Aerotow

[´-´ 0]

Hi all,

you may find the following interesting:

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showpost....amp;postcount=4

[sf4JC 1]

Thanks for the info Paavo! Though, I'm not sure I'll try this approach, because it looks like it still doesn't give the same functionality as the process a few of us use here. With the process discribed here http://virtualsoaring.org/iboard/index.php?showtopic=1464 , I can control the left and right movement of the towplane at any time during the tow so as to maneuver myself near the slope I want to fly from, or to even miss a thermal or two that the towplane doesn't quite like to go through.

sf4JC

[Peter Lürkens 30]

Hi Paavo,

interesting indeed. Sadly, I cannot get it to full work. Change of towplanes seems ok, yet Wolfgang Piper's SF25 hurries on with 100 kts (!). The menu after pressing Ctrl-shift-Y does not appear and so no influence on tow pattern.

I have a German FSX-SP2 and FSUIPC 4.255 (fully lincesed) installed on German XPSP2

best regards,

Peter

[´-´ 0]

Thanks for the info Paavo! Though, I'm not sure I'll try this approach, because it looks like it still doesn't give the same functionality as the process a few of us use here. With the process discribed here http://virtualsoaring.org/iboard/index.php?showtopic=1464 , I can control the left and right movement of the towplane at any time during the tow so as to maneuver myself near the slope I want to fly from, or to even miss a thermal or two that the towplane doesn't quite like to go through.

It should be rather easy to give user full control over the towplane, but do you have a vision on how it should work?

I thought of assigning certain keyboard shortcuts.

J = 1 degree to left

K = 1 degree to right

When you press J or K key, the green text bar will appear, stating current towplane heading and desired heading. If you press the key once, desired heading is increased or decreased by 1 degree. The longer you hold down the key, the more desired heading would differ from current heading. The green bar would show desired heading while you hold the key down and you would release the key when you find the desired heading satisfactory. After releasing the key, the text bar would disappear and the towplane would start turning to new heading.

Sounds good?

Change of towplanes seems ok, yet Wolfgang Piper's SF25 hurries on with 100 kts (!).

At the moment, towplanes take off with throttle at 75%. Yesterday I discovered a way to assign a certain speed that the towplane would try to hold.

I am not very experienced as it comes to gliders. When I add the speed option (I believe I can make it this week), what default value should I use? What is the usual towing speed?

The menu after pressing Ctrl-shift-Y does not appear and so no influence on tow pattern.

I was afraid that something like this may happen, because I use many hacks to interfere with default towing system. I'll clean the code up and look into it.

[B21 19]

hey Paavo nice bit of work. In terms of steering the tow plane, I reckon a ten-degree nudge to port or starboard would be fine and we don't need finer control than that - i.e. you hit the 'J' key and the tow plane corrects 10 degrees to port in its own time. Hit 'J' again and it corrects another 10 degrees. I think we're better off *without* some steering status green bar or whatever.

In my experience, real

tows are around 70 knots. The FSX Maule is unusually powerful, towing a fully ballasted DG808S at 90 knots while climbing at 10 knots.

B21

[Peter Lürkens 30]

Mak a copy of your entire Maule folder, with a new name, say Maule_M7_260C_Tow, or so.

Go to the original Maule_M7_260C-folder, make a backup copy of aircraft.cfg, open aircraft.cfg, scroll to section [fltsim.5]. Change the title there from

title=Maule M7 260C

to (e.g.)

title=Maule M7 260C (Old Tow)

This makes the origina, tow plane invisible to FSX.

Copy the attached aircraft.cfg in the new Maule_M7_260C_Tow-folder. The modifications are heavier weight (to simulate mass of the attached glider), as compensation for it a larger wing area, more HP to compensate for the 75% throttle and some more drag. You will end up with 60-70 kts towing speed at 6-7 kts lif.

regards,

Peter

aircraft.zip

[sf4JC 1]

It should be rather easy to give user full control over the towplane, but do you have a vision on how it should work?

I thought of assigning certain keyboard shortcuts.

J = 1 degree to left

K = 1 degree to right

When you press J or K key, the green text bar will appear, stating current towplane heading and desired heading. If you press the key once, desired heading is increased or decreased by 1 degree. The longer you hold down the key, the more desired heading would differ from current heading. The green bar would show desired heading while you hold the key down and you would release the key when you find the desired heading satisfactory. After releasing the key, the text bar would disappear and the towplane would start turning to new heading.

Sounds good?

Paavo, if you could get the towplane to get instant response from said key commands (in my case, I would assign them to my joystick commands), it would be great, so as to not have to AltTab (which I also have a joystick command for) in and out all the time.

I'll see if I can try to get a chance some time this week to use your program and tell you how it goes.

sf4JC

[sf4JC 1]

I forgot to mention, those keys are already used within FSX, but I assume you were talking hypothetically. If possible, I would leave the key command up to the individual user, because everybody has a different setup and keyboard location and a better idea of what would be an easier key combination for them. I also think possibly that all the single key commands are already used, but I'll have to check when I get a chance to varify this.

sf4JC

[sf4JC 1]

Sorry Paavo, I haven't had much time to do much of anything lately with FSX, and it's driving me nuts, so to speak. GRRRRRRR! I haven't tried Aerotow out yet in hopes there would be a change to it on the way, so with that said, have you made any modifications to it yet since then, or will there be any modifications to it in the near future?

sf4JC