The XP10 stock KingAir C90B

[pryoski]

The KingAir C90B is one of those planes with which I have an irrational love for / affinity with. I feel the same way about the MU-2.

I'll admit that I'm a bit slow of the mark, but I was experimenting with the C90B in PlaneMaker yesterday and there in plain site (no pun intended) was Tom Kyler's name as it's creator (I've placed this post here rather than on the X-Scenery forum because the plane is a stock aircraft for XP10).

No wonder I sez to myself! This plane flies beautifully and taxi-ing is a joy when you've worked out the best console settings for throttle, prop rpm and mix ... it's a dream because it's one of Tom Kyler's creations.

However, in it's current state of development I'd consider it not finished.

 

Tom, do you know if this aircraft will evolve along with XP10 into the hi-fidelity model that is it's true "unleashed" nature?

Edited December 8, 2012 by pryoski

[woweezowee]

Voted no. Carenado one day will bring its C90 over to X-Plane and Tom needs more time on his hands for the IXEG and scenery-stuff.

[pryoski]

Have to disagree with you there Woweezowee ...
It's great Carenado are making planes for X-Plane, but I always get the feel with them that what you get is "it" with their planes. I have the C90B they made for Prepar3D and hardly ever fly it .. because the simulating of systems is also not complete and the throttles, prop and mixture management is very stilted.
Now the X-Plane C90B on the other hand, while being limited in terms of systems has an absolutely delightful "live" feel to those components I mentioned and it feels very "fluid" in the air.

From a personal perspective, while I think the IXEG 737 is absolutely GREAT, I'm a small regional turbo-prop kind-a-guy at heart.

Edited December 6, 2012 by pryoski

[pryoski]

Bother! Not so popular I see. That means that I'll probably have to have a go at it myself ... now that's a laugh!

Could you help an old feller out and tell me if there's any copyright law that I'm breaking if I have a go at it using the stock C90 as a base? Or do I have to start from absolute scratch?

 

Cheers!

[tkyler]

Hey pyoski,  I'm so sorry, I've been out of town, I certainly don't avoid posting on purpose.   Thank you for the compliments.   Any suggestions you want to give on the King Air I'll certainly consider.  The default planes are a bit of a mixed bag.  The goal was to make them "much better than previous default aircraft", while still leaving a bit of room for payware developers to come in and do those models if they desired.    Now mostly the reason for that was not to be "purposefully lower quality", but rather that the time to work on these was very limited relative to time spent on payware development.   I had four of the default aircraft to do.  We also specifically wanted to provide a mixed bag of technology, with some 3D instruments, some panel texture instruments, etc. so folks could look at them and see multiple ways of accomplishing tasks if they wanted.

 

There are a few things I know I still need to do yet to the King Air and will chip on those continually...so please feel free to make any suggestion or criticism. 

 

With regards to copyright...unless you're reselling it or any part of it (say you use it as a base for payware) then you won't be violating anything.  If you intend to modify / improve and distribute it freely, then by all means have a go at it.  It can certainly stand for improvment in lots of areas but I'm always open to hear what folks have to say about it, good or bad.  I wear big boy pants nowadays

 

Tom K

Edited December 7, 2012 by tkyler

[pryoski]

Thanks for the response Tom. I'm a big fan of your work!

I wouldn't presume to begin making suggestions for 2 reasons ...

 

1. You are a plane making legend in my eyes and ...

2. I'm a passionate hobbyist and not a real life professional in any aspect of aviation.

 

Nevertheless you've inspired me to download Blender and try to wrap my head around it! It's frightening, and I have much respect for all those who produce so prolifically and artfully using the software. Cheers!

[tkyler]

I wouldn't presume to begin making suggestions for 2 reasons ...

Oh please, I can be as lazy as anyone....I see lots of problems with my work.   If you change your mind, fire away!

 

 

Nevertheless you've inspired me to download Blender and try to wrap my head around it! It's frightening, and I have much respect for all those who produce so prolifically and artfully using the software. Cheers!

