Horizon line barely visible

[Maurice]

I have a problem seeing the horizon when in level flight. When on the runway ready to roll, the horizon line seems just right and I see the runway very clearly. So I assume the eye point is at the correct height.

However, when in level flight, I can barely see the horizon on the left part of the front window. The rest is hidden by the glare shield. Since I am 6 ft tall and my seat is raised as far as it can be, this does not seem right to me.

So, either the airplane is riding nose high when in cruise or this is the way things are in a real 737. Normally, that is not much of a problem but it becomes a problem when landing as I can barely see the runway with a normal descent attitude.

And if I have to add power & slow the descent by raising the nose just a bit, I loose sight of the runway entirely and that usually ends up with a very crappy landing assuming I can recover in time.

Do any 737 drivers have the same problem or is it just me? Could it be that my MIP & glare shield are too high? And can someone tell me how high is the front of the glareshield above the floor?  Edit: Actually, I have the right height based on MarkusPilot and at any rate, even if it was lower that would not help since the shell window frame would then be in the way anyway.

Thanks,
Maurice

[XOrionFE]

My horizon line looks just right in level flight Maurice.   I wonder if maybe you have a value in one of the Rotation variables in the flight file by mistake becuase it sounds like your viewpoint may have a verticle angle to it.   If you want, send me your .FLT file to take a look at.

Scott

[Maurice]

My horizon line looks just right in level flight Maurice.   I wonder if maybe you have a value in one of the Rotation variables in the flight file by mistake becuase it sounds like your viewpoint may have a verticle angle to it.   If you want, send me your .FLT file to take a look at.

Scott

I'm glad to hear that as I could not keep flying under these conditions. I'm e-mailing you the flt file so please let me know if you spot anything.

Thanks,
Maurice

[Nat Crea]

Hey Mau,

I have my sim just barely running on basics now so ill do a flight and take some
shots with default 737.

Are you sure its not your flight model or over weight maybe?

Also I see no need to adjust vertical camera angles or eyepoints, all I adjusted was
the horizontal eyepoint in the aircraft .cfg to centre it.

Ill be back with some pics...

Nat

[Maurice]

Hey Mau,

Are you sure its not your flight model or over weight maybe?

Nat

Okay Nat, let's not get too personal here. I'm not overweight at all 

Seriously now, I almost always (for now) start with full tanks but the plane should still fly level at cruise speed, shouldn't it?. So it could well be the flight model as I am just using the default 737 for now with SimA software.

It seems like it would have to be that since the horizon line seems perfectly positioned when on the ground and as level as the plane can be. If I'm flying nose high during cruise, it has got to be related to the flight model.

I thought that maybe I was projecting the image too low but if I was, then the horizon would also be too low on the ground and it isn't.

So, I will need to try the PMDG flight model I guess before pulling my hair out (I like my hair 

Thanks,
Maurice

[Nat Crea]

Mau you still make me laugh! 

Seriously now, I almost always (for now) start with full tanks but the plane should still fly level at cruise speed, shouldn't it?. So it could well be the flight model as I am just using the default 737 for now with SimA software.

I usually do one or two hour hops, so I fill up with 2-3000kgs of fuel in each wing
and zero in the centre (thats what a few 737 captains down here told me)

The pics may aor may not help, but at FL10 @250kts, I have a nose-up attitude of 2.5
(which is on the money I hear)

A few pics around ORBX's new Canberra airport...and a few dodgy iphone vids too...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkRLqMzZ8Ik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08pWafXBn60

Nat

[Boeing Skunk Works]

You might be too high for that much weight Maurice. Now put down the joint. 

[Maurice]

You might be too high for that much weight Maurice. Now put down the joint. 

LOL If I really needed to put 'it' down, I wouldn't care about the horizon line. I'd be too busy eating or laughing to worry about where the horizon is 

Maurice

[Maurice]

The pics may aor may not help, but at FL10 @250kts, I have a nose-up attitude of 2.5
(which is on the money I hear)

Nat

Thanks Nat. The pictures really help. I have nowhere near the same view as you have so I will try 'slimming down' a bit and change the flight model if that does not help.

Thanks,
Maurice

[MLeavy737]

Before you all go nutz ill take a picture in level flight today in the airplane.. then adjust your settings to that if needed.. I posted a pic somewhere on here before on the ground.. heres another.. Camera is a little high, normally i have my seat so i can just see down the top of the glare and nosecone.

Mike Leavy

[Maurice]

Before you all go nutz ill take a picture in level flight today in the airplane.. then adjust your settings to that if needed.. I posted a pic somewhere on here before on the ground.. heres another.. Camera is a little high, normally i have my seat so i can just see down the top of the glare and nosecone.

Mike Leavy

Thanks Mike. I saw the pictures you posted earlier and the one on the ground looked the same as what mine looks like, so here is a picture on the ground as I see it now. Does that look OK to you or does it look like the horizon line should be higher?

