Newbie Questions

[rodlee]

Hi,I flight simmed for several yrs using fs9 then x. But, due to a lack of time and serious loss of interest, i've been out of it for the last 4 years.

A couple of weeks ago I ran across a YouTube video of a pilotedge flight by Tim Krajcar, now the interest has returned. I've decided to go with x plane 10 this time. I went to carenados website and bought the C210(my favorite plane),it'll be the plane I spend most of my time in.

I intend to do all of the V and I ratings (except the I9).
Since I've been out of this for so long, and I'm new to x plane.

How many vfr flights should I do before I attempt the I ratings?
Can all of the I ratings be done in the 210?
Are there any must have plugins for xp10,that makes pilotedge better?

I'm sure I'll have more questions later.
Thanks
Rodney

[par2005]

ow many vfr flights should I do before I attempt the I ratings?

I am in the process of preparing for some of the ratings myself. I can tell you straight away an answer to your question - you will not have this question when you are ready

[stevekirks]

How many vfr flights should I do before I attempt the I ratings?
Can all of the I ratings be done in the 210?
Are there any must have plugins for xp10,that makes pilotedge better?

I would start doing the V-1 and V-2 ratings each time you log in but NOT as exams. Make it a kind of exercise routine:

• Three laps of KSNA then back to parking.
• KSNA to KONT
• Three laps of the pattern at KONT
• Back to KSNA

If you do that offline a few times to get the airmanship rust off and X-Plane tweaked, start doing it online. The only rating that really made me sweat (so far) was the V-3 Bravo transitions. You really have to keep your head on a swivel and be aware of your location in relation to the Bravo shelves.

Good luck!

[Nelson L.]

As for X-Plane plugins:

-Landing Speed (gives you an indicator of how bad *cough - I meant good* your passengers thought your landings were )
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app ... wfile=7995

-Alpilotx's HD Mesh Scenery V3/UHD Mesh V1 (High Definition ground textures if your machine can handle it)
http://www.alpilotx.net

-Simheaven's World2XP (Unique OSM scenery, haven't tried it out myself, but I fully intend to once I get past the laziness - looks amazing)
http://simheaven.com
http://world2xplane.com

-All of the PE airports found in the X-Plane section of this forum

-SkyMaxxPro/RealTerraHaze (SkyMaxxPro is payware for cloud textures only, RealTerraHaze adjusts atmosphere, but is based off code that Laminar can/will change in future patches - will eventually break unless developers keep updating)
http://skymaxx-extreme.com
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app ... file=22387

-FlyJSim's HD Runways Pack (Gives better runway textures)
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app ... file=16270

-HD Taxi Enhancement packs (Gives HD Taxi signs)
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app ... file=19539

-MisterX6's KLAX, KSAN, KSFO (absolutely stunning freeware airports - payware quality)
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showuser=125097

-OpenSceneryX (Object Library - needed for many scenery addons)
http://www.opensceneryx.com

-R2 Library (Object Library - needed for many scenery addons)

-RuScenery (Object Library - needed for many scenery addons)

-FF Library (Object Library - needed for many scenery addons)

Link for Object Libraries - http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/content.p ... ery/view/3

-FlyWithLua (Scripts needed for some addons - useful for others)
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app ... file=17468

All of these are amazing addons, and all (except SkyMaxx) are freeware. They don't *technically* help pilotedge directly, but the improve the overall sim. You can find all of them in google by searching the names above - I'll put in links later once I get some free time. Also, I highly recommend at least browsing the xplane.org forums - lots of good stuff on there Happy hunting.

Note - Don't even attempt UHD Mesh V1 unless you have a beefy GPU and at least 16 gigs of RAM (32 recommended)

[NameCoin]

I've been demonstrating the V and I ratings on Twitch / Youtube myself. If you're new to flight procedures, you should definitely look at the primer for each rating and watch the provided examples. All of the flights except the I-9 can be done in your C210. The I-6 might be a little arduous timewise due to the distance covered. (I'm actually thinking about skipping the I-9 myself, or doing it offline. I don't think it has much technical value for a demonstration.)

Regarding your plan for the I ratings, it doesn't matter how many VFR flights you do before hand, since VFR and IFR are completely different. Though it will be necessary if you still need to learn how to control the airplane. So I'd say as soon as you can control your aircraft well and understand the basic skill for the rating you want, you're ready for it.

Best of luck.

[wmburns]

Are there any must have plugins for xp10,that makes pilotedge better?