 

I have plans to one day  provide a comprehensive training ground in all things development....blender, plane-maker, theory,  scenery, development strategies, systems programming, texturing, etc and form a club for those who wish to engage in a higher level of development and are tired of scouring the net for information and how-tos and also want to learn tons of tips and tricks.    It may be a good while yet because of my other projects, but I very much have a well-defined vision of  providing training services for the community.  As XP becomes more prevalent among flight sim users, and I believe it will, there will be a real need for training.  I really enjoy it and fortunately, have been given good opportunities to gather lots of experience.  In the meantime, I'll practice my voice-over skils and presentation software mastery

 

Tom K

[esvanes]

Oh, fantastic. Can we write a whish list?

Well, I have not to many. 

Have graduated (self training) from C172 via Baron58 and now the c90B, and found the C90B to be quite superb except from some small things.

First of all, the autopilot is for me a nightmare to handle. It's ok to initially set Heading, but if deactivated, it's a challenge to get activated again. I strongly suspect there is missing a button or two like (flight Director off/on/auto). Also changing flight level is a struggle. But it might also just be my lack of knowledge on how it should be operated.

Also I had to assign a button on my flight stick to set "headset" for Com1 or Com2, but with no indicators it's a guesswork to know which one is active.  And the fuel level instruments seems to me to be a static picture. Nice if they could show the remaining fuel.

If these things are to be attended, it would really enhance my flight experience with this plane.

 

I thought I might be able to address some of the things in plane-maker, but to be honest, I did not understand much in this tool, and absolutely not in the 3D-panel that for me not look to much like in the plane.

 

Hopefully, some of these whishes will be “mended” some day.

 

 e

[pryoski]

Esvanes, I think it's a good idea to contribute wish-lists for this plane. TBH I have no clue where to start either (total ignoramus I am) ... so I'm trying to get started in Blender 2.6, however having issues getting the X-Plane script to work. My initial research indicates that I'll probably have to go back to a later version of Blender to get the XP import/export scripting to work. 

I have a somewhat sketchy nebulous plan (if you can even call it that) to start making the switches work and approximate what they are supposed to do in RL within the sim. Not being a coder either I could very well be spruiking out my ar8e ... but nothing ventured nothing gained ... a pithy saying that actually has some relevance here I think .

BTW, I'm very inspired by what Airfighter is doing with the piaggio-p180-avanti-ii-upgrade, but I think he's a lot cleverer than I by a factor of lots and lots (trust me, that wouldn't be hard).

 

Re the auto-pilot .. have you seen this post by Tom Kyler?

 

Any inspired individuals to take on the mantle? 

Edited January 9, 2013 by Kris Pryo

[Kieran]

Regarding Blender export scripts.

The original scripts written by Marginal (I'm pretty sure) only work for 2.49b as they are built on python 2.

Sam256 (over on the .org, I think I got his name correct) has been updating the blender scripts with new functionality to be more inline with the latest features of the X-Plane .obj format. He has one for 2.49 and one for 2.5x (and now 2.6x). I'm not sure how far along the ones for 2.5x are, the last time I checked he was still adding functionality and there were bugs, but that was a while ago.

Have you seen Dan Klaue's tutorials on YouTube?

Also I recommend Blender Cookie for tutorials (most of them are free), they even have a getting started in Blender series.

[pryoski]

Thanks Kieren! I'll have a look-see @ Dan's tutes when I get home from work! Cheers

 

P.S. How're you Southerners coping with the heat-wave? Saw the news last night and it didn't look too comfortable ...

Edited January 9, 2013 by Kris Pryo

[Kieran]

Well, I'm currently on the NSW mid-north coast, so I have had a nice cool sea brease the whole time.

