiles go to their assigned target, and all can be set via your on-board aircraft situation display monitor.
 
In the upgraded weapons package is another feature that could be used also by other aircraft developers. This is a new on board aircraft "Camera" feature that can be steered (again by a second joystick) and zoomed with my guess a joystick top-hat, key or similar adjustment.
 
There are at this point no aircraft with these new features, but I don't doubt they will appear very quickly on up-dated or new versions of military aircraft.

Weather
Austin Meyer's "little puffs" have been the most contentional and has created the most angst of all the X-Plane10 features. Clever and there is no doubt about that, but they have been the one feature that has ripped the heart out of X-Plane by the sheer amount of processing power they require to create those zillion million "little puffs" that makes up the weather system of the simulator.
 
The problem is most computers can't cope, and if you had like I did an average processing machine, you were mostly reduced to very light cloud formations no matter where you flew. And even with the mega graphic monster I use now, that frame rate will still halve just running the weather with just good and average settings, but go dark and stormy and so does your framerate.
 

 
All though the X-Plane10 development cycle it has been for Laminar a war to get the framerate down by refining the "puff" system. To a point they have been successful, but the amount of time and resources it has taken, has also meant that other weather features like different cloud formations, anvil storms, 3D volumetric cloud layers and crepuscular rays have not been forthcoming and making most users have had to seek out third party products to fill in the gap.
 
One area that has been covered was downloading high wind data (in v10.40). This area has had more refinement in 10.50 but I was not a big fan as I see it as a little buggy. As I fly a lot of long haul (or long flights) I have found the high winds quite unrealistic and mostly always in the high 80's or 100knt ranges? In some cases when the new download comes in, I have had the aircraft almost at a stand still at full power at 37,000ft until I adjust the setting down a little to continue my flight...  If that high wind angle comes from a side wind, your dead.
 

 
Wind data is now displayed on your local map. There are three new tickboxes on the top right of the panel with:
 
NEXRAD wind 12k wind 34k  
NEXRAD will show you your current weather or cloud situation, and the wind direction and speed is now shown on the map profile as well. The 34k selection will over-ride every thing, so you have to disable it to get the 12k selection. I noticed that the 34k selection covers the high-altitude box layer and the 12k covers the mid-altitude box layer and wondered why there was no setting for the low-altitude box layer?
 
As the weather data is now loaded from two sources in; METAR and global NOAA data for the high winds. There is the option in 10.50 to download both loads of data in one operation on the X-Plane startup panel.
 

 

 
Main refinements to the clouds in 10.50 are the stratus clouds which look better from above, Strobe lights in the clouds are set now to only happen when completely in the clouds, and they don't also affect the scenery at night when turned on, and the break-out to visual at the cloud bases now works very well.
 

 
Laminar Research have worked hard on X-Plane10's weather. Translucent clouds and better fog have created a better and more realistic look when flying through cloud masses and you don't now get that constant jumping to the hard grey screen of blankness and a runaway framerate.
 
I flew the DC-8 after completing the review in tracking back in the newer 10.50RC1 from KDFW to KATL in a more heavy weather and HDR night flight (both don't look good in reviews) and was very impressed on the smoothness of the simulator and the better cloud processing that has been done. So there is definitely an improvement and a bonus small framerate gain from the changes.
 

 
Terrain and global airports
One of the main advantages of X-Plane is that anything in every area can be refined and updated. It is astounding that how far back it is to the original X-Plane10 release and what you actually received in the boxed package...  If you take a moment and think about it, it was quite basic.
 
X-Plane global scenery is provided on those nine CD's that you get when you buy X-Plane and in most cases you would have to wait for a new X-Plane version to update the scenery in those discs. But the internet and download speeds have come a long way in those five years as well, and Laminar Research through the work of alpilotx has been very generous in providing updated scenery HD (High-Definition) mesh to replace the more populous and most scenic flying areas of the world of those original scenery tiles (files)...   with these more high density and crowded data tiles to give the simulator a more realistic view. They don't cover all the areas, but certainly the most important ones.
 
How X-Plane11 will be distributed will be interesting and will these HD files be included with the packages, or will there be a totally new way to buy and distribute the simulator? I don't use much HD replacement scenery for the reviews because to get an real accurate account of the scenery and the framerate, I keep the simulator pretty close to the basic specifications, but they are a worthwhile if very large download expansion of X-Plane.
 
Global Airports
X-Plane10 also came with a set of tools (named Lego) that allowed you in blocks (hence the name) to create airports quickly and easily for the X-Plane simulator. Some developers have become masters of these tools and most notably they are tdg, Mister6x and relicroy in their prolific output and quality.
 
To build these global "lego" airports the original WED (World EDitor) application has gone in X-Plane10 from being a basic airport ground layout tool, to a full complete airport scenery building application. 
Originally most "lego" airports were just posted up for download on the X-Plane.Org. But mid-way through the X-Plane10 cycle Laminar Research created a "Global Airport" library called the "X-Plane Scenery Gateway" to not only catalogue the scenery, but to in updates also insert these airport sceneries as default airports and creating for any new or current user of the simulator a vast set of built in variety of destinations.
 
To date 7,092 global sceneries have been created and 5,191 of them have been created with 3d objects by 1,862 scenery artists.
 
To a point the "gateway" was created to offset the criticism that X-Plane was poor in the scenery area for most new or current users. It is a fair comment, but one of the big features and certainly the shear number of sceneries now available, in not only the "gateway" and "payware" created scenery that has been one of the biggest changes and introduced the total transformation to X-Plane10 from its introduction.
 
Since X-Plane 10.45 there has been 626 new 3-D gateway airports added, and 147 more airports was added in with 10.50, with 718 sceneries having also being updated.
 
There was to be another large batch of airports to be inserted before 10.50 goes final, but they have been withheld because WED 1.5 is not ready. But they will be inserted with 10.51. (see post here).
 
Key selection changes
With every X-Plane version update the minor changes can be hidden. The Joystick & Equipment, key and button menu selection is a case in point.
 
One item I change a lot is with the way I have to switch on my joystick (trigger button) the "Thrust Reversers" into two different modes. For the heavies I use the trigger to open the doors (Toggle Thrust Reversers) before putting up the throttle for the reverse thrust. In a regional propeller aircraft the same reverse effect is done by "Hold Reverse Thrust at Max", and so you have to change between each setting to get the right action on landing.
 
 
 
Before both selections where set out together above one another, but in 10.50 they are not. Now they are separated quite a distance from each other, but they also now have new selections on each action for each separate engine, with up to eight engines that can be individually selected via button or key selections. So in 10.50 there is more variety and more menu functionality available, but check that your settings are correct and their new place settings on the menu.
 
For developers there are a few new datarefs:
 
sim/operation/override/override_airport_lites  – int y boolean overrides when the airport lites go on and off. sim/graphics/scenery/airport_lights_on   – int y boolean Are the airport lites on? set override_airport_lites to 1 to write this. sim/private/controls/puff/terrain_dust_ratio – 0 is none. 1.0 is X-Plane default. sim/cockpit2/weapons/gun_offset_heading_ratio – float y ratio Heading offset of the gun from within its maximum heading range sim/cockpit2/weapons/gun_offset_pitch_ratio – float y ratio Pitch offset of the gun from within its maximum pitch range  
Plane Maker 10.50 and WED 1.5 applications have both been updated to include the 10.50 features and known bug fixes.
 
A good simulator is a clean one...  I made some notes in the post X-Plane version 10.50 has gone release candidate 2 with "getting a clean install"  on how to get the best from the latest 10.50 update by creating a clean X-Plane application install, it is worth reading.
 
Summary
One thing that comes out of this X-Plane 10.50 version and it is certainly more noteworthy if 10.50 is the final release of X-Plane10. And that is how much the simulator has changed over the last five years.
 
In time X-Plane10 will be known as the gamechanger version of X-Plane, the one that brought the simulator to a world standard. As noted in this review in that a few areas the signature features were not completely totally refined at this point and are still a work in progress in the Weather and Autogen, but you have to admit a lot of ground was covered and changed in that 5 year period also. Exclusive features like the HDR (High-dynamic range rendering) rendering are as even now a great step forward with 64-bit memory allocation allowing the simulator to be world class and ahead of the simulation game (no pun intended). Other simulators can deliver a higher visual quality and a higher immersion, but none can do this on a global scale or with as much flexibility as X-Plane can.
 
X-Plane is certainly an investment that unlike most products delivers far more that it advertises when it is released, and this 10.50 release is mostly to tie up those original promises and get ready to move on to the next stage of the simulator's future development in X-Plane11.
 
Outwardly there is not much to see in 10.50. As most of the things noted here are mostly in the areas of refining off the original release features, bug killing and making the simulator more efficient in many areas. And for that 10.50 is a great and even brilliant upgrade, but it is low on the "wow" factor in the visual or with any special features departments. In the very end the overwhelming result is...  a really great simulator.
 
X-PlaneReviews can't cover absolutely every change or bug fix, and so those notes are avaiiable here at the Laminar Research Development pages:
 
X-Plane 10.50 Release Notes
 
X-Plane 10.50 is available now for download. Run your X-Plane installer application or download from Steam.
____________________________________________________________
 
Stephen Dutton 19th August 2016 Copyright©2016: X-PlaneReviews  
 

It's a shame to spend that money and then not have it's proper FMS (rockwell collins FMS6000) . for VFR Flying I could just use any cockpit display.
I obviously would not trigger anyone to start programming and implementing the entire jeppesen routes into planex .. but for the FMS, I think that is really crucial on this plane.

OK, thanks.
I'd love to see the Q400 given the full FJS treatment!

Fitting XFMC into the FJS B732 VC would seem to be logical.
Not that I can remember precisely where, but there's a nagging thought in my head that suggests his Q400 is next in line for a revamp.
Now that would be very welcome news!

Behind the Screen : June 2016
 
June started and ended with aircraft. But for a change not the virtual versions but actual real aircraft. I had a quick break at the start of June to go to Tasmania, which is the forgotten apple isle at the bottom end of the Australian continent. Beautiful beyond belief, but freezing wet and cold in winter and that makes the airfares very cheap when the weather is rock bottom, that my brother also lives there was the actual reason for the visit. The bonus of the ride to Melbourne was the chance to take a ride on Jetstar's Boeing 787 Dreamliner, con (36227) and rego VH-VKA. In the strange world of Qantas's route economics the B787 was going 2000nm in the opposite direction of its final destination at Narita in Japan, and the aircraft was barely occupied by only about 30 passengers. You had to check-in as an international flight and then go through arrival customs in Melbourne without actually leaving the country as this was classed as an international flight. Qantas does this route gymnastics quite often as when I went to Hong Kong I went from Brisbane to Sydney before flying back over the same airport four hours later that I had departed from earlier? and Qantas wonder why they are losing money with their shares going south.
 

 
But a very lightly loaded new generation Boeing was going to be interesting. The pilots decided to have some fun before doing the hard yards to Japan. So it was a +3000fpm climb to a final altitude of 42,000ft, straight up and almost close to space. Up there it was more like being in the Gemini capsule in that the aircraft was static and the world now moved around under you and not the other way around. I could have balanced a pen upright and it would not have fallen over as was so smooth the Dreamliner, the landing was also one of the most slowest I have done in an aircraft of this size and well under 150knts, amazing stuff. The return trip was by bumpy bucket class A320 via Sydney.
 
The block end of June was fun as well with an "Open Cockpit" day at the Queensland Air Museum (QAM) at Caloundra. Here they open up the aircraft so you can crawl all over the aircraft and make buzzing noises in the pilot's seat. But there was a serious side to getting up close to some really interesting aircraft. A KingAir 200B (VH-FII), Fokker F27 (VH-FNQ) and a rare Beech 2000A Starship (N786BP) and for myself to compare the real deal with the virtual versions.
 
The main things to stand out is that the real aircraft inside are very small and tight, but huge outside in context to the actual space you work in. Vision is surprisingly limited, yokes are beyond small and tiny, levers and controls are heavyweights and very clunky to use or move and getting into and out of cockpit seats requires a circus diploma in acrobatics. Overall it gave a vital comparison to the computer versions and I will fly all very differently with the new perspectives. The Starship was an amazing aircraft that usually flew at a ceiling of 35,000ft, but sitting in that passenger and later the pilot's seat, I don't know if I would like to be that high up in it, it is very tube like and tight inside with just a small window look out on to those vast sweptback wings, the panel and instruments were quite standard early glass-era Beech. A final interesting aircraft that was in poor condition was the Cessna 336 Skymaster VH-CMY C/N 336-0005 with another very tight lovefest of your fellow pilot cabin, but those huge twin boom tails were very impressive.
 
X-Plane 10.50 Release

X-Plane beta 10.50 crashed and banged into our lives that 10.50b1 soon became 10.50b5 and now 10.50b6. But thankfully all is well with our X-Plane world now. Although the upgrade list is large, I haven't found the total complete love yet, in that I can't see any new autogen in density and it is all restricted just to the US doesn't bode well for the rest of the world where we really need it. My early framerate was shocking as well but settled down to a reasonable level, so I decided to let the waters smooth down a bit before making any major assumptions, but overall it is still too jerky and frustrating when flying even with a frame rate running high (50fr) and perfectly fine for my tastes.
Like most new X-Plane versions released lately they seem to be getting shorter but are also much more stable and that is reflected in the now (slightly) larger team at Laminar Research and it shows.
 
That said I was seriously impressed by the new features including an all new X-Plane menu and interface shown at Flightsimcon 2016 watch the video and see your new brave world coming soon, X-Plane will be seriously (insanely) good when we get to that release with it maybe even noted as X-Plane 11. Officially X-Plane11 doesn't still yet exist, but 10.50 is looking very much like the final complete 10 version run. Laminar can't hold X-Plane11 back for ever either, as it makes them huge instantaneous money or a load of new income by a new version release that goes a long way into paying the bills and wages.
 
FlyJSim Boeing 727 Study v2
 
I had a strange issue with the the FlyJSIm aircraft when I moved over to the Window's killer thriller. Both the B727 or B732 would not work (the Boeing 732 still doesn't) so it took nearly a week of pain and problems to finally get the new v2 version to finally fly on the computer. Something with the sound files and the dreamengine, just wouldn't let the full loading of the files happen. So I missed the release date because of the issues, but what annoyed me more was the issues could have been cleared up months before when I first reported it, as noted the Boeing 732 is still in some sort of intergalactic machine limbo and I have just given up on flying it in Windows?
 
