I’m having quite a few technical issues

[ileftmyattackbootsinchina 0]

Hello, this is my first time posting in the forums here, I joined specifically to get help with my current issue as I see it has not been addressed anywhere else.

Quick background, I just recently got back into flight sims (Last played when I was 14, so it's been a while) and have been using FSX Steam. I recently bought the VRS TacPack and and wanted some more aircraft to use with it. I bought the F-14 Extended from this website and it worked beautifully, so I decided to buy a second aircraft. The Electric Lightning looked fantastic and was TacPack compatible so it was an easy choice. It downloaded okay, although I was surprised at the size of the download file, it was only 234mb which was a lot smaller than the F14 file (1gb+). I’m not sure if that’s relevant to my issues but I figured it was worth noting.

Basically everything went smoothly with the download and install process, but when I got onto FSX and loaded up the aircraft things kind of fell apart. Firstly the frame rate was unbelievably slow. it was fine in the cockpit at first but as soon as I zoomed out the camera for a wider FOV it started to drop. Switching to the outside camera would drop the frame rate to below 10fps which is frankly unplayable.
This is really weird because the F14 ran perfectly at my usual locked 30FPS. I had already checked the system requirements before purchasing the Lightning and everything seemed good, I think it actually had lower requirements than the F14. So I don't really understand why the frame rate just dies like it does.

I did find that exiting the flight, and then re entering it would solve the issue temporarily and get the FPS back to around 30 like usual, but it would just drop again as soon as I moved the camera around some more.

My second issue is trying to actually get airborne. When spawning in; the engines immediately shut down (You can hear the sound effect of them powering down). But when I try to restart them (ctrl + e) it doesn't work. But then if I switch to the exterior camera, pressing ctrl + e works fine and the engines fire up. But as soon as I switch back to the cockpit view, they turn off again... I don't understand it. I opened the inflight configuration menu (Or whatever you want to call it) with shift + 2 and selected the option to have all switches set for engine start. But all that did was set off all the warning lights in the cockpit and I still couldn't start the engine.

Finally there’s a couple smaller issues. The flaps just seem to only retract when they feel like it. I press the flap retract button (On my joystick) and it only works half the time, and only when in external view. The other half the time they just don't move.
The other issue is editing the aircrafts load out. I can open the shift + 2 menu and remove the external fuel tanks and missiles, but can’t re-equip them, and after pressing any of the buttons in the shift + 2 menu it freezes up and none of the other options are clickable.

Basically it seems like nothing is working like it should and I don't know why. Am I missing something? Is there something else I should download? So far i’ve been able to get in the air once, and was only able to do so using the external view. I would really like some help here so that I can get this thing working and can actually do some flying!

[dhazelgrove 42]

Please assure us that you have read the documentation that comes with this product. The old <control+E> will not work.

 

Dave

 

[wingman5 149]

Hi

 you do appear to be having problems ! 

20 hours ago, ileftmyattackbootsinchina said:

I was surprised at the size of the download file, it was only 234mb which was a lot smaller than the F14 file (1gb+).

 The download size of a file has no relevance , The F14 package comes with an aircraft carrier and eight AI models , so of course its a bigger file .

 

20 hours ago, ileftmyattackbootsinchina said:

the F14 ran perfectly at my usual locked 30FPS

        I can not understand what is causing  the Lightning to run at 10 fps whilst you can manage 30fps with the F14 , I would expect the opposite. My old computer with a single core and 1mb ram runs the lightning happily whereas the F14 kills it.

 If you look at the previous post a user has 9 Lightning flying in formation, and another comments on how it is so easy on framerates it can be used as multiple AI.. Are you using the default external camera or an addon?

21 hours ago, ileftmyattackbootsinchina said:

When spawning in; the engines immediately shut down

     The lightning has to have the cocks and switches set for the engines to run .  so the quick way if jumping ship is to use Shift+2 and "all on" then press the relight buttons., and carry on with the flight

  If using ctrl+e for an  external start, I recommend you initially set "all on".first. 

If you are doing a start in vc and select "all on" , and press the start buttons .. and have fuel in the tanks, and it still won't start , try changing the aircraft or altering the state of your saved default flight.

21 hours ago, ileftmyattackbootsinchina said:

The flaps just seem to only retract when they feel like it.

      The flaps will only move if the engines are running or there is sufficient hyd pressure in the reserviors, they will also automatically retract if down over 300 kts.

If it is only retracting the flaps that is a problem check the switch and its designation.

21 hours ago, ileftmyattackbootsinchina said:

I can open the shift + 2 menu and remove the external fuel tanks and missiles, but can’t re-equip them, and after pressing any of the buttons in the shift + 2 menu it freezes up and none of the other options are clickable.

   Once you have made the selections it is fixed ( a pilot can not decide half way through a flight to suddenly stick on a set of overwing tanks! )

 but to undo  selections and revert to the initial default just use "reload user aircraft"  ( I set up Tab+R )

  You should be able to make any single switch, overwing and  missile selection in combination, but you cannot go redtop firestreak redtop etc .

