Will aerowinx have flexiblity for people to add gauges and edit displays like microsoft flight simulator?

[Blake H]

Hi Hardy,

Will aerowinx PSX have flexiblity for people to add gauges and edit displays like microsoft flight simulator?

If so, I would be keen to make a electronic flight bag, electronic checklist, ATC HF link, vertical situation awareness and chronometer on the nav display, plus anything else I can find the 747-8 flight manual. I have found this not to be too much of a  challenge using microsoft flight simulator as this will not affecting the performance or play with the flight simulator. It will be it's own aircraft subsystem. Adding a gauge on a gauge, like the chronometer I have done with level-d 767 just for a test. Worked well. I was using fs gauge edit. I made a few of my own and download some that were made by others on the internet.  

This would be more of a addon to PSX for people that are wanting a 747-8 or a gauge that holds electronic jeppesen charts, a electronic checklist and data-link to ATC for people that use Vatsim. Is there software for  programming this on to PSX? I am not ready to make it yet, as I am waiting for the 747-8 flight manual. I can also make a checklist compatible to the -400.

If anyone thinks this is a good idea or not, would appreciate the feedback.
             :?    :x  :|    :lol:  :mrgreen:  :roll:  :evil:  :twisted:

Blake.

[Hardy Heinlin]

PSX is a multitasking application on your desktop. You can run other windows of other applications on your desktop and place it over your PSX window. You can place a browser window over the EICAS and watch YouTube videos on the EICAS. You can place a chess game window on the radio panel and play chess on the radio panel ...

PSX itself cannot be modified. You cannot compare the inner life of PSX with the MSFS architecture.


Cheers,

|-|ardy

[Blake H]

Just adding to my conviction of PSX. Just don't tell the misses, it's my new love.  

Guys, I seen sims come and go over 10 years of interest. Each sim had a good thing, a great thing. They never seem to have to whole package. PSX will be the whole package. What ever it cost it will be well under priced for people who can use it to it's full capacity and for novice will be hours of new happy warm and fuzzies    discovery of systems and complexity of an aircraft of this size. All this and the world flashing by at 450kts Ground speed at 35000ft.

Blake.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

The PSX core in Java is inaccessible, as Hardy said. You cannot isolate, say, the ISFD panel and replace it by, say, an ALR-67 radar warning receiver display.

But if you could, you would need to provide a very complex layering of bitmaps, with lots of lighting provisions, following the dimmer circuit, flood lights, dome lights, various circuit breakers, position of the Sun, ... and of course the systems you wanted to display.

There is no way that this could be done without you truly sitting shoulder to shoulder with Hardy and writing a ton of Java code.

Just as in a real aircraft, you cannot glue a sticker on the ND and expect it to become a working digital elapsed time readout. Real aircraft require extensive STCs to get anything stuck to the airframe ... especially if there is a wire running from it! In reality, you cannot just upgrade a -400 to an -8 either by "just replacing a display module."

But around the airframe itself, which is a tightly integrated, super-complex system not to be messed around with, you can do a lot more with PSX than with traditional sim architectures. Everything is networked from the ground up. If you want an EFB, run a (real) EFB and link it up to the PSX air data and position information. Nobody wants to stick an EFB simulator to the simulated window or sidewall of a simulated aircraft.

PSX isn't a virtual 3D sit-and-look-around cockpit. It provides components to build your real 3D sit-and-look-around cockpit. On top, PSX provides a 2D briefing-room-poster-like flight deck layout that you can zoom in and out nearly indefinitely, and that you can divide in up to four areas which can be individually panned and zoomed. This does not give you a virtual flight deck, but it allows you to operate and fly the plane realistically on a small single screen. At the same time, you can scatter the same stuff over multiple computers and displays.

As some kind of proof of concept, the PSX router already showcases the always-on-top and transparency and reach-through tricks that you can play with external programs placed on top of PSX. Plenty of opportunities.


Jeroen




in the bottom picture, you can reach through the variable list window to operate the gear lever

[Blake H]

Cheers for the info.


Will you be able to change weight, engine, thrust, aerodynamic stability, aerodynamic lift on controls and drag characteristic, like microsoft flight simulator? Say if someone is not happy with the control feedback or the way the sim is working with certain flight controls. This might be inside 747-400 envolpe or outside the envolpe for the person to change.

I was going to run my flight controls with non centering gas/oil dampening. With a DC motor for centering and a pot.  

The tiller will have a dampener, a pot and dc motor to follow the nose wheel. Is this possible will PSX?

My -8 gear handle has up and down position only. There won't be an off warning or something in flight?

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

MSFS did a reasonable attempt at providing a configurable sim engine that could be parametrized for everything that moves, but this came at the expense of the impossibility to really get it spot-on right everywhere. Aerowinx chose to model just one airframe, a -400, but model it really well. It is modeled in code, not in lookup tables with a generic aerodynamics engine under it.