I have spent over the years a fair few hours in the Boeing 727 and it certainly is right up there with the best of the best in X-Plane aircraft, the v2 update puts it even higher in quality and with the 60's style flying experience, but for all the brilliance, I just want to look out of the cabin windows at my takeoffs and landings in the replays? Is that too hard a request with an aircraft in this price range. As when all the hard work is done you can sit back and revel in your supreme handiwork and replay the whole flight and convince yourself you now really brilliantly good at this flying caper, well not still in the B727 you can't and I am now going to believe that I will go to my grave and not do so.
 
PMDG and the whole damn fine thing
 
Precision Manuals Development Group have a huge reputation in the Microsoft Flight Simulation (FS) world. But that doesn't say the same model works in X-Plane as many other FS developers have found out. The clever ones bridge the gap by using top X-Plane developer specialists and really circumnavigated the obvious issues, and in the process they have done very well in X-Plane. 
 
PMDG's approach is unique and clever in the fact that to just create from the ground up an aircraft just for X-Plane, and not try to bend the FS product to run on X-Plane's rules. It is certainly a brave and costly approach. But with this approach the return information on the inner workings of the X-Plane environment will pay out dividends when you really understand how the simulator deep down really ticks. You feel this newly acquired knowledge in the product and how far PMDG are willing to go to understand the platform and this approach has to be seriously applauded.
 
So the released DC-6 Cloudmaster is quite a different but very interesting aircraft to fly and use in X-Plane. PMDG's willingness to create different but clever new features does really standout as well and mostly in the areas of usability that actual aircraft features, very clever and certainly made the flying and the use of the aircraft far more enjoyable than I ever expected. It is not totally perfect, but it is very good... 
 
...    So yes I was very surprised and very impressed by what PMDG have achieved. But as a caution to note that this release is not the best style or type of aircraft to make final surmise of the X-Plane platform for future releases as the aircraft is too much a niche product. If PMDG were to release one of their mainstream aircraft and there is a lot to choose from in the MD-11, Boeing 747-400 and 737NG series, then with the current detailing of what is included with the DC-6 then PMDG would do very well in X-Plane and certainly create a devoted following of their products like Carenado have done. My choice would be their Boeing 747-400 series and that aircraft would certainly be a notable seller on the X-Plane platform, overall I was seriously impressed by PMDG and their X-Plane approach.
 
The paradox
 
This of course brings us to the paradox that PMDG and Aerosoft and their like are caught up in. Can they afford to ignore X-Plane and it's small user base in terms of sales. Still the FS world is a huge but it is now a seriously aging simulator, 32bit and all as is Prepar3d. Dovetail have bought the FS rights and are claiming to reinvent and upgrade the simulator to a more modern platform, but my personal view it is just a repackaging exercise to keep the platform at least viable and Dovetail's first average training release seems to confirm that view. The problem for PMDG and Aerosoft et all, is just that elephant in the big room...  64bit?
 
Laminar Research bit the bullet and did the switch a few years ago, but our base plugin aircraft back then were few and not the huge range we have today, but now consider Flight Simulation's huge mammoth user base and even X-Plane would struggle to cover all the aircraft that would now have needed to be converted over. Ben Supnik was right and it would hurt and it took three months to clear and fix all the plugins, but could FS do the same? or lose such a huge amount of unusable aircraft as success and market domination can at times turnaround and kill you.
 
And then consider that X-Plane year on year well past the cut off date of FS as it has been updating and beta-ring away with very detailed new X-Plane versions of a very current simulator and soon as noted above X-Plane will be going into another new version cycle with X-Plane11, like it or not X-Plane cannot be ignored, and how many of the adopted ones that have come over to X-Plane have noted they would simply love to go back there, and the only reason they do is for the likes of PMDG et all, but most if not all love their new X-Plane environment.
 
So still on the X-Plane.Org forums we get the cry of "why don't we still get the big names of Flight Simulation in X-Plane". Well if you look around you a lot are already here. But it does come down to fear or even survival in simulation. The ones I can't understand are scenery developers are like FlyTampa, as most airports are mostly the same objects and textures on an X-Plane base then why don't they develop for X-Plane, it is a market easy transferred as aircraft are harder to translate with X-Plane's basic "blade theory" and the way the aircraft interacts with the simulator makes it a completely different build than with FS, but in strangely weird way we get more FS aircraft than scenery?
 
But there has to be the point of the seesaw moving the other way, as pure survival will make the difference as to change or die, can you see FS in another four or five years time as X-Plane swings into X-Plane12 (unless Austin Meyer kills himself in his driverless Tesla car). Four years is not a long way off and yes even I would admit anything can change in that period.
 
Will X-Plane11 finally be the circumstances of change and mass migration from FS to X-Plane? The main issues in change is one the X-Plane interface as FS users hate it and won't use it, but that issue is being fixed in X-Plane11 with a whole new visual interface. The other huge barrier is the actual developers themselves...
 
...   the biggest issue is the the huge investments that have been made in FS in aircraft and scenery, reverse the situation in that would I go to FS with all the investments I have made in X-Plane and the answer is no. So why can't the developers drop the barriers and let their clients transfer their already paid investments over to X-Plane, or ask a nominal fee to do so as it is in their own interests to do so. If you are not going to lose your favorite aircraft or scenery then the choice to change is not going to be hurt by the fact that you have to pay the same amount again to get the same thing in another simulator. Once the migration starts then all the other scenery, plugin developers and effects houses will quickly move over as well.
 
My favorite words are "critical mass", once it generates its own power it will continue to do so, and it just takes a small amount of energy to start the process...  But when will X-Plane hit that "Critical Mass" point. Like everything else in life and even for Apple Computer with the iPhone, it will be an interesting few years ahead for the X-Plane simulator.
 
Stephen Dutton
 
11th July 2016
 
Copyright©2016: X-PlaneReviews
 

 

Aircraft Review : Boeing 767-300ER Professional by VMAX and FlightFactor   After the huge success of the late 1950's and throughout the 1960's for the Boeing Commercial Airplane's Company with their Boeing 707/727/737 and Widebodied Boeing 747 aircraft, it was always going to be a challenge for Boeing and keep their lead in the aviation production business to develop and create the next advanced series of passenger jets. Other manufacturers went down the Twin-Aisle three-engined designs that was signified by the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and the Lockhead L-1011 Tristar.   Originally Boeing with the code-named 7X7 looked to be going down that route of three engine design, but the Airbus A300 from Europe changed the design to the more common current layout with Twin-Aisle, Twin-Engined aircraft as engine design and power had now progressed to allow big twins to have the power and range over their three engined counterparts in that now highly competitive mid-medium to large-size, long-range market.   Still Boeing backed its card hand both ways, not only announcing the Boeing 767 as their Twin-Engine Design to cover the Twin-Aisle market, but to also build a Single-Aisle aircraft in the Boeing 757 code-named 7N7, and both aircraft have a commonality design that was shared over the two different types of airframes, in the thinking that airlines would buy and operate both types with a single commonality rating with a small conversion to the larger Boeing 767. Three variants of the Boeing 767 were planned: a 767-100 with 190 seats, a 767-200 with 210 seats, and a trijet 767MR/LR version with 200 seats intended for intercontinental routes. The 767MR/LR was subsequently renamed 777 for differentiation purposes which was when finally launched a vastly different aircraft for a different market.   The prototype Boeing 767 aircraft, registered N767BA and equipped with JT9D turbofans, rolled out on August 4, 1981. By this time, the 767 program had accumulated 173 firm orders from 17 customers, including Air Canada, All Nippon Airways, Britannia Airways, Transbrasil, and Trans World Airlines (TWA). On September 26, 1981, the prototype took its maiden flight under the command of company test pilots Tommy Edmonds, Lew Wallick, and John Brit.   This version in the FlightFactor/StepToSky release is the The 767-300ER, the extended-range version of the 767-300. Which entered service with American Airlines in 1988. The type's increased range was made possible by greater fuel tankage and a higher MTOW of 407,000 lb (185,000 kg). Design improvements allowed the available MTOW to increase to 412,000 lb (187,000 kg) by 1993. Power is provided by Pratt & Whitney PW4000, General Electric CF6, or Rolls-Royce RB211 engines. This aircraft is the Pratt & Whitney PW4000 version.   FlightFactor/StepToSky   FlightFactor and Roman Berezin has no need of introduction for most fliers in X-Plane Simulation. Their Boeing 777 WorldLiner and Boeing 757 Series have made them the very best of the Boeing designed (and official product) available for X-Plane. Their foray into Airbus territory with their Airbus A350-900 also shows the design group's versatility. Here with the Boeing 767-300ER FlightFactor still uses the talents of avionics designer Phillipp Munzel, but are also now joined by StepToSky designers Denis Maslov and Alexander Khudekov, but the full development team is thirteen highly specialised individuals coming together to create this highly developed iconic aircraft the.... Boeing 767-300ER     Review   You couldn't cover every aspect of this review with a simple walkaround the aircraft and point to point flight like I usually write, because different points of the flying pointed to different areas to be explored. So this review covers three sector flights, not the quite Golden Triangle of some of the busiest air routes in the world between BNE-Brisbane (Queensland) to ADL- Adelaide (South Australia) to SYD - Sydney (New South Wales) and finally back to BNE....  MEL - Melbourne (Victoria) missed out because I wanted the longer stretch sector to Adelaide and the longer one back to SYD. When in service (All Boeing 767 aircraft have only earlier this year have been retired by QF Qantas) in the past three decades with Qantas these routes were its main service points (and also PER-Perth) and I have flown on a lot of flights on this aircraft over these routes.  So there is a little mixture in the look of some images in this review here as they are taken not in order as I usually do, but overall throughout the three distinct flying sectors.   External     There is a distinctly different feel to the Boeing 767, yes it looks like FF's Boeing 757 and B777 series aircraft and that design feel is certainly strongly still prominent. But there is a different technique at work here in the way the aircraft's outer-skins are presented. The design of the fuselage is simply exemplary, but what you are looking at is in fact two fuselage's in objects. The usual standard inner version, but now also another object fuselage built over it. This outer object creates a brilliant shine over the aircraft (a sort of holy grail in X-Plane) and gives you (another X-Plane holy grail) great chrome surfaces. These reflective chrome areas are noticeable around the inner front wing surfaces and in the front areas of the engine inlet cowling surfaces.  Certainly static images do not give these reflections a good representation of their quality and shininess, but they are very, very good.   Externally the aircraft is excellent, how much detail do you want? how much more can you include in small detailing details? To highlight the sort of detailing you have here we will focus on an area, which is the wings and undercarriage (to cover every detail would take a small manual).     leading edge and trailing edge wing design is excellent, fully detailed and animated. The B767 uses a unique inner flap arrangement called a "Hinged Beam Four Bar Linkage" with Fowler flap, because of the interference of a drag problem the linkage has a shallow but wide fairing which was small enough to allow it to fix the drag problems. A variation was used on the Boeing 777 in the "upsidedown/upright four bar linkage" flap system.   The Boeing 767 wings are swept at 31.5 degrees and optimized for a cruising speed of Mach 0.8 (533 mph or 858 km/h). Each wing features a supercritical cross-section and is equipped with six-panel leading edge slats, leading single-and double-slotted flaps, inboard and outboard ailerons, and six spoilers.   Inner wing detailing is overwhelming, only when the wing is fully extended do you get the full detailing shown, amazing detail is what you get for your money today. The B767 here is one of the best yet.     As is the undercarriage design, complex and fully animated you get every link, pipe, nut and bolt in perfect harmony, it is simply a miniature version of the real gear system, but the real aspect of this undercarriage quality is in the motion of their working sum of parts, put the aircraft down in a heavy side wind and you see the whole system working to its maximum, the gear compresses and wheels work with the tarmac, and even the Hydraulic piping will flex and move to the gear movement. You can spend hours with replays watching the motions in action.       So external design is extraordinary good, every fuselage join, rivet, and body construction is perfectly realized, smaller items like pitot tubes, aerials, rudder and flap joints are all there to look for and see, only slight blemish is the front strut lights can shine through the doors, which is common theme with most X-Plane aircraft (noting a Laminar Research issue and not a developers one). There is the choice between the old original straight edge wing design and the newer upturned Aviation Partners blended winglets.   Internal     Internally it is a quick glance left into the cockpit, but let us have a look at the cabin first.       Two class cabin in five across in two - one - two first/business and seven across two - three - two in the main economy section, all blue seating is very 80's in seating design. Cabin is well designed and laid out, the fittings look the period that the aircraft was built in and the overhead lockers are tiny compared to the huge bins we have today. Overall the cabin is excellent.     Cabin has "Dynamic windows" (shades) that open and close to the angle of the sun like on the FF B757, but here you have the option of turning them off (thank you), for the windowhuggers the view out is excellent, early versions of the FF B767 had very dark orange opacity window view, but thankfully for the release they have been made a lot clearer and more enjoyable.   Cockpit first look.       The cockpit experience is astounding, this aircraft is not fully "cold and dark" because it is waiting for a transition crew to take it on to Adelaide.
      The surrounding cockpit does feel different, but sit in the captains seat and it all suddenly becomes very familiar. If you already have the FlightFactor Boeing 757 Series you will find this view and all the controls, knobs and switchgear just like home, everything is the same and the only changes are the ones you can't see which is the aircraft's weights, fuel loads and fuel burn, all round the aircraft is of course heavier than its cousin in 99790 kg (220,000 lb) for the Boeing 757 which has a Max - takeoff weight to the higher 179168 kg (395,000 lbs) GTW for the Boeing 767-300ER.     From a pilots instrument perspective this is not a complicated aircraft, there are only the same basic tools that you would find on even a regional turboprop aircraft. It is in the setting up detail that makes this aircraft a professional machine. This aircraft had some of the early glass style cockpits, not the full sized panels you see today, but the early style cathode ray tube (CRT) designs. These screens were and are fitted here usually two CRT's and the top smaller one is for the PFD (Primary Flight Display) and lower CRT is is for the MAP/NAV display. Two more larger CRT's cover the aircraft's performance and status are situated mid-panel. The rest of the instruments are standard clockwork gauges and dials.   We will get a better understanding of the PFD/NAV displays when flying, so I will pass over them for now. But the standard gauges and dials are on the Pilot's/Captain's side far left is the main Airspeed dial (KNOTS/MACH) combined and below is the Radio Distance Magnetic Indicator (RDMI) that shows DME-VOR/ADF distances and with dual needles display (switchable). Right of the CRT's is the "Autoland Status" which can be switched to Auto1/Auto2/Manual on the OHP. Below is the Altitude indicator with barometric settings. Lower is the Vertical Speed Indicator from 0 - 6000fpm, bottom is the timer/clock.   Centre are three standby/backup dials in Artificial Horizon, Airspeed dial and Altitude indicator. Autobrake setting knob is here as well. First officer right side position has exactly the same instrument layout, but there are a few extra dials and displays in a "Brake Pressure" dial, TAS/Cº display, Gear up/down lever, Flap position display (1, 5, 10, 20, 25, 30 degrees) and engine thrust parameter limits selection panel (also known as "thrust management".   As noted the panel looks complicated but it is really quite a simple layout.     Autopilot (AP) is very standard Boeing, so if you have flown any Boeing flightdecks then you would be very familiar with the layout, like the B757 each end of the AP is a frequency setting (VOR 1/NAV 1) left and VOR2/NAV2 right) both CRS (Course) setting knob are here as well.     There is slight (very slight) differences on the OHP (OverHead Panel), but the familiarity aspect is very strong. All areas on this FlightFactor aircraft are covered in systems and switchgear, the panel is very comprehensive in detail. Main panels are Electrical, APU (Auxiliary Power Unit), Hydraulics, Electronic Engine Control (EEC), Inertial reference, Oxygen, heating (external and internal), Air-Conditioning, Bleed and Pneumatic air, Cooling and anti-ice, call panel, Fuel and aircraft lighting.     Pedestal (or Aislestand) is well laid out as well, The central Throttle (engine reverse), Stab trim, flap lever, speed brake lever of course dominate the panel, The two start/cutoff fuel control switches are buried at the rear of the throttle set. EFIS (electronic Flight Instrument System) panels are available for both Captain/First Officer and again a replication and use of exactly the same units on the B757. Engine, Cargo and APU fire controls and main radio communications panels are mid-section, rear is the ADF/NDB frequency dials and that difficult to find VOR1/ILS frequency radio set (click lower knob to activate). far rear is your Aileron/rudder trim wheels/knob.   There is a right side rear service panel, that is for observers and monitoring general aircraft systems.   MCDU and Flightplanning     MCDU (Multipurpose Control Display Unit) in the Boeing 767-300ER is one of the best in X-Plane. Bulletproof and well designed, you can easily programme in your aircraft's operating parameter's and route planning. Both Captain/First Officer MCDU's pop out for ease of use and are independent of each other. You can use it on your iPad as well and there is comprehensive instructions provided on the way to connect X-Plane to your iPad or if you already have that installed for the B757 system, the same one will work here also.     Setting up the route is very easy, select your departure (YBBN) and arrival (YPAD) airports, select your RWY 19 and SID (Standard Instrument Departure) and "Trans" point in my case LARAVALE "LAV", sometimes you may be required to select from a selection of NAV-AIDS to select the right one is to look at the co-ordinates. Then input your route waypoints and I tend to go for DME-VOR and NDB fixes for ease of input and distance measuring. On ARR (Arrival) you select RWY23 your STAR (Standard Terminal Arrival Route) which is the opposite of your SID and here it is "BLACK SIX" (A note is that I usually have to edit a STAR section to get the best approach, shouldn't have to, but I usually do?), when done then EXEC or activate the FlightPlan, you can save your route and also use flightplans you created in the FF B757 by moving them to the Plugins/767Avionics/routes file (the routes are in the same place on the B757). You can check your route by in the EFIS select PLN mode for the NAV/MAP display and press "SELECT" R6 Key to move down the list.     To get the best performance out of these aircraft it comes down to the way you programme and set up the aircraft with weights and balances, you get help of course which we will come to in a minute. But the professional serious pilots of you out there know the good nitty gritty is in the minor details of flight planning. To show the serious depth of programming in performance with the FF Boeing 767 it is how much detail is now available for you. It is certainly important to set up your aircraft's weights and fuel before doing the final calculations in the FMC (Flight Management Computer), if not it can alter your flightplan and it will need re-editing to fit in the new settings, worse it can ruin a STAR approach and you will need for serious editing to get the correct flow to lineup with the runway.  But get the W&F numbers right and there is bounty of information at your disposal.     One such area is the option of using "ECON" performance. this data will fly the aircraft at the best "Economy" performance to save fuel and give you the information covering the best Climb (CLB), Cruise (CRU) and Descend (DES) and best flight altitude and speeds, transitional speeds and it is clever stuff.     Positional reports (even when sitting at the gate!) and Progress data is all at your disposal and is updated right to the conclusion of the flight.     But it is in the real details of the FMC that is excellent, the small things that make this FMC certainly the very best one out there in X-Plane     Weather and terrain radars are not new, but this version is more adjustable and more powerful than the standard X-Plane version, you can test the unit as well to see if it is active and adjust the beam up or down to to get the best perspective that you require more on them later.   Menus     Another FlightFactor aircraft and another different Menu design. But this is a better version than the X-Plane menu bar approach of the B757, as this B767 version is based around the iPad or Electronic Flight Bag as many are called. You select the iPad by the smaller version in a pocket on the left of the Captain's position, and it pops up on the top right of your screen, X-Plane menu and key access (recommended) can also be used. The iPad can be moved around the screen but be careful as it can disconnect you from the cockpit controls unless when moved you re-click on the cockpit area background.   The iPad has seven different tabs in : General - Ground - Airplane - Failures - Avionics - About and PA (Passenger Announcements)   Main tab is "General". This tab selects all the general settings of the aircraft to select more realism or just general flying details. Items you can selects are: High challenge – sets the frequency of custom failures (none, low, high) Real limits – set the structural limits of the aircraft Real time – set the time periods needed for some physical processes f/o in control – the pilots default position is the right seat Throttles block – sets the special throttle block option Advanced windshear – sets the windshear simulation so it can appear in specific weather conditions Mouse wheel – alternates between 4 modes of mouse wheel usage (zoom, rotate, click-rotate, click-rotate-click) Interflight data – sets the option to remember data between different flights (e.g. oil qty, oxygen qty and others) Charts on – turns on the chart on yoke option (read bellow) Hide yokes – hides the yokes Realistic sound – sets the volumes of in-cockpit systems to realistic levels (instead of a mode familiar sim levels) Real weather radar – alternates between a familiar full square radar and a realistic tilt-level based system All settings and preferences can be saved, which is a huge bonus when resetting up for a new flight. Main aircraft volume can also be adjusted here as well.
Second tab is "Ground". Ground is split into two areas upper for external operations and lower for aircraft weight and balance management.
 

