FastCargo

There's another reason. This was set in the ini on purpose. The SA-10 has the ability to 'spoof' its transmitter location to an incoming ARM. The ini entry simulates this ability. FC

I can't answer the multiplayer component for Win7, but any of the Gen1 series (SFP1/WOV/WOE/WOI/FE) will work just fine on Win7 in both 32 and 64 bit with no modification. You may have to install DX9 from Microsoft, but that won't hurt anything. FC

I've run SF2 on a Dell Inspiron 9 with an Atom processor and 1GB RAM...WAY under the 'requirements' and got smooth frame rates. But I had to turn down everything graphics related to the minimums. It's always a matter of how well the game looks verses the frame rate that looks good enough for you. FC

The Navy has spent seven years testing out the components of a way-futuristic weapon: a shipboard cannon that blasts bullets over vast distances at hypersonic speeds using bursts of electricity. But so far, that weapon, known as the Electromagnetic Railgun, has been more of a lab experiment than an honest-to-God weapon. It didn’t even have basic gun-like features, like a barrel. Now, however, the Navy is unveiling the first actual railgun guns, which it’ll test for another five years, in the hope of winning over legislators who consider it a waste of time, money and electricity. Previous versions of the railgun have been laboratory test models, stored in a hangar at Dahlgren Naval Surface Warfare Center in Virginia. They look like shipping containers or school buses put up on blocks, hooked up like Frankenstein’s monster to giant generators that pump dozens of megajoules of energy necessary to fire the bullet. All that has cost nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. And you couldn’t fit any of it onto a ship, and it wouldn’t actually be a real weapon if you did. At least not until Jan. 30, when BAE Systems sent its first actual gun-shaped railgun to Dahlgren. Competitor General Atomics will send its own design there in April. Both designs have 12-meter barrels. “Now that looks like a real gun,” said Roger Ellis, the railgun chief for the Office of Naval Research, which has inaugurated the next phase of tests to determine the gun’s practicality — something many in Congress doubt. The Navy released video of the first tests, viewable above, on Tuesday. The dramatic mini-inferno in the wake of the slug fired from the railgun is the result of “1 million amps flowing through” the gun, said test chief Tom Boucher, the hypersonic speed of the shot, and the actual aluminum of the bullet — “reactive in the atmosphere” — burning off. It’s the next step in a process — an expensive one — the Navy hopes will lead to a whole new era of self defense for ships, and way, way long-range strikes from on deck by the early 2020s. The Navy’s current 5-inch deck guns top out at 13 kilometer ranges. By 2017, the Navy wants the railgun prototypes to fire several shots per minute without soaking up a ship’s juice. The idea behind the Electromagnetic Railgun is to fire a bullet at hypersonic speeds using dozens of megajoules of electricity. The Navy wants it to guard the surface ships of the 2020s, unsubtly boasting to adversaries that messing with the ships will lead to bullets shooting across hundreds of miles of ocean in mere minutes. The Office of Naval Research says it will give sailors “a dramatically increased multimission capability,” like fire support for land strikes over long, long distances beyond the reach of enemy defenses, and defense against “cruise and ballistic missiles” that target ships. No wonder the railgun’s official motto is “Velocitas Eradico” — “Speed Kills.” Lab tests have pleased the Navy, if not Congress. In December 2010, the Office of Naval Research fired a shot with 33 megajoules of energy, a world record, sending a 23-pound bullet 5500 feet in a single second. The Senate Armed Services Committee still found the science too impractical, and recommended killing the railgun, until a Navy congressional counterstrike revived the program. Now that the Navy has an actual prototype railgun to shoot, the plan is to hook it up to sensors and cameras to test its performance at 20 and 33 megajoules’ worth of energy. Its goal is produce accurate shots from 50 to 100 nautical mile distances, which the Navy wants by 2017. Even railgun advocates concede there are a host of other challenges the hypersonic weapon will have to overcome. Its barrel will have to withstand repeated fires without wearing out. (The Navy wants to up firing rates to 10 per minute.) It’s got to fire smart bullets without frying the guidance systems during a blast. (The Navy says both BAE and General Dynamics are starting to design “a next-generation thermally managed launcher.”) And it’s got to be affordable. (The Navy has spent $240 million on the railgun so far, and it expects to spend about as much through 2017 on tests — before buying a single one of the things.) Another big problem: the current generation of Destroyers can’t produce the power to fire the railgun without diverting juice from the propulsion systems. One of the goals of the railguns over the next five years is to create workarounds, so the guns will be relevant to their intended ships. Those include “an intermediate energy store using energy-dense batteries, similar to [those on] hybrid cars,” Ellis told reporters on a Tuesday conference call. “That enables us to put the railgun on ships that don’t have larger power supplies.” Which should underscore how the Navy really, really loves its railgun — enough to go to the mat with Congress about it and win. That’s not going to relent now that it actually has a real cannon to shoot. by Spencer Ackerman Wired Magazine Article

