See, that isn’t helping me at all. You’re supposed to say how awful it is, it needs improvement, looks like it was made in Minecraft…that kind of thing…
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Just an FYI - the very nice Piaggio P180 Avanti II (the one with the glass panel) has been updated and released last week (freeware). It is NOT compatible with 11.20 VR (from what I read)…but it will be when Laminar fixes something in the next update (probably reflections?). You do have to be registered at X-Pilot.com…I don’t think this file is on the .ORG that I know of…
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The Avanti shows a lot of promise. I had considered it MUDSPIKE Christmas 2017, but a lot of AP and FMC features were not working. So, I gave it a pass until it’s further along in development. Great to see that it is getting some love. Really cool airplane with exceptional performance.
Found my original post. Will update.
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I think I’ve sang many praises now with the FJS 737-200, but unfortunately I am on XP-10 still so I cannot comment on the V3. Although it does look very good, one thing I am wondering about is if it has a 3D integration of the X-FMC plugin. I saw a WIP screenshot of that a long time ago on Facebook. Although I think X-FMC is not available for XP11.
I have mixed emotions about this news, since a number of Carenado aircraft updated for XP11 have a bug where ground effect reduces rather than increases lift, especially during landing. They’ve acknowledged the problem, but as of yet, have not been able to fix it. Notable aircraft that suffer from this are the B1900 and Thranda Kodiak. The Do228 seems immune, so maybe they’ll get lucky with the PC-12. The problem began with everything after 11.05, so one would think that they wouldn’t release a broken aircraft. I hope not because they are more or less the only game in town for a lot of GA aircraft.
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assume that’s a paid upgrade from the regular? no discount for xp10 owners?
Don’t quote me - but I think it is a 50% discount for previous owners.
Well, we can quote them instead:
Version 2.0 (January 20th 2018)
Customer who own the DHC-6 v1 by RWD Design can take this new DHC-6 for 50% OFF. Get your coupon code under your original DHC-6 invoice.
Just did it and with the coupon code it was $14.97 as a previous user. I’ll take that…
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Yeah…it looks beautiful in XP11. They definitely did some updating to it. My favorite part is that it now uses the Shade Tree Micro Aviation (STMA) auto-updater…so when you launch it, it “phones home” to check for updates and downloads them automatically. I love that feature because I’m sick of hunting around forums looking for some blurb or file attachment that makes a plane work. Every developer should at least allow for the option of auto-updating…
There is also built in GTN compatibility…but it doesn’t look like it is working right quite yet (the developer is aware of that). You are supposed to be able to check the box and it should change the bezel to the GTN (if you’ve bought that from RealityXP) but it looks like both FMCs are loading. I’m guessing he is looking at that issue (he’s acknowledged it). And they changed out the steam gauge ADI with an EADI…I kind of liked the steam one…but whatever…
I like that is has the short nose version…
…and long nose version…
Nice loading menu and there is a nice pop-up checklist too…overall a nice job. I haven’t checked for VR compatibility yet…
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Thanks for the first impressions notes - looks pretty darn nice!
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And now is where I mention the obligatory statement:
“I wish Air Hauler 2 would release an X-Plane 11 version…”
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X-Plane Developer Q&A 01/24/18
Austin is pretty “blown away” by VR.
Working on VR (VR2) heavily.
Mouse pointer of some sort being worked on.
The mouse should work on most existing airplanes. (yay!)
A lot of talk about ASW - that I don’t really understand.
Convergence of programs down the road is not something I’m a fan of. I don’t need to stretch my legs on my iPhone. Sounds too much like Strike Fighters mobile direction. I doubt they will end up there though.
Ground handling improvements - sounds like those aircraft specific.
Long contrails particles would kill FPS…but they are looking at something like updating the particle effects.
VR visual bugs - a lot of them are going to be fixed in VR2 (hopefully this works for 3rd party clouds). Sounds like they killed a LOT of those bugs though.
Going to try to get a Plug-In window in VR - very helpful since you have to take your headset off to access the plug-in menu.
ATC - In the works. A super powerful ATC system has been being worked on, but hasn’t been put into the sim yet. The dev says we are only seeing 1% of what the ATC system is capable of (probably hyperbole, but that’s good to hear that big improvements might be on the way). They also don’t want to do custom wav files and think that speech synthesis should cover most of what is required.
Multiplayer improvements - PLEASE!!! Formation flying is being worked on. I assume that means less latency and stuff… Some sort of predictive code that shows where the other aircraft SHOULD be instead of where it was. How is DCS World so smooth (generally)…but X-Plane can’t do it. Hopefully big progress can be made in this area.
Cloud transparency bug - sometimes runway lights appear on top of clouds for instance. Aware of it…and perhaps going to change draw order based on camera angle. Cloud layer elevation is hard to estimate and camera angles can change rapidly (external views, cockpit view, etc…). Anyway, they are aware of it and working on it.
