On 11/11/2021 at 4:42 PM, mSparks said:

Unlike the bike, which is like a second skin - started on an ER5 which I rode every day for two years, swapped that for a ninja 636 which I also rode every day until stolen and written off which I used the insurance to get the R1, Ive taken her over most of Europe and the only issue Ive had so far is a €350 fine on the German Autobahn - got that on tape

(very lucky it wasnt €3000 - and yes - German Autobahn)

That fine means you were 40 to 50 kph over the speed limit. This is usually accompanied with a one month driving ban for german citizens. Too bad this isn't enforcable internationally...

42 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

That fine means you were 40 to 50 kph over the speed limit. This is usually accompanied with a one month driving ban for german citizens. Too bad this isn't enforcable internationally...

Autobahn = no speed limit as far as I knew... It was just straight uneventfull highway as per the video.

Edited November 14, 20214 yr by mSparks

19 hours ago, mSparks said:

Autobahn = no speed limit as far as I knew... It was just straight uneventfull highway as per the video.

Those red and white speed limit signs on Autobahns aren't for decoration and are continentally standardized. If one is too fast to read them, any fine is more than deserved.

22 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

Those red and white speed limit signs on Autobahns aren't for decoration and are continentally standardized. If one is too fast to read them, any fine is more than deserved.

They are also only visible for 250 milliseconds, not to mention completely invisible then in winds of 300kph when you are not looking for them and instead focused on watching traffic, people/animals and the road in front of you.

I wasn't that bothered, relieved more than anything, I generally take a €500 speeding fine budget whenever I do a long road trip, even jobsworths have to earn a living, and highway robbery as honest as most other careers, I just wasn't expecting to burn more than half of it in one stop on the only roads that I was actually allowed to do 300kph otherwise.

Most of the time

 

Edited November 15, 20214 yr by mSparks

On 11/15/2021 at 7:54 PM, mSparks said:

They are also only visible for 250 milliseconds, not to mention completely invisible then in winds of 300kph when you are not looking for them and instead focused on watching traffic, people/animals and the road in front of you.

Be right back, sacrificing the ashes of my grandparents and a random firstborn to the Dark Lord for a national speed limit of 130 kph and cross-border persecution of traffic rule violations.

8 hours ago, Bjoern said:

Be right back, sacrificing the ashes of my grandparents and a random firstborn to the Dark Lord for a national speed limit of 130 kph and cross-border persecution of traffic rule violations.

Please do.

It would be great to have the Germans pay for their own policing and encourage them to drive better abroad, they're a menace.

On the list of the "I am too dumb to drive a motorized vehicle" we have the following scores:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

German: 6.4

USA: 14.2

Serbia: 28.4

🤣

I personally have no problems with people speeding on motorcycles. They tend to be alone on them, rarely kill other involved when they splatter against some tree - so all in all it is a great service to evolution and furthering the cause of the human race when the intellectually challenged/hormonally confused ride them way faster than they sensibly should. 👍

Edited November 17, 20214 yr by Janov

 

1 hour ago, Janov said:

Serbia: 28.4

This should fall now we got them to buy Ambulances, but yeah, they are also absolutely insane.

Still working on funding for HEMS. Thats kinda a personal mission for me after

https://www.lancs.live/news/local-news/hero-fireman-is-given-award-1271157

Edited November 17, 20214 yr by mSparks

@msparks  get that R1 to Mumbai , no problem with speedz , that's if you can get out of the traffic 😁

16 hours ago, mSparks said:

Please do.

It would be great to have the Germans pay for their own policing and encourage them to drive better abroad, they're a menace.

Believe me, it's not just abroad. Too many are just complete idiots. There must be mandatory driving school check-ups every five to one years, depending on age, and a general limitation for private-ownership motor vehicle size, weight, soundproofing and horsepower to make things better for everybody as well as a general speed limit.

On 11/18/2021 at 12:10 AM, Bjoern said:

Believe me, it's not just abroad. Too many are just complete idiots. There must be mandatory driving school check-ups every five to one years, depending on age, and a general limitation for private-ownership motor vehicle size, weight, soundproofing and horsepower to make things better for everybody as well as a general speed limit.

A lot of it is really down to the training imho.

I ended up getting trained by a group of police bikers who had all done basically every advanced driving course the world has to offer.