Isn't that correct for the A model? FC

You know, men used to compensate for...ahem...inadequacies with fast cars...right C5? (Don't you own a Corvette??) But now, it's all about the Hertz, RAM, and pixel pushing... Sigh...geeks...whatta going to do... FC

I don't remember this screenshot: I hope it's an ini edit only and the aircraft are not part of the ship LOD. FC

Okay, I can understand that. That still leaves MS leveraging their 'Flight' engine to use in a sim. The question is how much additional effort (ie money) would be needed to program an air combat version of the program. FC

But how much of that cost could already be paid for developing another project? Look at Microsoft (the upcoming Flight) Sony (Ace Combat). Now Flight we don't have a real good read on yet, and AC is an arcade shooter. But in both, a graphics engine, physics engine, and AI have already been developed. Obviously, AI, gameplay, and physics (for AC in particular) would have to be expanded upon. But a cold war aircraft certainly isn't any harder to build than a modern aircraft in a 3d engine. You wouldn't even have to get to TW level of fidelity to cause a serious competition problem for TK sims...remember who the audience could be. Also, it's not just the total budget dollars, but the fraction of total budget available for a genre. If TK nets 100k a year, 10k for say mission editor development is a significant fraction of investment (10%). But if MS nets 1M per year, even if they throw 20k at the same problem, it's far less of their overall budget (2%). And I'm pretty sure I'm being really conservative with how much money they could throw at the development. The only thing stopping them is the perception that the payoff is not worth the investment. I'm not in the gaming development trade, don't even pretend to be in the trade on an internet forum. So my ruminations may be way off base. But in my opinion, the logic is not unsound. FC

I'm going to don my tinfoil hat for a second (because it's warm...). What if TK does not WANT mass knowledge of his sim. Let me explain. One of the reasons TK is relatively successful is that he doesn't specialize into areas that other sims do. I'm not talking about sims from 10 years ago, I'm talking about now. Name one large sim company doing a combat sim about 60-70s aircraft. (sound of crickets chirping) Now, other than First Eagles (which was funded by someone else), TK stays strictly within that realm...no WWI, WWII, or ultra modern scenarios. Even aircraft where he has some overlap with guys like Eagle Dynamics (A-10, F-15), he stays toward the simpler avionics and gameplay. Now he's been very cagey about earnings and future plans too. So, lets think about this: 1) Little to no active advertising. 2) Specializes in aircraft that aren't in other military combat sims. 3) Prices are typically below other sims. 4) Doesn't reveal finances, other than 'We are always tight on money'. What if the concern is that all it takes is for another large game maker to step in if they realize the actual potential that segment of the market could have. Think about it...TK's budget probably doesn't get above a single percentage point of a large PC software maker's budget. What could be done if someone like Sony or Microsoft jumped in there...especially if they can leverage technologies already developed for their other, similar projects. Before someone says that TK could do better...it doesn't matter. Those sitting on the fence of buying a sim would probably buy from one of the big names because it's a known quantity. TK isn't a big name...and isn't ever going to be for the casual audience...he doesn't have the budget. As long as he's shown as a struggling indie flight sim maker, he's not considered a threat because that part of the market isn't considered a money maker. If that perception were to ever change by the big guys... I'd rather make steady money and keep off the radar, verses trying to make a big splash and painting a target on my forehead... FC

