Inseckt

It seems that fans of FS is reluctant to accept X-plane as a serious contester, be it rationally or the opposite, but in many cases this presumtion seems to be based on experiences with xp8, 9 or so on. From what I've seen so far, xp9 and earlier really sucked and is lacking all over the place, but the improvements to xp10 seems like a huge step into an apt configuration for competing with FS. Meanwhile MS seems to be going in the opposite direction with MS flight:music_whistling:

Yskonyn, this is my impression also, as an outsider looking in. It seems that X-plane 10 wins every aspect in regards to potential. Surly more and more 3d party devs will venture into said realm?

ok, I just read through the entire "X-plane 10 news" thread, and I'll think I'll begin with that. Seems like getting the full FSX experience will require a lot of add-ons and payware, while xp10 can be somewhat satisfactory out of the box. Seems like it might turn out to be the future when more 3d parties turn in this direction anyway. Plus I love what I have seen in screens and youtube's regarding night lighting. I love taking off in the early evening and landing after sunset. Still have to wait some time for my new system anyway, so the continued patching of xp10 might improve it some more until then:)

Hmm, will be difficult, I may end up getting both though, as they seem to both have exclusive things to offer. If I want to learn a new aircraft, lets say boeing 737-800 with it's avionics and so on, I would go for FSX with high quality addons. But when just flying for the sake of it, then X-plane.. oh, and one more q: How does ATC interaction in X-plane and FSX compare?

I have noted the same correlation myself. And also weight might be acting on the equation...

Hello:) I've been flying lock-on since 1.02 (pre-FC) and been following ED through everything and love it. I have never been interested in civilian flight simulators, and I always thought they looked like crap. But there's a change in the wind, and this year I want to check out a civilian flight sim and I need some answers and suggestions. Through my initial peer into the civvie world, it appears to be mainly two operators, namely FSX and X-plane 10. Or are there any other big ones worth considering? In a simulator, I will bee mainly looking for the following: -Environment. Scenery, weather and airports are important factors for me. X-plane seems to be the leading contender in this regard, at least in an out-of-the-box configuration. Is this an apt observation? -Flight model. Needs to be accurate. Appears to be the main purpose of X-plane, so they seem to win in this regard as well, and again; at least in an out-of-the-box configuration. Is this also an apt observation? -Avionics. I think my decision will stand on this. How detailed has it become these days? I've heard no celebration about X-plane avionics and I'm suspicious about it's level of avionics. In FSX it seems to vary between the different 3rd party projects. How does the two compare to DCS:A-10C for instance? I'm planning a new system this year, which will be a considerable investment so I'm not considering system requirements for the time being... Any input is highly appreciated, THX!:D

In addition, this guys movie is among my favorites for those that have yet not seen it:

Yeah, cockpit shadows, tree shadows and the new CBU's is definitely worth some movie show-off....

It is a point in the world where a unit will "anchor" or simply "stay".

Try to keep in mind, that a lot of features have been added since beta, cockpit shadows, tree shadow to name some, and probably a lot has changed "under the hood", so you might be getting more FPS vs features currency now than in beta. I'm no 3d modeller, but I doubt it.

If you switch from mark to waypoint or flight plan on the page select switch, it will only display the last created mark point on the TAD IIRC. Doh, sniped...

yes. Both frequency and call sign is set through the advanced waypoints action menu:)

14% seems too me a bit low? I'm no expert, but some modern combustion engines (diesel for instance) have an efficiency number of about 40-50%. Thus it seem a bit weird that turbines are only 14%, meaning they would need to carry a LOT of fuel for the power they put out.... I could be all wrong of course, just tell me why?

BTW, in case you did not know, to do this, you open one of the individual missions in the ME, select the flight which contains the "player". When you select the first waypoint, marked with an "A" symbol, a menu appears on the left where you can set the appropriate item.

I think you must edit every individual mission in the campaign, and set teakeoff from rwy to takeoff from ramp. But beware, in some campaigns, this might mess up some timing and whatnot...

You must reload the DSMS page sometimes on start. Hold the bottom right button on the left MCD IIRC (perhaps 2 seconds), and teh load page will appear. From here you simply select DSMS and press load, still IIRC.

You must listen to this man!

