Zach Decou

Your cockpit object needs to be named "youraircraftnamehere_cockpit.obj. It needs to live in your airfrafts root folder. A cockpit object is a 3D object that you create. When you are sitting in a 3D cockpit, you are looking at the cockpit object. If you are trying to modify a 2D panel, then all of this will be useless to you. You cannot simply turn a cockpit into an object. You have to make it in a 3D app like blender or AC3D and then export it as an object that x-plane can use.

To split a quad into 2 tris- there are a few ways. One is: control + TAB + key3 to go into face edit mode. Select the offending face. Press key x, delete face. Control + tab + 2 into edge mode. Select two edges that share a vertice and press key F. Select the two remaining edges and press key F again. Yay! Or, select the face and do control + key T.

There are some functions reccommended above that appear to only be available to those who have Gizmo Pro. The above reccomendations do make perfect sense- make a new dataref, use known x-plane datarefs in an equation to write a new value to our new custom dataref, refrence that new value to drive an animation. But I won't be able to purchase Pro for another couple months. I'm looking for a workaround at present. As I am new to programming (reading through my wife's textbooks) I may be misintepreting what I am seeing at x-plugins.com (e.g. http://x-plugins.com/wiki/Gizmo/api/acf ). If I am, please let me know. I have some ambitious ideas for this aircraft. I would like to develop an automated rotor management system (ARMS for a snappy acronym) that adjusts rotor trim and collective pitch per pilot inputed parameters. example: Pilot inputs an rpm or Mtip for jump takeoff. ARMS will manage engine NG to spin up the rotor to the inputed value, then maintain that value until the pilot engages the takeoff sequence. Then the clutch disengages as collective is automaticallty pulled and rotor mast trim and cyclic automatically trimmed to keep the nose to the horizion... I would like ARMS to manage the rotor in all phases of flight. I like the idea because X-Plane doesen't do any of this natively. Plus it give me a chance to figure out how to get all these pieces fit together. Battery is almost dead so I'll get off of here... Thoughts? Zach

Absolutely you can use the files. I am on the road for the next couple of days and won't be of any help until Sunday. I will be checking the forums though. Have a good weekend.

Tom- Of course I can be bribed! I'd love to give it a whirl (though i may have solved the mu problem, but it's VERY inelegant, ugly, and difficult to read on the instrument). The plugin side is something I need to dive into. First though, I am going to read through the Gizmo doccumentation. Indi's script looks incredibly simple, and so does yours Tom. Let me know what you need. A tutorial would be a great asset to both newcoming X-plane authors, as well as this forum and I'd be thrilled to be a part. Zach

