Building....

[Bob Reed]

Well after many many months of no sim or flying I finally had enough..... I started looking at smaller sims as I just don't have the room for a 73. Going to hold on to all my stuff as someday I will have the room. So I started hunting around for good GA aircraft. You know there really is not much out there in the line of usable data for flight sim products? Ya there are the rants and even pretty good reviews every once in a while. BUT nothing out there if you are looking for data to use a product in the sim! Like does it use standard FS offsets? If not can you get the offsets? Will it work on a network? That sort of stuff is generally not included in the normal FS sites reviews. So I settled on the Baron 58 from Dreamfleet. Awesome looking, flies well and has all of the systems. 1 problem it was really not big enough for me.... I just want something a little bigger... A guy thing I guess...So although that was the model I was not 100% happy. Well I ran across the Aeroworx King Air B200 and bingo I had my AC.... Can even substitute the 58 pretty easy so I get 2 AC for the price of 1. So it turns out I already own it... BUT.. The company that made it seems to be gone. Then I find out it does not use standard offsets.. Grrrrrrr,  So what to do.. Well I am going to use it anyway as I have found some people that are doing just that. I have spent the last 2 weeks planning and setting up the AC so I know what I will need to build and work around and get this.... Flying! Yes actually flying from point a to point b!! MAN HAVE I MISSED THIS!!! So anyway might have a few pictures of the test setup by tonight will have to see how far I get.... It is nice to be back! 

[727737Nut]

Cool!  Keep us uptodate

[XOrionFE]

Cant wait to see Bob.   Post those pics!

[Bob Reed]

Well the first thing I need to do is ge the aircraft all up and funtioning. Then I can decide what I am gouing to do as far as interface, how detailed I want it and so forth. One step at a time. I will tell you this if you have not been at this stage for a long time.... It is no easier then it was when I started the 73!!

[MLeavy737]

Welcome back to the building process Bob! Looking forward to some pics.

Im gonna be joining you shortly as i have a trip planned to Home Depot for some supplies over the next few days. Not in a rush to finish and fly but i do want to see some progress for a change!

Mike Leavy

[Kennair]

Hi Bob, fantastic choice in the King Air.  It was my first home build inspiration too hence my first throttle was the B200.  If you haven't got it already I found most of my inspiration and help from THIS site.  It's in french but you can use Google translation tools to adequately convert to English (unless of course you already read french).  Also Flight Illusion make some great King Air replication gauges and Ruscool also do some quality and affordable hardware gauges and panels (if this guy had been around when I was building mine I probably would never have strayed).

As for the Aeroworx B200, its certainly one of the best simulations of this craft but currently only for FS9 (I have successfully ported it to FSX but with a few limitations).  Yes Aeroworx has gone under but the King has been taken over by Flight1 and yes there is a rebuild for FSX in the works.  You will still need Mouse Macro's or Key 2 Mouse to operate some functions or build hardware replacements for them.  Have fun and get those creative juices flowing again   

Ken.

[Bob Reed]

Thanks Ken. Yes I found his site. He is building an A320 now... What did you use to get everything working in the B200 as far as macros are concerned? Doing that is how I trashed my FS install well thought I did. Turns out even a uninstall and reinstall did not fix it so there is a file hiding someplace on my drive that does net get removed in an uninstall and it is theproblem.. Too bad I lost everything for nothing...

[Kennair]

I never succeeded in getting everything running however I did implement Key 2 Mouse for many things.  After that I moved onto the PC12 when the FSX version was released which has very similar limitation from a hardware interface point of view.

Not sure why Key2Mouse should trash FS unless there is a conflict somewhere and yes sometimes an uninstall won't remove all files particularly those installed in Windows\system32 directory.  If you are going to reinstall once again perhaps try installing FS into a different directory such as C:\FS9.  There are many that advise making this a common practice because of the special security parameters that Windows imposes on anything loaded into the Program Files directory which can affect your permissions on some files.  By loading it into its own directory or even on a separate drive you can remove these issues. 

Cheers,

Ken.

[jackpilot]

Bob
This french site is impressive.
If you want translation for a section you need, just ask me
Willdo with pleasure...
Jack