[208 Squadron to Kenya...]

Very nice. I particularly liked the shots of the formation flying over the mountains. Do you use flightplanner to organise the formations? They seem closely grouped which I dont seem to be able to achieve when putting flights of aircraft together. I also find that being in close proximity to an AI aircraft will cause it to 'slalom' around the sky - you seem to have avoided this although possibly because your aircraft was stationed to one side.

Edit: Ignore my question above - I've just seen your post in the screenshot discussion about how this is done. Very impressive!

[Aerosoft A10]

Another project that's in development that you have not seen yet... Release 2010, more information to come.

Now that is interesting!

[Topic: Lights... I see the light!]

Whilst mentioned above, to expand on guenselis post, recognition lights for both modern and historic aircraft, whether 'slime' lights or other night aids for air to air refuelling as well as specific lights on certain aircraft.

[Fuel load and planning]

I've dusted off the F16 having not flown it for a while - I'd forgotten how good it is. However, can anyone assist with an issue I am having on fuel quantities and consumption?

1. The fuel quantity in the main FSX fuel and payload selector varies to that shown on the aircraft's fuel guage. For example, choosing the F16A (Clean) gives the following fuel quantities in the FSX fuel and payload selector:

Left aux (ie the left internal wing tank): 552.7 lbs

Left (ie the aft internal fuselage tank): 2964.7 lbs

Right (ie the forward internal fuselage tank): 2964.7 lbs

Right aux (ie the right internal fuel tank): 552.7 lbs

TOTAL fuel: 7035 lbs

But, in the aircraft the total fuel available appears to be 8753 lbs. This is shown in the digital display when positioning the fuel display knob to NORM. The needles in this position point to 3800 lbs (presumably the fwd and aft needle overlapping to read the same value) which according to the manual is the quantity of fuel in all internal tanks. This doesn't stack up with the fuel and payload selector.

Also, selecting RSVR has both needles at 500 lbs - this selection is the remaining in the forward and aft tanks according to the manual (or is it just a reserve amount)? INT (the selector for the internal wing tanks) shows both needles at 500 lbs and for some reason EXT (quantity in external wing tanks) shows each needle at 100 lbs although there arent any external tanks attached.

2. The second issue that I have is fuel flow. The fuel flow guage doesnt seem to represent actual fuel burn. Using the TOTAL quantity of the on board guage, I have been getting variance from the fuel flow guage with my calculations showing a burn of 5460pph when the guage shows 4500pph and a burn of 8058pph when the guage shows 5000pph (these two calcs undertaken at different altitudes). Either the fuel flow guage is misreading or the total fuel shown is incorrect on the digital display.

Can anyone shed any light on how I straighten this out as its playing havoc with my fuel planning for long distance flights?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

timc

[A New Simulator (May edition)]

It's been said and will continue to be said; this is exciting and very interesting. I hope that Aerosoft (and others concerned) can make this a viable proposition in all respects and wish them the very best with this potential endeavour.

The concept of a base package upon which users can add is attractive although in some respects is what we have with FSX. Clearly a FS appeals at different levels of immersion for different users so providing a platform package which would give the casual simmer the ability to hack around carelessly with a few aircraft could work. In many respects it would not need to be master of all things - the number of aircraft, the weather, ATC etc could all be basic offerings albeit the proviso is that the standard would need to raise the bar in terms of visual and performance quality from FSX. However, the dynamics would not need to be so detailed, eg a very simplistic weather model. It would then be the user's choice to extend the immersion level with those add-ons they felt appropriate to their specific requirements.

The method of adding on would need to be user friendly and based from within the master package -ie, no need to mess around with files and .cfg's where paints are added.

I suspect this approach would be appropriate in order to appeal to such a huge range of flying desires, from the tubeliner pilot to the chopper flyer to the military buff - and all the sub-sections thereunder! It also opens up an interesting concept for ongoing developer business. Again, in essence, this is what FSX tries to achieve but I cant help but wonder whether MS would have got away with a more simplistic base model having paid attention to the detail within a bit better.

[A Few Questions]

To feather the props:

-Shut down the engine (if it isn´t allready failed)

-Push the feather button

-Move the prop levers full backwards

I know the last item isn´t fully realistic, but simply how FSX works.

Finn

I've tried this method for feathering but it does not stop the prop rotating in flight. Any thoughts?

