What have you done for your simulator today?

[blueskydriver]

Jim you're seriously rocking the chopper sim! Looks awesome!

I envy your project big time, as the first sim I really wanted too do was the Longbow. But, no real chopper guys back 10-15 yrs ago to get help from or work together with.

What you're doing today should make the chopper builders come out and join your club...I hope they will....

John

[bernard S]

you do know that msfs and pd3 have add on so you can blow stuff up right ?

[navymustang]

Bernard, I have seen very early stuff for P3D running on old versions that gave you that ability. I also know that the P3D Professional Plus license has all of those nice features.
If you could provide a link to weapons add-ons for P3D v4 or v5 I would be most appreciative.

Yes blowing things up with this helo will be fun. I'm already working on the torpedo drop system and will some day have a rudimentary sonar dipping system as well.

[bernard S]

hi hi your correct pro version required and it been updated..couple of points on it physics model on missles etc not really accurate  but it can be fixed if your build is for an entity that can get you TENS Manuel's that will help ..or Jane's is going to become your new girlfriend as parameters for almost every stand off system is in there ..does that help you ?

[navymustang]

Ha - what's a few more hundred dollars to get to blow things up!

Guess next year I will be upgrading my license!!!

[bernard S]

dont forget with weapons platform comes cooler sensors;-)

[navymustang]

Heck - I'm having a devil of a time getting the track function to work on the cheap FLIR that comes with the academic version:)

All functions work except track, and even then the code nor the documentation doesn't say how you break track once achieved.

Any ideas?

[bernard S]

just putting it out there  FLIR is the camera not the sensor ..thus think of FLIR as a targeting sensor  attached to  camera that zoom  function

[navymustang]

Fully understand that - but still have no idea how to get the track function that is built in to work.

[navymustang]

More eye candy for helicopter sim. The larger MFD in the middle has a helicopter symbol in the lower left quadrant of the display. My intent is to have this graphically show sensor and weapons status. My first cut at this is operational. Located under the nose is a combined tracking and weather radar. On the nose is the targeting pod with FLIR. When the radar is radiating you now see yellow "radar waves" emanating from the left and right of the nose. When the FLIR is operational you see orange "waves" going forward. Eventually the MAD sensor and torpedoes will be represented also. It's fun doing this kind of build because I can be as creative as I want and not held to "Boeing standards" 
For the curious, the weather radar display is the MILVIZ/REX weather radar running behind a windowed AirManager display controlled via FSUIPC offsets from the row of buttons at the bottom of the bezel.

[bernard S]

bollocks to Boeing   this is super cool

[blueskydriver]

Hey Jim,

Totally cool what you're doing!

How about making some videos? Not of what you're doing, but just too see you in action flying this awesome chopper....

John

[navymustang]

BlueSky - would love to make the video, but right now I don't have an out the window visual. So once I get a few large monitors surrounding the cockpit, I'll post something. For test flights I have just a little monitor to fly with.

Been focusing so much on just getting engines working correctly. I was so spoiled by Prosim and the 737-800 that I sold. It's so sad that Lockheed (and Microsoft) put no effort into making an accurate turbine engine model. And when I mean accurate, I don't mean after it is running at a stable state. They never model startup and shutdown, which in my sim needs to be as accurate as possible. For example, wouldn't it be cool if you had a sound system that actually responded to simulated turbine RPM or rotor RPM.  Right now every add-on developer just has a startup sound that runs, totally independent of the actual engine state. Same with shutdown.
Perhaps there are ways to make that work and I simply have not learned the process. But then - that's the fun thing about these sims. You are learning new stuff every minute of the day. Keeps my brain and me alive !

[bernard S]

here's you answer a detuned garret APU:-)

[bernard S]

actually each engine manufacturer has sound packages fot simulation MD helicopters prolly cheaper than normal cause try for sale

[RayS]

Been busy, as usual...

Working on code for a Universal FMC recently installed in the pit. Took it up last weekend and it performed quite well.

Knocked out a few bugs on the Avidyne PFD software.

Finally found a decent database for Navaids. (It was in X-Plane all along, in clear text) It even updates.

Now, just waiting on X-Plane 12. Decided to mothball the conversion to FS2020. I may decide to get another system and just run it on a desktop with nothing fancy, except maybe some FFB yokes, some decent rudder pedals, maybe a good radio stack, and a pro throttle quadrant. But beyond that, just a desktop! ;-)

[MistyBlue]

For my part, I got lucky over the last couple weeks and was able to source some nice toys off a 737-700 being scrapped. 