Hey Tom. Thanks so much for looking at this. Six lines of Gizmo to have a functioning mu indicator is tantalizing. I seriously need to look in into that. I'm still thinking laterally to try to find a way for mu ratio indication to be manifest by simple moving parts. Maybe it's just wishful thinking. Let me explain how I came to the animation convention I did. 1st job- animate the RPM needle against a fixed arc. No problem. I set arbitrary limits for the throw of the needle, divide that number of degrees by the maximum number of RPM the fully deflected needle will indicate, and i should be left with the number of RPM that each degree will indicate. I move the needle one RPM and set a rotate key frame (of course key frame 1 is zero RPM). Next I divided the arc with tick marks. Key frame 2 is 1 rpm using sim/cockpit2/engine/indicators/prop_speed_rpm. Job 2: Label and Animate the Mtip arc. remember that this arc shows resultant tip Mach, not just tip Mach in still air. 1st punch into my spreadsheet 0 airspeed and a desired Mtip of 1.0. This produces the RPM at which i can expect Mtip=1.0. I advance the RPM needle to that RPM and put a tick mark on the Mtip arc and label it "1.0". I subdivide the Mtip arc from 0 thru 1.0. Sitting at the ramp and prerotating, the indication is pretty dang close. Now to animate the arc. I punch in 10 RPM and 10 kts airspeed into my spreadsheet (which I've found to be inaccurate and am now trying to fix) which spits out the Mtip for that RPM and Va. I then slide the Mtip arc to line up current Mtip with the RPM needle. Stamp a keyframe (again after stamping frame 1 at zero Mach). Then I increase the Va entered in the spreadsheet by 10 kts. and repeat the process until I reach the limit of the Mtip arc. It should be noted that the Mtip arc doesn't contain the same number of degrees as the RPM arc. This is because the RPM arc shows an arbitrary high limit, and the Mtip arc indicates a redline of 1.0 (0.99 to be exact). I may choose to match the number of degrees of both arcs, but for now... For Mtip arc, I use sim/cockpit2/gauges/indicators/airspeed_kts_pilot So as it is, the two elements are independent of eachother. This is for the purpose of increasing Mtip with airspeed. Sitting still, Mtip at x rpm = y. But add 100 kts Va and you have an Mtip of y+100. The Mtip arc will become active when airspeed begins to build to reflect the aircrafts forward velocity being added to that of the tip of the advancing rotor. Anyway I read your post a couple times through to make sure I grasp it all. I grasp MOST of it. I do have an idea though. Child the Mtip arc bone to another bone that is set to move with temperature. Use -40 C as the starting point at frame 1. Then keyframe every 5 degrees C or so so the Mtip arc will always be adjusted for temperature. Seems easy enough. Think I'll try that now. I don't know if you saw it, but the blend file and spreadsheet I used (incorrect spreadsheet) are in the zip file uploaded at the org. That damn mu thing is going to haunt me! Night.

Sounds like you're flying into clouds or fog with your strobes on. Turn strobes off in clouds or fog.

Here is a screenie.

While were on the topic of the HSI, I have noticed that it seems to have a very high specularity value. Almost like glass. When the sun is to my back, the HSI becomes unreadable as the face becomes "washed out" by specular shine. Just something I noticed I am not on the Internet so can't post a screen shot. Will try with my phone. Thanks! Zach

I couldn't help but notice the C90B and Beech Baron tail numbers ending in XS... Tom?

Here's how I usually set the VS in the duchess. Before takeoff, turn on the flight director, but not the servos. Select altitude hold. Takeoff and trim for your desired VS. Then deselect altitude mode and engage the servos. When you disengage altitude hold mode, the autopilot automatically goes into pitch hold mode. Hope this helps.

May those of us in iPhone land have a link please Thanks!

One problem with the paint kit- No way to change the tail number in the cockpit... DOH! Perhaps you should include an "Instruments.psd" so we can at least change the tail number on the placard inside the cockpit. Otherwise its back to the ol' trusty post-it note on the computer monitor. Thanks!

Same here.

I haven't heard from anyone -good or bad- bout my checklist so I will assume there are no problems with it. Here is 1.0 final. Enjoy! ;D Zach clist.txt

The general policy around here is: when there is a progress update, we will post it here. Constantly asking for updates when there are none can be irritating to some.

Sure Zach. The Sundowner I have based this one on is VH-WMI. The Sundowner, when built, was built with a fixed tricycle gear configuration. It has wheel fairings that are streamlined to minimise drag and is non retractable. However, it also has "options" for advanced features. Such as electric trim, electric flaps, retractable gear, etc... When Beechcraft made the Sundowner, they allowed for these modifications to be installed by the owner/operator should they choose to do so. Otherwise, it is left in its factory configuration. Now when I say this aircraft is based on the real Whiskey Mike India, I don't mean it is loosely based. This is an extremely close replica to the real aircraft in its functions and performance. The only things that are obviously different are the repaints. Check out the photos below that I personally took of WMI. I hope that somewhat answers your questions. That does answer my questions. In the handfull of screens I saw (on my iPhone) the fairings looked like gear doors. I saw another poster mention the flaps not operating unless the battery is switched on (standard for XP). Is there a way to bypass the battery via plugin to tell x-plane to operate flaps regardless of bus voltage? Just curious. My wife is hanging an upcoming vacation to California over my head. Otherwise I would have this one already. Thanks! Zach

