Page 3 of 10

Re: Your helpful tips.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 16, 2018 4:24 pm
by Steve Waite
AIRAC Data:

Remember that although Ideal Flight has a native navdata set downloadable from NavDataPro (not yet available at Navigraph), it is the only planner that does not need a 'specially coded' set of data. Instead Ideal Flight will use data you already downloaded for your Airbus X Extended, iFly737, Level_D, and PMDG so that plans are ultra compatible with the actual aircraft navigation systems. These four sets cover all versions of navdata available to the simulator market. This data is compared to the simulator dataset and also fsAerodata if installed - for the most reliable plans available to the sim P3D or FSX. Plans are infinite and follow real world routes.

On the startup page of IF Pro or IF Augmented, right-click for the popup menu, and "Choose AIRAC Cycle".

Use the folder picker to point at your PMDG, Level-D, iFly, AXE, or IF10 dataset folder and the window will show when a compatible dataset is found in that folder. The details will show and the data can be selected for use in the planner.

"Integrated" means the set of data that exists in the sim and the AIRAC.

"Non-Integrated" means the SID STAR and other items not found in the simulator data are utilised from the navdata set chosen.

With aircraft that rely on an AIRAC for navigation - we use Integrated, for all other aircraft we use non-integrated as their navigation systems are responding to simulator data (or fsAerodata) but not add-in data.

Re: Your helpful tips.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 16, 2018 4:39 pm
by Steve Waite
Professional Development of Flight Simulator products

Professionals are benefitting from using IF10 and IFPo during development, testing, and profiling of addon aircraft and scenery.

For example IF's data scanner shows errors in scenery or AIRAC data, IF's fuel report mid-flight and after flight are used to create exacting settings for aircraft fuelling behaviour.

Ideal Flight creates an exact duplicate of a flight with weather and traffic mid-flight for accurate analysis during repeating and iterative setup.

If you are developing an aircraft, AI or user, scenery or any kind of addon, using Ideal Flight during development with its profiles and data recording and graphing facilities makes quick work of repeatability within the testing schedule.

Developers no longer can afford to run their shops without IF10 or IFPro in the mix.

Re: Your helpful tips.

PostPosted: Wed Nov 07, 2018 7:36 am
by Steve Waite
Testing and understanding performance within the simulator:

In general we want to know the system performs well and we like to add in new hardware to improve things.

So as an example we can install a new graphics card and perhaps we don't see what we hoped for - more fps.

If we improve only the graphics card that might not result in better performance overall, why?

We have to look at the whole picture and see that if we increase the performance of one aspect only we only see the change corresponding to that hardware. All the other things carry on the same - or do they?

Well, no they don't. A bigger GPU, shall we say, will use more processing setting up than our older less powerful card. What we gain in graphics speed we might lose a little in other places. So that's worth considering, it's not a lot but we make things worse by adding in more eye candy since we have the new card.

This brings more work for all the subsystems.

Image

This is a very simplified split so in reality there's a lot going on and it's more complex than this, also we could add in the networking and simconnect as another split. We can see from the pie chart that the time from the sim to perform its game cycle is affected by many things and that the inclusion of a new GPU can only improve that part of the pie and it may force more work on the other sections.

If we have dlls and gauges from addons and complex aircraft, since these are not accelerated by the new GPU fitted, if this is a large amount of processing the sim remains with similar fps.

If we have bigger airports with many features then this impacts the disk access.

Re: Your helpful tips.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 7:22 pm
by Steve Waite
Setting up new aircraft:

Rather than provide a set of specifications from the aircraft manufacturer's website, with IF we find the real values of the simulated aircraft in our sim, the way we fly it. For example; sitting in cruise for hours evens out to the same result for everyone, instead it is our own use of throttle, sense of climb angle, adjustment of engines, wind directions during the flight and so on represent the main changes in fuel quantity required.

In the Aircraft Parameters page – off of the Flight Generator page or the Aircraft Selection page – we have to set these values up per plane in order to create the desired plans.

IF does this so that we can incorporate any plane even those not available yet. We envisage the test pilot scenario, whereby we find out the real information about the simulated plane by flying it and recording the parameters. Such as take off and landing distances, Range, desired Altitudes and so on, we can see these in the de-brief.

After a successful flight, input the Range figure found in the de-brief. We set the range for the flight generator to get the fuel and distance for the next flight. (We can simply put an aircraft in flight and use the fuel report to calculate the general range base line). This depends on a lot of factors so we can look at the range with respect to loading, altitude etc. These are saved in our records and we can understand the performance of the plane properly – the sim plane that is. IF is aimed at how to be using the ‘sim’, rather than how a real plane is operated, that is assumed to be already understood, and so we apply our professionalism as we see fit and make the final decisions.

Re: Your helpful tips.

PostPosted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 12:07 am
by reecemj
It would be nice to change the flight level not having to open the flight plan. Just a space to type in the level and click a button on the flight plan page.

Re: Your helpful tips.

