F-111 or bust

[sira66]

Been some time since last report on progress but here is a snap shot of step 4,118,775 of 20 million. I have started to split the cockpit up a bit more and started on the back lighting of upper panel's. Still no idea on how to get instruments to show on screens. I have installed FSUIPC7 and WideFS on both computers and have them talking to each other, but I have no idea on how to utilise Alphasim F-111 gauges.

I have set up the module with 2 computers the master and one slave. The Master has FSX, WideFS, FSUIPC7 and the Slave has WideFS and FSUIPC7. This is where the story ends so far.

[Glenn Weston]

Hi Sirra66,

Congrats on some great work on your pit, you have chosen an aircraft that is an all time favourite of mine.

I was very close to going down the F-111 path but it is almost imposible to get dimensons here in Australia, particularly military stuff, unless of coarse you work with the actual aircraft & unfortunately I don't, so I stuck to a genereic F-18/F-16 style pit, there was alot of info for me to go by at www.viperpit.org, I still plan to do a rear seat with my sim, haven't seen it done yet so it might be a first.

Military sim building seems to be a lonely world at times & you will have to make sacrifices unfortunately.
There is not very much you can buy off the shelf software or hardware wise, as you may already know.

With the instrumentation about the easist thing I have found to do is Use a Program Called FSPanel Studio.
This is basically a MS-Flightsim panel creator/editor, therefore you can create custom panel layouts & resize instruments from different aircraft in your library to your liking, I think this will do the trick for you.

Have a look through my building log & you will see on my centre screen on my main panel a custom layout that I created, a generic 6 pack of steam guages plus some other bits.

You should be able to pull instruments out of your existing F-111 that you fly in FS, however please keep in mind some developers of FS aircraft models copy protect their instrument panels & you cant take them out of the model.
Try downloading some freeware F-111's & see what instruments you can steal out of them.

Once you have created custom panels you can drag the panels to your panel monitors, you will have to setup multiple screens on your main FS PC if you haven't already done so.

Good luck with the build, I look forward to seeing more of your work..... Please setup a log in the Cockpit update section & post photo's in the gallery so we can see your progress.

My Log can be found here.......
http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/show...Pit?highlight=

Hope that helps, Cheers Glenn

[sira66]

Hi Glenn

Thanks for the infomation on instrumentation, I will purchase FS Panel Studio and see what I can do. I may even contact Alphasim and see if I can utilise their instruments as well.
I will continue to post as I go.
Good luck with your efforts too, I will heep and eye on it as well.

Kind Regards

SIRA66

Hi Sirra66,

Congrats on some great work on your pit, you have chosen an aircraft that is an all time favourite of mine.

I was very close to going down the F-111 path but it is almost imposible to get dimensons here in Australia, particularly military stuff, unless of coarse you work with the actual aircraft & unfortunately I don't, so I stuck to a genereic F-18/F-16 style pit, there was alot of info for me to go by at www.viperpit.org, I still plan to do a rear seat with my sim, haven't seen it done yet so it might be a first.

Military sim building seems to be a lonely world at times & you will have to make sacrifices unfortunately.
There is not very much you can buy off the shelf software or hardware wise, as you may already know.

With the instrumentation about the easist thing I have found to do is Use a Program Called FSPanel Studio.
This is basically a MS-Flightsim panel creator/editor, therefore you can create custom panel layouts & resize instruments from different aircraft in your library to your liking, I think this will do the trick for you.

Have a look through my building log & you will see on my centre screen on my main panel a custom layout that I created, a generic 6 pack of steam guages plus some other bits.

You should be able to pull instruments out of your existing F-111 that you fly in FS, however please keep in mind some developers of FS aircraft models copy protect their instrument panels & you cant take them out of the model.
Try downloading some freeware F-111's & see what instruments you can steal out of them.

Once you have created custom panels you can drag the panels to your panel monitors, you will have to setup multiple screens on your main FS PC if you haven't already done so.

Good luck with the build, I look forward to seeing more of your work..... Please setup a log in the Cockpit update section & post photo's in the gallery so we can see your progress.

My Log can be found here.......
http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/show...Pit?highlight=

Hope that helps, Cheers Glenn

[jmig]

SIRA66 - Be aware that FSPS mostly works only on 2D panels. You won't be able to drag any panels created with this program on to another computer's monitor. To do this you must use something like Project Magenta (PM) or FSXpand, which is what I use.

I wish some would develop a program that works through sim-connect to allow you to build custom panels and run them on a second computer which is connected to the MSFS computer. FSXpand will allow you to customize their gauges, provided you are willing to experiment. However, they do not have two critical gauges in the database, i.e., nozzle positions and G-meter.

As for using Alphsim gauges in your own custom panel. So long as you don't distribute these gauges to anyone else you should be able to do so. I know that the general consesus on flight sim forum boards is, "go for it." I have swaped gauges in 2D panels from one aircraft to another. For instance, in doing some testing on a F-5 air file, I had two sets of engine gauges running from two different developers. One engine ran one set of gauge and the other engine a different set. The Panel.cfg file tells the aircraft where to find the gauges.

3D panels are a different breed. Many are modeled with gauges. In these cases you can't swap gauges bacause they are build into the aircraft files. This is why FSPS can't work with most of them.

As a military sim builder, I will be happy to help, if I can. Just let me know if you have any questions.

[twisted8]

I wish some would develop a program that works through sim-connect to allow you to build custom panels and run them on a second computer which is connected to the MSFS computer.

I believe that's doable without extra software. Just simconnect and a custom gague. Your missing gauges nozzle positions and G-meter are those variables built-in into MSFS or maybe something that can be calculated of other MSFS variables ?

[jmig]

[QUOTE=twisted8;101803]I believe that's doable without extra software. Just simconnect and a custom gague. Your missing gauges nozzle positions and G-meter are those variables built-in into MSFS or maybe something that can be calculated of other MSFS variables ?[/QUOTE]

The G-meter does have an offset. FSUIPC has it listed. The nozzles don't. The FS9 & FSX nozzle gauges use the RPMs for their settings, which is not completely accurate. I have modified my xml gagues to more truly reflect the way they work in fighters.

[twisted8]

Ah ok I see what you mean. But then you want those gauges on a networked PC? I've been playing around making my own C++ gauges, havent tried making them networked but that would be a good project. Since you have the formula for the nozzle gauge it should be doable based on the RPMs. I could give it a try if you want.

[sira66]

Hi Glenn,

Well I purchased FS Panel Studio and followed the instructions as detailed in the package. However, once I installed the new panel into my Aircraft folder I lost all 2d panels and the new one I made. I do however still get the virtual cockpit. Any ideas!!!!

SIRA66

[Glenn Weston]

FSPS basically just edits your panel.cfg file, re-install the original aircraft & it should restore your original panel.cfg & you will get everything back as normal, make a backup copy of the panel.cfg before making changes for quick recovery, not sure what you have done there but you should be able to get back to square 1 easily.

Cheers Glenn

[jmig]

The 2D gauges will be the first ones listed in the panel cfg just below the [Views]. They will be named [Window00], [Window01], etc. The VC panel are below them and are named [Vcockpit01]...the gauges will have a ! in front of their name.

You can only have ONE panel.cft file in the Panel folder. Make sure the cfg you are using is the panel.cfg. Also, male sure it has a cfg extension and not txt.

Hope this helps.