The feather button pushes in but doesnt pop out again which I believe is the marker for a successfully feathered prop. Any ideas as to what I am doing wrong? Is there a particular method of shutting the engine down that FSX 'prefers' in order to stop the prop rotating when feathered?

[Catalina Mk.i "jøssing Ii" Repaint]

This is a fabulous repaint. Looking forward to getting this later.

Just looked up No.333 (Norwegian) Sqn and got this summary:

"the missions of 333 Squadron included dangerous search-and-destroy submarine missions, patrolling, and secret missions along the Norwegian coastline, behind the German defence lines. They landed and picked up agents, illegal radios, and transmitters. They also dropped Christmas presents to the Norwegian population, and did search and rescue missions."

Busy (and dangerous) times indeed.

[Side Movement/rolling And Nav/radio-stack Problem]

Sounds good, but CHT often speeds up that way to many.

Perhaps open the cowl flaps to control CHT during a climb using these settings.

[No 210 Sqn, Download Available]

Very nice repaint. Thanks

[A Few Questions]

The ASC module should provide that sound indeed but in about 1% of installs it seems to lock up the system and we still no sure why that is. We very strongly suspect the C++ runtime modules but as we can test and have no feedback at this moment we just don't know 100% sure. If you have not tweaked the panel.cfg I advise you to check here: http://www.forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?s=...st&p=159229 and make sure you add this to all the panel folders. Let me know if that solves it.

If you are forced to feather a prop you loose all pressure in that system and there is no way to unfeather it. In some aircraft this is realistic (like the Catalina), in others it is not but as this is ALSO a FS bug there is not a lot that can be done about that. As the prop controls are at that moment disconnected from the prop controls the prop should always be in the feathered state.

The radios should not be a problem, but using the mousewheel is 20 times easier then trying to click it. The moment you see the mousepointer as a small hand just roll the mousewheel and the controls should move.

Mathis,

Thanks, the sound fix works and I can now enjoy ADF 1300, the sound of pumps and of course the comedy Aux APU. For the record, I am running FSX in Vista 32 as administrator and whilst I have not experienced any crashing, I just didnt have the extra sounds.

Is there any way to model a prop to be stationary when feathered in flight?

Mousewheel works well for radio buttons - good tip, thanks.

timc

[A Few Questions]

Firstly, I'll echo some the comments already made about this aircraft. Its fantastic. My first Aerosoft purchase was the F16 and I suspected then that I'd be back for more. My decision to do so has been justified by the Cat - the immersive nature of the model is superb and being able to refer to the manual to fly it is great.

A few questions:

• Whilst the sound of the engines is incredible (especially if played through earphones - my wife doesnt want twin P&Ws hacking round the room whilst she is watching telly!) I dont have any sounds for switch movements or hydraulic pumps for example. Is this related to the ASC? I have been using the Pensacola version.
• Does pushing the feather buttons in model the characteristics of a feathered prop? I suspect it does but how is unfeathering achieved? I couldnt pull the feather button back down again.
• Also on feathering, have you modelled a feathered state when the prop lever is fully back (ie coarse)?
• Can you confirm how I move the radio frequency? I cant get any movement of the dials or frequencies at all (again in the Pensacola version)

Thanks in advance.

timc

[Air to Air refuelling]

The problem that I had as it turned out was that I was too close to the 'tanker'. Even if you are rock steady (which I pretty much managed after soooooo many attempts) and everything else is set up right (refuelling door open, target locked etc) you can simply be too close for it to work. I found that by dropping back and down a touch it worked just fine.

Good point about the tanks being full though.

[AN/APG-68 Radar]

That is an interesting problem. Unfortunately neither James or I Saitek X52 controls. I have found with even the Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar that programming controls can be tricky at times.

x-man

let me know what your problem is with programming the X52 as I may be able to help. I could, in thoery send you a copy of the profile I use but you'd need to be happy with the changes you have made to the cfg files and assignments.

timc

[AN/APG-68 Radar]

The updated version is in the cab in the first post, if you want it.

Thanks. That has solved the problem just fine.

Back to flying!

[AN/APG-68 Radar]

Gents

Testing last night (now that I've got the right aircraft.cfg file amended!) and the target cursor in the LMFD tracks to the top right corner of the screen with no input from me. I can move it down and left with my controls (button defined rather than axis) but on control release the cursor tracks its way back up to the corner.

