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Alan_A

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Posts posted by Alan_A

  1. The Katana is more complex then Madeira as it uses so many special functions (and it would be up to Marcel, we just handle the commercial aspects for this product). But Madeira certainly is somewhere on the list.

    Understand completely about the complexity of the Katana and the difficulty of porting it over to X-Plane. But unless the Katana and some of the other complex aircraft (like A2A's) move over, I won't be abandoning FSX anytime soon. Happy to look at X-Plane, and in fact I've been exploring X-Plane 9 to get the feel for it, but right now I'd expect to use it in addition to, not instead of, FSX.

  2. Apologies - my post wasn't nearly as clear as it should have been. I wasn't reacting to the OP at all - more to Mathijs' post. Though in fairness, now that I read what he wrote more carefully, I don't think he was drawing as sharp a contrast as I thought. And he did say it was his personal opinion, which is of course fine. All I really meant to say is that it's great to simulate things that customers could actually do... but there's also a place for simulating things that they could never do... and simulating them to a very high standard. That's the NGX, for me at least.

    I'll say this - the NGX and the Katana, between them, have ruined most other simulated aircraft for me. I'll still turn to them from time to time - there are moments when I just want to get into the air quickly to test scenery or some other in-sim setting, and then I might load up Ant's Tecnam Sierra, which I still enjoy - there's something indefinable about it that just makes it feel like a very light airplane. But most of my others have been hangared. The A2A Accusim aircraft still measure up, especially the B-17, though personally I'm not a big user of the more game-like features like Heidi or the new 377 career model and usually turn them off (others swear by them, of course). But the NGX and the Katana are a whole new world. I'm guessing we can all agree on that. ;)

  3. Speaking as someone who's flown a lot of FS GA... loves the Katana... is also a longtime airline buff and is currently learning airliner simming via the PMDG 737... I have to ask, why set up a conflict between the two of them? The choice between them isn't an either/or. Why not learn (slowly) to fly the NGX like a professional... and enjoy the Katana as though you own one and fly it on days when you're not flying the line? You could even branch out and spend some time in a restored warbird or propliner thanks to A2A, or borrow their Cub as though they were a friend of yours that had one to lend? It's possible to enjoy FSX in a whole variety of ways with just a few ultra-realistic aircraft. If you like a particular style of flying, great... but there's no reason not to explore a couple of them.

  4. Or was I just oblivious before?

    I could swear I heard some new creaks when closing the canopy. And the wind sound through the vents seemed more distinctive, too.

    I think the sound might have been enhanced. Though if all the sounds were there and I just hadn't noticed... well, that could happen, too...

    I'd be interested in hearing others' takes on this.

  5. These sound freeze crashes you talk about, are they the kind where you get a Not Responding message and you have to close it with the task manager? If so, i've found that with those errors often you can wait them out (couple of minutes to a maximum of about 10) and eventually they'll disappear and the flight will carry on as normal. Happened to me when flying the PMDG 747-400 on a long haul. 2 hours in and I get a Not Responding message. I let it sit there for a few minutes and sure enough it eventually cleared on its own and the sim resumed like nothing ever happened!

    Regards,

    Tom

    Yes, that's the one. Screen freezes, controls and keyboard freeze, sound continues. I've read about people waiting it out and getting FSX to resume (sometimes after 10 minutes or more), but that's never worked for me - typically, the freeze-with-sound continues for a minute or two, then FSX crashes to desktop. I'd love it if I could get it to resolve on its own - the freeze/crash is really frustrating. As I mentioned earlier (I think in this thread), the only cure for me has been upgrading the video card. That made me think the problem had to do with some aspect of video processing power. If others are right about corrupt textures, that would fit the pattern, though the fact that mine usually happen during ATC interactions make me think that there are thread collisions happening elsewhere, too. Unfortunately I'm not fluent enough in hardware or software to be able to work out a better explanation than that. But I hope others will.

  6. 14 miles out, clicked on 'Select runway for landing' in the ATC window and kaboom!

    Interesting. My sound freeze crashes (also linked to G3d.dll) uaually happened when I was interacting with FSX ATC via the menus. Makes me think the problem is some sort of thread collision - FSX being asked to do too many things at once. I agree with bliksimpie that the "too many things" involve texture loads. The fact that I was having my problems in proximity to Paine VOR leads me to wonder if there isn't some sort of texture corruption at Paine Field.

    Most of my sound freeze crashes were in Orbx scenery. A couple were outside of Orbx country, in the Washington, DC area using UTX, GEX and Cloud 9 landclass. The heavy load in those cases came from weather - significant thunderstorm activity.

    I've been too distracted by a string of real-life obligations to test the Katana in Orbx, but I'll try and see if I run into similar problems.