 

       I hope at least some of this is of value 

  Regards

 Dave R

[ileftmyattackbootsinchina 0]

I feel a little stupid for coming to this forum with so many dumb issues that could have been resolved immediately had I know there was a proper manual, sorry about that.
I hadn't read the manuals because I didn’t know there was one! They’re normally in the aircrafts folder under “documentation”, but there was no documentation folder in the Lightnings folder (Under SimObjects/Airplanes that is) I only found out there was a seperate Aerosoft folder last night. So up until then I just assumed the only manual was the in game documents like the checklist and emergency protocol.

As for the frame rate issue it seemed to just disappear for the most part. Runs fine now at 30fps and stays that way even when firing weapons and adding ai aircraft. It did happen once more when I switched to an external view, but changing back to the cockpit, moving the camera around, and then going back to the external camera solved it. So I’m not really sure why it’s doing that.

I do have a couple quick questions though that I want to get answered. On the store page for the lightning it says there’s 10 liveries included, but i’ve only got 7. And in one of the screenshots provided there is an RAF refuelling aircraft, I kinda figured when I bought this the tanker would come with it, but as far as I know it’s not there. Is it a seperate add on?

[TheCameronPerson 48]

2 hours ago, ileftmyattackbootsinchina said:

 And in one of the screenshots provided there is an RAF refuelling aircraft, I kinda figured when I bought this the tanker would come with it, but as far as I know it’s not there. Is it a seperate add on?

I can't be certain but I always assumed it was the AI Victor done by John Young, it was released as a stand alone package. But if you really want a good Cold War scenery then I'd reccomend RAF Marham in her 1993 guise done by ACG a few years back, pretty good frame rates and no issues by me to report so far. The scenrey comes with AI traffic plans for John Young's Tornado GR1, Canberra PR9 and Victor K.2 but the AI aircraft themselves have to be downloaded seperately. Just install them into your SimObjects/Airplanes folder and you're good to go. Here's a link to the actual scenery itself and you'll have to download the update as well for more traffic files.

 

https://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/15555/fsx-raf-marham-1993-scenery/

https://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/15558/fsx-raf-marham-scenery-update/

 

and here's the relevant AI aircraft including the Victor tanker

https://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/13878/fsx-english-electric-canberra/

https://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/13877/fsx-handly-page-victor/

[wingman5 149]

  Hi

      No problems glad you are sorted.

                   Sorry about the model count... typo error, (copied from the F3... surprised no one else has picked that up!). seven is all that were packaged, although if you scan down through this forum you will find a few more.

 The tanker is a download from

https://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/13877/fsx-handly-page-victor/

    As you have Tacpack add it to theirTanker list , so you can put it where you want it ..... saves flying around trying to find the thing:0)

 

 Cheers

 Dave R

[TheCameronPerson 48]

11 hours ago, wingman5 said:

 

    As you have Tacpack add it to theirTanker list , so you can put it where you want it ..... saves flying around trying to find the thing:0)

Actually would you happen to know much how to offset the refuelling drogue to the left when you're in the Lightning and you've spawned a Tacpack tanker? Tacpack seems to act as if the pitot probe is the refuelling probe if I go with 0,0 settings.. 

 

Cameron.

[wingman5 149]

9 hours ago, TheCameronPerson said:

Actually would you happen to know much how to offset the refuelling drogue to the left when you're in the Lightning and you've spawned a Tacpack tanker? Tacpack seems to act as if the pitot probe is the refuelling probe if I go with 0,0 settings.. 

 

Cameron.

 Hmmm... not sure how the TP refuelling is organised,... I'd have thought the drogue streams at will and it is up to the pilot to stick the probe in the right place ?

 but the probetip  is... 5.7ft to the left  2.56 ft above and 16 ft fwd of the aircraft datum .

 Dave

[TheCameronPerson 48]

On 12/15/2016 at 11:32 AM, wingman5 said:

 

 but the probetip  is... 5.7ft to the left  2.56 ft above and 16 ft fwd of the aircraft datum .

 Dave

That did the trick thank you! I'm using a refuelling gauge that locks onto AI aircraft as the tacpack A/A tacan isn't fully compatable with the Lightning. I use tacpack to bring up the tanker and the refuelling gauge starts refuelling when it thinks the drogue is near the probe but in this case the gauge didn't actually know where the probe was but all sorted now!

 

Thanks,

Cameron

[peter197 32]

There's a decent Binbrook scenery out there, though worth changing the AI models.

Also a very good Wattisham scenery of 1991, change around the models and could fly with 1960s Lightnings.

[TheCameronPerson 48]

22 hours ago, peter197 said:

There's a decent Binbrook scenery out there, though worth changing the AI models.

 

There's one available by SDB for about £7 I think? I had that one but it didn't get on with my Just Flight VFR scenery and the runway didn't have a decent working ILS that made any aircraft nosedive at the runway  I swapped it over for the freeware Binbrook by Ted Harrison but as you say, might be worth changing the AI models to the ones made by John Young, you get the T5 and F3 that way 

But I completely agree with you, the 1991 Wattisham is a masterpiece, imo one of the best sceneries I've seen and its free!