 
This is a very comprehensive tab, with a lot of settings and configurations. You have a lot of ground support vehicles, stairs, buses, fuel truck, de-ice truck, Air Start Unit (ASU), Loader (LSU) and gate configuration to park at a airbridge.
 

 
On early FlightFactor aircraft these ground vehicles were really good, but now they are really feeling their age. They actually now look odd at western airports as they seem more eastern European in design, X-Plane has moved on with more current designs and the de-ice truck looks a little hokey... You can save and recall your favorite support vehicles configuration.   Push back is built in here and we will get to that in a moment. Ground "Maintenance" is needed to reset the interflight data – oxygen and hydralic fluid quantities, starter usage counters etc. To make it easier the (very) top of the overhead panel there is a special flight counter which tells you how many flight have passed from the last maintenance.   The lower panel is a very comprehensive way to set up the aircraft. You can set up your "passenger load", "Cargo" and "Fuel Weight". and you get the final weight and balance numbers to reflect your choices. CoG (Centre of Gravity) can be set automatically, but I found it to biased to the rear and making the aircraft nose light? The fuel truck has to connected to load in fuel, but when ready if you push the "LOAD/UNLOAD" button the aircraft will load up to your preferences. This can take a little time and with a lot of noise going on behind you, but it is very authentic. If you want to just change the cargo and passenger loads you can just do that by pressing the "RETOUCH LOAD" button.   But there was one slightly annoying thing with this arrangement. And that if you are not resetting the aircraft from "cold" then you have to "UNLOAD" everything in passengers and cargo (or wait ten minutes) before you can then load up your new flight preferences and wait another ten minutes while everything is reloaded that is all going on board, meanwhile you can't finish programming the MCDU/FMC data because the final weights are not yet completed? It is I'll go and get a cup of coffee time while you are doing all this unloading and reloading business. In normal arrival and departing conditions it is fine, but in starting a new simulation it is a bit of a waiting game...  All custom weights and balances preferences can be saved and recalled. But it is a very powerful setup system, and better than past FF aircraft arrangements.   Next menu tab is the "Airplane" menu     This menu selects the aircraft items. On the left is the option of the movable cabin window blinds we mentioned and the option of standard wing tips or the newer winglets...     Either choice is great, and the detail on the non-winglet version is still to a high quality.   Three menu selections covers the "Wingflex" and this does not need to be set very high as it will be a little to flexible, only a small amount on the left is recommended, "Reflections" again you don't need a lot of glossy reflections as it looks odd with a sheen across your screen that looks unnatural at mid to high settings. "Effects" can be set low as well. All settings can be saved and are configured the same the next time you load up the aircraft.      Lower panel is the aircraft doors. spot click all passenger and cargo doors including that small lower cargo hold for oversized and last minute baggage. This Boeing 767 has a great upward sliding door animation that is extremely authentic. small great touchs that make this aircraft really great.   Next tab is "Failures".     As you use the aircraft it will start to produce failures that have to be rectified via the "Maintenance" selection...  I didn't clock up enough brownie points to set this in motion...   Next is "Avionics"     Another big tab of settings, but at this point the dark ones noted here are not yet functional.  EADI options include (PFD), EHSI (ND) and EICAS displays options.  EADI
Airspeed tape – this will set the airspeed tape in the EADI (PFD) FMA on Top – this will set the FMA on TOP for the airspeed tape. This options is hard connected to the airspeed tape options Integrated cue FD – this will alternate between the integrated cue flight director and the crosshair FD Advanced radio altitude alerts – this set the advanced RA alerts Round Dial RA – this set the round dial RA ILS deviation warning – this sets the ILS deviation warning Rising runway – this sets the rising runway option Trend vector – this sets the trend vector option on the airspeed tape (requires the airspeed tape option to operate) EHSI
Modern EFIS panel – sets the EFIS panel type (with or without TERR and some other options). Automatically set the EGPWS type Heading up map – enables the heading up map TAS and GS – sets the true airspeed and ground speed readouts ADF pointers – sets the ADF pointers Range arcs – enabled the range arcs Digital wing bearing – enables the wing bearing indicator EICAS
FF display – enabled the fuel flow readouts APU oil qty display – enables the APU oil quantity readout Hydraulic pressure – enables the hydraulic press readouts APU RPM – enables the APU RPM readout BULK temperature – enables the bulk cargo compartment temperature readout Brake temperature – enables the bake temperature readout and warning boxes Tire pressure – enables the tire pressure indication PIP FMS
This setting will alternate between the classical style FMS and the newer PIP type. See the FCOM for more detail EGPWS – this will alternate between the old style enhanced GPWS system which generates the warning text and has only the standard look-ahead display and a newer system which also has the peaks mode.
 
Lots of detail and settings available, you can see why you need time on the airframe to get the best settings configured to your own perspective.   In the "About" tab everyone takes a well earned bow, it take a lot of talented people to create a modern X-Plane aircraft in today's highly detailed simulation world...  This is were your money goes.     The last tab is the "PA" (Passenger Announcements)     Released on the FF Boeing 757 series, these are quality (meaning very long) announcements, which are great to use and use them a lot I do. Just watch you are not disconnected to the aircraft when you select the tab, and you can kill an announcement or change the announcement volume by the knob on the radio panel.   Checklists and Tutorial     The Checklist and Tutorial menus are not on the iPad, but still like the system on the B757 which is on the X-Plane/plugin menu bar. But nothing is missing here and very good they are. You get a full startup and flight checklists that turn green when items are completed, and auto start functions are here as well and a complete reset page to clear the checklists for a new flight...  four tabs represent: Normal - Procedures - Operational - Resets.   Flying the FlightFactor - SteptoSky Boeing 767-300ER   You would think that starting up a huge airliner would be a long procedural business, in fact it is quite the opposite.     Warning beacons on (red), main fuel pumps on, Cabin Air-Conditioning off (for engine bleed) and to note I am using the ground start air-compressor not the on board APU. Then select Ground (GND) start and finally the "Engine Start" switch to either 1 or 2, I need at least one engine running to take over from the GPU external power.     The centre MFD panel "Engine Indication and Crew Alerting System" (EICAS) will come alive on the start up engine, let N2 build to 25% and then flip in the "Fuel Control" (flow) switch and the engine will then complete the startup process to idle. When both engines are running then clean up the bleed/Air-Con and turn on the aircraft's engine power supply (DC) and disconnect the external GPU and High-Pressure Units. Startup sounds are extremely good and APU and air-conditioning sounds are constant in the aircraft, and it is weird when you finally shut down the aircraft later on how quiet or noisy it actually is.   The pushback truck is built in and a very good one it is...     Select push or pull and let off the brakes to move. You have full throttle and yaw control if you use the keys or a joystick and throttle system, so placing the aircraft correctly for departure is easy. Only slight visual issue is the truck does not fully turn on the front gear, so the aircraft tends to drag the truck sideways? But the turning wheels on the PB truck are a nice touch.   YBBN - YPAD     On the taxiways the aircraft is nice to manoeuvre around but watch that length it is a big aircraft on tight taxiways and hard turns, however the perfect taxi speed is easily found...  anyway you are to busy enjoying the "PA" announcements to the passengers.     ATC clearance and 15º flap selected and your rolling by pressing the THR (Thrust button), on rotate Flaps up a notch and gear up, switching to SPD and Autopilot (AP) on and LNAV/VNAV are selected. The aircraft has plenty of power and I have a high takeoff weight, so climbing above 2000fpm is not a problem for this aircraft.     Your friend is the "Thrust Mode Management" panel in setting TO/GA, CLB, CON, CRZ and DERATE 1 & 2. If you programmed the MCDU correctly the Thrust Management will control your engines for the maximum performance and you certainly do feel the differences.     The sheer amount of information in route data and engine data available to you is extraordinary. PROGRESS page gives you perfect updates on the route and DIRECT TO is available when required. Finally at cruise you can breath out and relax.   One major thing that you feel is the absolute complete environment of this Boeing 767-300ER. The way you look through those lovely port-holed windows but mostly via the aural connection of the aircraft. I have flown on many aircraft and on the B767 many times and this aircraft is the one that really captures that feeling and the very sounds like the real aircraft... it sends goosebumps up your spine in the reality of it all. I have not been a big fan of FF external sounds (very clicky), but with the "realistic sounds" option on they are a lot better here. but internally they are excellent. Only slight annoyance is still that FF cabin communication "pinging" that you can't seem to keep happy.     So is the FF B767 different from the FFB757? From the cockpit yes it does even though the panel layout is the same, and it is a very different aircraft in many respects, more depth and the FF B757 was very good there. The B757 feels darker and far older than the brighter surrounds of the lovely B767 cockpit.     It is 2h 30min flightime between BNE to ADL, but it felt longer with the "real time" option on, and yet the clock is right.     Pretty soon you are coming over the Adelaide Hill's on the "Black" STAR approach path to RWY 23. FF created the best aircraft noises and this B767 does not disappoint on landing, throttle changes are excellent and wind noise with gear extraction is amazingly realistic, almost distractingly so, you are working hard on the pre-landing procedures and these great sounds are surrounding you with detail... realism par excellence.     You are working hard but the aircraft delivers, one natural thing is that the Boeing 767-300ER is just a very nice aircraft to fly, perfectly balanced and you love being at the controls...     Landing sounds are exceptional, thrust reverse can be set up so your add-on throttle will allow you to control the amount of thrust you need to stop, but pull the thrust back and close the doors before rubbing off to much speed as you will lose too much momentum as the reset period to forward thrust is quite high, if you want a bit more realism I recommend SimCoders free "HeadShake", but use it sparingly and at minimum settings.

