Client 2.4 Beta

[joefremont]

Hi Flyers,

The v2.4 beta of the client is now released, here are the new features.

• Co-pilot support - Not much to do but to tell pilot you are co-pilot or crew on a flight and record that they have checked in.
  To learn more about how copilots work read these two posts
  • viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9600
  and
  • viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9541

• A 'Deliver All' button so that if there are packages that can be delivered (within 50 nm) the will be.

• Divert Airport - When the divert button is pushed the pilot will be asked to enter the code of the airport they are going to divert to.
  Note: Entering a code is not required, its just so that if there are other airports close by it knows which one you are going for.

• Parking brake at end of flight should not end the flight until your going less than 5 kn, this was asked for by a pilot using X-Plane where the auto brakes were were triggering the parking brake at touch down.

• Login Update - I made some security updates to the website for login where it now creates a 'login token' and I want to apply to the client as well, this one you won't notice much.

• Fix display of ZFW in client when loading

• Fix so you cant change aircraft model after starting flight.

• A 'Read Only' fueling mode (in addition to standard and Simple), in this mode the client will never try to set the fuel in the sim aircraft.

• The weight of the crew is now included in the weight of the flight. While the required flight crew (as defined in the database) is included in the basic operating weight, the cabin crew is dependent on the number of seats and/or passengers, since any aircraft can be configured with no seats, the cabin crew is not included in the DOW. All additional crew members add for 85 kg to the ZFW.

[joefremont]

Just released Beta 3 Issues resolved are:

- Fix fueling when using 'standard' mode
- Fix crew weight display.

Note on cabin crew requirements.

Each crew member after the flight crew is considered to add 85 kg to the payload (77kg for the person and 8 kg for their carry on). Using the FAA rules, for planes that can have a payload of 7500 lb or more and from 9-50 seats or less than 7500 lb payload and 19-50 seats one cabin crew member is needed.

From 51 or more seats 2 cabin crew are needed plus for every multiple of 50 passengers (round up) above 100 passengers.

Since any air craft can be configured with 8 or fewer seats, the cabin crew is not considered to be part of the DOW.

I still have bugs with releasing packages and inviting crew members I am still trying to figure out.

[joefremont]

Just released beta 7.

This fixes one minor bug with P3D v5 reports and made some fixes to try to improve stability especially those 'aborted flight' issues where something happens the client does not like.

The only thing I really changed in the underlying client interface code was to read the path to the aircraft to see if something changed, and since then we have had issues where it looses contact with the sim. So I removed that code, its not something that happened much anyways.

[yvjjflores]

Hi Joe...


As always, very attentive and ready to solve problems in record time.

We will test and report

Thank you

[Cat]

Report from one of our pilots at Fly Vegas:

2.4.7 client has fueling issues with XP-11 King Air C90.

It is not reading the fuel tanks correctly. It appears to have the right main confused with the left aux.



The capacity of the left aux and the right main seemed to be flipped.

And FYI the airplane does not have aux tanks (at least my FSX Carenado does not). In reading the online XP11 manual, the default King Air C90 only has left / right tanks as well. Well actually it seems to have two tanks per wing.... ??

EDIT - in studying real world manuals and the fuel system on the King Air, it does have an AUX inboard bladder in each wing but in reality, the system seems to work as a single tank as once the AUX runs down to the useful level, the main tanks auto switch to gravity feed the nacelle tanks from which the engine actually draws fuel. So in this case for some reason the Client is reading XP11 default C90 incorrectly with the right main and left aux capacity numbers flipped.

PS - the pilot in question also noted, it does the same with the 2.3.3 Client as well so something between XP and the FSA Clients is not communicating properly.

He also tried the READ ONLY option and while showing 400 kg in the airplane the Client was only showing 308 kg.

[joefremont]

Problem with XPUIPC in reading the fuel tanks is the ID numbers are not consistent with position while on MS based sims they are always consistent, which is one of the reasons I added the read only method cause pilots were trying to fuel up and ending to way out of balance.

Now the fuel quantity issue does concern me as it may not be reading the right number of tanks.

[Cat]

Pssst there is a typo in 2.4.7 Flight Information Page

[Cat]

Beta Client 2.4.7 sometimes does not show the crew weight. I just flew into Bozeman in a CRJ-700, landed and filed the PIREP then booked a new flight back to Boise and now show this in the Client with a big weight differential than when I just arrived.

The flight up to Bozeman from Boise I had 56 passengers and 3537 packages + 2306 generic cargo = 6614 total cargo (max cargo capacity so where did the pax bags go?). The crew weight was 374.

Now on this flight I only have 3489 total cargo and 0 crew weight. Very strange and not consistent flight to flight.



FYI exiting the Client and then restarting has no effect, the numbers are the same.

VirtualCol CRJ7 in FSX SE w/ Win10

[joefremont]

Beta Client 2.4.7 sometimes does not show the crew weight. I just flew into Bozeman in a CRJ-700, landed and filed the PIREP then booked a new flight back to Boise and now show this in the Client with a big weight differential than when I just arrived.

The flight up to Bozeman from Boise I had 56 passengers and 3537 packages + 2306 generic cargo = 6614 total cargo (max cargo capacity so where did the pax bags go?). The crew weight was 374.

Now on this flight I only have 3489 total cargo and 0 crew weight. Very strange and not consistent flight to flight.



FYI exiting the Client and then restarting has no effect, the numbers are the same.

VirtualCol CRJ7 in FSX SE w/ Win10

Thanks Sam, yes I saw that and is the last bug I am hunting down before putting out 'Release Candidate 1'

[joefremont]

I have just released v2.4-rc1. The first release candidate for the final version. The last few weeks have been pretty quiet regarding client problems so I think we are very close to a final. I have tried several times and have not been able to reproduce Sam's crew weight problem so that may still need fixing but its probably server side so should not hold up the client.

Happy Flying.

[joefremont]

Update on the weight problem. Figured out why it was not showing crew weight, it happened when there were no packages, this is now fixed. But I did noticed that when there were no packages it was not taking crew weight into account when calculating initial payload, and that I am looking into.

[yvjjflores]

Hi Joe.

Thanks for the info. We will see how it goes with this new update ...

Hugs

[Cat]

Getting an error message when I try to load new one



Edit: Disregard - CLOSE FSX before installing Client.

[VegasTim]

Loading up a flight in a 737-300 tonight. The pre-flight document states I have 13,034 packages / cargo but the Client says I have the max cargo capacity of 15,845. I did the math and the difference works out to 55.1174 lbs per passenger. So the passenger bags are showing in the Client as cargo? That means if I need to hit the CHANGE button to make weight, will I just dump passenger bags onto the tarmac and keep my package cargo?

I think the whole thing is getting WAY too complicated and confusing for the average user.

KIS - has always worked well for FSAirlines for years.

[VegasTim]

I cancelled my flight at my expense and rebooked it and now the numbers are all different. Something is really funky with the new system. The package cargo is the same but now the pre flight briefing is showing the crew weight and correct generic cargo where before it was showing the generic cargo as the available capacity.

I am going back to 2.3.3. and avoid all this.

I don't see what difference the Client has in the pre flight briefing report so maybe the problem is not with the client itself but all the added extras now in the system clogging it up.