Results from ceiling test in DCS and RL comparison Report: So, here it is. I have conducted a flight ceiling test using the procedure provided by BlueRidgeDX. I'm assuming this is a correct procedure for reaching the defining ceilings and the validity of the results depend upon it. Furthermore , please forgive the long post, but I wanted to do this with some level of seriousness. (sorry for completely hijacking your thread EventHorizon) Settings: In the mission editor, I have set up a standard day using "normal weather". This includes; 0 wind and turbulence; no clouds or fog; no precipitation; 15 deg Celsius @ SL; QNH=760 @ SL (given in mmHg and corresponds to 29.92 inHg which was set on the altimeter in the cockpit). On the load out-page, I set 100% fuel, no ordinance, 0 % ammo, 0 chaff and flare. This load out gave the total weight of 36 054 lbs and drag index = 0 (which includes pave penny pod and all the regular stuff attached to the hog). Before embarking on the test-flight, I prepared a speed chart to aid in keeping the proper speed at the different altitudes. This chart is presented in figure 1 below. Execution: I started from minvody and headed south. At FL 5000ft I went full throttle and started a climb while trying to stay at the recommended speed dictated by figure 1. In the beginning this proved to be somewhat difficult to execute with satisfactory accuracy, but when my climb rate started to come down, it got gradually easier. When nearing the first ceiling (combat ceiling @ 500 FPM) I was able to maintain the proper speed plus minus 1 KIAS which was satisfactory. Furthermore, given the inaccuracy in reading off the climb rate gauge, it wasn't a specific second where I "hit" the ceiling, there was always some variation in climb rate, as I was trying to adjust for speed. Therefore I made two measurements per ceiling, one on the first instance when all variables met the requirement for the given ceiling, and one where I was barely able to maintain the parameters. In the results I refer to these two measurements as "lowest measured altitude" and "highest measured altitude". Using the mean of these two numbers, i calculated an approximate error for each ceiling. These errors are probably not statistically correct, but serves to give some image of the accuracy. The biggest error of any of the ceilings should in reality be considered as the true uncertainty for every ceiling. Documentation: I possess a screen-shot of every measurement (both the low and high for every ceiling) showing KIAS and FL on the HUD, the climb rate gauge, the left MFD showing CDU-POS page with IAS, the fuel quantity gauge (needed to determine the weight of the aircraft) and also the barometric altimeter (although not as accurate as the readout on the HUD). I was also going to save the track but I always forget, and this time was no exception. :doh: My plan was to include the screen-shots and track, but instead I decided to hold them back until/if someones wishes to see them to avoid unnecessarily cluttering this thread with multiple screen-shots in case no one really cares. Results: The results are presented in figure 2 below. As you can see, it begins with the low and high value for each ceiling, followed by the mean value with suggested error. This value is considered to be the actual result. Next I have made an approximate read-off of the remaining fuel for each ceiling. I was then able to calculate the total weight when I was back in the mission editor. I then proceeded to find the values predicted by the TO 1A-10A-1 for each corresponding ceiling. The charts from which I extracted this information is found in the performance data supplements (TO 1A-10A-1-1) part 3 entitled "climb". If someone wants to check the numbers in the TO and don't know how to read the charts, or want to check that I did so correctly, then this is how I did it:I began by selecting the proper gross weight, (as calculated by remaining fuel), along the bottom horizontal axis. Then I followed a line upwards until I hit the drag index = 0 curve. Then I went straight left to read of the predicted ceiling as no weather correction was needed. I included and error of plus minus 500 ft considering the inaccuracy reading the chart, and the inaccuracy in reading off remaining fuel. The TO does not include a chart for calculating absolute ceiling, marked in figure 2 with "no data". Last, I intended to present the difference value between the values measured in DCS and the values obtained from the charts, however there where no considerable difference for any ceiling if you consider the error boundaries of the given values. This leads naturally to the conclusion. Conclusion: The DCS environment and FM accurately depicts the hight and climb performance of the A-10C as it is in RL, IF you postulate that the A and C model have equal performance profiles. (Paulrkii or someone else in the "know" might confirm or dis-confirm (is that a word?) this postulate (I thought that the A-10 got an engine upgrade somewhere between A and C?)). This result surprised me. As I said earlier, I had always felt aircrafts in ED products to be "underpowered". It only goes to show how useless "feeling", "thinking" and "believing" is when dealing with such a sophisticated simulation (the force failed me), and how only a serious endeavor into the simulation can reveal it's accuracy. To sum up, there are two postulates that these results rest upon, namely that; the speed profile of the climb supplied by BlueRidgeDx is an accurate means of testing an aircraft's ceilings, AND; that the A and C model have equal performance profiles. End notes: Again, sorry for the long post. Wonder if anyone will bother reading the whole report? :D But it doesn't matter, as it was extremely satisfactory and great fun doing this anyway. :thumbup: Attachments: Figure 1: Figure 1.pdf Figure 2: Figure 2.pdf - Inseckt:smartass: Edit: I have noted an error in figure 2 under "results" and "combat ceiling". Here it reads 32 250 (plusminus 250) ft, but it should in fact read 32 650 (plusminus 250) ft.

Thats absolutely great! Now I can finally do some proper testing. Thank you for taking your time to clear this up. I am aware of the charts you are talking about, since I read them, but I must have missed the part where it says how to climb properly! I will report back shortly with some results. :)

Thanks for your reply in the middle of the holidays! So if I understand you correctly, I must simply choose a desired mach number? Lets say .50 mach? Won't the results vary widely depending on what mach number I choose? I will try to get some testing tonight, I will try to choose different mach numbers and so how it affects the results...:joystick:

The speed of sound varies with temperature, and temperature is dependent on pressure, which again varies predictably with altitude. At lesser pressures, you encounter less drag, but engines becomes less efficient due to less oxygen into the engine, so if you keep at the desired mach number, my guess is that you stay at the mathematically optimal speed for less drag vs engine performance. :)

well, I don't know if you're joking or serious, but if you read my post's in this thread, you would see that I'm trying to determine combat, service, cruise and absolute ceiling for a given set of variables in the simulator, for comparison with numbers in the dash-1. I am certainly not going for the world record, but if I was, ejecting would be a good idea indeed. I have learned a lot since the beginning of this thread, but I'm still waiting for someone to explain how to aquire the mysterious "desiered mach number". If you know anything about it, please contribute fellow landsmann. :)

But how did you calculate the desired mach number? I'm struggeling to find out the changeover altitude. Was 41338 absolute ceiling? (climbrate @ 0 when climbing at desiered mach)

Hmm, to reply, I just found and read this: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=76273&highlight=qnh. (cleared up a lot for me, I previously thought that QNH and so on was a unit of measurement, lol) If I understand correctly, I realise that QNH in the mission editor, is given in hPa/mb, but in-game (ATC and Altimiter) it is given in inches of mercury?. So to set a standard day in the ME, i put temperature @ 15 and QNH to 1013.25? I have noticed also that the altitude at which pilots switch between QNH and QNE is called "transition altitude" but sometimes also "changeover altitude"?... Hmm, a bit confusing, but I'll make it through:thumbup:

Yeah, thanks, you sniped my post in which you answered one of my questions, but I got a follow up: How does milibars translate to QNH?