 
Back on the ground and you clean the aircraft up and say goodbye to the passengers, the B767 has such a great visual impact in X-Plane, just a damn nice aircraft.
 

 
At Gate 14L the unloading of the aircraft works for me, but while the noise is going on behind me the reloading was now starting to start and I am working hard to finish off the reprogramming the MCDU for the next sector to SYD (Sydney), a top up with fuel is also needed but turnaround time is 45 minutes and you have a lot of work to get through... 
 
YPAD - YSSY
Departure from YPAD is via RWY 23 and this is a great opportunity to test out the terrain radar which is a major feature and independent of the standard X-Plane version. The system notes the high ground to the left of the aircraft, and the radar in the nose is adjustable up or down to give you the feedback you want, the sweep of the radar beam on the CRT is really well done and is highly realistic.
 

 
There is one notable aspect in that the PFD instrument has no Altitude or V/S tape, there is the speed tape but you are looking to use the standard clockwork dials for the Altitude and V/S information. This EHSI (Electrical Horizontal Situation Indicator) is a little disconcerting at first as you are so used to having both items fore and centre, but you do get used to it and it makes the display less busy to use, there is still a wealth of data and information in there and the Localizer deviation scale and pointer (Horizontal) and Glideslope deviation scale and pointer (vertical) still appear on landing. Pitch, and Rate of Roll displays are excellent as is the Flight Director cues.
 

 
Lower MAP/NAV screen is highly configurable from the EFIS (electronic Flight Instrument System) panels and have all modes including VOR, APP (Approach),MAP and PLAN, switchable to the ROSE mode for heading flying. The display will also show the above Terrain/Weather displays.
 
Weather
On the face of the displays the Weather radar looks like the current default X-Plane version, but it is not. This weather radar is a totally new thing in X-Plane all together. It creates extrapolated 3D weather data and shows cross-sections using tilt and gain. Also shows windshear and turbulence visual data. It is controlled by "weather Radar" panel on the pedestal and this negative and positive look down feature into the weather is excellent.
 


 
Rain and wind effects are very good, the raindrops drip realistically down the window and then go horizontal as the speed grows, the wipers will clear away the drops and only have them reappear as the wiper moves past and returns. Combined with the radar you get a great all round poor weather conditions till you break through the cloud ceiling and altitude.
 


 
Route information to YSSY is again top notch. Note the T/D (Top of Descent) point which I found exactly spot on for my descent speed of -2000fpm.
 


 
One sector to go at YSSY back to BNE and it was another offload... reload and re-programming the MCDU and weights and balances for the lighter load and shorter distance flight back to Queensland.
 
YSSY - YBBN
 


 
Enroute you can can access pages within pages of data. Helpful is "Wind Forecasts" for different wind altitudes, and that wind data is also translated to the flight PROGRESS (page 2) data. Aircraft cruise (CRZ) ECOM data (page 2) is also available. So you can see that the correct programming of the MCDU is critical in many areas of flight for performance and visual data, this is one very intelligent aircraft. that flies to very specific inputs and weights and balances.
 


 
We are almost around the triangle and landing back in Brisbane is only a 20min away, and as the light is falling, let us look at the aircraft's lighting.
 
Lighting
 


 
FlightFactor was one of the pioneers of great internal aircraft lighting and the Boeing 767 here is very good. The only odd visual note is that the panel is more yellowish than the AP panel. It does give it a different visual look and you can certainly find that right point for having limited reflections for takeoff and landing in the dark in four different lighting adjustment knobs. On saying that if you turn up the lighting inside the cockpit the window reflections are excellent and highly realistic.
 

 
Overhead in two forward spot (chart lights) and two rear main (Storm) lighting fills the cabin with great working light in flight or setting up on the ground. Power overhead (OVHD) lighting gives you full cockpit illumination.
 

 
Rear Cabin is brightly lit and very realistic, feels very good and adjustable too.
 

 
External lighting is slightly compromised by Laminar Research's blobby v10.45 lighting, but with HDR on you have a lot of different lighting tools at your disposal.
 

 
Night view from the cockpit is amazingly realistic, your in the zone and to deep into your landing procedures to look out of the windows, you work hard in here, but the feedback and realism gives you an adrenaline rush...
 

 
Finals and the cockpit again fills with the huge noise of rushing winds and gear down lights. 
 

 
Forward lighting is very good and the runway is well illuminated. 
 

 
You have three sets of turnoff lighting and with the main, taxi and turnoff lights running you light up the whole area around the cockpit...
 

 
The view for taxiing is excellent and the lighting is powerful in selecting the right line around tight taxiway turns.
 

 
There is excellent wing/Ice lighting, but a strange deal on the tail logo light. There is a logo button, but the tail lights don't work? Then on the ground turn on the wing lighting and it comes on, turn off the wing lighting and the logo stays on?  weird? It is not centre either on the logo...
 
 
 
Three sectors and four ports and it is a big day flying, no doubt the Boeing 767-300ER is one challenging but hugely rewarding aircraft.
 
Liveries
You get (noted as "Free") liveries, including: American Airlines, Air France, Garuda Indonesia, British Airways, Star Alliance Lufthansa (a strange choice) and Canadian Westjet.



 
There are also nine livery packs available at $US10.00 per pack, noted are: Asia 1 & Asia 2, Europe 1, Europe 2 & Europe 3, Middle East, North American, Oceania and South America, that is altogether over 100 + liveries for the aircraft...
 
Summary
The basic conclusion to this Boeing 767-300ER Professional is that in every way and every department it is a step forward in X-Plane simulation. Three areas stand out though, the sheer depth and complexity of the aircraft and its systems, it is certainly another level again and the amount of data you have at your disposal is breathtaking. The aircraft's design quality and the weather (Radar and Terrain), over gloss and chrome features are other stand out features.
 
Third is with all this huge amount of detail, design and the sheer amount of code that must be in the aircraft and yet....  yet it is so frame-rate friendly, so light on your computer, that alone is a significant amount of genius.
 
Negatives...  minor but there are a few niggles, It takes a long time to set up for flight, there is a lot of inputting and detailed areas to cover, so it is not a jump in and fly aircraft by any standards, but creating routes and saving them can really help in reprogramming the MCDU, but your work is certainly cut out in there. The ground vehicles are looking a bit out of date and wrong in a modern airport context, a bit 60's Eastern Bloc. That cabin crew constant communication "pinging" drives you mental, yes you are required to satisfy its needs but a lot of "pinging" 500ft out from landing it is more like "just shut up and sit down"
 
The biggest point to make is that many uses will note that the Boeing 757 has everything the Boeing 767 has and certainly why bother as the cockpit is the same anyway. That is like saying here that my brother or sister is the same as me because they come from the same parents. They are totally different aircraft, and in fact the familiarity is actually a bonus as you don't need to relearn that side of procedural process, but in every other way, in feel, in use and certainly in the depth of the simulation they are quite different aircraft, and you will fly them for different reasons.
Overall it is the feeling that no aircraft comes closer to the real aircraft in feel and sounds than this one does, start it up and fly, and your memories come flooding back of being on the real machine, up there high...  yes it is that realistic.
 
The best heavy aircraft in simulation in X-Plane, well that is a big call for this excellent Boeing 767-300ER, but certainly it again raises the standards to another level again in every area, it is not in the first look that it really delivers but in the minute detailing of systems and programming and flight performance, in that area it is simply outstanding.
 
______________________________________________________________________
 

 
Yes! the Boeing 767-300ER Professional by VMAX and FlightFactor is NOW! Available from the new X-Plane.Org Store here :
 
Boeing 767-300ER Professional
Price is US$64.95
Features
Flexible Options
A very flexible architecture : You chose the set up Different options for many avionics instruments including two types of FMC. Options to composite your own EICAS, EADI and EHSI displays. Most of the options included in the real 767 Checklists and 'Autohelper'
Full electronic interactive checklist with automatic action detection. Automatic mode 'Helper'  who performs all the actions for you, you just CHECK the items. A tutorial which shows the user what to do and when. Perfected Flight model
Accurate flight model, as close as it gets to real performance. Tested by real pilots and translated to X-Plane A dynamic and customizable center of gravity that depends on actual cargo and passenger load Fully Functional Professional FMS and EFIS System
Custom Flight Management Computer, integrated with other plane systems. Custom programmed LNAV logic for terminal procedures from updatable database. VNAV-managed climbs and descends. Optimum cruise performance and step climb calculation. Two independent analogue instrument sets for captain and first officer. Two independently simulated EFIS (EADI/EHSI configuration) for captain and first officer. Dual-FMS with two independently working CDUs. Working instrument comparators. Triple IRS and triple symbol generator systems with realistic instrument source switching. Dual air-data computers with custom failure modes and source switching. Independent 2 nav and an ils recievers. Realistic inertial, radio and GPS position updating, you can see the individual inaccuracies of those systems. Triple-channel autopilot with realistic dependencies. Fail operational and fail passive auto land with mode degradations based on system failures. Load company routes generated by Professional FlightPlanner X (or other compatible programs) directly into the FMC. FMC can be used on external touchscreen or tablet, optimized for the Retina iPad. Custom Systems and Failure model
Detailed and deep simulation of almost every system in the real aircraft. Custom air and pressure system. Electrical system with all AC and DC busses modeled - see which system depends on which bus. Hydraulic system that uses a little fluid when treated correctly and a lot of fluid if used incorrectly. Multistage custom failure system - over 200 more failures than X-Plane. Ability to fix failure by following proper procedure. Persistent failure and maintenance system. Aircraft wear and misuse will carry over to your next flight. Warning system and radars
Fully functional GPWS with all the modes the real plane has. Fully functional terrain radar, with custom database (just like the real plane), a look-ahead warning system and many other features. Weather radar that works like the real thing. Including tilt and gain functions, ground clutter, turbulence detection and windshear prediction. 3D Modeling
Accurate dimensions based on exterior drawings provided by Boeing. Very detailed exterior modelling with high resolution textures. Very high resolution 3D cockpit with every switch functional. Spatial rain simulation with high detail. Very detailed passenger cabin graphics including galleys. Additional graphic features: real working oxygen masks both in cockpit and cabin, dynamic window blinds that react to sunlight etc. New and improved wingflex. Special effects
Multilayer dynamic reflections on all glass objects. Reflective metal and plastic objects in the cockpit. Glossy exterior that reflects the outside. XP weather enhancements like custom windshear. ______________________________________________________________________
 
Installation :   Download aircraft file size is 2.27gb - Liveries 426.20mb. Installed file size is 2.6gb
Authorisation key is required, and I highly recommend a desktop startup when Key activation is complete.
Notes: You will need a lot of time to programme the aircraft before actually flying it.
Documents : Both a Official Boeing B767 Operating Manual and FlightFactor aircraft manual and Remote CDU set up guide (iPad).
I also recommend to download this: B767_Flightdeck_and_Avionics guide 14.6mb for a more quicker overview than the extensive official manual.
 
B767_Flightdeck_and_Avionics.pdf

 
Requirements :
X-Plane 10.40+ (any edition) running in 64bit mode. Windows 7+, Mac OS 10.9+ or Linux 14.04 LTS or compatible. 64bit mode 1Gb VRAM Video Card Minimum. 2Gb+ VRAM Recommended. 3Gb+ VRAM Preferred (Note aircraft is exceptionally good on framerate, playback is current with similar sized aircraft and features) ______________________________________________________________________
 
FlightFactor Developer Support : FlightFactor 767 Professional   ______________________________________________________________________   Review by Stephen Dutton
12th December 2015
Copyright©2015: X-Plane Reviews
 
Review System Specifications:
Computer System:  - 2.66 Ghz Intel Core i5 iMac 27”- 9 Gb 1067 Mhz DDR3 - ATI Radeon HD 6970M 2048 mb- Seagate 512gb SSD 
Software:   - Mac OS Yosemite 10.10.4 - X-Plane 10 Global ver 10.42 (final)
Addons - Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick and Throttle : Sound - Bose  Soundlink Mini : Headshake
Scenery or Aircraft
- YBBN - Brisbane International by tdg  (YBBN - Brisbane Airport 1.0 - X-Plane.OrgStore) - Free
- YPAD - Adelaide International by Chris K (ISDG)  (YPAD Adelaide Airport Photo Scenery 1.31 - X-Plane.OrgStore) - Free
- Adelaide City Scenery by Chris K (YPPF Parafield Airport and Adelaide City Photoreal) - Free
 

 

Well Max, Dden is up to his eyes one line at a time in C++ code trying to fix just that. But the Global 6000 may get a FMC before the Challenger. But it is coming, when...  well.