Thanks,

Maurice

[MLeavy737]

To me that would seem a little low. Also seems like the seat position is a little low so its hard to tell which one it could be from that picture.  Is that your normal seat position you fly at?

Mike Leavy

[Maurice]

OK Nat, I tried the same setup as yours with the same fuel and what I see is way different than what you see. For one thing, the nose up attitude was ~2.7 degrees in level flight and with that angle, I can barely see the horizon on the bottom left of the window and nothing straight ahead.

If I lower the nose to 2.5 degrees, things look much better but still not nearly as good as your view.

So that leaves 2 things...the flight model or....and this is where I have come to the realization that the projected image is lower than it should be in relation to the height of the shell above the ground.

Now, I could raise the projected image but I painted nice & big black borders around the projected image so I would need to paint over the black and I don't have any more screen paint.

Hopefully, I can adjust the eyepoint in another way so that I won't need to mess with the projectors. Does anyone know/remember the settings to do that with FSX. I thought I read somewhere that you could only move the eyepoint sideways with FSX but I could definitely be wrong about that.

Thanks,
Maurice

[Maurice]

To me that would seem a little low. Also seems like the seat position is a little low so its hard to tell which one it could be from that picture.  Is that your normal seat position you fly at?

Mike Leavy

Yes that is the seat position I need to use to be able to see anything. The seat (Weber I believe) is raised as high as it can be and I am 6 ft tall and I have to be very close to the MIP otherwise it's even worse. Something definitely not right here.

Maurice

[Maurice]

SUCCESS!!!!!  I was able to raise my eye point without moving my projectors. I can now see the horizon very clearly and the view when on the ground looks much better as well. I did that by changing the rotation value in the .FLT file.

So with the 3 projected views I used to have Rotation 0, -70, 0 for camera 2.1, Rotation 0 ,0, 0  for camera 2.1 & Rotation 0, 70, 0  for camera 3.1.
I changed that to 4, -70, 0    4, 0, 0   &  4, 70, 0 respectively and it looks great now.

Now I will finally be able to land without guessing where the runway is and I'm sure my passengers will be thrilled to hear that 

Thanks to Nat & Mike L. for your inputs...they helped a lot.

Maurice

[Maurice]

Well, after more testing, I found an unfortunate side effect about raising the eye point in the way I described above. I also found there was a simpler way anyway which was to use Ctrl-Q or Ctrl-Shift-Q to raise or lower the eye point although that is not saved as far as I can tell.

The unfortunate side effect in both methods above is that with 3 windows, the views still look perfectly lined up but as you move, you find that the views are no longer synchronized. In other words, if you pass an object from one view to the next, there is a delay in the object showing up in the next view.

So, back to moving the projectors & raising the horizon that way. At least by doing that, I will maintain synchronization between the different views since I will leave the rotation at zero like it was originally.

Leave & learn I guess. This hobby can really try your patience I tell you  . Hobbies are supposed to be fun but to get to that point with this one, you age at least 10 years prematurely. 

Maurice

[MLeavy737]

Heres a pic i took today of the view outside while in level flight.. 3 degrees nose up.. This is from the exact position i have my seat.. before i kick back pic is from eye position.

Mike Leavy

[Nat Crea]

Awesome..thanks Mike!

Nat

[jskibo]

Heres a pic i took today of the view outside while in level flight.. 3 degrees nose up.. This is from the exact position i have my seat.. before i kick back pic is from eye position.

Mike Leavy

Wow Mike, you went all out.  Your sim even has wipers  

[Maurice]

Heres a pic i took today of the view outside while in level flight.. 3 degrees nose up.. This is from the exact position i have my seat.. before i kick back pic is from eye position.

Mike Leavy

It's a tough job but someone has to do it ...right?  Now this is truly as 'real as it gets'. Thanks a lot Mike. I will use that as reference for when I move my projectors.

Maurice

[blueskydriver]

Maurice,

We're moving our projectors as well because of the Keystone; we want to eliminate using it. We have to move ours forward because we were about 16inches back from the actual center point of the radius of 7feet, 8 1/2inches (or exactly above the throttle cuttoffs, like Ivar's).

The problem we had early on was that image height and width didn't seem big enough, so we went further back. Although it did provide more width and height on-screen, the 8inch extensions projector mounts from the ceiling still caused the overall image to be to low down on the screen. Thus, it required the use of Keystone because with the tilt, the alignement on the vertical edges of the center projector images was way off. However, using keystone just doesn't work as you discovered (thanks by the way for posting about those light strips).

So, we're moving the projectors to be exactly where they're supposed to be (meaning to be where they were intended on the planning diagram in the beginning). However, with the 8inch extensions, it still puts the overall center projector lower on the screen. Yes, it's now straight on the vertical sides, but now about 2 1/2 feet lower from the top of the screen to the top of the image. That is way to much low and loss.

Therefore, we either have to get flush mounts or make a 90 degree metal plate so we can use our 8inch mounts in the wall mount positions (they're ceiling/wall mount types) and in effect bring them back up, yet in a straight manner. By the way, what type of mounts are you using? How far do they come down from the ceiling? That might be a fix for you too.