[esvanes]

Esvanes, I think it's a good idea to contribute wish-lists for this plane. TBH I have no clue where to start either (total ignoramus I am) ... so I'm trying to get started in Blender 2.6, however having issues getting the X-Plane script to work. My initial research indicates that I'll probably have to go back to a later version of Blender to get the XP import/export scripting to work. 

I have a somewhat sketchy nebulous plan (if you can even call it that) to start making the switches work and approximate what they are supposed to do in RL within the sim. Not being a coder either I could very well be spruiking out my ar8e ... but nothing ventured nothing gained ... a pithy saying that actually has some relevance here I think .

BTW, I'm very inspired by what Airfighter is doing with the piaggio-p180-avanti-ii-upgrade, but I think he's a lot cleverer than I by a factor of lots and lots (trust me, that wouldn't be hard).

 

Re the auto-pilot .. have you seen this post by Tom Kyler?

 

Any inspired individuals to take on the mantle? 

Thanks Kris.

I had not seen that post, but now I have. And that is great news. Now I'm really looking forward to the next release and hopefully find a C90B update!

 

 e

[ilias.tselios]

Wow Kris! Thank a lot! Definitely it's a hard job and it needs a lot of patient.

 

Needs a couple of things to be able to export correctly from Blender. First you have to put the io_xplane2blender folder into scripts/addons and enable it through user settings. Then go to scene and at X-Plane tab, Add X-Plane layers. At 1st layer put the name of cockpit object (KingAirC90B_cockpit.obj). Below select the textures for that object. Then every object you make must have a material. With that, you will be able to export correctly.

 

But you need to know a few things, like obj file definitions. Here:http://scenery.x-plane.com/library.php?doc=obj8spec.php. I've made a lot of research on many things. I've watched thousands of hours of blender videos (CGCookie, BlenderGuru, BlenderNerds) and of course many times Dan Klaue's tutorials. All start and end at patient!

[peterdrabbit]

I greatly appreciate that Tom made the C90B for X-Plane and the support they give there!

 

I eagerly await more switches being functional and the corresponding panel lights going on and more fuel panel operations mixed in.  It is an excellent start however and I truly appreciate having a C90B available to work with. Perhaps most helpful, at least for me, would be improvements on the autopilot and flight director system.  This could be from more buttons such as 'climb' and 'descend' to the knob for turning the aircraft, or is that to complex for the time you have to work on something such as this?  The whole auto pilot and flight director systems are a major part of learning to run a King Air easily. 

 

Auto pilot and flight director and start up procedures would be the items I feel most could benefit from the most.  Just my thoughts on the subject

 

Since once can purchase an add on for the 430 Garmin i would put adding features to that towards the end of the line.  As I recall there are no switches for 'Vent' heat in icing conditions, yet, so that would be nice too.  I'll have to go back a double check what else was missing.

 

But what a pleasure that Tom was able to get this wonderful aircraft up and running for X-Plane X thanks!!

[pryoski]

Since once can purchase an add on for the 430 Garmin i would put adding features to that towards the end of the line.

 

Unfortunately there seems to be no move to get the GNS 430 Garmin XP 64 bit compatible. I have that piece of software and found it a tremendous piece of kit ... but all my flying is now 64 bit.

I've emailed the folks who program the software a couple of times but have received no response to date. These folks appear to be firmly orientated towards FSX and P3D ... I'd be pleasantly surprised if they decided to concentrate on X-Plane for a while!

[Hueyman]

Glad such thread has been created !

 

I myself tried to contact Tom a while ago ( just found the e-mail today, was on February 2013 ) on his x-scenery mail address.

 

Sadly, never got any answer ( maybe the mail never arrived its destination )

 

Anyway, I was very open to know if there was place for improvement, so any of us could contribute to the upgrading of this really nice default plane.

 

On my side, I was ready to model new props for it and revise the whole engine management, as several things related to PT-6 turbine control aren't done in the current version ( Bêta range etc ). I don't know a single thing regarding complex avionic, this is why the idea of anyone putting his little piece of work ( where she/he is specialized ) is seducing I think.