Why? How many mission editors have been released from 3rd parties? How many of everything else has been released? How much time was there to improve the 3rd party editors before TK released his product? If a mission editor was that needed, it would have sold. It didn't....both products that included it have sold poorly. Think about it...reskins and ini change DLCs have sold better than a mission editor. If the sales didn't cover the cost of making it, it was a bust. I see this on a hobby board I post on. The majority of members posting advice about what should sell, the company making said products which sell very poorly due to lack of audience. Board members think the are the 'pulse' of the market...but find they are badly out of touch. Do not assume you are the majority of the audience. FC

It may be part of the spine mesh. FC

Toryu, Thanks for that info on the panel...interesting to note. My understanding on our (admittedly early model) FADECs on some of our CF6s and PW4000s is that it doesn't prevent an overtemp at Firewall Power. And in fact, we have to watch out it doesn't try to transient overtemp itself on a hot, high day at calculated TOGA power. On the PW4000, it'll trim the N1 to match the calculated EPR, vs on the CF6 it'll just trim the N1 to match calculated N1. I could be wrong though. I understand the rationale behind the hard limits...I don't agree with them. You can have a hard limit aircraft available with a toggle to remove those limits. A pilot can have the understanding that by removing said limits, he could possibly break something major. My opinion is that if I'm removing that final safety...it's because I have calculated the consequences of having them are worse than the consequences of not having them. There has not been an engineer yet who has found every possible fault an aircraft (especially its software) can have. When the unexpected, unanticipated happens...I want the human in the loop to have the ultimate, final say so. That right there is a foul (in bold - my emphasis). In my opinion, ALL airline pilots should have upset-recovery, spatial disorientation, and altitude chamber training. Yes, you may only EVER see something like that happen in the aircraft once...but its wrong if that is the first time you have ever seen it in a heavy aircraft. As far as G's go...3.75g is 1.25g more that I can use if I really, Really, REALLY need it. And G-meters are easy to install... . Heck, you could even have it pop up during an aggressive pitch up (the computer recognizing that you are seriously trying to pull). FC

Toryu, Some great info there. Most of your conclusions about 'round dials' are correct...the main 2 that pilots tend to focus on are the quick general 'how goes it' glance and the 'sweep rate' (for rate of change) of the pointer. Both provide quick SA vs numbers only or tapes. Round dials main disadvantage is real estate, especially on flat screens where you have a lot of info you're trying to give the pilot in a minimum of space. Heh, reminds me of my college days. We had to come up with a project to design or redesign something using our Human Factors knowledge. I decided to take on GM and totally redesigned the mid-80s Corvette instrument panel to something far more human factors friendly, yet useful and sexy looking (big main gauges, sweep needles, no silly 85 MPH limit, etc). It ended up looking a lot like the next iteration of the panel....of course, they didn't change until the mid-90s.... Though we've had artifical feel in airliners almost since the advent of the jet, and FBW since the 757, I disagree that hard limits are appropriate for an airliner vs a fighter. Fighters are expected to operate at their limits quite often for obvious reasons, therefore, protections are more reasonable to have because you'll be going there a lot. Airliners on the other hand won't be near their limits except in extraordinary situations...to me it seems if I'm hitting that limit on purpose, there had better be a good reason. I would much rather have soft limits that I can overcome if I really, REALLY want to. A prime example is the B-1B. Due to certain aerodynamic features, the B-1B has a quirk where if you fully stall the aircraft, it is now considered unrecoverable. There are details I can tell you as to why, but suffice it to say, you do not EVER stall the aircraft or you will crash. But, the B-1B does not have a hard load/AOA limit. What it does have are protections in place that will give audio and visual warnings, and will start taking out the pilot inputs as the limit approaches. There are 3 seperate, increasingly difficult to overcome channels in fact. The upshot is that the stick requires more and more force to pull back as you reach the limit, to the point of almost requiring both hands to do it. BUT, it can be overcome by the pilot if he really, REALLY thinks he needs every last degree of AOA. In the almost 30 years of operation of the B-1B, there has not been a crash due to a pilot stalling the aircraft, but there is at least one situation I know of where the pilot needed to go past the limit to keep the aircraft from going into the dirt. Admittedly, he got himself in that situation in the first place due to an error, but was able to rescue his crew and the aircraft. In my opinion, this same option is a better idea for an airliner. Give me warnings, do what you can to discourage exceeding the limits, but if I need that extra G or rate change, let me have it. A toggle, guarded switch, something that lets me know I'm demanding more than is recommended, but I've got a damn good reason to do it. I believe in fact at least one fighter has this feature...all the examples of the Hornet. Toryu, you also talked about being able to go into Alternate Law by turning off some computers. Is this something that can be easily selected by the pilot, or does it require circuit breaker pulling / certain failure modes? FC

