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PSX introductory tutorial released

Started by brian747, Mon, 1 Sep 2014 22:45

funkyhut

While going through the latter section of Brian's outstanding guide (thanks!), I have created a .situ file which I'd like to share if anyone is interested.

It puts the airplane at Gate 57 at Gatwick (EGKK) in a cold & dark state with just about everything in the wrong positions. Ground power is connected.
You can download it from here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5aN13PaH6miMXVYQk5RWDJ0aDQ/edit?usp=sharing
Greetings from the mountains of Northern Thailand (VTCC),
Chris Stanley.

B747-400

Hi Brian,

thanks for sharing this realy helpful tutorial with us!  8)

BR Hans

Sylle

Great job indeed Brian!

Cheers,
Sylvain

Dennis B

Brian, I did not dare to hope for a new tutorial from you.  But here we go, and this one is even better. I hope this will be the beginning of a series of small tuts, there is so much to know. And your writing style is both precise and entertaining.

Berndo

Brian,

thanks for the tutorial!
Naturally I tried to land manually (first time in PSX) and floated and floated and floated. :)

The plane feels overly responsive on aileron and rudder inputs, I wish there was a possibility to turn the sensitivity of my Logitech 3D down (or I haven't found it yet). Have to move the stick constantly or I'm not following the ILS anymore. I'm used to FSX on rails.

The half-size X-Plane window (1920x768 ) where I'm losing another title bar worth of pixels from PSX lets me flare much too early. Guess I have to trust the radio altimeter and/or get used to it.  :P

Nice job,
Bernd

Flying Mick

Brain,

YOU did it again -- Thank You so much Buddy!

Can´t wait to read more...


Greetings from Berlin
Michael
EDDT

Zapp

Quote from: BerndoThe half-size X-Plane window (1920x768 ) where I'm losing another title bar worth of pixels from PSX lets me flare much too early. Guess I have to trust the radio altimeter and/or get used to it.  :P


Hi, I'm told by a real -400 pilot that they always use the radio altimeter and never trust the external visual reference; re: the x-plane title bar, if you check the "full screen at this resolution" you get rid of it!

Bye

Andrea

Berndo

Quote from: ZappHi, I'm told by a real -400 pilot that they always use the radio altimeter and never trust the external visual reference; re: the x-plane title bar, if you check the "full screen at this resolution" you get rid of it!


Thank you Andrea for these two tips!
Really weird that 29 pixels (height of a standard title bar) improve things so much.

Bernd

falconeye

Quote from: brian747As a veteran of PS1, though, you may perhaps remember some documents about a touch and go at Sondre Stromfjord (BGSF), written by someone whose initials were (and are) HH, which might help you in that respect.    ;)

I tried exactly this, as I found some very old documents from PS1 times I once printed and archived. But now I found, that it is hardly possible to do the touch and go around in Sondre, because the airport has some nasty mountains around and most of the time I crashed  :? ( You can see them very well on the radar). These are the negative aspects of the evolution to PSX  :mrgreen: .For this reason I switched to my homeairport EDDM where the mountains are far more away and have had no problems anymore (except the high traffic at the airport ;) )
By the way thanks for the new tutorial, very well done! Unfortunately I could not wait and had done your old tutorial with PSX. Now I have to do it a second time, but I am sure I will enjoy it!

Cheers

brian747

#49
Many thanks indeed, gentlemen!    :)

@falconeye

I have to admit that I haven't yet tried the touch 'n go at Sondre Stromfjord with PSX, although it's nearing the top of my to-do list. But I agree that the PSX 744 has subtly different flying characteristics to the PS1 version, so I can well imagine that it could be more difficult to fly with PSX (and as I recall, it wasn't exactly easy with PS1!). To be fair, Hardy does say at the very beginning of his tutorial —

QuoteThe training pattern is very tight. It must be tight anyway due to high surrounding terrain (although there are no "crash detecting" mountains in the simulator).