A complete set of CBs for my rear bulkhead with all the breakers (thankfully now I don't have to recreate it all by hand!), a set of complete columns, and some nice misc items.  All in fantastic condition.

There were so many others things I wish I could have asked for off that aircraft before it went to the claws of death.  I hear it's quite a cutthroat industry, though, so you just get whatever you can get away with and thank your lucky stars.

Now the fun part...figuring out how to integrate it all, haha.

[bernard S]

you get trip counters on those control wheels :-)

[bernard S]

sorting out where to put cards etc  thought it was a snake bottom right

[MistyBlue]

you get trip counters on those control wheels :-)

That I do!  And the stick shaker clamps, so I can now finally mount my stick shakers!  Like I said, I lucked out.

[Jason L]

Got my pedestal from GLB Flight Products.  My OpenCockpits and real 737 modules fit nicely in it.
I have to say considering how cheap their pedestal is compared to other vendors the quality is very impressive.  Waiting on the remaining panels to show up and then I can get it completed!!!

[blueskydriver]

Definitely can see it's Hardware Season, no Software Season, Hardware Season, Software Season...Rabbit Season, Duck Season...ahhh, you get the point LOL!

Would you believe that I spent the whole week redoing my flight sim pc and had it all setup on a 250gb SSD along with W10. BUT, I totally forgot about file sizes and about using two drives. Yep, loaded W10 and P3D with some addons and bam, 1GB left with W10 nagging/warning me!

So, I reformatted that drive and took it out, and then installed two new 1TB SSD drives, one for W10 and the other for P3D. All went well and I started installing FSDreamTeam (FSDT) Cities, but I used the Migration tool I mentioned earlier for one addon right before starting the FSDT items, and it somehow threw off the P3D directories for FSDT along with messing up the P3D Scenery Library.

Next thing I knew all the cities are messed up and P3D was giving error messages about unloading/loading each city before starting up. GGGRRRR! Then, I saw the bad stories about not using the migration tool and FSDT near each other.

Okay, I'm like it's all screwed up so might as well reformat and start over. Did exactly that for both drives, meant redoing W10 as well. Thus, I reformatted, had W10 done, got P3D loaded and tried to enter my account number and password...NO GO! Got the "...too many activations..." error! Damn!

Only thing I/anyone can do is email Lockheed and wait for them to reset the activations. Albeit, I didn't see the part about uninstalling P3D before redoing a computer or changing hardware, so I can't complain. Just waiting now.

Moral to the story: Use two big size drives and more than you'll ever need. Uninstall P3D first. Always create restore points (I had them, but my anger took over). Don't work on your flight sim when you're angry, you'll forget about restore points!

Knowingly, I had issues with W10 before all of this and I'm pretty sure as too what happened. I'm using two PC's and I set them up originally using the same email login account. Little did I know about Local Accounts (fancy way of saying your PC and W10 will work like you've always known in the past if you use local account(s)). Anyway, the login email way screwed up MS Store on both PC's, which killed my MSFS2020, as well as all the MS Apps wouldn't work...like MS Office and so on. It was like Ghost in the machine on both of them; things opening and closing like ghost.

So, I wonder how many times these email login accounts have screwed up other flight simmer's multiple PC's if they initially used it on multiple PC's during the W10 install?

Has anyone done this?

Now, that I've redone both PC's and used only local accounts, there is no issue between them except reinstalling every darn program on both of them!

Sadly there is another issue I will have too face once I get the flight sim PC and P3D up and running, and that's my other 3 PCs that all have ProSim737 software are W10 using...you guessed it...the same exact email login on all of them...

That's why we call it "Chasing the Rabbit down the rabbit hole!"

John

[Jason L]

John,
  You can very easily tell it to change your 'online account' on each of those PC's to a local only account.  its an option under accounts.
  Are you using Win 10 Pro or Home?  I'd highly recommend using the Pro version if you are not.
  Win 11 will REQUIRE you to use an online account if you stick with the Home version.
  If you have OS related issues shoot me a PM or Text anytime.  I'm an IT Director so I've delt with all kinds of crazy situations.

[blueskydriver]

Thanks Jason for offering too help, I will definitely PM you...

Regarding the email vs local accounts, I never thought they be problematic. Heck, just assumed they'd work the same on multiple machines...lol!

The two PCs in question are W10Pro, but the other three PCs are OEM home versions. They're already setup from beforehand and have individual named accounts, didn't use email account...at least I don't think I did, I'll check them tonight.

John

[blueskydriver]

Good News! Already got an email back from Lockheed that they reset my account, so only one day! That's great....

John