This topic has been very interesting...I'm moving it to the general aviation part of the forum. I'll keep the original link here in the OFF section for folks still interested in following it. FC

I think the yokes were omitted for clarity...I'm pretty sure my company wouldn't pay that much money to convert our yokes to sticks... (There's a joke in there somewhere...) FC

The odd thing is I don't remember this problem existing a few iterations ago. All my aircraft seemed to sit properly originally... I'd prefer NOT having separate static models... FC

That is always the issue when you encounter something outside your experience...you tend to fallback to make it look familiar, or to react in a way that is familiar to you. Which may be totally the wrong thing to do. Your story is a great example of when instinct can totally overcome rational thought.. Here's a harrowing HUD video of a spatial disorientation incident in an F-16: The setup was a F-16 student on the wing, at night, in the weather. He goes 'lost wingman' (where the idea is to separate in a controlled manner from the formation lead if you lose sight), turns his head forward...and immediately gets disoriented because his vestibular organs have been in the wrong orientation due to looking sideways at lead. Note here he KNOWS he's disoriented, he knows what to do, but he physically can't make his body listen to the rational part of his mind to straighten up the aircraft or get on the 'round dials'. He finally manages to inform lead, who is very coolly and firmly able to break through the student's disorientation to get him on the 'round dials'. I've been in that situation of being disoriented while being on the wing in the weather...and it takes a LOT of effort to convince yourself you're not in some ungodly bank angle and lead really isn't trying to fly you into the ground. FC

As some of you know, my company's fleet has been going through substantial upgrades...757s, 777s while phasing out our 727s, DC-10s, and some A310s. We've also recently committed to a purchase of 767s that will eventually replace our MD-10-10s. We just got word that the pits in the 767s will be upgraded to a newer standard. Check this out: Awwww...yeah. Man, all I need is a Blu-Ray for that center screen... FC

I love going to air museums...big and little ones. Unforturnately, some pics are film only, some visits were too long ago and I didn't have a camera, and some the museums didn't have anything that I'm really interested in. But ya know, some of the best finds have been at the smallest museums...finding stuff that they only made one or two of. Or, like today, I was at the Lone Star Museum of Flight in Galveston, TX. Though it was mostly WWII stuff, of which I'm not a huge fan like early jet stuff (that tends to be my thing), it was interesting in another way. Unlike a lot of museums which have a lot of statics and maybe one or two flyables (if any), this one, the majority of the stable is flyables. A-26, B-25, B-17, F4U, A-1E Skyraider, PT-19, a Stearman, several other birds...all flyable (and flown on a semi regular basis...a few were undergoing annuals as we were touring). I thought that was neat...last place I saw something like that was the Commemorative Air Force Museum in Midland, TX. FC