I reinstalled the Debug version of the LMFD, RMFD and DisplayMgmt files that Fred kindly linked to in a previous post (to help with my antenna elevation issue). This worked fine and the cursor behaved as intended - ie, only moving on control input. Possibly an issue with the latest version of the CAB file?

timc

[AN/APG-68 Radar]

The fact that the output stays at 0 indicates that the FSX variable is not getting the commands. Maybe the control is broken but it's probably something else. Have you defined the Engine.1, Engine.2 and Engine.3 in the appropriate aircraft.cfg file? Engine.3 (which is really Engine 4) isn't required for the elevation control but is required for the cursor axes. If those aren't defined, FSX ignores controls of just about all kinds for the undefined engine. And finding the right aircraft.cfg is sometimes difficult because there are so many of them. The livery description should be found in the aircraft.cfg file if you have the right one.

Fred

Well, its official: I am an idiot!

I've been flying the Nellis Aggressor bird and had changed the aircraft.cfg in a folder which contained Aggressor sub folders. As it turned out I had made changes to the wrong Aggressor! So, changes now made to the correct file and it all works perfectly. Many thanks for your assistance and for helping me on track to making the most of your (and James') enhancements.

One question, which is probably best directed at James; does the real F-16 have multicoloured symbology in the HSI?

Thanks again,

Timc

[AN/APG-68 Radar]

Tim,

Here is a zipped Cab file ANAPG_68Debug.CAB.zip with a debug statement in it. Unzip it, put the cab in your panel folder, change the panel.cfg to reference ANAPG-68Debug!LMFD and run the F-16. it will print out the actual GENERAL ENG PROPELLER LEVER POSITION:3 in the upper left of the radar screen (kind-of between the blue radar scan limit line). So you can see what you controls are actualy doing. If nothing happens (i.e., it shows a 0), check your axis settings and make sure you have the propeller level position defined correctly. But let me know what it says.

Horten

Much appreciated - thanks for the debug file. I installed it into the panel folder and referred to it under guage 6 and 7 of the panel.cab. I've then assigned my axial controls to engine 3 propellor axis. But, unfortunately, no joy with the guage you added for me - it stays at 0. I've spent a few hours testing various things such as changing the assignent to other axial controls, changing the settings in my X52 profile configurator from axial control to bands and back again (just to be sure!) as well as changing the propellor axis to other engines. I'm really stuck as to why I get no movement yet had this working a while ago (before this latest version of the MFDs and the Event Driven Management Display.

Any suggestions would of course be gratefully received as I am keen to use axial control rather than buttons for antenna elevation as I'm running out of buttons but have a few spare axial controls kicking around!

I'd also be grateful to hear from any other X52 users as to whether/how they have got this working.

Timc

[Air to Air refuelling]

I got the F16 shortly after release as a download but it wasnt until a few fixes had been released that I tried air to air refuelling (I'm using SP2, no Acceleration) and it all worked fine. That is, apart from the fact that the NWS/AR light flicked on and off as I slalolmed across the sky trying to wrestle the aircraft into some sort of control. After a bit of practise I managed to stay steady enough to take on a reasonable amount of fuel.

Now however, many flights later, and a couple of updates later, I just cant get it to work. I can get the F16 close and steady to the point that I can chose where I want to hold the F16 relative to the refuelling aircraft and sit there for ages. I then try another position for a while. Then another, and so on. I just cant work out what I am doing wrong. Maybe I am too close?

I've seen some of the images posted, by Finn in particular, about the proximity of the aircraft for this to work but I've tried replicating this without success. Does anyone else have any images or tips? I'm figuring that it has to be an issue with my position but having sat behind a 747 for 2 hours this evening trying to get A-A refuelling to engage, I'm considering tearing my hair out!

Bizarely, at one point I broke off the 747 and was about 50 feet below its altitude and about 400 feet off to its right when the NWS/AR light came on for about 2 seconds - the first and only time I saw it this evening! Could this be something worth investigating?

Timc

[AN/APG-68 Radar]

Interesting! The only change I've made in that part of the code in the past is to switch form engine 1 to engine 3. I don't have an X52 but it sounds like the zeroing may be different (or the mapping). The Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar goes from 0 to 65535 with the center at 32767 which FSX interprets to 0 - 100 percent. I wonder if the X52 is set up differently. Possibly going -32727 to 32767. Just a hack, but try removing the 50 - (which changes the the logic from adjusting 0-100 to -50 to 50). Let me know if it helps.

