New Aircraft: the Extra500

[D-EKEW]

good!
I noted your bug report: keypad: heading select and altitude pre-select still work when keypad disabled.

Eric

[Johan G]

+1 for the circuit breaker.

[zacarias]

I love this aircraft! Do you have plans to improve some interior details, such as the passenger seats (look at PAF's hangar Aerostar or Citation, for instance) or the "walls" (sorry for not having a better word)?

[D-EKEW]

Hi Zacarias,

Glad you like the model.
To be honest, our seats look fine to me. They actually look pretty much like in the real thing. Just missing the safety belts I guess...
And what is definitely missing is that the seats get occupied when you load them. Especially the co-pilot is blocking your view to the right, would add some realism.

My intention is to improve the cockpit a bit. There are some issues with the ALS shadows and lighting.

safe flying, Eric

[zacarias]

Yes, there's already a great job. But look, if you can, to the Aerostar 700 by the PAF team http://pattenflightgear.wifeo.com/aerostar700.php.
There are lots of details in the interior, especially in the passenger side, doors, etc.. The Extra-500 lacks some of this detail, and it deserves that level of detail, because it's really an excellent aircraft! It is even without those details, but if it had them... it would be top of the top!
Just suggesting. Congratulations anyway for the great job!

[D-EKEW]

A new stable release of the extra500 is out now! Go to our wiki page to download or just wait for FG2017.3 to come out in a few weeks.
There are a few small bug-fixes and the following changes/improvements:

* Failure dialog: reduce thrust (a lot) when propeller is damaged or (a little) when it has icing on it.
* Exterior: procedural navigation and strobe lights, ALS landing light
* Interior: "MakeHuman" occupants, baggage, some small cosmetic changes to the panel
* General: added more catalog tags

Have fun flying and keep your new passengers safe!

Cheers, Eric

[beef71]

Awesome! Love this plane even though I can't get the AP at Route Manager to work properly (It's definitely pilot error). A fun bird to fly for sure.

[D-EKEW]

Thanks! Glad you like our model.

Let me know if you need some help solving the error in between the headset.
I guess you know did look at the extra500 wiki pages, there is one dedicated to the autopilot.

Cheers,

Eric

[D-EKEW]

It is getting awfully close to a new release of FG, so here is the accompanying version of the Extra500!

The changes:
* General: Make it possible to startup at last shut-down position (through the extra500 - config menu) and the Canvas dialogs (fuel and Payload, Failure manager) are now scale-able for those with lower resolution screens
* Exterior: finally added the wing-fuselage fairing, added placards all over the place, re-positioned the pitot tubes as they were at a slightly wrong position, added wing fuel drain valves and made the wing de-ice boots look a bit better.
* Interior: small improvements on panel (the turn indicator now has a real ball), re-group cockpit for consistent ALS shadows and added cockpit- and cabin placards
* Maintenance: update route_manager.nas to current FG standard (possible incompatibility with previous FG versions)

Download from our Wiki page (see link below), from the FGAddon Repo or update via the Flightgear Startup GUI when 2018.1 is out.

Enjoy and keep landing safely!

Eric

[sidi762]

Hi
Just tried this plane and loved it, But could you make an option to disable the human models? They look strange sometimes.
And also please make an option to disable the panel state saving, in the config GUI maybe...
Thanks!
Sidi

[D-EKEW]

Hi Sidi,

To disable the human models altogether is no problem. I will add an option in the config dialog.
But what do you mean with that they look strange sometimes?

For the panel state saving: you mean you want the aircraft to start-up with the switches in the 'new install' state? Or you mean something else? Note that a lot of other things like frequencies, baro setting etc, etc are saved.
We can add an option for that as well of course.

Eric

[sidi762]

Hi Eric,

I don't know... it just looks strange to me...and another reason I wish for the option was the performance of my computer isn't that good, and I get a low framerate around 8 fps.

For the panel state, yes. Sometimes I played around the aircraft and broke something in the plane(such as the batt and external power stop providing power and every screen goes black, maybe a bug or I just simply did something wrong), then the only way to get back to normal was to delete the file, which is very inconvenient. Thanks for adding it as a option!

Best regards,
Sidi

[D-EKEW]

Yes the models are quite heavy on some systems due to the large file size / detailed models. I will add an option.

Your second point is probably caused by the battery getting empty. If you are playing around without the engine running and the generator on, it is always best to attach external power (ctrl-e) and switch it on (with the external power switch). If the battery is empty you can charge it easily with external power on as described above and switch the battery on as well.

cheers,

Eric

[sidi762]

Hi Eric,
I've tried to swich the external power on, but it doesn't work.
This happend after waching the replay.
Sidi

[D-EKEW]

Switching it on is not enough, you need to make sure external power is attached. There should be an external power cart on the RH side of the aircraft and in the pilot view a small panel saying 'External Power' with Voltage and Ampere must be there. If not press CTRL-e to toggle it.

Eric