Perk

Yeah I've noticed a lot of issues around BIAR and several of the other airports that got tweaks in the latest world update. Curious if the Mesh is even still useful or if Asobo has updated to similar resolution elevation data as per New Zealand...

Critical question!! Are animated Guinness tanker trucks included??!

The scenery developer is almost certainly using the simvar for the strobes to stop the traffic animation loop. IE: 'if "LIGHT STROBE"=1 then stop animation_69420,' At a guess there's probably a different simvar for the default Asobo Airbus strobes than there is for every other airplane's strobes, so that function either works with the Airbus or works with anything that has the normal "LIGHT STROBE" SimConnect variable. You could almost certainly use FSUPIC or SPAD.Next to set a button to toggle whatever the Airbus strobes variable is and use it to toggle the animation manually if you had that version. I'm not sure why they'd use the strobes instead of the landing lights though... I think the "LIGHT LANDING" variable is pretty universal, or at least I haven't found any airplanes that don't work with the stock SPAD.Next Landing Lights config so far.

With a widescreen monitor and Track-IR I always zoom the in cockpit camera in to 75% tweak the seat position a bit, and then save a custom view (ctrl-alt-1, ctrl-alt-2, etc). You can then load the custom view with alt-1, alt-2 etc. I just bind the view load and Track-IR centering to joystick / yoke buttons and load the custom view as soon as I load into the cockpit. I find 75% zoom is the closest equivalent to 1.0 zoom in FSX / P3D and gives the most realistic parallax on the widescreen. It has the nice side-effect of making the instruments all a lot easier to read since your viewpoint is closer to them. If you don't have Track-IR or one of the other head tracking systems though, it can make your field of view a bit restrictive.

Do you have one of the many map addons, or are you just talking about the built in MSFS map that pops up when you hit "v" on the keyboard? A three letter airport code is going to be an FAA or IATA code not an ICAO code. PWL would be Purwokerto Airport on Java in Indonesia. It's IACO code is WICP. IGN would be Iligan Airport on Mindanao in the Philippines (ICAO RPMI). CT wouldn't be a valid airport code under either notation system. On a full up FAA Sectional or Terminal Area Chart "CT" would indicate the Control Tower frequency for a towered airport. Common Traffic Advisory Frequencies (CTAF) are denoted by a circled "C" symbol. Three letter identifiers on FAA charts are VOR Navaids. PWL is the Pawling VOR-DME and IGN is the Kingston VOR-DME in New York State. These are omnidirectional radio beacons that you can tune into with a Nav radio that broadcast the bearing to/from the radio beacon and in the case of VOR-DMEs and VORTACs also provide distance from the beacon. If you're interested the FAA Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (PHAK) chapter 16 tells all about navigating with VORs and other radio navigation aids: https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/phak https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/phak/18_phak_ch16.pdf The FAA Chart Users Guide goes over all the symbology, but it's also in the Legend on a given Sectional. Page 23 for VFR charts: https://aeronav.faa.gov/user_guide/20221103/cug-complete.pdf If you're using Skyvector for charts, you can also change from "WorldVFR" to the specific Sectional chart for the area by clicking on the location name in the upper right. That will display just the local chart instead of merging multiple charts together, but it does give you the legends at the side like a paper chart. Sectional Legend. Note the "CT - 118.3" which indicates the tower frequency for an airport: Example of a Control Tower (CT) Frequency depicted on a Sectional Chart - in this case 124.75 for Spirit of St. Louis Airport (FAA: SUS, IACO: KSUS) in St. Louis, MO. I assume these are the two VOR-DMEs you're seeing - PWL and IGN. The three letter codes are the abbreviations for the Navaids - all info for the VOR will be depicted inside a blue box as below - in this case 114.3 is the Nav radio frequency, Ch 90 is the military radio channel, PWL is the three letter identifier, and the dots and dashes are the Morse code identifier that is broadcast by the beacon. You can turn the audio on for your Nav radio and listen for the dots and dashes to verify you have the right station tuned in.

So I apparently have a couple hundred Orbs now, but I already own everything available for MSFS on https://orbxdirect.com/orbs. Lol first-world problems. Just curious if they ever rotate?

I've was running into this frequently especially with the 516, 517, and 522 flight Nvidia drivers. I rolled back to 512.95 for a while, but that doesn't give you the DLSS fps boost that came with SU10. Fortunately the issue seems to be largely fixed with 526.x at least for my box.