I didn't think you could load a LOD into MAX without reverse engineering, which usually destroys the original coordinates anyway... FC

There is an easier way to fix it...though it might look weird on the parked aircraft. Insert the following line into the [AircraftData] section of the data.ini: OnGroundPitchAngle=xx.x Where xx.x represents the nose up angle in degrees. It will rotate the model around the CG that many degrees but only the parked birds...any flying ones won't be affected. I have not tried to see if negative numbers work (which you would need for the F-14), but it can't hurt. FC

Look guys...none of us were there, and ultimately, we don't know WHY they continued to hold the stick back. I guarantee he was looking at the altitude...that's why the stick was back in the first place...but ultimately did not change the plan to adapt to the situation. Bullethead was making the point that the problem is the aircraft and the method used to operate the aircraft due to its control laws. My point was that the aircraft does have hard control limits, but still can be tossed around within those limits, and therefore cannot be slammed to the stops like a 4 year old at an arcade game...see here: http://www.airbusdriver.net/airbus_fltlaws.htm Note the limits mentioned, and the limits not mentioned in Normal Law. The latitude is pretty wide (can you imagine 67 degrees of bank in an airliner?). But there are no mention of limits for passenger comfort. And the reason is pretty simple. There are times when operating an aircraft that you need quick response. One of the most common times is landing in a high crosswind, especially due to gusts. You have to be able to rate the aircraft in quick bursts to counter gusty winds (which seem to be common in high crosswinds at some airports). You can't do that and not cause passenger discomfort...ie spilling the wine. Other situations that are less common include windshear, GPWS alerts, threat avoidance. I don't mention TCAS because for the most part, it allows itself enough warning for relatively mild changes to flightpath to deconflict. All those situations may require high rates of change outside of your typical airliner manuvering, but well within Normal Law limits. So, it simply means you can't be 'ham hands' on a side-stick Airbus and expect to fly the aircraft reasonably...it will respond, while still staying within Normal Law limits. You'll look like an idiot, get busted on your checkride, probably cause passenger injury, and NO ONE will fly with you. The reason people think that the aircraft is 'HAL' is simply because of the hard limits. The idea that a passenger airliner ultimately has final say so on what it will do with a pilot command is abhorrent to many pilots, and so all sorts of misconceptions get perpetuated based on that fact. Myths often start out with a grain of truth, and then take a life of their own. As I have said before, I know many pilots on both sides of the issue who will argue tooth and nail why their viewpoint is right. These are guys with plenty of hours, could have their choice of aircraft, have faced their share of adversity and navigated it successfully. Each accident must be judged on its own. My opinion is that the aircraft and its control laws are not the primary issue for this accident...otherwise we'd have Airbus accidents all over the place. Instead, we still see accidents across all ranges and airframes. Also, for those who don't know, check this out: http://planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm Note the table up top...pilot error is still at roughly 50% of all commerical airliner crashes for the last 50 years...dipped a little in the 70s and 80s, rose a little in the 90s and 00s. The scary thing about this table is some yokel could argue "Well, if you just took the human out of the loop, we'd have 50% less crashes...". Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that the statistic really hasn't changed in the last 50 years, even though we've been through several generations of airliners. I think the thing everyone (including myself) should take away from this discussion is to avoid non-critical thinking. Very rarely is any situation completely black and white ("Oh, it's the aircraft's fault!?" or "The pilot was a dumbass!")...the reality is usually more complex than that. We have to learn to avoid our own biases...I had to dodge mine because I don't like the Airbus control laws. I think the idea that the aircraft has the ultimate final say so to be distasteful. I have opinions as to what the pilots were thinking and why they reacted the way they did, and if I were king, what I would change about airline training to increase safety without decreasing productivity. But that's not the point of the thread. FC

