Ideal Flight Accessibility phase 3

[Steve Waite]

I've improved the auto-throttle and improved the Assist functions that use the throttle presets and some options to go with those have been added.

I'm still finalising a few things and have some more testing to do, and also I have had to do some work-arounds for some minor problems found in P3D v5 loading saved flights and heading gyro, so I can't upload preview 10 just yet.

Sorry for the delay to this next build, it's very close now and maybe next week will be OK, but I want things to work as well as they can before uploading.

Thanks for everyone being so patient and thanks for the encouraging mails and also a big thank you to those of you that recently purchased Ideal Flight. Development will continue after the next preview build.

Just a note for anyone contacting via the website and have not heard back yet - please check in your junk mail for my responses.

All the best
Steve

[Orinks]

Steve,

Do you test the IF auto-throttle and well, the whole app in general, with jets?

I'd recommend downloading some from Rikoooo to make it the best that it can be. I've tested with several jets from there and the auto-throttle, even after I give it a few minutes to try and settle, cannot hold a speed and constantly spools the engines.

What other options did you add to go with the assist functions?

[Steve Waite]

Yes, the update adds improvements to the auto-throttle which is in an early stage with the current preview. Can now find the power with very little hunting. Have been testing with various aircraft. Will try some from rikoooo. Keeping on the runway in sidewind has been improved. Other assistance includes take off, turning on GPS NAV and landing.

[Orinks]

Does the sidewind/keeping on the runway assistance work even when not using IF weather engine? I don't use that.

[Orinks]

What is the landing assist like?

[Steve Waite]

Winds up to around 10 knots to the side is handled for take off and landing independent of the weather.

[Steve Waite]

One question about landing was what to do with no ILS system for glideslope:

In ideal Flight we can use the computed approach in the plan. In the Mission page settings for the approach we can define the time of each plan segment based on your speed.

If you set the final leg to five minutes and descend at five hundred feet per minute from the final approach fix to the runway touchdown waypoint, that's going to require an altitude above the runway of 2500 feet.

Approach at 2500 feet above the runway altitude, maintaining the descent speed will take five minutes to land. The Autopilot will follow the GPS path down to the runway maintaining the descent rate of 500 fpm, the auto-throttle maintains the speed, then the brakes are applied and the aircraft held on course by the rudder control assist in Ideal Flight.

Similarly with the ILS approach and final we don't need the computed approach in the plan but it is still very helpful to use it for reference.

This is mainly what I have been testing including take off assistance, which leaves enough for the pilot to do to be fun.

[Steve Waite]

Testing the latest modifications at the moment in a Lear:

Level flight 12000 feet, bad weather, winds variable, running steady at 200 knots, then I'm setting to 300 knots - accelerates up to 305 knots in 45 seconds, then down to 295 knots total 70 seconds, then up to 300 knots total 100 seconds and stays there.

[Steve Waite]

Does the sidewind/keeping on the runway assistance work even when not using IF weather engine? I don't use that.

A weather program using themes or simconnect or the simulator themes, inject weather into the sim, they don't control the winds, they just set up the weather. With that, the simulator creates the physics on the aircraft such as winds from the theme or the simconnect METAR injected.

Ideal Flight looks at the direction the aircraft is heading, and the location on the runway. If the aircraft is located off center Ideal Flight uses the rudder and ailerons to direct the aircraft towards a point on the runway centerline. The faster the aircraft is travelling, the further up the runway the aircraft is directed.

If the aircraft is not on the centerline when we select the Ideal Flight auto-throttle climb-speed preset, the aircraft is run at a slower speed for a few seconds while the aircraft is directed to the centerline.

After touchdown, the same thing happens to keep the aircraft on the centerline, heading further up the runway centerline when travelling fast.

[Orinks]

Sounds great. Now I just wish on touchdown, when you do reverse thrust and stop with the brakes Ideal Flight can taxi off of the runway at least for starters.

Going to a post you made a few months back about how climb assist works, I wish it was modified such that if you change both the altitude and vertical speed via the autopilot it will let you take over. I should be able to change the altitude while it climbs using it's vertical profile/path. Currently if you change just one of those it will shut off based on how you explained it.

HTH.