My little project: Xpassenger

This is a report of my last test (new version of XPassenger plugin).

The plugin menu (on the plugin menu of X-Plane) has an option "reload" (X-Plane crashes).
You don't need it because changing plugins in the plugin folder of X-Plane means "restart X-Plane" (we do it ALWAYS on a Mac with system add-ons).

Choosing "Flight OPs":

XPassTest-01.jpg


I must use little letters in Flight Number because I can't type "Shift-C" in X-Plane (I don't know why. I can do it in all other applications).

Choosing "Save & Start Flight" does nothing. No flight registered.
I think that button must be deleted:

XPassTest-02.jpg


Choosing "Connect to Acars":

XPassTest-03.jpg


Choosing "Start ACARS Flight" (why in 2 steps?):

XPassTest-04.jpg


Now is the flight registered... but flying from a FIX (HUILO) to nowhere.
It should be: SCVD - SCTC

XPassTest-05.jpg


We are walking in the good direction!!!

Saludos,

:fly:

EDIT (Wed 06 March, 16:56):

I've made the flight with "SCVD - SCTC" in the Route (optional) - Briefing, not using "HUILO".

XPassTest-06.jpg


Everything looks good, but the position of the aircraft is wrong in our Live Map.
In the X-Plane map is the position correct.

XPassTest-07.jpg


The final XAcars report for Air-Child is sent without problems:

XPassTest-08.jpg


I have 2 more questions/suggestions:
1. Why input quantity of passengers if it's already in the booking at Air-Child? It's unused in the report.
2. Cruise level is wrong. It was 6500 ft or FL 065. It's also in the booking.

Thanks for your time, Alex.
 
Thanks a lot for your feedback + screenshots. Gonna work later on the Xacars stuff, had only few minutes free from work to do the quick fix for the first problem.
 
Reporting new test (version 0.0.4)

It's working fine now.
Position aircraft/route at ACH Live Watch = OK
Input/Pilot Reports Departure and Arrival = OK
Quantity passengers = OK
Cruise Level is "0", but it has to be "4500 ft" or "FL 045"

XPassTest-09.jpg


A question: G-forces too high. What are the "normal" values? Which actions have effect on G-forces?
A suggestion: let see (display) the values of important actions, not only the change in %
I think this display is very important to learn avoid too high G-forces.

Saludos and congratulations for your efforts and work.

:fly:
 
Ricardo Rementería Troncoso said:
Reporting new test (version 0.0.4)

Cruise Level is "0", but it has to be "4500 ft" or "FL 045"
Click to expand...

Weird I thought I fixed this, sometimes I noticed when getting a predefined flight the flight level is not transmitted by Air Child. Was it a custom booking or a planned one?
Ricardo Rementería Troncoso said:
A question: G-forces too high. What are the "normal" values? Which actions have effect on G-forces?
A suggestion: let see (display) the values of important actions, not only the change in %
I think this display is very important to learn avoid too high G-forces.

Saludos and congratulations for your efforts and work.

:fly:
Click to expand...

You mean it's too sensitive? Or you can do too much before you get the penalty? The display exists for myself but it's deactivated currently, I will add some stats at the status widget. Presently the limits are with 1G being level flight, 1.5G max and 0.5G min. Thats half a G in both sides. I read somewhere that thats the max passengers can experience before starting to panic. If you can find some more information that would help of course.

And since we talking about limits. Anybody know's the proper landing descent rates? Obviously 3000 fpm is not ok but what's perfect?
 
Alex Lagos said:
Was it a custom booking or a planned one?
Click to expand...
I suppose you are talking about "charter" flights and "scheduled" flights.
Mine was a "charter" flight. Air-Child has no scheduled flights for the Twin Otter.
Alex Lagos said:
You mean it's too sensitive? Or you can do too much before you get the penalty?
Click to expand...
I mean I have no idea WHEN you get this penalty. The limits you mentioned say nothing to me. I suppose the G-force limits can be exceeded when you go too fast up or down.
I've taken off (Twin Otter) with IAS=120 and V/S=500 and I got the penalty.
That's why I think it's important to see the G-force values (green, yellow and red) to correct on time, before you go over the limits.
Alex Lagos said:
And since we talking about limits. Anybody know's the proper landing descent rates? Obviously 3000 fpm is not ok but what's perfect?
Click to expand...
"As a rule of thumb, the best approach speed is 1.3 multiplied by the stalling speed of the aircraft.", taken from
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:fly:
 
Alex Lagos said:
You mean it's too sensitive? Or you can do too much before you get the penalty? The display exists for myself but it's deactivated currently, I will add some stats at the status widget. Presently the limits are with 1G being level flight, 1.5G max and 0.5G min. Thats half a G in both sides. I read somewhere that thats the max passengers can experience before starting to panic. If you can find some more information that would help of course.
Click to expand...

In rollercoasters safe range is from -0.5 to around +3. But to flight i would say range from 0.5 to 2G
Alex Lagos said:
And since we talking about limits. Anybody know's the proper landing descent rates? Obviously 3000 fpm is not ok but what's perfect?
Click to expand...