PostPosted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 2:24 am
by Steve Waite
Thanks, I'll look into that!

At the moment to change the Cruise Altitude of a built flight:

In the Flight Generator page, we click Edit, then OK, OK to the runways, then we see the plan textualized, with the Altitude a few lines from the top.

Overwrite this and continue OK. The flight is rebuilt with the user desired altitude.

Before building the flight we can go to the Flight parameters page to set preferred cruise altitude range: This provides settings for the general maximum flight level we prefer for the build. And we set the percentage of this topmost altitude for the planner to allow lower altitudes. The planner puts us between these altitudes at the lower flight level according to our direction depending if we are flying in US and Europe, and according to the terrain.

When the terrain is too high for the preferred altitude range, the planner attempts to find valid route trunks around the obstacle (mountains or flight restrictions) if they do not extend the route too far. Otherwise the increase required in altitude is shown in red in the planner waypoints table, and is accounted for by the pilot.



In the update coming shortly, the fuel setup in flight gen is much improved, understandable and works properly in all modes and manual. When Tabbing around the flight gen page the filter section will be enabled with a checkbox, otherwise Tabbing around the form ignores this long - winded section.

There's a sim performance visual gauge which saves peering at the sim looking for improvements in the display quality, and a CPU analyser with its own window, to see what's going on with respect to P3D running on the CPU. The CPU traces can be added to the graphing. The gauge uses sophisticated algorithms and programming to understand correctly the real performance of the CPU with respect to P3D v4. (x64 Ideal Flight Professional only for P3D v4).

Re: Your helpful tips.

PostPosted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 6:55 am
by Steve Waite
reecemj wrote:It would be nice to change the flight level not having to open the flight plan. Just a space to type in the level and click a button on the flight plan page.


I'm still looking into it, it doesn't present a problem to incorporate it over the edit button.

The Edit plan button - that's only two clicks, OK OK, to the runways, then type over the altitude, and press OK. The flight is rebuilt with the new altitude pertaining to the imported plan or the altitudes on the Aircraft Parameters page.

In the meantime, can you tell me, do you set the Altitude in the Aircraft Parameters page? Do you set the percentage altitude preferred?

In the box it shows the result in Feet. So for example we put in 10000FT and 40% gives us 4000FT, mostly unless the terrain gets higher and then it goes up to 10000FT.

So the cruise altitude will be chosen as near to 4000FT as can be used along the route. If terrain or restriction zone reaches higher than the desired maximum of 10000FT the altitudes in the table will be red and indicate higher than the desired high altitude.

Re: Your helpful tips.

PostPosted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 7:12 pm
by Orinks
I think the general idea here is less clicking.

At present, especially after importing a flightplan from another planner such as SimBrief, the plan is opened, built with IF's planner, and then you then have to go into the flight generator, two clicks right there, edit plan three, okay twice... five clicks...

When importing a flightplan I think there should be a flight options dialogue where one can select what they want to do for this specific plan and not have to change profile settings. I fly for Virtual Airlines and could care less about where my plane was parked last, so say no every time it asks me whether I want the last position remembered, the planner choosing times for me based on a yearly schedule because it's on unlimited... I'm using IF for the fuel planning, the convenience of being able to import a plan and hit fly and no need to deal with the simulator dialogues, etc.


So, this flightplan options dialogue should include, in theory...
- Ability to set the starting time for this plan and IF will calculate the pre-flight time and set it back 10-5 minutes accordingly.
- ability to enter block fuel as given in pounds or KG as noted in the SimBrief briefing and IF will balance the tanks accordingly for that weight.

The ability to set payload here as well.

Of course, if some or none of these options are filled in, whatever options are filled are overridden manually with what I want, and if I don't mess with fuel or payload then IF can calculate it the way it does.

On the subject of profiles, I think that starting other apps should be on a per-profile basis. I could then have profiles for specific virtual airlines where my VA Acars will start, ActiveSky, ProjectFly or whatever.

Right now, no matter the profile the apps you have starting will start.

Accessibility in the next update is of the utmost importance for me and friends right now, so these things can wait because I have more feature suggestions that, if crammed into this update it'll never come out.

Re: Your helpful tips.

PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 12:22 am
by Steve Waite
Thanks for the great feedback.

There's been an overhaul of the plan importing side well overdue now so your comments are handy at this point. It's very diverse the way folk use the sim and of course the purpose of IF is to cater for all if and where possible. Look out for that in a future update and please keep the ideas rolling in. All projects are on hold while I install the accessibility updates.

Best regards
Steve.

Re: Your helpful tips.

PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 2:02 am
by Steve Waite
..ironically. If you have seen the details of the update you would have seen the new CPU window feature. One of the changes coming from that is to enhance the start other apps system. Included will be on a per profile or all profiles basis and includes easy selection of application affinity rather than typing in the IF command we do now (e.g. adding " IF10AM=3" to the end of the command line). That and some other things should be included very soon after the impending update.