Completely different than anything I got originally passing my test.

Follow on advanced training should be compulsory rather than something crazy learn-aholics like me do to pass the time. The changes they brought in to the bike testing along those lines was a step in the right direction but still not far enough.

___

Back on AutoATC.

Pretty productive few days flight testing again this weekend. Fair few fixes/alterations handling approach language and flight plan tracking just went live this morning.

Took a few days longer than I was expecting, because I came to flight test on Saturday morning with the R66 from Vskylabs I just bought, only to find it gave instructions for a heavy aircraft approach - My first thought was it was just giving pure garbage instructions, then I realised the instructions would be good if I was in something like a 747. Reason: The airframe database was missing the maximum range for the R66 and without that it fell back to the default airframe - which assumes fast and heavy (uses maximum range as a hard time out for all the AI).

Being able to quickly replay flights from a flight log is making it easier and easier to test and fix issues.

Assuming the next test flight doesnt turn up any more issues, next in the queue for flight testing/development looks like it will be the various IFR, altitude and traffic advisory things that have already been worked on, along with communicating with the 744 FMS over discord.

I also received some inspiring essay style feedback recently, still a way to go yet, but feels fantastic to be finally escaping the "how do I use a radio" reviews that have plagued it the last couple years.

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 20214 yr by mSparks

Another day another flight test.

Stretching the legs of what I worked on over last weekend. That all worked great - like really great, I think possibly the first flight I've actually felt comfortable things that I expect to work are actually working well.

Got given a go around on final approach, entirely reasonable because I cut the corner in the pattern and I would have landed into a heavy, second attempt was flawless.

Follow me car was well behaved and a pleasure to follow.

BUT i did hit one bug, it wasnt clearing the "yousay" popup when accidentally transmitting but not saying anything. Thats an app fix which is rolling out on the play store now.

That bug really made me think about testing in general though. For absolutely sure people have hit it before (probably me included...), but its never been mentioned or noted. Meanwhile discord is full of conversations about the low quality of certain developers (but nothing concrete anyone could action).

I think a lot of problems have their roots in developers not flying their own creations anywhere near enough. There seems to be a mentality of build it, when it seems ok, release and move onto the next big thing.

[I'm going to go out of my way and say that definitely doesn't apply to Vskylabs, they have quickly become my favourite XP dev.]

"Seems ok" just isnt good enough, and its only when you start really using an aircraft or plugin and putting a decent amount of time on it that non obvious, easy to fix but "showstopper" issues start coming to the surface.

I'd really like to see some more threads like this one but dedicated to flying specific aircraft (not talking AutoATC), the "what plane did you fly today" screenshot thread on the org is one of the most popular threads, something similar but detailing successes and failures of the actual flights would make a really nice change to pondering the inner workings of operating systems and when and what is going to drop in XP12.

Edited November 25, 20214 yr by mSparks

On 11/25/2021 at 4:10 AM, mSparks said:

I'd really like to see some more threads like this one but dedicated to flying specific aircraft (not talking AutoATC), the "what plane did you fly today" screenshot thread on the org is one of the most popular threads, something similar but detailing successes and failures of the actual flights would make a really nice change to pondering the inner workings of operating systems and when and what is going to drop in XP12.

I've considered starting one for a while just to specifically get away from those endless, aimless discussions.

Plugin 0.9.7.1 Released

https://github.com/mSparks43/XPlane-11-AutoATC-plugin/releases/tag/v0.9.7

Changelog

Follow me car (pro version android application support only)
Support clearing yousay popup from lua
Migrate to Java 17 for better performance and memory management, especially on lower end systems
ACARS/CPDLC fixes (Sparky744)
Apple M1 support

Another weekend, more flight testing.

Caught a couple of bugs in the last release that stopped the yousay popup working correctly and voice commands from working. Fixes for those are already up. (0.9.7.2 plugin above + android update)

This time I was focused on hold instructions (reaching a busy airport when you cant land immediately because the runways are in use by other traffic) found and fixed a few issues there (it worked but user feedback was a little broken and it can be improved with the new ticketing system), prerelease tests for the ai server update with much of that are running now, and will be in the next world reset.

Since that isn't quite ready for a flight test video yet, I did a "building cross platform plugins for xplane" video instead. Please share this whenever you see someone saying Laminar should give up on cross platform support.