[Later edit — ]  Just how tight can be seen on this chart:



But it's the techniques that Hardy describes in part 3 which are the point — the location of the runway doesn't really matter, as far as I can see. So using an airport with which you're familiar (ideally, one that's not too near to any mountains) seems like a good idea, to me!    ;)

Having now looked at the charts, though, the location, combined with a runway slope that "causes illusion of short RWY", makes it a fun place to practice LLZ/DME landings on rwy 09 — thank you, Hardy!    :D

Cheers,

Brian
(Author of "The Big Tutorial" for PS1, and "Getting started with PSX" Parts 1, 2, and 3).

Simicro

#50
Good morning Brian,

Thank you very much for your Tutorials!

I started to read Tutorial #1 and my feedback so far is:

- The level of information is perfect for me (I am not a real-life pilot but have good experience with FSX and have been flying the PMDG 777 for a couple of months)

- I appreciate the references, here and there, to the history of PS1.3, to build a personal general knowledge and background on the simulator as I do not own PS1.3

- I learned a new word I have never seen before: vlying!  :mrgreen:

What I am looking for now is a complete flight tutorial from cold and dark or so. I came across another topic by you with links to the old "Big Tutorial" so I will look into it. I'm glad that you and Hardy make it available, along with the passwords, to new PSX users like me who do not own the previous version of the simulator. That sounds great and fair.

Sorry if it has been asked before here on forums: what is the objective and content of Tutorial #3?
- Tony -

* Aerowinx PSX, PFPX, TOPCAT, PMDG 777 (FSX)
* i5 4670K 4.3 Ghz 4 Core - MSI Z87-G43 Gaming - 8 Gb DDR3 - GeForce GTX 770 2 Gb
* SSD 256 Gb - iiyama 1920 x 1080 - Win 7 64 bits

brian747

#51
Hi Tony!

And thank you for your kind words.  :)

I do tend to use words like vlying (virtually flying), vlight (virtual flight), vlown (virtually flown) etc. to indicate that I am not confusing simulation with reality. (Well not yet, anyway).    ;)

As threatened oops sorry forecast in Part 2 of "Getting started with PSX", Part 3 will consist of a complete vlight from cold and dark to cold and dark at the destination, with one or two fun things going on in between to showcase some aspects of PSX that may be new to some people — which means that it will be a fairly long work in itself. So in view of my commitments (not to mention Hardy's) this is probably unlikely to appear until next Spring — and please don't even hold me to that.    :mrgreen:

The original Big Tutorial attempted to do everything in one rather hefty lump, so I have tried to avoid that by grouping all the preliminary topics into Part 1 and Part 2, so that Part 3 can concentrate entirely on the vlight. And since the level of knowledge of simmers has increased considerably in the last 15 years, some of the Appendices of the Big Tutorial are no longer needed, thus further streamlining things (I hope!).

Cheers,

Brian
(Author of "The Big Tutorial" for PS1, and "Getting started with PSX" Parts 1, 2, and 3).

Simicro

Hello Brian,

The content for Tutorial #3 sounds good to me and I'm interested in "one or two fun things going on in between to showcase some aspects of PSX that may be new to some people".

I understand the workload is high so what I will do is forget Tutorial #3 and when it comes out, that will be a good suprise  ;)
- Tony -

* Aerowinx PSX, PFPX, TOPCAT, PMDG 777 (FSX)
* i5 4670K 4.3 Ghz 4 Core - MSI Z87-G43 Gaming - 8 Gb DDR3 - GeForce GTX 770 2 Gb
* SSD 256 Gb - iiyama 1920 x 1080 - Win 7 64 bits

brian747

Thank you for your understanding, Tony.    :)

All the best,

Brian
(Author of "The Big Tutorial" for PS1, and "Getting started with PSX" Parts 1, 2, and 3).

eholck

HI,   GREAT INITIATIVE,.... but SITU FILES ????   what? how ? ...