Thanks for the advice. I've tried playng wiht this setting to remove the 50 - but it seems that as soon as I touch the files I end up with blank MFDs. I deleted the 50 - entry (leaving 100 only in that line) which gave blank MFDs so reinserted the correct entry )ie 50 - 100 and they are still blank. I suspect this is something to do with the way I am editing and saving the files.

In short, i cant adjust the antenna elevation and cant adjust the coding to establish whether the mapping is different for an X52 compared to the Cougar. The only explanation I have is ineptness on my part!

It would be interesting to know if anyone else with an X52 has successfully implemented these enhancements to the FCR and MFDs.

Any suggestions as to how to fix this would also be appreciated!

Thanks,

Timc

[AN/APG-68 Radar]

"Horten"/James

I appreciate this is all work in progress but I thought I'd give some brief feedback which includes a question. I've made the changes using the latest version of the files. The installation instructions are clear and easy to follow so thanks for that. The instruction to add guages 06 and 07 in the panel.cfg still uses the same reference and therefore the MFDs overlay each other. There's mention of this in another post I recall. The instructions read:

// MFD with AN/APG-68 and Event Driven Target Management

gauge06=ANAPG-68!LMFD, 6,310,165,170

gauge07=ANAPG-68!RMFD, 6,310,165,170

I believe this should read

// MFD with AN/APG-68 and Event Driven Target Management

gauge06=ANAPG-68!LMFD, 6,310,165,170

gauge07=ANAPG-68!RMFD, 182,310,165,170

I've played around with your changes and I have to say that they are very impressive and are a great enhancement to an already first rate product. Its nice to have the option to enhance the complexity of one of the systems to make it more realistic and I'm pleased that some of the issues with the Left HSI have been resolved.

I am experiencing problems implementing the antenna elevation control. I have added the entries to the aircraft.cfg, being:

// AN/APG-68 - define additional engines for additional axis definitions

Engine.1 = -14.500, 0.000, 0.000

Engine.2 = -14.500, 0.000, 0.000

Engine.3 = -14.500, 0.000, 0.000

and have assigned engine 3 propellor axis in FSX to one of my axial controls on a Saitek X52 unit. For some reason this does not work yet it was fine before I made the latest changes (I've been playing around with earlier versions of your enhancements). The code in the LFMD xml file seems to refer to engine 3 [(A:GENERAL ENG PROPELLER LEVER POSITION:3,percent) 50 - 100 ]- I've added the [ and ] - here but no joy. At the moment my antenna is scanning between -20 and -80k feet! Until I can fix it I'm grounded.

Whilst I would appreciate some direction on how to resolve this I'd be happy to see the fix or revised instructions in the next pre-beta release.

Thanks, and keep up the good work!

Timc

[AN/APG-68 Radar]

Horten

Another question if I may: I've been reading back through the original thread and this thread again in the hope of finding a method of HOTAS control of the radar range function (which was in your early modifications to the MFD). Am I right in understanding that I can apply the Display Management changes you have set out towards the end of that original thread as well as the changes in this thread? If so, should I be downloading a .cab file as I got a winzip file containing a readme and a .xml file?

Thanks,

Timc

[AN/APG-68 Radar]

You're not really doing anything wrong, but my instructions weren't clear.

The four XML files linked aren't really XML files but XML file snippets. I'm surprised they open at all but the key is in the messages after the one you posted (in IE). ANAPG-68Radar.xml and ANAPG-68Events.xml actually contain a single top level tag, which is what IE is looking for. ANAPG-68Init.xml is just gauge expressions, which IE doesn't recognize, and ANAPG-68Mouse.xml is two top level tags (which IE doesn't like).

Right click on the mouse, select Save Target As... and save them somewhere. Then insert the code from the saved files.

Horten

Doh! Many thanks.

Timc

[AN/APG-68 Radar]

Horten

I'm trying to make the changes set out in this post having successfully implemented the joystick controls from your earlier post. The latter is great by the way. When trying to access the 'init' and 'mouse' files I get this message:

The XML page cannot be displayed Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later.

Would you know whether this is due to a problem at my end and if I am doing something wrong? The 'mouse' and 'radar' files open fine.

Thanks in advance.

Timc