NZFF

My shiny airbus is installed, all worked exactly as the quick start guide said it would. That alone is a nice surprise

Clicking the "more info about purchasing" button got me a 170mb flight1 wrapper which installed as smoothly as they all do. As well as installing the plane it gave me a config utility ('tablet pc') which sent off my flight-1 cert number and activated the plane then allowed me to download liveries and the first of the promised patches. No previews on the liveries unfortunately, just the descriptions, and they're not in any sort of order so you have to look through pages and pages to see if the one you want is there. There's no ANZ paint yet although a few people have requested it.

Tablet PC includes a basic fuel planner (input the distance and cruise alt, and it gives you ZFW, fuel required and max payload), a load manager which lets you set the passenger and cargo load then gives you your weights and tells you how to distribute the fuel, and a takeoff calculator. I've never bothered with such things (fuel and engines are cheap at my airline and damn the neighbours, they shouldn't have built under a flightpath) but maybe I'll have to start. Tablet PC is also available from within FS9 while the plane is loaded although you can only get to the trip planning functions, and it looks like changes in Tablet PC are automatically applied to the current flight.

I haven't had time to go for a fly yet (tutorial flight scheduled for tonight ) but dang it looks pretty !

Gary

Im Still not sure Gary , it still dont look quite right . I'll be looking forward for your report .

Gary looks like you will have your hands full tonight be good to here a report into flight dynamics click able vc oh well the hold overall

Thanks Gary, look forward to you posting more about this one

Looks pretty good ... does it have a fully functional FMC?

For some reason I get some weird kick out of being able to program them. Call me strange, call me odd, but don't call me Shirley (for those of you with long memories!).

Things progress, very very slowly ...

Soon I hope to be at the point of taxying to the runway

A couple of observations to be going on with :
- pushback is buggy. If you're not holding your mouth the right way when you start it the push will continue forever. You can stop it with shift-P.
- Fsuipc completely buggers it. You have to disable anything that fsuipc has to do with the controllers (thank god for aircraft specific settings) and let fs9 detect and handle them. You have no idea how long it took me to work out that it was my #2 mixture lever holding the rudder hard over ... and then that all the levers on the TQ, including the throttle, did things. Some of them moved flight control surfaces, some of them moved switches and levers in the cockpit, one of them swore a lot then drank something nice starting with Bacard.. no, wait, that was me.
- there is a partly working FMC (or whatever bus drivers call them). LNAV works, and looks like the heavily techie bits work, but all the VNAV functions are reserved for the advanced version. VNAV seems to be one of the top 3 things that cause grief for PMDG users, so presumably it's just as much a cow to programme.

More to follow.

Gary

Chairman wrote:

QUOTE (Chairman @ Nov 15 2009, 02:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Things progress, very very slowly ...

Soon I hope to be at the point of taxying to the runway

A couple of observations to be going on with :
- pushback is buggy. If you're not holding your mouth the right way when you start it the push will continue forever. You can stop it with shift-P.
- Fsuipc completely buggers it. You have to disable anything that fsuipc has to do with the controllers (thank god for aircraft specific settings) and let fs9 detect and handle them. You have no idea how long it took me to work out that it was my #2 mixture lever holding the rudder hard over ... and then that all the levers on the TQ, including the throttle, did things. Some of them moved flight control surfaces, some of them moved switches and levers in the cockpit, one of them swore a lot then drank something nice starting with Bacard.. no, wait, that was me.
- there is a partly working FMC (or whatever bus drivers call them). LNAV works, and looks like the heavily techie bits work, but all the VNAV functions are reserved for the advanced version. VNAV seems to be one of the top 3 things that cause grief for PMDG users, so presumably it's just as much a cow to programme.

More to follow.

Gary

Sorry to here of the grief there Gary.
There is an issue with Livedispatch4 whereby the pushback can continue for an eternity and the suggestion is that there may be interference caused by another pushback program or gauge. Might be the same problem here.
When using FSUIPC for controller inputs did you disable the joystick in FS9? That can cause issues. I am surprised that you cannot map the controls to axis's and buttons. Is there nothing in the manual that helps with the set up?
I might just stick with my Project Airbus A320 with the Mitchell/VasFmc panel...only thing missing is accurate systems and Flex TO thrust....I can live with that until the FMGS on the bus is fully sorted.

Gary - loved your post ... though pity about all this FSUIPC and controller madness.

I'm having enough trouble at the moment taming "the beast" that is FSX, so I may wait till the dust settles a bit for this particular aircraft. My Wilco 737 will have to do for a while longer, thought the A320 appeals to me for no logical reason that I can think of.

Looking forward to your next "instalment"

The next installment is a bit of a fizzer really - I eventually got the plane powered up and out to the runway, then flew to the destination. I have some screenshots but they're on the sim machine and I'm at work at the moment

I did draw a few conclusions along the way :

1 - when it works properly, it's very nice. Unfortunately it's also very buggy. When they get the bugs out this will be a nice 'lite' airliner (albeit with no VNAV), well worth the US$40. As it is, it's a tantalising look at how good it could be, and how good the full version will eventually be.

2 - Airsimmers didn't really do themselves any favours releasing it in this state - there are a lot of very frustrated buyers out there who won't come back when it gets sorted or when the advanced version is done. Which is a shame, because it's a nice plane.

3 - I wouldn't recommend buying it until the bugs are sorted. It's beta software, plane and simple.

4 - Until the bugs are sorted remember that this is $40, for the same price you can have a Level-D 767, and for $45 you can have the PMDG 737-600/-700, both of those are mature, full featured and bug free, and what I'll be flying for the foreseeable future.

Cheers
Gary

Or wait and get the PMDG NGX....apparently being realsed in 2010.....finally, when was this announced?

You could, but that would be comparing apples and oranges.

The LD763 and the 737-600/-700 are currently available for FS9 (same as the airbus) at around $40 (same as the airbus). The NGX is still a distant speck on the horizon, will be released for FXS before FS9, and sure as heck won't be a $40 plane.

Cheers
Gary