Aircraft Review : Airbus A330-243 by JARDesign
 
JARDesign is well known for their excellent (if slightly misnamed) A320neo as it should be the A320ceo (current engine option). When the aircraft was first released in December 2012 it created new ground in detailing and features that pushed X-Plane to the next level in flying immersion and systems, it was without doubt a new yardstick in design. At that time it was also slightly buggy, certainly in its flight modeling and profiles. But over the years the aircraft has become one of the very best in simulation and that has been mostly by the constant improvements and new features that has kept this aircraft ahead of the pack and created now one of the best experiences in X-Plane.
 
The announcement that JARDesign's second aircraft would be the A330-243, is by and large a natural extension of the A320neo and a perfect fit in every respect. Only the thought of a good A332 with the quality of the original A320neo and its features would certainly make you want to start your savings and adding up your pennies (or nickles) for the release of this aircraft. The nature of this review is to find if the aircraft can live up to or even surpass the sort of hype and expectations that is leveled upon the aircraft in relation to its forebear's success.
 
First point to be made is that the A332 from JARDesign is a complex and deep simulation. If you already have the A320neo you already know what I mean by that, so to those users this A332 will be actually quite easy to translate over too, which in the Airbus philosophy of the way they design their aircraft as well. But if you are new to these sort of simulation designs then the aircraft is demanding of your skills and requires a learning curve (or study) to get the very best out of the aircraft, anyone can certainly fly this aircraft, but it is also demanding to a level that requires time and practise to extract that complete performance and make that perfection of commercial flight in a simulator. In most cases here it is in the area of setting the aircraft up correctly and then flying the A330 in its profile of flight dynamics that is the demanding skill, both of course only come after practise and time. So you will need to invest your energies in those areas to feel the full power of the simulation. To a point it is that like in the real world, pilots usually spend their time on one aircraft for periods of time to be a professional on that airframe, and to a point simulation in X-Plane is now requiring users to invest time and the skills to get to the same proficiency to get to the same level of skill and knowledge to get the return on your investment.
 


 
JARDesign A330-243
First view of the A330 is certainly not going to disappoint even the hardest critics. The aircraft is simply superbly modeled, simply first rate.
 

 
This aircraft is fitted with the Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 engines 772.B-60 and creates 71,100 lbf (316 kN) of thrust. Engine design and textures is very well executed, you can almost smell the Jet-A fuel around this aircraft. The huge by-pass blades are perfect and the engine pylon is filled with great detail that is usually over-looked like vents and mesh screens. The wing is very complete as well with perfect spars, and as the hydraulics are powered off the ailerons droop in their loss of power.
 


 
But if you are wanting the full effect of the detailing of this aircraft then the undercarriage is the place to have a good nosey around. Absolutely perfect design with everything created, as they are a perfect reproduction of the real gear and everything is reproduced here in fine detail. Highlights are the wheel rims and the hydraulic lines, up in the wheel bay is also few items, but the only slight is the connection of the main support link to the airframe, it just rests on a texture image.
 
The whole aircraft glows in the warm sunshine (yes the sun does shine sometimes in the UK) and you want to get on board to see what have inside. But first we will note the menu system.
 
Menu
You have a drop-down menu for the A332 in the X-Plane plug-in menu.
 

 
The menu has three menu selections in Ground Equipment - Doors - Settings
 
Ground Equipment
In the Ground Equipment menu there are eight selections....   Ground Equipment Call - Ground Equipment Remove - Open Loadsheet - GPU - Pushback/Towing - Fuel/Weight - Catering - Stairway
Not all of them are relevant at this point in time, and so we will focus on the outside items. First is Ground Equipment Call and Ground Equipment Remove.
 


 
One of the outstanding main features of the original A320neo was the great ground vehicles and animations, and here you have the same excellent feature. You can call all your Ground Equipment by selecting the first menu (Ground Equipment Call) or remove them all the same way (Ground Equipment Remove). When activated all the ground equipment will appear and then move into their respective positions around the aircraft, then the doors or hatches will open to accommodate them. Not only is the animation first rate, but the actual vehicle design and quality is excellent as well. It take a short while for the equipment to place themselves and animate the dropping of the stands and lift their catering boxes or the stairs into the correct positions, and each set of equipment can be selected to work separately in the  Fuel/Weight or Catering and the Stairway from the menu. If the fuel truck is selected the pop-up fuel panel is displayed on the screen.
 


 
Stairways depending on the weather will either be open or covered... I would personally like a manual choice here as I like the covered version better than the open stairs.
 

 
You can connect up the GPU (Ground Power Unit) to power the aircraft, again the design of the GPU is excellent.
 

 
Second menu will open all the doors, Two front, Two mid and Two rear passenger doors, Front and Rear Cargo doors and the smaller BULK cargo door. Detailing is again a highlight, animated latches open/close and even the cargo door catches and locks are detailed...  There is a "Close All Doors" one click to do all doors, that is great for a quick aircraft cleanup before departure.
 

 
Third menu selection in Settings, covers two items in you being able to  "disable" the rain effects and a frame-rate warning message on the bottom of your screen...


 
Cabin
Inside the aircraft the cabin is well represented in three classes. The quality or the non-fuzzyness of the seating is excellent as there is no short cuts here to save frame-rate by putting in poor textures. So the cabin is a quality cabin right through the aircraft.
 


 
Moving through the cabins, you realise how big and how much space there is in a modern aircraft today. Views out of the cabin windows is excellent, and you can easily find that perfect viewpoint if you like the replays of takeoffs and landing from the passenger view like I do. Externally looking into the aircraft you have a real realistic view, on the ground or in the air. And that is harder to achieve than it looks, but it works well here.
 
Cockpit
Into the office and you won't be disappointed. This cockpit is really beautifully designed.
 


 

 
 
Again JARDesign created the best A320 aircraft cockpit with their original A320neo, and here you now have the best A330 cockpit in X-Plane. Quality seeps from every area, the panels are simply gorgeous beyond belief in their textures. Every knob, switch and lever is perfectly Airbus recreated and useable.
 


 
The one thing that really strikes you is the sheen on the panel (certainly the Autopilot panel) as it looks so authentic. Nothing can be really singled out because it is all quite perfect. One note is that the cabin door can't be opened?, but you can also move easily into the rear cabin if you set up your X-Plane views, so a quick wizz to your favorite passenger seat view and a second wizz back to the office is easily done...
 
Power
It is time to set up the aircraft for flight, so first we need the power to come to life. As with JARDesign's A320neo the aircraft always starts up powered down or cold (It also turns off your X-Plane "Start up flight with engines running" like the A320neo as well)
 
 
 
 
 
Battery switches (yellow) are mid overhead panel, you do have two choices in either one: Select the GPU from the menu and turn on the EXT A & B buttons for power from the external cart, or two: Start up the on board APU via the two lower switches. You now have to align the three air data inertial reference units (ADIRU) top left of the overhead panel. Now the aircraft is powering up and the display's will come alive.
 
It was a feature of the A320neo to always start up from cold (like the A330 here) and you had to power up, align the ADIRU's, set up all the systems and god knows what more before actually flying the aircraft. Don't get me wrong, I love that sequential process and the feeling of really setting the startup of the aircraft from scratch, but it was also to me its biggest drawback in using the aircraft. I finally refined the process down to 12.32 min/sec (yes I timed it) but that is most times 12.32 secs more than I wanted to go right through the whole process again. In other words I would usually select another A320 aircraft than face all that startup process just to fly a few sectors in a the few hours I had spare to fly or complete a review. The A332 here does need a set up process as well, but there are thankfully here a few quicker routes to get flying quicker than the "going the whole hog, all the time" way.
 

 
There is now a "HOT START" system on the A332 that will power up the aircraft for you!, this will show on the bottom left of your screen unless you start the startup process yourself...  Just press the button and the aircraft will set itself up and be ready and powered for flight. You still have to set the GPS alignment and put in your route or flightplan, but otherwise the aircraft is ready to go, and it saves you a lot of time and waiting...
 
Setting up the MCDU/FMC
The Airbus A330 uses the excellent Thales and Smiths Aerospace "Topflight" FMS (Rev2+) FMC (Flight Management Computer) and this is based in the MCDU (Multipurpose Control & Display Unit ) on the upper pedestal. If you have flown the JARDesign Thales then there is nothing new here except the weights and performance of the A330 compared to the lighter A320 aircraft. If you know how to program the Thales system or know the system on the A320neo backwards then you may want to skip the next phase.
 

 
 
 
 
 
With the ADIRU switches set to "Nav" you insert your aircraft's GPS position by inserting your route on the INIT page, in this case EGKK/LIRF for London: Gatwick to Rome: Fiumicino, type in on the scratch pad the route and insert it into Key 1 right on the MCDU, this will bring up the "Align IRS ->" and you activate by pressing Key 3 Right. The aircraft will align itself and it will take 7 minutes to do so, in some ways this is still similar to the alignment on the A320neo, but it is quicker in the set up as well.      
 
Set up of the rest of the INIT page is your flight-level, cost index and flightnumber. There is no "save" of any routes you create on the FMC, which is annoying, but you can actually make one up and save it to the "Flightplan" folder in the main A330 aircraft folder in the format "EGLL SID DVR UL9 KONAN UL607 KOK STAR EBBR" for EGLL to EBBR. and recover the flightplan by inserting "EGLLEBBR" into the "CO RTE" boxes Key 1 Left (top left).
 

 
 
 
 
 
Fuel
You can select a "Loadsheet" from the menu to help you configure the aircraft. Here you can insert your passengers, cargo and fuel requirements and select the right weight for the aircraft, it shows you your CoG (Center of Gravity) as well. When ready, you select the Fuel/Weight from the menu to bring the fuel truck to the aircraft and begin loading your fuel for the flight. This can be seen best by selecting the Fuel menu on the SD (Systems Display) center panel and INIT Fuel Prediction page on the MCDU. To access this secondary INIT page you select the right arrow key on the MCDU keypad to access the right page noted by the arrows on the top of the display . It is highly important this Fuel Prediction page is correct and activated as it will afect many other functions of the aircraft in flight.
 
Perf (Performance)
You can set up your performance preferences via the "PERF" key.
 
 
 
Here in PERF's you can set the TAKE OFF - CLIMB - CRUISE - DESCENT - APPROACH - GO AROUND phases, most items will fill in automatically by pressing the corresponding key, but you need to study the items and set these portions correctly to get the best performance out of the aircraft, wrong numbers here have a significant impact on the performance of the FMS system. Most boxes are required to be filled and not glossed over, and you can set your FLEX modes correctly here also. This is the guts to flying the aircraft precisely.
 
Route
The Thales FMC is actually quite easy to program in setting up a route, the version on this A330 is quite simple and very robust with few quirks that seem to riddle these complex systems.
 
Creating a route and installing it is quite easy and quick. Select the F-PLN Key to start your flightplan. Both of your DEP (Departure) and ARR (Arrival) airports are already shown. To start then select your DEP  airport (key 1 left) of which in this case is EGKK (Gatwick). Then select your runway which today is RWY26L (a good feature is the noted length of the runway on your RWY selection), Then your SID (Standard Instrument Departure) which is DVR1X (Dover) with NO TRANS. All your selections are listed across of the top of the MCDU display.
 
 
 
 
 
The end of your SID here is fix DVR (Dover) and then between the DVR and your ARR airport LIRF is --- F-PLAN DISCONTINUITY --- which is to note that the flightplan has a break between different points, in this case between the fix DVR and the ARR - LIRF airport positions.
Next is to insert all your fixes (or waypoints) between the end of the SID and the start of the STAR (Standard Terminal Arrival Route) at your ARR airport. You can use Airports, VOR, NDB and Airways as points (fixes) on the flightplan. I use VOR fixes mainly because they are very easy to insert and have distances that can be checked built in.
 
So my first VOR fix after DVR is LEQ (Lesquin) which is inserted. To insert a fix you type in the fix in the scratch box, in this case my next VOR fix is RLP (Rolampont) and to insert it I press the key to overwrite my last Fix of LEQ? (key 3 Left) That may sound odd to replace the last fix, but the system does not do that but actually inserts the fix in the next line below (Some FMC's do insert on the next line below, but not in the Thales). From this point on I just continued to insert all my waypoints to the start of the STAR at LIRF with the last fix of GRO (Grosseto).
 
 
 
 
 
Now I select my ARR airport of LIRF (Key 5 Left) and select my arrival runway in RWY34L (ILS). Next is to select your STAR approach and I am using TAQ1C and that is inserted via the relevant key and also NO TRANS is inserted on the right side Key, the STAR arrival selections are listed across of the top of the MCDU display. Pressing
NOTE: It is significantly important you select the right ARR Runway...  In this case ILS34L, if you select say VOR34L it will not lock on to the approach...  and there is a few different ones in there to choose from?  So always look down the list for the ILS approach.
 
 
 
 
 
On the main flightplan display you now have to join up the end of the inserted fixes to the STAR Approach, this means deleting the --- F-PLAN DISCONTINUITY --- in between. To do this is simple, just press CLR key to put "CLR" in the scratch box and then delete the --- F-PLAN DISCONTINUITY --- by pressing the relevant key (Key 3 Left) to delete the DISCONTINUITY.
 
 
 
   
 
Your flightplan is complete, but you now have to activate the plan to the system. To do this you select INSERT (Key 6 Right) to activate the flightplan which will turn green. You have the option here to also CANCEL the flightplan to start again by pressing (Key 6 Left). You can activate the flightplan (Green) at any point during the setting up of the flightplan even if the flightplan is not complete.
 