When looking at the screen shots of the panel, I see some things that are missing that are covered with caps. Things like gear handle with annunciators, flap handle, etc. I also notice the gear is down in all of the exterior images. I know everything you have done is purely intentional and this aircraft is largely based on a real world aircraft. Could you outline breifly what works and what has been "disabled" in this aircraft? Zach

Here is the checklist I have been working on. It is currently in beta form. I would like for everyone to try it if possible and tell me what you think- Tom especially! LA had some good insight to real world operations in a previous response to a thread I opened regarding this checklist. If I could implore him to try it and tell me what he thinks... Some things you might note: There are a few items in my checklist that don't appear in either Tom's checklist or the real falco's checklist. These are items I invariably forget every time. And since the point of a checklist is to help the pilot NOT forget stuff, they got added. Off the top of my head, these items are: Pitot tube heat on/off when applicable Navigation Lights on before engine start* Transponder mode when applicable Flight instruments check during taxi probably a few others I have forgotten about *Since this aircraft has no beacon lights, I turn on the navigation lights for safety. If this is not a real world consideration, please advise. I will gladly remove the item. Drop the text file named "clist" into the Falco's root folder (it's the same one the .acf file lives in for those unfamiliar). Make sure you have the checklister plugin installed in your plugins folder (x-plane/resources/plugins). Get the plugin here: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=3167%3Cbr%20/%3E Thanks for your time. Zach clist.txt

Replacement Light textures: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=9687 Real Life 09: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=9179 Replacement puff smoke textures: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=9129 replacement road textures: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=8950 All of these add up to make X-Plane a more realistic experience for me. Zach

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=6915 This aircraft was an instant X-Plane classic the day it was released. Great looking and highly functional 3D cockpit, excellent exterior with normal maps, and plugin driven engine start up and shutdown sequence. Follow the checklist or you will be buying a new engine! Zach

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=6544 I have spent many hours flying cross country in this thing by hand. It's a hoot to fly and deserves a mention. Zach

That's exactly what the handle is supposed to be, 'a prop handle'. I still can't understand what the function of the handle is, it just reverts to 2600 RPM no matter what.. Sorry, perhaps I'm a bit thick.. I'll start a support thread if JG doesn't comment, for once, I can't follow the tutorial even (although the plane flies well, otherwise). Until the issue is resolved, use keys F3 and F4 to adjust prop rpm. Ignore the blue prop handle as it is not doing what it should be. I am able to adjust rpm in this way with no problem. Zach

Ok think of it like this: when you pull the prop handle, your asking the prop "please maintain the rpm I have chosen for you". At a given throttle setting, the blades will automatically change pitch to maintain that rpm. Now imagine if you had a special gauge that showed you the props blade pitch. When you cut throttle, you will see the blade pitch start to flatten out. The prop is trying to maintain your selected rpm by reducing aerodynamic resistance on the blades. Increase the throttle and you will see the blades increase pitch. They do this because engine is trying to spin the prop faster. The prop is digging in. Now imagine if you could hand turn the needle on the pitch gauge and affect the props pitch. Once you took your hand off the needle, the prop would say "excuse me, this pitch doesen't allow me to maintain my assigned rpm. I will now adjust pitch to maintain my assigned rpm" You will then see the needle deflect as the prop pitch changes. Instead of a fictitious gauge that let's you manipulate the blade pitch against the props will, you have a blue handle that let's you manipulate the blade pitch against the props will. What the plane really needs is a blue handle that tells the prop "please maintain this rpm". You might call it a prop handle... Good gawd! My friends have told me I have the worst analogies. I'm starting to believe them. Zach

I' m unable to check fo sho as I'm not at the computer, but my guess is the prop knob is manipulating the prop pitch directly rather than prop rpm request. While the engine is running on the taxiway, pull mixture full lean and watch the prop knob sink into the panel. This looks like the prop going to beta in an effort to maintain rpm as engine power bleeds off. Use f3 and f4 to change prop rpm for now. I use a joystick axis.