Fixes for almost all the (known) bugs of the Alabeo Cessna 170B (v.1.2)

[CaptainSpaulding]

As most of you are experiencing, the beautiful Cessna 170B made by Carenado-Alabeo has quite a number of problems and bugs.
In this post I'm trying to put all the known fixes for them in one single source, that I'm willing to keep updated.

 

Disclaimer.

All the following fixes are Unofficial Hacks, made without any relation to Carenado-Alabeo.
Be sure to backup your original files before attempting those fixes.
Although I am quite sure that those fixes works, there is no guarantee what so ever. Proceed at your own risk.
At present they have been tested on Linux, but there is no reason they won't work on Windows and Mac too.

 

Summary of the known problems.

• Speedometer does not work (only on Linux);
• Turn coordinator does not work (only on Linux);
• The spinning propeller texture does not work correctly (only on Linux); 
• The altimeter gives a bad 'baro' reading;
• Fuel gauges gives a bad reading;
• The generator switch is missing and the generator itself is set to off, meaning that after about 1 hr. of flight, the battery dies;
• When switching Land and Taxi light with keyboard's shortcuts, the corresponding pulley on the cockpit does not move accordingly;
• Instruments lights turns on, even when main power is off;
• Bus loads are uneven, when the master switch is on and all the rest is off, there is a draw of about 5 amps and switching the light on or off doesn't change it;
• After some events, the sound of the tires skidding on the ground begins a neverending loop;
• The static elements, once removed, can't be put be back in place if the plane was flown;

 

Problems on Linux platforms.

The problem that are found exclusively on Linux platforms are mostly related to the fact that Unix is case sensitive while, mostly for practical reasons, Macintosh and Windows are not. Thus the problem is to be found in the spelling of some file names; sometimes the difference it's just one single capital letter instead of a lower-case one, or vice versa.

By checking the logs, we have found that one files and one directory are spelled in a different way:

• it looks for 'sharedMathematics.secured', but the file name is 'sharedmathematics.secured';
• it looks for files in the directory 'C170_Logic', but it's name is 'C170_logic';

This files are called somewhere from the Lua scripts, but those scripts the can't be edit because, for copyright reasons, they are encrypted.

One can easy rename the file, to match the correct spelling, but it may cause problems if other scripts looks for those files with their actual spelling; thus we suggest to make a duplicate, instead of renaming them.

You can either copy them, but you'll have double files that are, in general, not a good idea. A good alternative solution is considering the use of the Unix command 'ln' (link).

 

Open a teminal, go in your 'Alabeo C170B_v1.2' main folder (where the files 'C170.acf' and 'C170_Tundra.acf' resides) and enter the following commands:

> cd 'plugins/SASLcarenado/data/modules/Custom Module/Global Functions'
> ln sharedmathematics.secured sharedMathematics.secured
> cd '../Custom Logic'
> ln -s C170_logic C170_Logic

 

Be careful to protect the path with the single quote sign, because there are spaces in them.
For the file we use an 'hard link', for the directory we use a 'soft link'. In both cases, the result is that the same file or directory can be accessed with two different names.
Please refer to your Unix manual for more information.

√ [FIXED] Speedometer does not work (only on Linux)
√ [FIXED] Turn coordinator does not work (only on Linux)
√ [FIXED] The spinning propeller texture does not work correctly (only on Linux)

 

Altimeter and Fuel Gauge problems.

The wrong reading from the Altimeter and Fuel gauges can be fixed by editing the 'gaus_obj.obj' file inside the 'objects' directory. Because it is a very large text file, to edit it you need a good text editor able to hande files of such dimension.

Luckyly Carenado, very kindly, gave their approval to share the modified version of 'objects/gaus_obj.obj', which includes the fixes to those gauges.
You can download it here:

gaus_obj.zip

√ [FIXED] The altimeter gives a bad 'baro' reading
√ [FIXED] Fuel gauges gives a bad reading

 

Generator Switch and other Electrical problems.

Incredibly, someone forgot to set the generator always active on plane loading and the C170 has no generator switch(!). This means that after about 1 hour of flight, the battery goes flat. There are also some minor problem of electrical nature (or around them). 
Those problems have been fixed with a dedicated script written in Lua.

The C170 made by Alabeo uses both XLua and SALS. To avoid any interference with the original scripts, I've decided to write a simple aircraft patcher script in FlyWithLua.

Thus, in order to make it work, you need to download FlyWithLua (see link below).

Download and install this ZIP file:

Alabeo_C170B_v1.2_Patch.zip

I've included an 'README.txt' file with the instructions, here it's a partial extract:

Patch for Alabeo Cessna C170B v1.2
----------------------------------

This is patch fixes some problems of the Alabeo's Cessna C170B:
	* missing generator switch (can be configured in different ways, see below)
	* wrong bus loads (with configurable loads table, see below)
	* instrument light switch behaviour
	* Land/Taxi light knob update when activated from keyboard

In the default configuration, once installed, the unused pulley on the right the the 'Master Switch' will turn the generator on and off.


HOW TO INSTALL
--------------

- put the script Patch-a-Plane.lua that you find in 'FlyWithLua/Scripts' in:
<XP_DIR>/Resources/plugins/FlyWithLua/Scripts (where <XP_DIR> is the path to your X-Plane installation)

- put the entire 'scripts' directory that you find in 'Alabeo C170B_v1.2' in your aircraft directory
		(where 'C170.acf' and 'C170_Tundra.acf' resides)


Relaunch X-Plane and enjoy your patched C170.
Check 'Log.txt' if anything goes wrong.
Search for '[Patch-a-Plane]' in the log file to check if everything has been loaded correctly.


COMPATIBILITY
-------------

Patch-a-Plane has been tested under Linux (Ubuntu 19.10) and should run without problems on Macintosh and Windows.
Please report any problem or bug.

 

√ [FIXED] The generator switch is missing and the generator itself is set to off, meaning that after about 1 hr. of flight, the battery dies
√ [FIXED] When switching Land and Taxi light with keyboard's shortcuts, the corresponding pulley on the cockpit does not move accordingly
√ [FIXED] Instruments lights turns on, even when main power is off
√ [FIXED] Bus loads are uneven, when the master switch is on and all the rest is off, there is a draw of about 5 amps and swithing light on and off doesn't change it;

 

Problems Not Yet Fixed.

We are still actively working on the fixes for this plane. As soon as we'll have some update, we'll post them here. Be patient, stay tuned.
If you find any problem or bug, please report it here (and, possibly to me via private message).
 

- [NOT YET FIXED] After some events, the sound of the tires skidding on the ground begins a neverending loop
- [NOT YET FIXED] The static elements, once removed, can't be put be back in place if the plane was flown.

 

Useful Links.

FlyWithLua NG (for Lin, Win and Mac)

 

Edited December 28, 2020 by CaptainSpaulding

[Bump]

I successfully implemented these changes on my iMac and they resulted in a much improved product.

My impression flying this aircraft is that it does not respond to flap deployment as I would expect (way too much drag).

I was wondering if there was anyone in the community with C170B experience IRL, who could comment on this.

Also, are their any parameters in the acf file, or in Planemaker, which could be adjusted to change this behavior?