You can see how the flight plan with the inserted SID and STARS looks like (or to find any wrong issues or fixes) by switching the ND (Navigation Display) mode to PLAN on the EFIS panel on the glare shield. You can see on the ND (Navigation Display) the route and you can move through the route by pressing the arrows (up or down) through all the waypoints on the MCDU key pad. (shown above is both the active SID and STAR routes)
 
 
 

 
If you have already set the Flight Level on the INIT page you will find as you change the weight and Fuel of the aircraft,and then inserted other items and activated the Flightplan...   the FL inserted disappears?   So you have to go back after activating the flightplan and reinsert the Flight Level (FL) on the INIT Page, and you can now also change your flight level (with the fuel now loaded) to a higher FL than you could when you started...  In this case FL335. When you do this, the flightplan will then change to show your running time to your destination and flight altitude profiles on the main flightplan for you to use. As noted, programming the MCDU with a route is actually quite quick to do, and easy as well. In all cases you should be ready at the same point the ADIRU's are aligned and the aircraft with the green activated flightplan is usually ready to go.
 
Aircraft Start
Engine starts are very easy on airbus aircraft as the process is mostly automatic.
 
 
 
 
 
APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) need to be running and "Avail" on the Overhead panel, switch on the APU BLEED button and turn the Bleed switch to OPEN. Beacon lights on to warning the rampers that you are now going to power up the aircraft. The engine ignition switch is below the throttles on the pedestal, and goes to "ON Start"...  Only thing to do now is push up the switch of which engine you want to start, in this case engine two. The rest of the engine start up procedure is now automatic, and when both engines are running you switch off the ignition switch and the overhead bleed switch and APU bleed button. Note the excellent DCDU (Datalink Control and Display Unit) that shows DEP and ARR airports Metar weather reports (DEP and ARR Airports must be inserted in the MCDU for this to work).
 
SD (Systems Display)
The SD screen centre lower panel is your visual information point for the aircraft called ECAM (Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitor), you can select the different screens by pressing the control panel buttons on the pedestal below. A great feature is the "Please Wait" intermediate screen, it pauses while transferring you to the relevant screen...  very realistic.
 
 
 
 
 
The JARDesign A330 comes with full working systems that include Air Conditioning, Pressurization, APU,  Electrical,  Oxygen, Fuel, Hydraulic, Ice and Rain Protection, Indicating Recording Systems, Landing Gear, Pneumatics, Power Plants and every aspect can be observed here, all system items are accessed by the comprehensive overhead panel. Mostly the aircraft is in auto mode, or a clean board. You rarely have to adjust anything ready for flight except for the Cockpit and Cabin temperatures.
 
Pushback/Pull
The A330 comes with its built in Pushback/Pull tractor.
 
 
 
 
 
The Pushback/Pull tractor can be called by the menu. It will take its time to latch on to the front gear of the aircraft, when the tractor is in place it doesn't mean it is ready to pushback. It still animated to open latches and finally grab your front steering gear.
You have a remote control outline on the very left of your screen to control the tractor, the button's are ambiguous and not outlined, so you have to sort of guess where they are? push once for one speed and twice to go faster, stop is the button in the middle. It takes a little practise to get the tractor to do what you want it to do, because the time you press the stop button to the point the tractor actually stops usually means the aircraft is out of angle to the taxiway? You get it right...  finally after several goes. Click remove and the tractor just "bummmpfs" and is gone! as there is no unlatching animation at the end and drive away from the A330 like at the start? Tractor design is however excellent.
 
Taxi
I'm not going flying yet but still to load my passengers at the gate. EGKK is very busy today, so I did most of the preparations and cargo loading at the remote ramp and a quick taxi is required to collect the humans (sorry fare paying passengers).
 
 
 
A bit of throttle is needed to get the aircraft moving, but only a slight thrust is needed to keep the momentum. You have "Terr on ND" like on the A320neo, which you can switch between the standard Navigation Display (ND) and the "Terrain" mode and the "taxi" mode, which shows you your position on the local map on the ND screen. Great as it is, it is also a frame-rate user, so keep its use to minimal.
 
 
 
 
 
Aircraft works fine with the animated airbridges, and soon we are ready to depart...  Pushback again and you are soon back into the taxi and heading RWY26L, and Flap 1
 
 
 
 
 
Flying the A330-243
At 237300lbs the aircraft is quite heavy and you can feel that weight, certainly once you put up the power and release the brakes. The A332 takes awhile to gather momentum, very slowly, but surely. Vr at rotate is 165+10 knts and the aircraft is very slow to respond into the air, you need to have a full control of the pitch which is required at 15º, but you wrestle the aircraft airborne and try to keep that momentum, selecting "THR CLB" has no effect. The A332 seems to lose a lot of speed at the 15º angle and I'm not completely happy with that, as speed should be constant and you seem to be sliding back and too close to Alpha Floor? This without the FLEX mode set. If you don't get the angle of attack right and the correct speed it is very hard to switch on the Autopilot and not get a quick alert as the AP disconnects again? The AP wants a higher pitch degree, but you can't do that because the speed is too low? so your best bet is to get the speed up then adjust to a higher pitch and then activate the AP.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I climbed to 8000ft, and then retracted the flaps to zero. And from that point on the climb to 33,000ft was quite easy with 1800fpm to FL220 and 1000fpm to FL260 and finally 500fpm to FL330, then I then stepped three times at 300fpm up to my final cruise altitude of FL355. Climbing out of EGKK (Gatwick) is exhilarating, and the second officer call outs were very realistic. But you have to watch your speed and adjust the pitch to get the best performance to your climb.
 
Once the takeoff has commenced the UTC time will sync with your local time, and with the flightplan. Which is very useful in the context of distance and time to your destination, but also times to the next fix in the flightplan.
 
 
 
 
 
You can see the route profile by pressing the "North Ref" button on the panel. Here I am climbing higher than the plan, but I found the profile too shallow at the start and no altitude steps in there, you can of course adjust that, but you would need to work out your best profile for that in advance. But for now a few manual fights would give me the numbers to better adjust the profile later to my liking.
 
 
 
 
 
TOC (Top of Cruise) is noted on the flightplan and on your Nav display
 
 
 
 
 
The A330-243 looks magnificent in the air, a simply beautiful aircraft, with the HDR on the aircraft glows. There are two blinds that can be pulled down with one on the front window or side blind on the front side window. The drop down blind is excellent as it can be positioned in just the place you want.
 
Cockpit lighting is first rate, with fully adjustable panel lighting (and drop down), instrument highlight lighting, overhead main cockpit lighting (very real) and four spot lights that are adjustable for brightness.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Cabin lighting internally is excellent, very realistic and the external lighting also very good, certainly the view through the cabin windows, but the Logo tail light didn't work with HDR on?
 
 
 

 
As the European Alps drew nearer, you think about how good this aircraft really is, sounds are very good in most instances, from the startup, cockpit, take off and cruise sounds, but the external is a very focused 3d sound and towards the tail, good but feels a little blank everywhere else. But there is a way included to customise soundsets and build your own sound effects for the aircraft. Internal announcements are automatic so you don't need a separate "announcement" menu, I find this way far better as you don't have to do anything and they are highly realistic in the background. Call outs are excellent right across the board (If a little loud).
 
 
 
 
 
There is "Fault Panel" listed in the MCDU menu, and you can turn it on or off on the menu, and you can also in this menu on the MCDU adjust the sound settings, Turbulence on/off (be careful you don't over do the turbulence with the X-Plane weather settings, because you can easily send the aircraft into a spin?) and the Shake Camera on/off setting (which we will come to on landing). The sound settings is comprehensive, so you can find the volumes that you would easily like.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Liveries
There is only one livery with the aircraft, the default Airbus "House" livery...  However like with the A320neo there is a smorgasboard of liveries available from the JARDesign site or from the X-Plane.Org, and all are free...  here is a small selection.
 



 
Panel
The main Flight Display for the PFD (Primary Flight Display) is pure airbus with Normal Law, Alternate Law and Direct Law...  Speed tapes and altitude tapes with V/S Vertical Speed pointers are all standard Airbus issue. The Navigation Display (ND) has everything you need with "Rose" functions Standard, VOR and ILS. ARC and PLAN positions are also available and note the detailing of the current timer noted in the ND display. ADF and VOR selections are also available and can be set either via the radio panel or MCDU Radio page (Which is quicker)
 
 
 
 
 
All instrument displays are complex, adjustable and highly realistic...   I will note again that to get the best out of the displays and for the display of information, it is all in the MCDU set up. So it is important to get that right at the start of the flight.
 
You can see the local map view (directly down) on the ND in the air, by pressing the "Terr on ND" button, handy if you want see if you are flying over a certain place or city. A note to set the VOR on the radio. Mostly we use the ARR VOR (OST - OSTIA 114.90) to show our distance and position to the ARR airport. But it is best to set the VOR on the Radio on the pedestal and not the one in the MCDU? You get a lock C-O to note the VOR Freq and it sets the VOR Frequency not on the right, but the left top of the FMC? Just make sure it is locked in to the correct placement point. There is a PROG (Progress) page, but it isn't as good as what you get on the Boeings, just some altitudes and the distance to next waypoint? 
 
 
 
 
 
Time to go down as we are reaching the point on the flight profile of ToC (Top of Cruise) which is shown on the ND and the MCDU display. I followed the flightplan profile down directly but I was not happy with it? It put me too high were I should have been 5000ft lower and slower. I corrected it manually, but be careful if you don't adjust the flightplan and follow it blindly by having faith in it. No doubt these are significant areas for adjustment to your flightplan and flight planning.
 
 
 
 
 
Rome is visual now, but we are landing to the south of LIRF and the passengers get a closer view of Italy. Now into the STAR we pass RATIR fix and turn out to the coast at a projected 3000ft.
 
 
 
 
 
On finals and I found I was too fast and needed to adjust the speed manually. You require the LS button active to show the vertical and horizontal ILS alignments on the PFD...  Then pressing APP to lock onto ILS34L... note again that you select the right runway from the ARR list selection? Get that wrong and your frustration in a non-lock will totally ruin your landing? 
 
 
 
Ready for landing, I set my speed to 171knts and arm the "airbrakes". It is just a very small arrow that you push to do the actual arming, so make sure that they are armed by the Warning Display E/WD on the panel.
 
 
 
 
 
ILS34L capture is on the money and I adjust my speed down to 162knts, Gear down and the rear bogies cantor back. Height call outs are excellent and at 200ft the Auto "Land" takes over and is displayed on the PRD...  nice flare and your down. Don't fight the aircraft in the landing sequence, it does a very good job for you, so just go along for the ride.
 
 
 
 
 
On landing your world starts to shake!  And then vibrate madly as it does on a real landing. This is the "Shake Camera" feature, and works...  really well. very realistic. Sadly the image does not does do the action justice. Engine thrust reversers are the "open" the doors then throttle up control, throttle down and disconnect and work very well and are highly effective on running off the speed, you get a clap from the passengers if you get it all right...
 
 
 
 
 
Clean up and taxi nicely to the gate...  Engine shutdown and open up the aircraft and cargo doors. How good was that flight...  simply brilliant.
 
 
 
The Airbus A330 is a medium wide-body twin-engine jet airliner made by Airbus, a division of Airbus Group. Versions of the A330 have a range of 7,400 to 13,430 kilometres (4,000 to 7,250 nmi) and can accommodate up to 335 passengers in a two-class layout or carry 70 tonnes (150,000 lb) of cargo. The A330-300, the first variant, took its maiden flight in November 1992 and entered passenger service with Air Inter in January 1994. Responding to dwindling sales, Airbus followed up with the slightly shorter A330-200 variant in 1998 which is the aircraft here.
As of January 2015, A330 orders stand at 1,352, of which 1,159 have been delivered. This A330ceo (current engine option) since 2014) is to be replaced by the A330neo, which includes new engines and other improvements, and on 19 November 2014, Delta Air Lines became the first airline to announce a firm order for the Airbus A330neo by ordering 25 A330-900neo aircraft.
 
Specifications A330-200: Max speed - Mach 0.86 (913 km/h or 493 kn or 567 mph at 11,000 m or 36,000 ft cruise altitude) : Cruise Speed - Mach 0.82 (871 km/h or 470 kn or 541 mph at 11,000 m or 36,000 ft cruise altitude) : Range - 13,400 km (7,200 nmi) : Service Ceiling - 12,527 m (41,100 ft) - Max 13,000 ((42,651 ft)) : MTOW - 242,000 kg (534,000 lb).
 
Summary
There is no doubt this Airbus A330-243 from JARDesign is aimed at the upper professional market. That is not saying anyone can fly this aircraft, because they can. But it is a professional aircraft and demands time to get the full rewards and flying profiles to really understand what you have here...  Preflight, there is a lot to do and insert in data, and you have to dot all your i's and cross all your t's to see what you want in the simulation. The "Hot Start" feature is hugely welcome and even programming the MCDU is quite easy once you understand the process. But you really have to commit to study of Airbus manuals and flight profiles to understand how the systems all work and set up the correct flight configurations, because mostly everything that a real A330 does is in here as well, so you have to approach the aircraft from that perspective.
 
In features and quality you have a smorgasbord (that word again) and brilliant animations abound, and the quality is outstanding on everything from the extreme detailing of the aircraft to the clever ground equipment and even that "shake" on landing will bring a smile to your face...  its brilliant, but very complex so expect a few bugs with the early releases. I actually found and why I made those study notes is because the more you know the aircraft the less things can look like actual issues, like I mentioned time and familiarity with the aircraft does in every case fixes things that can go wrong (or look like they are going wrong) like with the case of a simple thing of selecting the wrong runway selection in the process of building your flightplan. If you understand that point, you understand what I am try to demonstrate about what this A330-200 is all about...  "The devil is certainly deep in the details" 
 
No doubt the JARDesign A330-243 is one of the best X-Plane investments, you will want nothing else to fly in this category and the aircraft will return years of great simulation flying and a great hangar companion to the JARDesign A320neo, If you loved the A320neo, then the A330-243 will put you into a seventh heaven...  Its that good....   a simply superb aircraft....
 
_____________________________________________________________________________________

 
 
The Airbus A330-243 by JARDesign is now available from the X-Plane.Org Store here :
 
Airbus A330-243 
 
and is priced at only US$60.95
 
It is noted that only a WINDOWS version is available at this time. I am Mac OS and I had very few issues with the aircraft, but one does stand out. I found that if you move the aircraft via the X-Plane Local Map or place the aircraft at a gate via the airports selection it will crash! The issue to me is that the SASL plugin does not restart cleanly when the aircraft is moved within X-Plane?   A start up from the desktop (Or clean start as I call it) will give you no issues.
 