No. Just because the flight control system in Normal Law mode won't let you exceed its parameters doesn't mean you can't ham-hand the aircraft. What I keep interpreting from what you are saying is that the pilot can sit there and slam the stick to the stops and the jet will react like you're carrying passengers who don't want to spill their wine (the preferred way of flying). That is most definitely not true...if you are rough with the stick, you will be rough with the aircraft. The actual parameters of Normal Law are quite wide and will allow you fly well outside of what's considered efficient and effective handling. The short of it is...you still have to handle the aircraft gently and proficiently in your normal operations. Actually, you can have a situation where this occurs...windshear. You can have a situation where you are darn near full back stick, throttles to the stops, airspeed going up and down in extreme amounts, and yes, be descending. We train for this in the sim, and its Mr. Toads wild ride because the aircraft is bucking, the bells and whisles are going off, you're trying to get the nose somewhere near 20 degrees nose up, and the engines are screaming. This actually will be relevant later... Airspeed is vital to the situation...note I talk about windshear training. One of things the pilot monitoring does is bring up the flight path vector in the case of a windshear alert. This FPV looks exactly like what you would see in a modern fighter's HUD...a little circle with 3 lines representing the aircraft. It gives you instant SA as to where the flight path is in reference to the nose position...AOA. Pitch is NOT AOA. Pitch is nose position relative to the horizon...AOA is nose position relative to flight path. You could have a negative pitch angle, and still have positive AOA. See the point here? '10 degrees pitch' is nice to know...but AOA would have been MUCH more useful And your conclusions are flawed. You are making an assumption sitting here at zero airspeed, zero altitude that somehow, somebody just instantly forgot all the lessons he learned because the Airbus trained and drained it out of him. You weren't there, in the middle of the night, weather all around, aircraft buffeting, airspeed unreliable, seeing a massive descent that you can't explain right off the top of your head...that somehow, you know that you wouldn't have let that happen to you...that you would have reacted better. That 'it can't happen to me'. Bulls**t. The worse pilots I know were the ones who said 'it can't happen to me'. I typically say 'were' because a lot of them were either busted out...or are dead due to their own hubris. As a Human Factors major, I have studied aircraft accidents, not just to learn how to avoid them, but what causes them...especially the ones where a perfectly good aircraft was crashed. Some are still head scratchers, even today, but most others, once I see and envision the situation, I can see where someone could be led down that path due to various factors. The better pilots I know are the ones who look at those situations, figure how it could happen to them, then take active steps to make sure it doesn't. And lets have a little fun shall we? Your argument is that by taking more authority away from the pilot, that an Airbus (or similar advanced aircraft) is more vulnerable to pilot errors due to complacency. If that's true...why do gear up landings continue to happen? Shouldn't we be seeing a rash of gear up landings in the Airbus...because after all it sucks out basic pilot skills. And putting the landing gear down is a pretty basic skill there. And in fact, shouldn't there be LESS inadvertent gear up landings in aircraft without hard limits? I'm not talking mechanical failure here...I'm talking the pilots just plain forgot to lower perfectly good landing hear on a perfectly good aircraft? Yet, check this out in a Cessna, with a pilot who has thousands of hours: Or this incident to a Eurofighter Pilot: http://www.indiandefence.com/forums/f17/eurofighter-typhoon-4731/index19.html#post139832 Or this whoopsie: And this one personally hurts to see: There are stories and incidents from all across the spectrum and airframes of pilots needing full power to taxi after a landing. Why is that? Could it be an error not related to aircraft design? That fully experienced crews who should know better make a mistake? Even when there are multiple procedures and automation in place to prevent such a mistake? That it's a problem almost as old as the retractable landing gear aircraft that we still haven't completely fixed? Pilots, even experienced, good aircrews, make mistakes. And depending on the timing...it may be the wrong one on the wrong day. And I disagree. You are making a crass generalization based on your bias against Airbus. And you're pretty smart...I've seen you post. You know better. FC

There is no speed limit. FC