  7. This could be a setup or install problem but I agree with Emi that it's worth taking the weather into account. In my still-brief experience with the Katana, I've found that it has a much more violent response to gusts than any of my other FSX light aircraft. Flying with Orbx Weather Theme 5, all the way through the flight, the Katana's nose gave a constant, sharp counterclockwise rotation - sort of half a dutch roll (it was only the left half of the figure eight, not a full dutch roll). It was so pronounced that right after takeoff, I came around and landed to make sure I didn't have a bent propeller shaft or something similar (I didn't). I had to fight for control throughout the flight. Using the same theme with the A2A Cub, all I saw was an occasional light roll and a gust-related variation in airspeed. I'm not a pilot IRL, so I don't know if this performance in gusts is characteristic of the real Katana, but looking at the big low wing, I think it might be. Maybe some of our real-world Katana pilots can let us know.

    I'd suggest trying the Katana in clear weather or in other weather conditions (interestingly, I'm usually fine using real weather through ASE) to see if the problem recurrs.

    Hope this helps.

  8. (using the special Katana setting for FSUIPC.....OK ... OK guys having s "Senior Moment" ....when is the information about special FSUIPC settings?

    See THIS POST for information on how to set the prop lever through FSUIPC.

    You can also search this forum for "FSUIPC" to find references to other settings.

    In general - the Katana installation creates a new set of FSUIPC controls - they show up on the FSUIPC pulldowns when you assign axes and controls.

    I'm not sure if this information has made it into a revised manula yet (haven't checked since the 1.01 patch came out) but I'm sure it will.

    Hope this helps.

  9. That combination really pushes the memory indeed. Should not be a real issue under Windows 7 though, but in XP and certainly Vista you could simply be running out of memory.

    I was running under Windows 7 in all those scenarios, so memory may not be the issue - as CoolP suggests, it may have to do with some other element of video card capacity or just the way elements of the system are interacting. I hate to be so vague about it but there are so many individual aspects to our systems that it's hard to pin these issues down.

    I've now had two flights in the Katana from Vashon to Cushman's and everything ran fine. In the first flight I used the Orbx Weather 5 theme instead of ASE and the Katana had a nasty reaction to turbulence, but that's not a system issue... In general, the Katana is much lighter on my system than some of my other aircraft (the A2A Cub is much more demanding, I think because of the polygon and/or texture modeling as well as the processing demanded by Accusim). So my Orbx experience is pretty encouraging. But it's a small sample. Again, I'll post if I run into anything gnarly.

  10. I've just started to try the Katana in Orbx PNW, so can't comment yet on this particular problem. But in the past I've had difficulty running complex aircraft in Orbx sceneries. The issues were only resolved when I upgraded my video card, which leads me to think it's a straightforward issue involving VRAM or some other element of video card performance. I had the famous FSX "sound freeze" (screen freezes, sound continues, then CTD) with the Carenado C208 in the vicinity of Paine VOR - resolved it by moving from a GTX 280 to a GTX 480. With the 480, I had the same problem in the same place using the PMDG 747-400. Once I installed a GTX 580, I was able to fly it there with no problems. I agree with Bill that the combination of Orbx sceneries and complex aircraft can be challenging for even the most capable systems. I'll post here if the Katana + Orbx bring me to a new limit.

  11. They are not missing. Marcel used the numbering of the original manual. Section 6+8 refer to items that are not modelled in the Katana.

    BTW: If you are interested, you can download the original manuals here

    Thanks for the link - but you're a little ahead of yourself. These manuals are for the (not-yet-released-by-Marcel) DA20-C1 Eclipse. The manuals for the DA20-100 Katana are HERE.

    Best bet is to download both - that way you'll be ready for the Katana now, and the Eclipse when it comes out. ;)

  12. Normally moving "unused" axis' all the way forward is sufficient.

    It is only if Your controller is spiking at the full forward position that You will have troubles.

    Axis' in FSX are only processed if they are moving i.e changing their values.

    Aicraft addons like the Katana X, Catalina X and the upcomming Dimona X, wich uses mixture for simulating engine failure or rough running, should still work as flawless with the mixture axis(s) full forward.

    Finn

    Thanks for that.

    For the record, before I read your post, I deleted all the irrelevant axes in my FSUIPC Katana profile. I use two CH quadrants together, set up for four separate throttle, prop and mixture controls. For the Katana I reduced that to one throttle and one prop lever (using the special Katana setting for FSUIPC). Everything works fine with the extra axes gone. Maybe overkill - a belt-and-suspenders approach - but as long as nothing goes wrong, I think I'll keep things that way. If I get odd behaviors I can always restore the axes. Will post again if anything like that happens but as of the moment, things are good.

  13. Good advice all around.

    I suppose I could try deleting the mixture axis from the FSUIPC Katana profile. But I'd still worry about the possiblity of ghost signals along the lines Marcel describes. It seems safer to set the mixture lever forward - and also exercise the controls as Simon suggests. Just means adding a couple more items to the "before start" checklist. FSX demands its own set of good habits.

