X-Plane 11.40b5

27 comments on “X-Plane 11.40b5”

1. That is a very impressive number of new 3D airports. Much appreciated LR. Cheers.

2. I notice more and more new Gateway airports being created with a newly assigned X-Plane identifier that begins with X, when an ICAO identifier already exists. Why are these new identifiers assigned instead of using the ICAO? It am afraid it creates a problem when a custom scenery exists (or might be created in the future) that uses the ICAO in line 1 of the apt.dat: it will not suppress the default airport when placed higher than Global airports in the scenery_packs.ini.

   My fear might be misplaced and I would be very happy to hear it, but I have already encountered the problem.

   1. The X-Plane airport ID is _not_ meant to be an ICAO ID. IT is meant to be a _globally unqiue_ and _immutable_ ID so that the scenery system can work. Sometimes airports get ICAO IDs assigned to them after the fact, which can create difficulties – maybe an old scenery pack has the old ID and a new scenery pack has the ICAO IDs.

      So our intent is:
      – Every airport gets a unique X-Plane ID.
      – Always use the X-plane ID for that airport, EVEN if an ICAO exists.
      – If you fill in the meta-data ICAO field (which you can set whenever you want) X-Plane’s UI will show that ICAO ID as expected.

      This also prevents namespace collisions because the meta-data fields are specific to certain TYPES of identifiers.

      1. I understand the objective and hope that if you decide one day to replace the ICAO code used as identifier by thousands of current airports in the default scenery apt.dat, by a new X-Plane identifier, you will also provide a script to replace the ICAO by the new identifier in the apt.dat files of all our custom airports, so that they continue to suppress the default ones, or, modify the suppression mechanism to check for both XP identifier or ICAO.

   2. In short – what you see in the apt.dat rowcode 1 is now called ‘Airport ID’ and *not* used by X-plane as the ICAO code any more at all. Its merely some ‘globally unique alphanumeric ID’, never displayed to users of X-Plane at all. The ICAO / FAA or other code you see in the menus or navigation functions are set by rowcode 1302 metadata tags instead.

      The confusing thing is that many airports, for historic reasons, happen to have an ‘Airport ID’ that is the same as the ‘ICAO code’. This can’t be changed, as any airport in a particular location on earth should never ever get his airport ID changed, once assigned. So the ‘Airport ID’ is more of a ‘Location ID’, rather than a naming thing.

      And since many scenery tools refer to this ‘Airport ID’ – the current convention is to still incorporate those ICAO codes in some way as part of that ‘Airport ID’.

3. Hi Jennifer. Thanks for a long-awaited news. What does it mean ‘Beta 5 is now available for LR customers, and we expect Steam to be available within 24 hours?’ Meanwhile the X-Plane Steam users can’t to do update to a beta version.

   1. Steam users are still on beta 3. Basically when we put out an update, we get the Steam and LR version ready, we post the LR version and we wait about 12 hours to see if the beta has something seriously wrong with it. In the case of beta 4, it _did_ have something seriously wrong with it, so we never made it the official Steam beta. We are now giving beta 5 its 12 hours and if it is fixed, then it will go live on Steam.

      We do this because the Steam beta setting is sticky – once you’ve opted into a beta (e.g. you were using the release candidate of 11.36) you will automatically go into the _next_ beta – even though the very early betas of the next patch might be very unstable, while the release candidate of the last patch is very usable. We are trying to avoid a situation where a beta goes out broken, users get it because their beta default was on, and they are surprised that they can’t fly and 1-star us on Steam.

      Now, if you are a Steam user and you _really really really_ want to run the latest latest beta, _even_ if it is broken, no problem! Ping me and I will put you into the password locked “latest uploaded” beta…if you do this you will then get the very latest greatest beta no matter how broken. I don’t recommend this, as you will be trading 12 hours of waiting for having a sim that might be totally broken. But…it is an option! We just don’t want people opting into that level of “bleeding edge beta” without some serious thought first.

      (My view is: if your steam beta is more than 12 hours late, you _don’t want_ that beta. That was surely the case of beta 4.)

      1. Thank You so much, Ben. I have just two days experience with Steam, so such the detailed explanation is very useful.

      2. You could have an “RC” option available in steam as well as “beta”, which might help this.

         Also, could I request that the current version is visible in the sim under a menu or window somewhere? If you happen to miss the version number shown on the loading splash screen then I think the only other way currently is to open the log file…

         1. It’s already in the about box – click “about x-plane” from the general settings menu.

            1. In Windows it’s also available when hovering over the exe file in Explorer, or if you view details after pressing the right mouse button over the executable.

            2. Oh crikey, I’ve never noticed that button! Sorry!

            3. It’s a master of disguise. 🙂

         2. I don’t think “rc” vs. “beta” is very useful. I don’t know if it’s possible, but “revert to last version installed” seems more useful to me.
            As an alternative “early beta” vs. “beta” could make sense. In the former case you would be offered to update to the beta as soon as it’s available, while in the latter case the offer would be presented if the same beta is available for (let’s say) at least 48 hours.

4. Hi,
   can the experimental FM be toggled “per aircraft” or is it a global condition?

   1. IT can be turned on or off at any time – it’s a global setting that applies to your current flight.

      1. I searched for a command to drive this option with FlyWithLUA, but without success. Wouldn’t it be possibile to add such command? So that we could set the FM accordingly with the plane.

         1. As far I know, the option has to be set before the aircraft is loaded.
            I’m not sure a flyWithLua script will be working before the aircraft load happend.

         2. What about an option in “customize aircraft”

5. Hello! Well in b5 C172 with the REP expansion is totally broken… According to the developer, you guys are in contact about this so I’m hoping it can be fixed with the next update, I’d like to fly with REP 🙂

   Thanks!

   1. We think we have a fix for this that should ship in the next beta update.

6. Just for my curiosity: Does bug “Fixed GPS error when course is < 360 as double, but not < 360 as float" talk about a course being something like "359.99999" that is rounded to 360 for float, but not as double? Also when GPS displays integral degrees, didn't you round the degrees?

   1. Course is modulo 360. The bug was that the modulo operation worked on double precision, while the GPS wanted a single precision input. So it was possible to get a number close to 360 that was not being touched by the modulo, since it squeezed below 360 as a double, but with less precision it looked like 360.

7. Hello,

   Don’t know if it was adressed or not , but what do you think about a system to update only airports from gateway, separated from x-plane updates itself, inside the installer ?
   Like that, we can udpate only airports from time to time.

   Regards,

   André

   1. We like this idea a lot – it’s on the roadmap. We just haven’t had time to code it yet. This would allow the community to update airports more frequently.

   2. But it would make support a bit more difficult: Is the problem in the distributed version of X-Plane, or is it in the airport fetched from the gateway? Personaly I’d prefer a solution where “some” (could be a few thousands) airports are distributed with X-Plane, while the user has the option to add more airports from the gateway, or “overlay” the distributed airports with more recent ones (meaning both versions would be in different files with the option to revert to the distributed version).

8. Have been a little back and forward with the flightmodel for helicopters from ver. 11.40b1 to 11.40b5 ( especially the “No lift” issiue near ground in ver. b1, b3 and b4 ).
   Glad to say that the Bell 407 now behave more realistic than ever, both near ground and up in the sky, in ver. 11.40b5 !! 🙂

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