Installation : Download is 301.70mb that is unzipped to 467.20mb to your X-Plane - "Heavy Aircraft" Folder. Online key activation and serial number required.(I recommend a full desktop restart to reset the SASL plugin after key activation!)
It is advised that you require a for best performance, you need a 3Gb Video Card? I found that frame-rate is very good and performance is on par with the Flight Factor professional aircraft (B777/B757). HDR can be limited, but otherwise I found the aircraft ran perfectly well with my settings and computer specifications with no limitations except the usual scenery and weather pull downs.
 
I found a very good pilot briefing manual for the A330-200 Aircraft... 7.03mb
 
A330_Flight_Deck_and_Systems_Briefing_For_Pilots.pdf
 
Requirements:
Windows only at this time! (Mac coming soon)
X-Plane 10.35+, with HDR mode ON, 
CPU: 2,4Ghz Multi-core. 
Memory: 8 GB RAM. Video Card: 2Gb VRAM. 
64 bit OS 
high-precision joystick, rudder pedals, throttle controller (separate throttle controllers not support now). 
For best performance, you need a 3Gb Video Card
 
Features
    Detailed Virtual cockpit
    Detailed Exterior
    Ground equipment included: Tow tractor, fuel truck, stairways, catering truck are included in pack and managed from menu.
 
Systems Simulated:
     Air Conditioning, Pressurization
    APU , Auto Flight , Communications , Doors , Electrical , Equipment , Flight Controls , Oxygen
    Fuel , Hydraulic , Ice and Rain Protection , Indicating Recording Systems , Landing Gear , Lights
    Navigation  , Pneumatic , Power Plant.
Tested by real Airbus pilots
    Real Airbus pilots and technicians helped in the development and testing.
New 3D-sound engine
    An easy way to customize soundest and build your own sound effects.
Navigation Data
    The A330 comes with the NavDataPro dataset by Aerosoft.
 
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Developer site : JARDesign Group

Review by Stephen Dutton
 
17th April 2015
 
Copyright©2015: X-Plane Reviews
 
Review System Specifications:
Computer System:     
- 2.66 Ghz Intel Core i5 iMac 27”
- 9 Gb 1067 Mhz DDR3
- ATI Radeon HD 6970M 2048 mb
- Seagate 256gb SSD 
Software:   
- Mac OS Yosemite 10.10.1
- X-Plane 10 Global ver 10.35 (final)
Addons
- Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick and Throttle
- Bose - Soundlink Mini
Scenery
- EGKK - Gatwick Airport, United Kingdom by tdg (X-Plane.org) - Free
- LIRF - Roma Fiumicino Leonardo Da Vinci Airport 3.01 by Seaman2020 (original work by wehrlipub) (X-Plane.org) - Free

 

Airport Review : LYBE - Belgrade “Nikola Tesla” Airport v1 by MB Sceneries
 
X-Plane Reviews did a review on LYBE - Belgrade “Nikola Tesla” Airport in February this year. It was originally published by SkyHighSim in X-Plane as a conversion from their Belgrade X FS Scenery of the same name. Then just as SkyHighSim came they went again as they went out of the simulation scenery business, not only in X-Plane but their original FS markets as well. The scenery was picked up by MB Sceneries (Who did most of the X-Plane conversion anyway) and now LYBE - Belgrade “Nikola Tesla” Airport has been released (or relisted) as a version v1 updated scenery.
 
X-Plane Reviews has updated here the original review to represent the current scenery and the changes between the two releases.

(Googlemaps®)
 

IATA: BEG – ICAO: LYBE
12/30  3,400m  (11,155ft)  Asphalt/concrete
Elevation AMSL 102 m / 336 ft
 
History
Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport - Aerodrom Beograd - Nikola Tesla) (IATA: BEG, ICAO: LYBE), is an international airport serving Belgrade, Serbia. The airport is situated 18 km (11 mi) west of Belgrade center in the municipality of Surčin, surrounded by Srem's fertile lowlands. The national flag carrier and largest airline of Serbia, Air Serbia (former Jat Airways), uses Belgrade Nikola Tesla as their hub, it is also one of the operating bases for low cost airline Wizz Air. Charter airline Aviogenex along with the air taxi services Air Pink, Jat Airways AVIO taxi and Prince Aviation also call the airport their home. Originally LYBE was officially known as the Belgrade International Airport (also known as Dojno polje Airport) was opened on 25 March 1927. From February 1928, aircraft owned by the first local airline Aeroput started taking off from the new airport. The airport's landing strip consisted of four grass runways between 1,100 and 2,900 m (3,609 and 9,514 ft) long. The project for reinforced concrete hangar was made by Serbian scientist Milutin Milanković, known more for his theory of climate change. A modern terminal building was built in 1931, and in 1936 poor visibility conditions landing equipment was installed. Constant traffic increases and the appearance of passenger jet planes demanded a significant larger airport. In the meantime there was a plan to build a residential and business district called Novi Beograd, where the airport was located. Thus, it was decided that a new international airport should be constructed near the village of Surčin. The last flight to depart from the old airport was at the beginning of 1964. The new location for the airport was on the Surčin plateau 12 km (7 mi) from Belgrade's city center.
 
Building of the new airport started in April 1958 and lasted until 28 April 1962, when it was officially opened by President Josip Broz Tito. During that period a 3,000 m (9,843 ft) long runway was built with the parallel taxiway and concrete aprons for sixteen planes. The passenger terminal building occupied an area of 8,000 m² (2 acres). Cargo storage were also built, as well as a technical block with the air traffic control tower and other accompanying facilities. Modern navigational equipment was installed, earning the airport the highest international classification according to the International Civil Aviation Organization. Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport has two terminals, with a reconstructed Terminal 2 opened since 14 May 2006.
 
First Impressions


 
Approaching LYBE from the south-east the airport is now harder to distinguish out from the flat plain area surrounding it. If you had bought LYBE or read the earlier review you would have seen the extremely bright different textures contrasting against the X-Plane default scenery It looked like the airport authorities have sprayed tons of Agent Orange/Dioxin to kill any foliage around the airport and totally succeeded in turning it into an almost ungainly strange yellow/green colour? That is all gone in v1 as the textures are now all compatible your surroundings and now very nicely blend in with their surroundings. Approaching RWY12 you fly over E-70 highway and the main airport buildings are on your right with the "Museum of Aviation" UFO shaped building standing out from the rest. There is only a single runway here in 12//30 and the textures are excellent as is the approach area. Taxiways and signage are excellent, but it is a long taxi ride to the terminal area on Taxiway A from landing on RWY12...  but I really liked the taxiway textures and linage. The surrounding photo textures are also very good, but have no top side grass.
 

 
There are both airbridges/jetways and hard stand areas on the ramps at LYBE. A1 - A10 is the main Terminal A and C1 - C6 is for the adjacent 90º angled Terminal C. B1 - B7 are the hardstand areas opposite Terminal A and I was given B2 for my KLM Fokker F27. Once parked I found the hard stand well equipped and ready for me with a set of stairs and bollards. All throughout the scenery the ramp equipment is excellent, prolific and extremely very well laid out, there is no wanting there in that case. internal taxiway and ramp lineage is also well laid out and easy to follow.
 
LYBE - Belgrade Overview
 


 
In the last few years, X-Plane scenery has become far better in creating that overall environment feeling. And here at LYBE you can see why it works so well. From a distance or close up on the approach or taxiing on the ground the airport boundaries are not clearly defined anymore and that is a great thing for realism. Certainly payware scenery should be good at this blending, but it is still gratifying when you see it has been done right.
 
Terminals
The two terminals are in a way buried inside the L shaped rows of gates with the long part of the L the "A" gates and the short part of the L (90º) for Terminal Two for the "C" gates. There is great detailing on the airbridges and on all the ramp areas. The airbridges don't move but parking is easy. On the ground the ramps are highly realistic and feel busy, but there are no animations like moving buses.
 


 
In the terminal arrival areas you can see the different old and new terminals easily and the quality and design of all the terminal buildings and their extensions are excellent with the original winged Terminal One looking very well done... Without those earlier glaring textures the arrival areas and carparks are also far better. All the airport support buildings and offices are well represented...
 

 
...  with the distinctive "Museum of Aviation" (formerly the Yugoslav Aeronautical Museum) is the spacecraft looking museum which is the significant building here standing out, and it is well done but not highly reflective like the real version. The museum owns over 200 aircraft previously operated by the Yugoslav Air Force, Serbian Air Force, and others, as well as aircraft previously flown by several civil airlines.  It also houses the only known surviving example of the Fiat G.50. A regular early visitor to Belgrade Airport in the Sud-Aviation SE-210 Caravelle is displayed outside the museum.
 

 
Far left of the terminal area is the brick cargo building and admin block, cargo ramp is also well stocked. There is a large General Aviation area parking in front of the building, but if you fill it up it restricts movement to the cargo bays?
 
The control tower is front and center. And I like the old style design that is created here. Tower View has been fixed as well from the original version, you can see all the ramps and the runway, but there is an obstruction to the rear...   But this is not an important viewpoint.
 


 
Middle field is the Fire Station and GA parking, and large old impressive JAT maintenance hangars and engine test bay.
 


 
Detailing is good in the old commercial area and with factory with a very dirty bad environmental smoking record and you have three old prop airliners with grass growing around their wheels.
 
Road systems are excellent and have great flow around the airport... and into the airport to a point. Airport road approach has great signage and great flowing traffic on E-70 motorway.
 

 
It makes a difference on how you set the amount of objects to be displayed. Set your "Number of Objects" too low and the ramps are virtually empty, reset at a higher setting and they fill out very nicely. You have the choice to have the "static" aircraft on or off (details in installation below) for the VATSIM and online flying users.
 

 
Departure
I left LYBE to return to LOWW Wien (Vienna) and changed aircraft to the A320 bus. From the cockpit LYBE looks good. A few vehicle animations and the latest X-Plane airport features of marshal's would work very well here.
 



 
I'll be back at LYBE in three hours!
 
Nightlighting
Approach to RWY 12 at dusk gives you a very different feeling than when you left....
 


 
Runway lighting is simply first rate with a rail system working for you.  After landing the taxiway lighting is one of the best I have seen yet, great coloured centerline lights to guide you and flashing warning and stop lights of were you can't go.
 

 
Taxi into the terminal area and you have to be impressed. Ramp lighting is about perfect and highly realistic.
 


 
From above the lighting is excellent with different airport areas illuminated perfectly.
 

 
Off ramp areas and outer arrival building spaces are also really good and very well laid out.
 


 
Overall the runway, taxiway and distance lighting is very good and close to perfect.
 

 
Services
A lot of choice in services to mostly all of Europe, Northern Scandinavia, Russian Block countries and as far as the middle east in Dubai and Abu-Dhabi
 
Aegean Airlines - Athens 
Aegean Airlines operated by Olympic Air - Athens 
Aeroflot - Moscow-Sheremetyevo  2
Air Cairo - Hurghada 
Air Serbia - Abu Dhabi, Amsterdam, Athens, Banja Luka, Beirut, Berlin-Tegel, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Copenhagen, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Istanbul-Atatürk, Larnaca, Ljubljana, London-Heathrow, Milan-Malpensa, Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Podgorica, Prague, Rome-Fiumicino, Sarajevo, Skopje, Sofia, Stockholm-Arlanda, Stuttgart, Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion, Thessaloniki, Tirana, Tivat, Vienna, Warsaw-Chopin, Zagreb, Zürich - Seasonal: Dubrovnik, Malta, Pula, Sochi, Split, Varna 
Alitalia - Rome-Fiumicino 
Austrian Airlines - Vienna 
Belavia - Budapest, Minsk-National 
Croatia Airlines - Seasonal: Split 
EasyJet Switzerland - Geneva
Etihad Airways - Abu Dhabi 
flydubai - Dubai-International
Germanwings - Seasonal: Stuttgart
LOT Polish Airlines - Warsaw-Chopin 
Lufthansa  - Frankfurt 
Lufthansa Regional operated by Lufthansa CityLine - Frankfurt, Munich 
Montenegro Airlines - Podgorica, Tivat
Norwegian Air Shuttle - Oslo-Gardermoen - Seasonal: Stockholm-Arlanda
Pegasus Airlines - Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen 
Qatar Airways - Doha
Swiss International Air Lines - Geneva, Zürich
TAROM - Bucharest
Tunisair - Enfidha, Tunis
Turkish Airlines - Istanbul-Atatürk 
Vueling - Seasonal: Barcelona 
Wizz Air - Basel/Mulhouse, Beauvais, Dortmund, Eindhoven, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Larnaca, London-Luton, Malmö, Memmingen, Stockholm-Skavsta
 
Cargo
CityLine - Hungary  Budapest
Czech Airlines operated by Farnair Switzerland - Prague, Sofia
EgyptAir Cargo - Cairo
RAF-Avia - Budapest
Silk Way West - Budapest, Kabul
Solinair - Ljubljana, Sarajevo
Swiftair - Cologne/Bonn
Turkish Airlines Cargo - Istanbul-Atatürk, Madrid
West Atlantic - Leipzig/Halle
 
Routes
1. Tivat Airport - Air Serbia, Montenegro Airlines
2. Podgorica Podgorica Airport - Air Serbia, Montenegro Airlines
3. Vienna  Schwechat Airport  Air Serbia, Austrian Airlines
4. Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport - Aeroflot, Air Serbia
5. Istanbul  Atatürk Airport and Sabiha Gökçen Airport - Air Serbia, Pegasus Airlines, Turkish Airlines
6. Zürich  Zürich Airport  - Air Serbia, Swiss International Airlines
7. Frankfurt  Frankfurt Airport - Air Serbia, Lufthansa
8. Athens Athens International Airport - Aegean Airlines, Air Serbia
9. Paris  Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport and Beauvais–Tillé Airport - Air Serbia, Wizz Air
10. Munich  Franz Josef Strauss Airport and Memmingen Airport - Lufthansa Regional, Wizzair
 
Airlines
1  Air Serbia - 2,347,923
2  Wizz Air - 415,590
3  Lufthansa - 283,867
4 Montenegro Airlines - 258,841
5  Swiss International Airlines - 203,518
 
Summary
In many ways this v1 of LYBE - Belgrade is quite different than the original. Certainly the majority of the basic converted FS items are still exactly the same, but the sorting out of the smaller issues and the glaringly obvious horrible green-yellow toxic textures has made this scenery a far better place to fly to.
 
