While I will *not* go into specifics on how we managed this, I am happy to report that the toll this library takes in performance is quite minimal, compared to the sheer magnitude of what's "in there". In fact, we have now about 60,000 (yes - sixty THOUSAND) electrical connections for components talking to each other in the A320-X - from relays to switches to servos, if it makes sense for properly simulating the A320, it's already in our code.
Rather than going into "guess work" on how these components would be simulated, we turned into the actual documentation and created the exact equivalents in our code based on the actual wiring that takes place in the real aircraft. As we kept coding various systems, we saw that a lot of those analog components needed to be simulated in order to achieve the fidelity and accuracy we required from ourselves. In the real bird, this is the other means of information transportation that each computer will read and use. The systems also rely on analog electrical wiring to communicate things like proximity switch information (is a door open / closed) or good old electrical voltage (such as that from a wheel tachometer) that gets converted into digital information. This gave our systems the ability to send digital information (32-bit binary and discrete bit variables) around. Systems complexity: As you know (you *have* been reading my other reports, yes?), we had developed an entirely new code library to allow our aircraft systems to communicate with each other via ARINC 429 protocol variables. That said, let me give you an idea of where things stand at the moment and where we've been putting our development focus since I last reported: Not to worry, though, because "this time", I know what I need to do: And that is, NOT give out a proximate date of release. You see, when we had our presentation in Munich about our upcoming A320-X, I was clearly convinced that to fit the entire majestic, beautiful, spectacular, breath-taking, awe-inspiring complexity of the A320 will take "just a couple months more" of development.Ĭlearly, I was a bit "off" in my calculations. (this goes on about 1000 times and is on my office's blackboard) "I will never again suggest a proximate date of release while being video taped". Last night I bought the JustFlight F-Lite A320 and frankly it's no better than the PA one.I thought I had long escaped Smiffy's quest for "more forum posts" by hiding in his office and actually coding on my laptop there as it's the one place nobody actually bothers to look for me (and we all know how often HE is there), but I got caught when the cleaning crew decided to clean the spider webs from his keyboard, so I guess it's about time I wrote a bit on what we've been doing in the past couple "days" since my last report.īefore I do that, though, I'll start with this: At the moment I use the Project Airbus but I wanted a step up visually (though some of the PA liveries are top notch) and aurally (basically I wanted to be called a retard, and the PA doesn't do that :lol: ).
But I have little time to dedicate to the sim (see my discussions with RockOla :lol: ), so I wanted something I can just jump into, have a flightplan calculated for me (a la FSX GPS flight planner), fire up and takeoff without much more than a Ctrl+E.
I quite fancied my first payware aircraft and I wanted an A320. The Extended can be flown without programming every system however, which makes it convenient for a wide range of simmers. Sure, it had light systems, but there were bugs here and there that made flying a pain in the backside. Trust me, you do not want the original Airbus X, even if you're after light systems.