Regards
E.Holck

   

Will

Situ files (short for "situation files") are files that snapshots of the current aircraft in space and time. Many situ files are included on the DVD, or you can make as many of your own as you like.
Will /Chicago /USA

brian747

Thank you, Will!    :)

@ "eholck"

Apologies if it came as a surprise, but many of us here are veterans of PS1, so that the term needs no introduction or explanation.

If you look at page 36 (Load situ) and p. 35 (Save situ) of Hardy's manual you will find more specific information. Suffice it to say that, whilst there are a few similarities, unlike FSX's "Load flight" command you will find that Load situ works every time, and puts the aircraft back in the exact situation it was in when you saved that situ file.

Cheers,

Brian
(Author of "The Big Tutorial" for PS1, and "Getting started with PSX" Parts 1, 2, and 3).

petdocvmd

Brian,

Outstanding job on this PSX tutorial.  While impatiently awaiting for my copy of PSX to arrive in the mail, I read and re-read this many times (as well as your others - but that's for later).  As others have commented, your writing style is clear and entertaining.  Once I ripped my treasure from the startled postman's hands and had it installed, I immediately set to work tweaking layouts as you recommended (and with awesome guidance from Will's layout tutorial).  I was quite happy to see that my 7 year old iMac allowed me to enlarge the frames considerably and still maintain frame rates in the 50s.  Wow! I also did some basic mapping of USB axes and buttons to allow management of vital flight functions.

Back to the topic, it was with great anticipation that I loaded your ferry flight situation and prepared to coax this leviathan aircraft into the air.  I somehow managed to get airborne without scraping the tail, stalling, or taking out any autos on the motorway, and reluctantly reliquished control to the FMC in the climb.  Having burned the contents of the tutorial into my brain, as the flight unfolded I felt as if you were a kindly check pilot sipping tea in the jump seat behind me, occasionally proffering tidbits such as "perhaps a dash of spoilers here old boy, you're a touch high."

Your warnings about being " a bit busy" and "slowing/descending early" were typical British understatement <G>.  And that was without myriad checklist reading and fussy little flightdeck tasks prior to landing.  I found the spoilers on this aircraft are in fact quite effective – though I imagine the passengers might have become a tad disconcerted by our sudden 3000'/min descent rate as I fought to wrest the little diamond from the floor. 

Somehow it all came together as I reeled in the speed brakes, engaged App mode in time to avoid a serpentine intercept, and got flaps and gear down stepwise without rending these or other important parts from the aircraft in so doing.  There was a brief moment of hesitation and anxiety as we were about to touch down when I was uncertain whether the button I was about to push for reversers might actually have been set for TOGA, but with the courage of my convictions I jabbed it after the speedbrake deployed and was rewarded with the telltale whine of reversers, and not long after the callout of "80" by my able PNF in the virtual right seat.

I did indeed park right on the tarmac, happily. 

Bravo, Brian – and thank you for a great introduction to this incredible work of engineering that Hardy has bestowed upon us :-)

Scott
Scott L. Fausel, VMD

brian747

Hi Scott!

And many warm thanks for your kind post — it gladdens an old tutorial writer's heart to know that his efforts have been so sympathetically received!    :)

Congratulations also on your thorough and systematic preparation beforehand, which clearly paid dividends (English understatement aside, I do appreciate there is very little time for sitting back and enjoying the PSX experience on that first trip)!  ;)  But my hope was that you would enjoy subsequent (and longer) trips all the more.

And so you'll soon be ready to make the next step: I'm sure you have discovered Britjet's video tutorials already, but just in case....  http://aerowinx.com/board/index.php?topic=2583.0

Every good wish from the English side of the pond,

Cheers,

Brian
(Author of "The Big Tutorial" for PS1, and "Getting started with PSX" Parts 1, 2, and 3).

eholck