Conversions from Flight Simulator/Prepar3D based scenery for X-Plane10 can be fraught with issues because from the start the scenery was not created for the style of X-Plane. X-Plane also has very different designs on features and if you think that a quick swap and place of your completed (and sometimes old) objects into the X-Plane scenario then you are going to get the very opposite of what you are aiming for in not having either a good conversion or worse something that looks totally horrible in X-Plane. The strange thing it is usually the very small things that gets missed in the conversion and are easily done in the first place. But get the conversion right and it will work very well in all simulators.
 
There are a lot of FSX style items and objects in this scenery that stand out. The buildings and Terminals are well transferred, but there are smaller items like radar towers that are quite FS in their design and so you get the radar domes floating in mid-air from a distance? and small stuff like that. And there are no real X-Plane features like animated autogates, vehicles or people that are a standard now in good scenery. Overall the conversion is excellent and this is very good scenery and highly realistic from the air and on the ground.
 
Lighting is very good and you will feel at home if you arrive on a late flight, ramp lighting, excellent runway lighting and the taxi lighting will give you a really good feeling of a place and an airport.
 
Frame-rates are good, there is a very slight soft look and feel that comes with all FS converted scenery buildings, but that is a great tradeoff in frame-rate as the scenery is refined to get maximum of as a little impact as possible on your computer demands, certainly if you crank your settings very high in the texture resolution it will be noticed, but overall it is very good.
 
This updated v1 scenery LYBE - Belgrade Airport scenery fixed mostly all the issues with the original release. And LYBE is even better now and even better value as well as it is at a lower price...  and also available at the X-Plane.OrgStore rather than the download from SkyHighSim. So yes LYBE - Belgrade is a great addition to your collection and a great investment.
 

 
LYBE - Belgrade “Nikola Tesla” Airport v1 by MB Sceneries is now available from the New X-Plane.Org Store here : LYBE - “Nikola Tesla” Belgrade Airport and is priced at only US$16.00 
 
Note : MB Sceneries are working on a deal for all older original purchasers to be able to upgrade from the SkyHighSim product to the MB Sceneries v2 version, I will note here when the situation has been clarified.
 
Installation : Download is 108.40mb that is unzipped to 568.40mb and is placed in your Custom Scenery folder. "Static" aircraft can be inserted or removed by changing over your "apt.dat" folder in the scenery, both "on" and "off" versions are supplied in the "MODS" folder. And full instructions are provided in the manual. If you want the ghastly FS textures then they are available in the "MODS" folder as "Vivid". Just replace the "Overlay" images in the MBS_Overlay folder. There is a set of standard images supplied if you want to go back to normal textures.
 

 
Documentation : One Manual (That includes two charts)
 
Features:
 
    Photoreal scenery
    High detailed dynamic and animated objects
    High detailed static aircraft
    Custom HDR lightning
    Taxiways, runway and apron with realistic rendered textures
 
Update Review by Stephen Dutton
 
25th May 2015
 
Copyright©2015: X-Plane Reviews
 
Review System Specifications:
Computer System:     
- 2.66 Ghz Intel Core i5 iMac 27”
- 9 Gb 1067 Mhz DDR3
- ATI Radeon HD 6970M 2048 mb
- Seagate 512gb SSD 
Software:     
- Mac OS Yosemite 10.10.1
- X-Plane 10 Global ver 10.32 (final)
Addons
- Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick and Throttle
- Bose - Soundlink Mini
Aircraft
- Airbus A320-214 CFM Engine by Peters Aircraft (X-Plane.OrgStore) US$54.90
- Fokker F27-600 by atgcab (X-Plane.Org) Free!
 

Yes I saw that deal?  €5  Seems very cheap for a good scenery like this? I didn't note it as I thought the deal won't last long at that price.

Airport Review : LYBE - Belgrade “Nikola Tesla” Airport by SkyHighSim
 
After a bit of a lull, over the last few months there has been a few new entrants in supplying scenery for X-Plane10 that has been converted over from their FSX/Prepar3D versions. One company is Drzewiecki Design and we will cover their scenery over the next month or so, but first here is another to put their first designs down in the X-Plane10 simulator in SkyHighSim. The first release is LYBE - Belgrade Airport in Serbia known as “Nikola Tesla”.
 

(Googlemaps®)
 

12/30  3,400m  (11,155ft)  Asphalt/concrete
Elevation AMSL  102 m / 336 ft
 
History
Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport - Aerodrom Beograd - Nikola Tesla) (IATA: BEG, ICAO: LYBE), is an international airport serving Belgrade, Serbia. The airport is situated 18 km (11 mi) west of Belgrade center in the municipality of Surčin, surrounded by Srem's fertile lowlands. The national flag carrier and largest airline of Serbia, Air Serbia (former Jat Airways), uses Belgrade Nikola Tesla as their hub, it is also one of the operating bases for low cost airline Wizz Air. Charter airline Aviogenex along with the air taxi services Air Pink, Jat Airways AVIO taxi and Prince Aviation also call the airport their home. Originally LYBE was officially known as the Belgrade International Airport (also known as Dojno polje Airport) was opened on 25 March 1927. From February 1928, aircraft owned by the first local airline Aeroput started taking off from the new airport. The airport's landing strip consisted of four grass runways between 1,100 and 2,900 m (3,609 and 9,514 ft) long. The project for reinforced concrete hangar was made by Serbian scientist Milutin Milanković, known more for his theory of climate change. A modern terminal building was built in 1931, and in 1936 poor visibility conditions landing equipment was installed. Constant traffic increases and the appearance of passenger jet planes demanded a significant larger airport. In the meantime there was a plan to build a residential and business district called Novi Beograd, where the airport was located. Thus, it was decided that a new international airport should be constructed near the village of Surčin. The last flight to depart from the old airport was at the beginning of 1964. The new location for the airport was on the Surčin plateau 12 km (7 mi) from Belgrade's city center.
 
Building of the new airport started in April 1958 and lasted until 28 April 1962, when it was officially opened by President Josip Broz Tito. During that period a 3,000 m (9,843 ft) long runway was built with the parallel taxiway and concrete aprons for sixteen planes. The passenger terminal building occupied an area of 8,000 m² (2 acres). Cargo storage were also built, as well as a technical block with the air traffic control tower and other accompanying facilities. Modern navigational equipment was installed, earning the airport the highest international classification according to the International Civil Aviation Organization. Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport has two terminals, with a reconstructed Terminal 2 opened since 14 May 2006.
 
SkyHighSim LYBE - Belgrade
 


 
Approaching LYBE from the south-east the airport is not hard to distinguish out from the flat plain area surrounding it. The airport's surrounding surfaces are a very different texture from the X-Plane default scenery. (Are they original FSX photo textures?) They have been blended in with the default textures quite well, but the colouring is totally different. It looks like the airport authorities have sprayed tons of Agent Orange/Dioxin to kill any foliage around the airport and totally succeeded in turning it into an almost ungainly strange yellow/green colour? Even when on the ground it looks very bright sitting in the middle of it all. Taxiways and signage is excellent, but it is a long taxi to the terminal area on Taxiway A from landing on RWY 12.
 
There are both airbridges/jetways and hard stand areas. A1 - A10 main terminal A and C1 -C6 for Terminal C. B1 - B7 are the hardstand areas opposite and I was given B3 for my Fokker F27. Once parked I found the hard stand well equipped and ready for me with a bus and baggage cart waiting for my passengers. All through the scenery the ramp equipment is excellent, prolific and extremely very well laid out, there is no wanting there in that case. taxiway and ramp lineage is also well laid out and easy to follow.
 



 
The scenery is highly comprehensive with the terminal areas and extensive maintenance ramp with its large hangars for JAT (now Air Serbia) front and center. There is a large commercial district to the rear of the JAT hangars with a puffing chimney stack puffing away in the background.
 




 
The two terminals are in a way buried inside the L shaped rows of gates with the long part of the L the A gates and the short out part of the L terminal two for the C gates. Quality and design of all the terminal buildings and their extensions are excellent with the original winged Terminal One looking very well done. There is great detailing on the airbridges and on all the ramp areas. The airbridges don't move but parking is easy. On the ground the ramps are highly realistic and feel busy.
 

 

 
The only odd thing is there is a gap between the A airbridges and the terminal? It is even highly noticeable even from cockpit when parking the aircraft?
 

 
Far left of the terminal area is the brick cargo building and admin block, cargo ramp is also well stocked. There is a General Aviation area parking in front of the building, but if you fill it up it restricts movement to the cargo bays?
 
The control tower is front and center. But the X-Plane tower view is at ground level (or not set at all) buried between gates in the second image?
 


 
The distinctive "Museum of Aviation" (formerly the Yugoslav Aeronautical Museum) is spacecraft looking museum  and is well done but not highly reflective like the real version. The museum owns over 200 aircraft previously operated by the Yugoslav Air Force, Serbian Air Force, and others, as well as aircraft previously flown by several civil airlines.  It also houses the only known surviving example of the Fiat G.50. A regular early visitor to Belgrade Airport in the Sud-Aviation SE-210 Caravelle is displayed outside the museum.
 
Middle field is the Fire Station, and old JAT maintenance hangars.
 



 
Detailing is good in the commercial area and you have three old prop airliners with grass growing around their wheels.
 

 
It makes a difference on how you set the amount of objects to be displayed. Set your "Number of Objects" too low and the ramps are virtually empty, reset at a higher setting and they fill out very nicely. You have the choice to have the "static" aircraft on or off (details in installation below) for the VATSIM and online flying users.
 

 
Road systems are excellent and have great flow around the airport... and into the airport to a point. Airport road approach has great signage.
 
Departure
I left LYBE to return to LOWW Wien (Vienna) and changed aircraft to the A320 bus.
 

 
From the cockpit LYBE looks good. A few vehicle animations and the latest X-Plane airport features of marshal's would work very well here. 
 


 
I'll be back at LYBE in three hours!
 
Nightlighting
Approach to RWY 12 at dusk gives you a very different feeling than when you left....
 


 
Runway lighting is simply first rate with a rail system working for you.  After landing the taxiway lighting is one of the best I have seen yet, great coloured centerline lights to guide you and flashing warning and stop lights of were you can't go.
 

 
Taxi into the terminal area and you have to be impressed. Ramp lighting is about perfect and highly realistic.
 


 
From above the lighting is excellent with different airport areas illuminated perfectly.
 

 
Off ramp areas and outer arrival building spaces are also really good and very well laid out.
 


 
Overall the runway, taxiway and distance lighting is very good and close to perfect.
 

 
Summary
Conversions from Flight Simulator/Prepar3D based scenery for X-Plane10 can be fraught with issues because from the start the scenery was not created for the style of X-Plane. X-Plane also has very different designs on features and if you think that a quick swap and place of your completed (and sometimes old) objects into the X-Plane scenario then you are going to get the very opposite of what you are aiming for in not having either a good conversion or worse something that looks totally horrible in X-Plane. The strange thing it is usually the very small things that gets missed in the conversion and are easily done in the first place. But get the conversion right and it will work very well in all simulators.
 
Frame-rates are good, there is a very slight soft look and feel that comes with all FS converted scenery buildings, but that is a great tradeoff in frame-rate as the scenery is refined to get maximum of as a little impact as possible on your computer demands, certainly if you crank your settings very high in the texture resolution it will be noticed, but overall it is very good.
 
So how did SkyHighSim do on their first X-Plane conversion? Well very good indeed as this LYBE - Belgrade is very good scenery. But...  and there is a but here in that it came very close to being almost perfect as well in an FSX design sort of way.
 
Very small correctable mistakes in the X-Plane tower view and the gaps between the airbridges and the terminal which is noted by SkyHighSim as a small technical issue in the conversion. But the real issue is the ground textures? Many users will overlook this and say "I don't have an issue" with them and even like them in a Flight Simulator sort of rose coloured glasses point of view. And in many areas in here the green grass areas are quite normal. My personal preference is I like my scenery to flow, and that the airport (or scenery) almost blends in totally with the whole area as one. If these textures had been toned down closer to the default scenery, I think this scenery would have been close to perfect as at night with all that amazing lighting it is simply excellent. But this is a personal choice.
 
In every area the LYBE - Belgrade Airport scenery is so very good and certainly a welcome addition to the X-Plane10 flying world. Good value as well...  but can you live with that saturated ground texture colouring? 
 
LYBE - Belgrade “Nikola Tesla” Airport by SkyHighSim is now available from the SkyHighSim site  : Belgrade Airport for X-Plane and is priced at only Euro €18.00 
 
Installation : Download is 113.10mb that is unzipped to 449.10mb and is placed in your Custom Scenery folder. "Static" aircraft can be inserted or removed by changing over your "apt.dat" folder in the scenery, both "on" and "off" versions are supplied. And full instructions are provided in the manual
 

 
Documents : The scenery comes with a full set of LYBE Charts (Jeppesen) and a manual (not shown).
 

 
Developer Site : SkyHighSim
 
Features :
Photoreal scenery High detailed dynamic and animated objects High detailed static aircraft Custom HDR lightning Taxiways, runway and apron with realistic rendered textures Requirements:
XPlane 10.30 or newer 500MB free disk space .NET framework 3.5 (Microsoft Windows users) side note : I went and revised the ground textures to see what the difference would be like?  Images are here if you want to compare the textures with the official version...
 


 
Review by Stephen Dutton
 
11th February 2015
 
Copyright©2015: X-Plane Reviews
 
Review System Specifications:
Computer System:     
- 2.66 Ghz Intel Core i5 iMac 27”
- 6 Gb 1067 Mhz DDR3
- ATI Radeon HD 6970M 2048 mb
- Seagate 256gb SSD 
Software:     
- Mac OS Yosemite 10.10.1
- X-Plane 10 Global ver 10.32 (final)
Addons
- Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick and Throttle
- Bose - Soundlink Mini
Aircraft
- Airbus A320-214 CFM Engine by Peters Aircraft (X-Plane.OrgStore) US$54.90
- Fokker F27-600 by atgcab (X-Plane.Org) Free!