Welcome aboard. Regarding WHICH plugins make PE better, IMO the answer is hands down, the PEBCAK user mod.........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_error
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/PEBCAK

In all seriousness, there are likely to be as many answers as there are X-Plane users. I personally value stability over "eye candy". As such, I try to keep my system as "vanilla" as reasonable favoring stability. Some of this was based upon my experiences with FSX. A huge bummer to be several hours into a flight only to have the sim "hang" or CTD for an unknown reasons. This is very different from my X-Plane experience.

But since you have asked for an opinion regarding recommended/useful X-Plane add-on IMO the following I have found the following useful:

• most any 3rd party add-on aircraft. Especially Carenado airplanes. I mostly fly the Barron BE58. I was skeptical that I would find a huge difference between the default Barron and the Carenado Barron. But I'm a believer now.
• Physical rudder pedals. I personally found X-plane much more difficult to fly than FSX without rudder pedals.
• Other physical controls such as yoke, throttle quadrant, switches.

In all seriousness. The best advice I can give you is to start slow. Work on improving your skills flying whatever plane is your favorite. Develope the "situational awareness" skills such that you know what's coming before it comes.

Then as your gray matter skills improve, make additions to your home sim environment as your interests change.

Finally if you are interested in the "crack" of flight simulation, check out FSEconomy. Note, you have been warned.

[rodlee]

Thanks for the replies and recommendations.
I'll take a look at the plugins, and take it slow.

Luckily I kept all of my Saitek stuff, my trackir, and my 3 24" monitors.

Thanks again
Rodney

[Nelson L.]

I personally value stability over "eye candy". As such, I try to keep my system as "vanilla" as reasonable favoring stability. Some of this was based upon my experiences with FSX.

Normally, I would agree 100% with the notion of keeping your install as "clean" as possible to minimize conflicts, crashes, loading errors, etc..... Unfortunately, I personally just don't see that happening with XP in the foreseeable future. XP as a consumer sim platform (not as a training platform) is such a community driven "project" in terms of scenery, aircraft, and even programming codes (i.e. FlyWithLua) that if you were to take that away, you would be left with just the barebones of the visual fidelity we've come to expect (not even taking high-quality payware aircraft into consideration). I've just resorted to have a backup of a completely vanilla install of XP on an external HDD, and to back up my install periodically (I say periodically because I'm too lazy to actually keep a schedule..... Why do backups have to take so long?) Besides, XP's method of installing addons through dragging and dropping folders makes it relatively easy to uninstall anything you just added (provided that you did the smart thing and only installed one thing at a time). Even if something does go wrong, I find that XP's log.txt is usually very informative when it comes to crashes, making it relatively easy to troubleshoot problems compared to FSX (the log.txt gurus on the XP forums can be quite helpful). All of that being said, I view most of the above as applying to all sims in general - people are never going to stop wanting new aircraft, new airports, new features, etc.... that make a sim more immersive. It just so happens that XP features a large amount of freeware addons - some of which (i.e. MisterX6, Alpilotx, Simheaven) are payware quality. I can't imagine a sim that didn't crash every once in a while - it takes the fun out of it

Edit -

Luckily I kept all of my Saitek stuff, my trackir, and my 3 24" monitors.

Keep in mind that XP can't properly simulate triple monitors with only one instance of XP running (you only get 1 view that's zoomed out with a wider FOV).To get a proper triple screen setup, you need three instances of XP running. That leaves 2 options -

1. Get 3 machines of equal specs for each instance
or 2. Run three instances on one machine (warning - horsepower required) - http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=65660

[tflee2]

I am running 3 instances of XP on one computer and it looks good with decent frame rates, however with pilot edge plugin the two external view instances crash with the log indicating it's due to the pilot edge plugin.
I've tried it a few ways and each time the same result.
The master instance I have set to 2 external views and the external view plugins I have set to 0 external.
The sim runs fine with the view instances without the PE plugin, but of course the aircraft on PE are not display, only on the main instance.
Any idea to get around that?

[Nelson L.]

I don't have that setup (both the multiple copies and presumably the 3 screens?), so its hard to tell, but I would only run the PE client on 1 copy (i.e. the middle screen/instance). Logging into PE on all 3 copies of XP could cause some issues, since you're logging on with the same account on each one. Having PE on one XP copy will be enough, seeing as your PTT would be set properly in each of the instances (meaning you could put PE on any of the 3 instances, just not 2/3). Hopefully that made sense and helps.

Disregard - listen to Keith