Likewise, the plane is full of system simulators, it is not just one sim engine running off a configuration list. Basically the Java VM is the sim engine and the byte codes are the parameters.

Within the type, you can change everything that airlines can/could change when ordering the air frame, such as engine and instrument configurations, some extra auxiliary hydraulic pumps, etc. There are tons and tons of options in PSX, all based on actual aircraft configurations "out there". But there is no option -8, or MD11, or C172.

Every control surface, relevant internal variables, and yoke position you could want for flight deck building is available. The yoke center position is one (two) of them. I don't know about the tiller yet.

A -400 has a three-position gear lever. It serves a purpose. If you want to keep the hydraulics running all the time, you run a certain risk    :mrgreen:

Getting your flight deck physically in order is something you can work on right now without PSX having been released. I would postpone the fine details until PSX hits the shelves.

Even if your -8 has still some aspects of the -400, you will have a better aircraft than any -8 constructed with other simulators.


Jeroen

[Blake H]

Sounds like it will have to be a -400 as far as performance goes. I'll call it the 747-400ER ER... :roll:

I will add a supplement to my flight manual. For extras that I have for next generation.

How does these differences sound?

-I'll have the landing gear with UP DOWN only. Autobrake located on the landing gear handle. I have already made this panel.

-3 buttons on the glairshield ACPT RJCT CANC for HF datalink. I haven't cut the slots for the switches yet. These will be for my own software.

I'll somehow make this work with VATSIM with my software there will be COM, CHECKLIST pages.

- Remove the clocks and have the Elapse timer counting on the nav display overlapping. Or maybe Hardy can help me with that down the track to have in PSX.

-Remove the analog elevator trim and have the dual shaft rotory encoder for control of my software. There is already a electronic trim indicator and you can view on multiply displays. 747-8 incorporates this feature.

-EFB on the sides.

-I will have the 777 (747- 8 ) Display selector and inboard display selector to make a MFD.

-This I can do this with the normal display pages in PSX and for the button CHCK and COM, I'll have my own software. Maybe have the coms software based Microsoft flight simulator. The new coms and ACP linked together and program to my switches and CB's . Have the switches for the electric panel going to both my software and PSX. (note: the com doesn't have a link to the FMS to my knowledge shouldn't affect PSX?)

-Overhead -400ER not changed.

But I did notice there is no continuous ignition on the start panel on the 747-8 if I remove this how will the sim be affect. Bad idea?

In a nutshell upgrade to EFB, upgraded coms with HF  link. Electronic checklist and a 2 position gear with the autobrake located on it for convenience.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Funny. Those ACPT, RJCT, CANC buttons. They are for CPDLC. There is just one existing implementation of CPDLC in the sim world. Hint: it ain't VATSIM.

Jeroen

[Blake H]

I was thinking of making a software program with all the text messages phraseology and using this in vatsim like a CPDLC. To my understanding you can write clearances and reports in vatsim. There might already be a phraseology program for this at the moment that links into vatsim. This will hopefully incorporate my buttons for usage.

If not it can be there for asthestics.  

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

http://www.hoppie.nl/acars/

VATSIM uses it daily and many FIRs have it available.

[Blake H]

Bach to the landing gear hydraulics running all the time in the UP postion. How does the 777 overcome this problem?

I have a mate that has a 747 panel, it is over the main engine display. It has pots for the brighteness of the diplay below. Is this a rotary encoder on 400ER. Does PSX have a rotary encoder control or pot control for brighteness.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Brightness control in PSX: there are neither pots nor rotaries for anything in PSX. It is all network variables. You provide your own software for whatever controller you want.

Jeroen

[farrokh747]

AFAIK, all display dimming controls and panel/flood light dimming controls on the flight deck are pots - some are dual concentric. For light dimming, some builders have successfully used PWM motor controls:
http://www.oceancontrols.com.au/KIT-067.html
http://www.oceancontrols.com.au/KTA-195.html

I have a set of these, but not installed as yet -

These will take direct inputs from pots, and one can add relays to each lighting circuit for greater detail.

To activate the DU dimming in PSX, I guess one would have to use an interface card that takes 0>5v pot signals, and then using an interface software, send the data to the sim - right now, I use good ole Phidgets 8/8/8 and Alan Dyer's FS2Phidgets to control DU dimming, using the appropriate FSUIPC offsets...

Apart from the obvious flight control / thrust devices, there are some more pot controlled functions in the deck:
Fuel To Remain
Landing alt - both these are multi turn pots
DU dimmers, WXR in ND dimmers

any more?

fc

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Correct. In PSX, everything that is designed to be touched by human fingers, has a variable that you can send over the network.

Jeroen