I'm lucky enough to have one of the old Saitek trim wheels (from before Logitech bought out Saitek and stopped making them), and I've got a rudder trim knob on my old PFC throttle quadrant. I haven't noticed any particular issue getting the airplane in trim, but it does drift more than a lot of simulated airplanes (though less than the Pipers I fly in real life). Wondering if that's due to the fuel system, which seems to preference draining the rear left tank faster than the other tanks. It's a PAC, it can handle a little grass It does kind of feel like they modeled more ground friction than a lot of MSFS airplanes... wondering if they're using a trick like Ant's Tiger Moth does where the brakes are always applied a few percentage points. I can still get it to pivot around the main gear, but it takes a lot of toe brake and a lot of throttle and I frequently find myself giving it too much gas.

I am. It has a "drone camera" mode as one of the external views. This lets you move around at ground level like you would in first person, but also lets you fly around, lock on to your airplane etc.

MSFS's default Queenstown is actually quite good. It's one of Asobo's feature airports and considerably more detailed than most of the default airports, though not on the same level as Orbx's Queenstown in FSX / P3D. There's also a *very* good freeware Millford Sound that's compatible with Orbx's New Zealand Mesh. It's available on the usual freeware site.

Did some more testing... it seems to be HEAVILY CG variable. With the plane loaded to 80% via the slider on the pre-flight menu, the CG is near the aft limit and I have climb issues. If I manually shift some of the weight to forward stations so it's not so tail heavy it climbs much better even at the same weight. That's completely realistic, with a tail heavy airplane you get a higher angle of attack for the same climb rate and more incidence drag. I'd just expect it to not be quite so bad with the weight inside the CG limit. Kind of guessing the limits depicted in the MSFS menu aren't the actual airplane limits. Nick I looked through those links you provided and can't find a weight and balance table for the real P-750 XSTL. I'll try setting it up in Foreflight when I get home and see if they have the stations and envelope stored, but it'd be interesting to run a real weight and balance setting stations like the sim does and see if it's actually in CG limits. In any event, just about any reasonable power setting works with the CG far enough forward... 85% NG and 1900 RPM seems pretty reasonable for fuel burn, ITT, and climb rate.

It's not really a mixture, it's a fuel condition lever. There are three settings - cuttoff, ground idle, and flight idle. I believe it controls the amount of fuel going to the turbine at idle and not the fuel side of the fuel air mixture like in a reciprocating engine.

Out of curiosity what's the airplane loaded at there Nick? There's normally recommended power settings in the POH either as a table in the performance section or as recommended settings for phase of flight in the normal operations checklists. The current manual recommends cruise at 85% NG and 1850 RPM (page 8 ) and the performance section lists takeoff power setting as 91.5% NG at 2006 RPM (page 20), but there's nothing for climb power settings. There's a MAX power settings table (page 9) but those generally shouldn't be used for extended duration and they won't provide the most efficient climb anyway, just the best angle of climb. I'm kind of splitting the difference between takeoff and cruise power settings for continuous climb which is where I'd expect the airplane to offer the best compromise between climb performance, turbine temps, and fuel burn, but I'm struggling to climb at all above 9k with full fuel and 80% cargo loaded (in CG and still almost 1000 lbs below MTOW... gotta give it to PAC this thing's got an amazing useful load). I've tried hand flying and using the autopilot in vertical speed mode. Almost wondering if I need to step climb it to prevent airspeed from bleeding off?

Does anyone know what power settings are best to get this thing to actually climb more than 100 fpm above 10k? I'm setting 90% NG and 1800 RPM, and I've tried both settings higher and lower. As soon as the airplane (at around 6500lbs) gets above 9k I have to back the vertical speed off to a crawl. Even at 2 or 300 fpm it can't maintain airspeed and just keeps slowing down and increasing AOA until it inevitably stalls. This thing's a turboprop they fly in the Himalayas right? I'm guessing there's probably a more efficient power setting that will split the difference and get closer to the book climb values, but I'm not seeing a power settings table in the manual and I haven't run across a real world P-750 POH yet. Anyone have any recommended power settings?

Seriously the scenery packs just keep getting better. Looping around Ancon hill and out over the Casco Viejo reminds me of some really good ceviche! And the empenadas from a little shop behind Albrook... now I'm hungry lol

Nevermind, on proceeding through checkout in both it looks like Orbx Central is calculating tax in the display price and the website is not. Works out to $50.99 in either after sales tax is applied.

I was looking to pick up the Twotter and noticed it's $47.99 AUD on the website, but $50.99 AUD in Orbx Central. I'm logged in to both so not seeing any special offer price on the website or anything. Assume it's just an error one place or the other and thought I'd point it out.

Same for me, worked fine yesterday before the MSFS update. Now clicking any of the cockpit controls seems to CTD.

Picked this up last night, looks amazing and seems to handle pretty well. I was wondering if you had custom LVARs for the panel switches? They don't seem to be working with the Saitek switch panel and SPADNext using the normal MSFS 2020 simconnect events.