  14. Here's something I (re)learned the hard way - if you have a controller with a mixture axis assigned, it needs to be set full forward or the Katana's engine won't work. This is in spite of the fact that the Katana itself doesn't have a mixture control. Apparently the FSX mixture axis has an impact on fuel flow nevertheless, and will cut off fuel if it's not all the way on. This is something I've observed in other add-ons (Ant's Tecnam Sierra comes to mind), and there's a similar phenomenon in the Lotus Simulations L-39 Albatross where the propeller control need to be full forward for the jet engine to work properly. But I managed to forget about it while learning the Katana - I got so caught up in all the other realism features that it slipped my mind. After a series of failed engine starts (the engine would cut on, then immediately cut out), I was busy draining and refilling oil, swapping grades, checking temperatures in case the inlet baffle was an issue, and contemplating replacing the engine. I also had an engine failure on my first downwind in the pattern - in this instance the engine started, but then failed after I paused the simulation and restarted (I guess it picked up on the mixture-off setting at that point). I managed a Sully - thankfully the Katana glides beautifully. Then the lightbulb went on over my head. On my next start I moved the mixture to full, startup was fine, and everything ran perfectly. I'm posting this for the sake of anyone who's struggling with engine failures - keep on top of all the hyper-realistic maintenance items, of course, but don't overlook the FSX quirks either.

    Hope this helps.

  15. Hello Alan,

    It could be, that another setting with this axis in FSUIPC or FSX could be a conflict. And did you use "Send to FS as normal axis" > "4X DA20-100: L:LEVER PROPELLER PITCH Set"?

    You can use standard commands with the Flap Lever set to compatibility mode or have your own buttons set with "4X DA20-100: L:LEVER FLAPS POSITION Set" and Parameters 0, 1 and 3. This is no axis as the Katana has a 3-POS switch.

    I should make this clear in the manual. So thanks for the hint!

    Greetings,

    Marcel

    No, all my axes are marked to be sent to FSUIPC directly.

    If I understand your message - and if I'm right about the 4X Katana macro that now appears in my FSUIPC.ini - it seems that there are now FSUIPC commands that are specific to the Katana. If so, I'll try to create a Katana profile and reassign the prop lever and the flap switch for that profile only.

    I'm in and out today and traveling tomorrow and Sunday (missing lots of Katana time :angry: ) but I'll see if I can steal a few minutes and try this out. Worst case, I'll report back after the weekend.

    Thanks yet again for giving us a great FS experience.

  16. This is an extraordinary piece of work. I've only had the chance for a brief flight but I have to say it exceeds all my expectations (which were pretty high to begin with) and blows away nearly all the GA in my hangar.

    I have one small issue. I notice that the prop lever doesn't respond when I select the FSUIPC option, even though I calibrate my controls through FSUIPC (using the "send direct to FSUIPC" setting, bypassing FSX, where controllers are disabled). However, the lever does respond when I select the FSX controller option. It almost feels as though the two settings are reversed, though I realize it could easily be some issue on my system.

    Similarly, the flaps handle responds to my hardware flaps switch (again set up through FSUIPC) when the compatibility option is select, not when the realistic option is checked.

    I'm using a CH throttle quadrant calibrated and with buttons assigned entirely through FSUIPC (no CH control manager, no FSX settings). My FSUIPC is 4.70b, the just-released full-install version - registred, of course.

    Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this.

    And thanks for one of the all-time great FS airplanes.

  17. Alan, I don't understand that sentence, sorry. :) What do you mean?

    Greetings,

    Marcel

    Apologies, am slipping too much into American idiom. You had said...

    :-) At least I didn't have an aircraft in that worse condition until today...

    ]/quote]

    ...and I was wondering what might have happened to your Katana that it required maintenance. No need so share if you don't want to - I just find myself wondering what kind of mechanical problems might be in my Katana-flying future!

  18. The Katana will not be serviced in real time. ;) You select a maintenance option and the Katana has to be loaded and on screen until the action has been (at least partly) completed. It is a matter of minutes, not hours. :-) At least I didn't have an aircraft in that worse condition until today... :blush:

    Sounds good. I suppose I can treat myself to a simulated $100 hamburger while the work gets done... :)

    Any chance you'll share with us what happened to put you in the shop?

  19. Sitting on the rear fuselage while trying to fix a damaged elevator with some tape while the aircraft is travelling through rough air makes me thinking of some black and white movie - but this should never happen in todays maintenance facilities. :D

    No, but it'd make for some excitement. Katana wing-walking... hadn't thought of that! ;)

    I should clarify my question. What I meant to ask is, how does the down-for-service time play out in FSX? Does the aircraft track the system clock, in a way that allows me to fly other aircraft during the couple of days of repairs (sort of like being able to rent while the Katana is in the shop)? Or just turn off the computer and come back to it a few days later? Or will I need to leave FSX up and running while maintenance takes place, in a way that prevents me from using the program for a period of time? Sorry to be obtuse - it's just that I've never operated an FSX aircraft with real-time maintenance before. Thanks in advance!

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