In reality this depends on aircraft - Jumbo in most case must land tough, even out of range for 737/a320

I found nice
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. There are quotes from a320 and 767 manuals, but in overall hard landing is considered from around 10fps (600ft/min or more than 2 meters per second), but not making it extreme hard it could be around 1000ft/min within acceptable range.
ALSO consider that some aircrafts need minimum vertical speed in defined range to activate autobrakes and spoilers (eg. need to land with at least -300ft/min or something like that, so in range of 300-600 is OK, less or more is not good). That value is also in manuals. You can download manuals for 737, 747, MD-11 from PMDG, i'll find on other day my bookmarks with aviation manuals, but have no time in this moment for that.
 
Thank you very much!

I know that the limits are actualy related to which plane one flies. I'm trying to set a base set of rules and then progress with detecting the plane and/or asking the pilot if this doesn't work. After we know which plane one flies the specific values would be used instead.

@Ricardo: I will try to implement some kind of simple status, but I think it will have to cover all possible limits. If I make one for Gs, one for roll angle, one for climbing that won't work very well - it would look like a xmas tree. Anybody remembers how FS Passengers solved that?
 
Alex Lagos said:
@Ricardo: I will try to implement some kind of simple status, but I think it will have to cover all possible limits. If I make one for Gs, one for roll angle, one for climbing that won't work very well - it would look like a xmas tree. Anybody remembers how FS Passengers solved that?
Click to expand...

FSPax had no indicator for G, other than screaming people after exeeding one... Also i'm not sure if FSPax checked G in any other axis than vetical. And for FS You can always put small G-meter fromExtra 300 anywhere in cockpit of any plane.

And You can't do anything for turbulences, windshears, downwinds and fast not-gradual change of weather when flying online (last one can be solved with REX/Active sky in limited way via smooth weather change)...

EDIT:
My last autoland on EGLL was little less than -300ft/min and it was scored by Landing Gauge as "acceptable landing".
 
Reporting issue

Today I went from SCGE to SCIE. But I must stop before arrival in SCIE because diner was ready. I used PAUSE in X-Plane. After diner I could finish the flight.
But... see the report:

XPassTest-10.jpg


The flight was not longer than one hour (or something like that).
This means the XAcars functions in XPassenger do not recognise a pause from X-Plane.
The original XAcars plugin could recognise a pause but it stopped the communication with the server (the PIREP was okay).

Alex, could you look at this issue? Sorry, but this can give big problems with the flights administration.

:fly:
 
Oh you are right I totally forgot about pausing the simulation, normally I don't ever pause it. Gonna fix it tomorrow. Sorry for that!

I added crew warnings if you are pulling too many Gs, now you will know before you reach the limit for a penalty, same for bank angle. Also added landing speed quality and crew response.
 
Pausing only offline, and even then i rather put plane in hold over waypoint than pause flight. But some may do more...

Also x-plane stops if You open settings menu or local map, and that may be not recognised as pausing simulation...

Nice for warnings...

About crew announcements You may be interested in
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. There is quite few NICE quotes about what crew talk to pax during each stage of flight.

EDIT:
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have also nice manuals and checklists for variety of planes.
 
sounds like it's coming along nicely.

Alex, do you happen to have the XPassanger for the Windows based computer pilots? I was going to check the plugin, and when I was ready to drop the file, I realized the file extension for the Macs.

Thanks.

~ Frank C.
 
I've got the same problem metioned a few posts before.

I start my flight EDDB to LOWW

The problem is on air-child it shows me from TUVAK - MIKOV instead.

It is no charter flight.

Maybe you can solve this problem ;-)

Thank you
 
going to release later today (hopefuly) 0.0.4 which fixes the bugs and also adds the fixes to windows.
 
New version 0.0.4 out! Download for mac and windows here:
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Changes:

Fixed bug with XAcars connection
Fixed wrong route transmitted on flight begin
Fixed wrong coordinate conversion
Added XAcars support for pausing the sim
Added flight information text fields
Added more crew announcements
Added landing speed rule
Added crew responses and copilot warnings

Please let me know if something is not ok. Thanks again to Ricardo for his bug testing efforts!!
 
New version 0.0.5 released with these changes:

Rewrote config file handling
Added flight rules selection
Added specific plane limits
Added several new announcements
Added the possibility of flying without a prefilled flight in XAcars
Fixed wrong TAS conversion for XAcars
Fixed an issue with route parsing
Fixed fuel calculation for XAcars
Fixed several smaller bugs

Please help me with the rules for each plane type. Would be very grateful!
 
And yet again a new version, as Ricardo reminded me of a bug and I flew a bit around found some more bugs so please do update:
  • Fixed bug with XAcars flight level parsing
    Fixed bug not reading specific plane rules for XAcars flights
    Fixed plugin unloading
    Added max IAS in rules
    Added total score display in report
 
Excellent project, Alex, thanks for starting it!

I began exploring X-Plane recently and there are plenty of things that impress me a lot in this platform.

Your plugin adds an extra bit of flavour and variety plus serving as an ACARS client. I'll be using it extensively to track my ACH flights on X-Plane and looking forward to seeing its future development and growth. Keep up the good work! :)
 
Thank you very much for your support Svilen. If it converts you to Xplane even better! ;)
 
Small update on what 0.0.7 will have when I finish it:

- Seat belt state detection and score changes depending if you forget putting it on for landings etc.
- Crew actions will have real time length, meaning if you put a movie on and your flight is less than say 100 minutes, score will suffer a bit as your passengers got annoyed (that's how FS Passengers works i think)
- More crew announcements and warnings

Any ideas/requests you may have? Happy to hear them.
 
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