rgirdler
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Posts posted by rgirdler
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Cool, I'll give it a try this weekend.
thanks Peter
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"Program your joystick that some left button generates <Bsp> <Bsp> <Bsp> 1 5 <enter>, when pressed, and repeating <enter> ... , when hold. Prgram some right button to <Bsp> <Bsp> <Bsp> - 1 5 <enter>, when pressed, and repeating <enter> ... , when hold."
Peter, can you give some more detail on this programing? I use a Saitek Flight Control system.
Also does anyone have an answer for this one?
Could some one could tell me why the tow plane always seems to crash in my set up. I press 'control + shift + y" and sure enough, just as advertised, there's a tow plane in front for my 1-26 (fsx c and e under development) and then, for reasons unknown to me the tow plane just starts to move and then promptly noses over in a crash in the middle of the runway. Then, if you wait, another tow plane shows up with the crashed one and both of them tow me to altitude. It gets me up but looks a little odd..................... It's probably something simple, just unknown to me. I assigned the tow plane call and tow release to buttons on the joystick thinking that it might have something to do with my usp keyboard but no difference.
Thanks,
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Peter,
I'm not sure if this is a help but I have been doing some stuff with FSX KML (http://fsdeveloper.agerrius.nl/wiki/index.php?title=FSX_KML#Downloading_FSX_KML) to enhance the soaring area around Aguila Arizona (not covered by Mega Scenery). My focus has been to set the different terrain areas for crops, bare desert, rocks, etc so that it better resembles the real environment around Aguila. But I am wondering if we could apply this to set up static ridge-lift areas. I don't know enough about how this all pulls together but it's just a thought.
Ray
The real bottleneck currently is the unability to set vertical winds from outside FSX. FSUIPC doesn't do it anymore, otherwise CCS could be adapted easily, by changing the address of the vertical wind variable at most.Basically only ridge-lift ist truly affected by this. The only workaround I can think of, is to write some code, which analyses the relief and creating a scenery file with the old-fashioned ridge lift elements, already known since many versions (TriggerWeatherData), which is still supported by the XML-BGL-Compiler. If succesful, one could produce even a rather fine-patched coverage, but no ideas on FSX performance then, and no idea on the analysing algorithm (yet). At the end of the day, I expect that it will become somehow similar like CCS, but will probably never achieve its fine granularity of appr. 100m.
Thermals are less difficult, because FSX contains a programmatic interface to create and destroy parametrised thermals on the fly (though leaning, or moving, is not considered). So in principle it would be easy writing a DLL that does this job, in a similar way as CCS did. This could be made dependent even on the actual weather, e.g. w.r.t. to cloud base.
CUMULUS! is also no longer working properly, because the timing functions are no not supported anymore by FSX. Though, this could be substituted with the built-in thermal creation and dissipation functions and a proper mission file. The only thing missing here is a good cloud model in GMAX. But I know that there are people already working on that.
In principle one could consider writing a sort of "Automatic-Thermal-Mission-Generator" for pouring out masses of thermals and ridge lifts automatically, similar to my first approache to Cumulus!. The nice thing could be, that once you have your "soaring scene" (ridges, thermal active areas, etc.) one could immediately recreate the mission file according to updated weather conditions. Bugs in the ridge object prevent them to work correctly, when wind direction changes! Nevermind, thermals are much easier here than ridge-lift. I should look into it.
All-in all, I really hope that MS does something with external control of vertical air soon.
Cheers,
Peter
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First off let me thank Peter for the clouds. Much better than little birds that I in fact never saw (probably a resolution issue) and the ugly green bands that don't locate the thermal very well anyway. Tried out the new clouds with the Dallas/Ft Worth MegasceneryX and was much impressed. In reference to cloud layers I found that if you hang in there through the floor of the cloud (a clear violation of FAA regs) you just keep on going up. I finally broke off at about 12k when the lift was getting a little iffy which should be normal when reaching to top of the cloud created by the thermal.
It would seem that more research is needed however. I think that whoever set the thermal strengths and heights in FSX must have been getting his advice from someone here in the southwest where, during the summer, we regularly see boomers of 1100 fpm to better than 12K. But that's not the case in most of the world.
I got to fly with both options today using real-world weather again. The other day I thought I couldn't tell the difference between the thermal clouds and the original cloud color, but today I could. I have to say though, I think I like using the Cloud2t.BGL better than the other. The Cloud2z.BGL just looked out of place for me.Most of the time I don't stay in a thermal long enough to reach a thermals ceiling, so with that said, are the thermal clouds located at the highest point of a thermal? I've always seen the schematic thermal ceiling showing higher than the clouds in the area, and today I noticed that the thermal clouds were about the same level as the lowest cloud layer. Does anybody know how FSX comes up with a thermals ceiling, especially in real-world weather?
sf4JC
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Yes Don, I'll try to shoot some out this weekend. The Phoenix scnery which pretty much covers Maricopa County is large enough for some nice flights with Estrella in the center of it all. Turf Soaring is within the north edge of the scenery and El Tiro is just south of the southern border of the scenery. I may try to enhance some of El Tiro after I figure out how to create some ridge lift missions on the Estrella ridge. I am also anxiously awaiting the new Souther California scenery which will encompass such sites as Lake Elsinore, Warner Springs and Hemmet.
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Don,
Did they indicate whether this would be a new release that we would have to pay for or a downloadable upgrade for those of us who have Active Sky? Either way would be nice but an upgrade would be the best. BTW I loaded up the newest Phoenix Mega scenery and it is pretty detailed, much better than the 2004 rendition. If we can get some good thermal scenery then those of us with Microsoft would probably be pretty happy. For all the criticism I've been reading re Microsoft, you can't beat the MIcrosoft visuals for VFR soaring. Which, of course, is all we do in America. Now if we could just get some more help with the flight dynamics. In real life slips and spins are part of the fun............
Thanks
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Havn't been able to try the tow function yet in the demo mode but I did move the 1-26 upgrade that I'm working on into the aircraft directory and was pleasantly surprised to see that it functioned well in the FSX environment. The only issues that I noted were the missing gauges(expected) and an overall black finish on any surfaces of the model not having a texture file. Even the flight dynamics seemed to be somewhat improved but that may have been the result of some of the changes I'm making in the cfg file. So the good news may be that at least MS didn't leave us sitting in the dust as has happened with other upgrades. Should be interesting to see if the thermal programs work as well. I think I'll compile a Thermiek file tonite and see if that works. :whistling:
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Glad you guys like it! A strong note of credit belongs to Kris Feldman who worked on Chris' original 1-26 files (which Chris shared with me) to give it much of it's handling characteristics. I only had to modify the cfg files slightly to capture the new models.
It's my hope that Kris will be able to help on the slip/skid characteristics as well. In that effort I will also be researching the issue.
Chris and I will also be working on more detailed textures for the ships. But we'll also be looking foward to your repaints.
So keep the yaw string straight as there should be more to come.
Ray
Aerosoft Glider
in General Discussion
Posted
A few months ago there was a buzz aboout a new glider being developed by Aerosoft for FSX. Does any one have any new information on it or was the project file 13ed ie droped, dumped, etc. I found that the links to the development pictures no longer work. I hope they are still moving forward on this as there seems to be a bit of a famine on new gliders for FSX. I'm looking forward the the ASTIR.