The other point is this, did you try using Ctrl-Q and Ctrl-Shift-Q keys to do tilting of the image with FSX, in addition to Shift-Enter and Shift-Backspace to adjust the eyepoint. Saw that you did some via the Flt file using the rotation value, but using the above keys will help with the adjustments as well. Give it a try...

BSD

[CeeGee]

STOP Maurice - I don't think that there is any need to rebuild the projectors or screens. FSX controls what and where you see the image on screen, and to that end, you can change it. The areas that control the image are in the aircraft folder - and I note that you are using the default B737-800 - in particular the Aircraft.cfg file and the Panel.cfg file which you can open and edit using notepad [ALWAYS back up the file first!!]. The air file has a views setting as well, but we won't touch that yet. Your saved flight file is exactly that, and is only relevant to that one saved flight.

When dealing with .cfg changes, you must start a clean flight every time - don't use a saved flight because you will not always see the changes. We use the default 2d screen with no instrument panel [hit W twice]. This is the default starting point so we need to check your default view settings in the Panel and Aircraft .cfg files. Close down FSX and go to your B737-800 root folder so that you can see the Panel folder and the Aircraft.cfg file. The panel.cfg file is inside the Panel folder.

I have attached 4 pix for the default settings so you need to check that your cfg figures are the same as the ones that I have ringed in red.
Aircraft.cfg1 - Check that your figures are the same for [views].
Aircraft.cfg2 - Info only, we might have to use the camera definitions later.
Panel.cfg1 - Change your view forward settings if different to these. [important!]
Panel.cfg2 - This should be the same, it is unusual for these values to be different.

OK, that should put you back to the default settings so fire up FSX, create a flight using the B737-800, any airfield you like, good weather, day. Start your cockpit as you would normally and go fly. 2d cockpit view [avoid VC] with no panel visable [W,W]. Any difference?

The 3 sets of figures that you are looking at are orientated this way:
0.00 [fore and aft from RP, minus is aft], 0.00 [Left and Right from RP, minus is left], 0.00 [up and down from RP, minus is down].
RP is the reference point for all values for this aircraft. It is normally positioned in the centre of the fuselage at the centre of lift, about 1/3 back from the leading edge of the wing. To change the views we will be using these values if needed.
Sorry if I am teaching you to suck eggs, Charlie

Cripes Mike, you get paid for that view!!!

[Maurice]

By the way, what type of mounts are you using? How far do they come down from the ceiling? That might be a fix for you too.

I am using these:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220713351276&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_552wt_1139

They are fairly good but I would have preferred something with a ball mount as they would be easier to align properly. The stem can be replaced with a shorter one as it is using standard piping sizes that you can find in any hardware store. I can easily raise the projectors by changing the stem; the problem is only re-painting part of my black border



The other point is this, did you try using Ctrl-Q and Ctrl-Shift-Q keys to do tilting of the image with FSX, in addition to Shift-Enter and Shift-Backspace to adjust the eyepoint. Saw that you did some via the Flt file using the rotation value, but using the above keys will help with the adjustments as well. Give it a try...

Yes I tried that and it works but you can't save the position I believe. However, if you read my earlier post, it created some other problem which is even worse

BSD

[Maurice]

STOP Maurice - I don't think that there is any need to rebuild the projectors or screens.

Thank you CeeGee for that extensive explanation. I will give it it a try and see if it resolves the problem I had with the other 2 methods I used.

As I mentioned, I did solve the horizon line problem without touching the projectors but it messed up the views in a way that is not noticeable until the airplane starts to move. Everything looks properly lined up on the ground at rest, but as you move, you can see that objects (in the distance mostly) do not switch properly from view to view. There is a distinct lag in the time it takes to go from one projector to the next and that does not happen if I do not rotate the views.

No idea at all why raising the eyepoint would do that but I'll try your way and hopefully that will not create the same problem.

Thanks again for taking the time for that lengthy explanation.

Maurice

[Maurice]

Okay, here is the definite definitive answer...I think 

There is NO WAY to solve my problem except by raising and/or tilting the projectors. I tried all the methods above and there is always one thing that does not change appreciably and that is the height of the horizon line with respect to the floor. The eye point changes but the horizon line does not move,

Whether I am on 737, 747 or Cessna, the horizon line is projected about 42" above the floor, give or take an inch or so. As long as that is true, I cannot see the horizon when in level flight since the window frame hides it.

So, the only way it seems to raise the horizon line above 42" is by tilting the camera and that creates the problems I mentioned above when trying to line up 3 views. It would work great with just one view but not with 3 views for some mysterious reason.

Anyway, I have enough height to raise the projectors so it should not be too much of a pain (in theory at least 

I will not be doing that for a couple of days at least so if anyone else has any bright ideas (besides lowering my 737 shell  , please share your ideas.

Thanks,
Maurice