Tire screech. Added some sort of rate limiting code for nosewheel deflection to avoid nosewheel screech. Supposedly released in 11.10. Heuristic (errr…hack as they say) for that might need some tweaking.
3rd party VR compatibility. Mouse support should solve most of this. VR documentation should help devs convert their aircraft to true VR compatibility.
LOL…every 7 days they hear a complaint about mesh tools…and smoothing areas around airports. Sounds like the fix for that is on their mind…but not something that is imminent.
“Might be dangerous to talk about that right now” - re: Planes for mobile - a new fighter and carrier for mobile. Sounds like perhaps some sort of combat sim for mobile might be in the works? Be nice if that made it as well to desktop. Definitely an inside joke there and it sounds like they have plans for something.
Turboprop flight model (@chipwich) - Austin’s favorite topic. Jet flight model needs work (N1 and N2 need to be independent). Fuel flow can be improved. Austin has a PT-6 in his airplane…so he is working on that. Add-on developers hate changes to the engine modeling…but now he has a way to fix it without breaking old models (by having changes made in Plane Maker use old versions of of the flight model). TLDR - new changes to the base sim won’t break old flight models. There ya’ go…
PT-6 and Garrett fixed shaft fixes coming. Yay! They will be versioned to not screw up old versions unless the authors want to use the new features.
Updating electric motors (also going to be versioned to not screw up older stuff).
Austin predicts a resurgence of GA based on electric engines and batteries as that technology gets better. That’d be nice.
Austin likes tequila. I like him more after that comment.
Color banding in VR at night in Oculus - they are aware but not sure how to fix that yet. (You see that in sunsets and sunrises). It is “on their radar” but no fix is in the works immediately.
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Nice it was on too late for me, no mention of VR2 release I suppose or you would have mentioned. They stated in the Dev blog 2nd week in January at the latest but I guess something is blocking release 
I liked the xp-10 PC-12 quite a bit. I liked it enough to monkey around with the engine numbers enough to get it to start without a fire in XP-11 (then saw that someone had already done all that work). The ground handling was terrible, but I still liked it.
So, I bought the PC-12 for XP 11 V1.0 yesterday, and I’ve got to say I really feel I’ve been taken.
The V1.0 bit made me think they re-did this plane from the ground up. Maybe they did; if so, they should have started with the XP10 version and tweaked it.
Ground handling is awful; seems to me they just cranked up the rolling friction – a lot. I took off from Paine Field RW 16R and used a lot more of the 9,000 feet than I expected. Steering on the ground seems anything but smooth. Kind of like one of those old amusement park mini-roller coaster rides where, if you’re over the age of 30, you’d better be wearing a neck brace.
Seems like the engine sound is about the same, but the buttons, flaps and gear sounds are very loud.
Everything about the experience screamed at me, “YOU’RE FLYING A SIMULATOR!!”
Even looking out at the nose, I could see the angles of the polygons making up the model.
I have a few Carenado aircraft and know what to expect from them, but this wasn’t ready for release, in my opinion.
Now, I feel like I should say something positive.
O.K. it took me a minute, but: I bought the Twin Otter for half price and I’m optimistic that it’s going to be good.
There.
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LOL…I don’t think you are wrong about the PC-12. I was going to use it for the Christmas Flight and decided not to after trying it out in X-Plane 11 and finding the handling atrocious. Now, I was using X-Plane 11.10 maybe at that point…and from what I can gather, the developer for X-Plane (even though it is Carenado, I think Dan Klau is the guy doing all the work for the X-Plane line) has said that he wasn’t going to fix anything until Laminar had locked down the changes to the PT-6 that were happening. That is understandable for sure, but the list of non-compliant X-Plane 11 aircraft is sort of long-ish at this point. Hopefully, according to the above video, with feature/version locks that should start to become something of the past. It is a good idea to help prevent each incremental version of X-Plane from breaking things over and over again as Austin tweaks things. If the changes are worthwhile enough, developers can then make the changes while still having a working product with the version locked parameters.
And yeah, the half price Otter was nice…and so far I like it.
Looks like the PC-12 has been updated:
No experience with it yet…so buyer beware.
Yeah, been following this and very tempted. Shaping up very well. I would have pulled the trigger if DK had fixed the B1900. Holding out a while longer.
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_that_is the version I was talking about. V1.0 for XP11.
YMMV, but in my opinion, this was not ready for release.
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Ah…OK. Yeah, well, looking at my purchase history, I’m not seeing any discount coupon for the XP11 version. While I understand that, many developers are giving pretty good discounts to customers who are upgrading versions. So with no coupon, I’ll probably have to wait for a sale before I pick up the new version of the PC-12 anyway…