Simlink (Navigraph)

[Chris Stanley]

So I cannot really test, if you see anything wierd or strange let me know. The thing I'm not quite sure about it the way it wants altitudes (agl/msl/???) and the Xplane plugin sends QNH as well. Bit wierd for a moving map, but who knows. I send a fixed '29.92' for now.

As I said in my initial post, I have no idea what's going on behind the scenes and am in awe and really grateful that you've cracked this after years of stonewalling and platitudes from Navigraph. And sure, I'll keep you updated on my experiences. I'll try a full flight (VHHH to VTCC) tomorrow.

[PanosI]

I need a macos X-Plane plugin for this. If someone has it installed on their Mac, simlink puts it in their plugins directory. I can check this plugin file for hints. Same I did with the windows version.

Jamie, I have the NavigraphSimlink_64.xpl from my MacBook Air M1.
It is 196 KB.

If you want it send me your email to zip it and send it to you in order to help the fellow members with Macs.

[Jamie]

jamie (at) ik.me

[Jamie]

Thanks PanosI! As I thought. Mac works completely different. Via macos notification center. Not extremely complicated. Most of the code is the same anyways. Thanks PanosI!

[Jamie]

Brilliant work ... but I hope Mac users will be looked after too ?

Could you try this one? With thanks to PanosI for sharing the XP Plugin 
https://www.jamiejets.com/psx/psx_simlink_macos_v0_9a.zip

I had a bit of a fight with Simlink, until I found the icon in the top-bar LOL.


Edit: I see I made a small mistake concerning the INI, now it connects to your localhost only on port 10747. Will check tomorrow

[roccod]

Holy smokes, it works for Mac!  Jamie this is unbelievable.  You've managed to accomplish in a day what the community has been requesting for 5 years!  The contributions you have made these past few months are impressive and much appreciated!

[Jamie]

It's really no hocus-pocus. Some simulators like Xplane and DCS expose a lot. On purpose maybe, to speed up add-on development. For Volanta I used the DCS plugin: just plain clear programming language. That one was really easy. Read and do. Ad a mix of AI to it to speed up the development and voila

I understand big companies don't dev for smaller communities. Creates extra support, development, testing. It's just not worth it for smaller communities.

That said: MobyFlight contacted me on Discord about PSX, the guy was interested to extend/expand for PSX. But you need to be on Discord for that.

[PanosI]

Jamie, it works perfectly in my MacBook Air M1 !

Holy smokes, it works for Mac!  Jamie this is unbelievable.  You've managed to accomplish in a day what the community has been requesting for 5 years!  The contributions you have made these past few months are impressive and much appreciated!

In an afternoon.......

[Jamie]

It's partly self-interest as well. I already had the FMC lying around, and my PC room has been turned into a guest room. I'm away from home a lot these days, so I do pretty much everything on a light-weight laptop.

MSFS just isn't that convenient on a laptop. I do have a gaming laptop as well (2.5kgs), but I find that it's not so easy to just jump in for a quick flight.

So... PSX for the win!

p.s. a lot of development went into the Volanta bridge. The Simlink 'bridge' is not extremely different. About 80-90% of the code was already there. That helped a lot.

[roccod]

It's partly self-interest as well. I already had the FMC lying around, and my PC room has been turned into a guest room. I'm away from home a lot these days, so I do pretty much everything on a light-weight laptop.

MSFS just isn't that convenient on a laptop. I do have a gaming laptop as well (2.5kgs), but I find that it's not so easy to just jump in for a quick flight.

So... PSX for the win!

p.s. a lot of development went into the Volanta bridge. The Simlink 'bridge' is not extremely different. About 80-90% of the code was already there. That helped a lot.

You are being far too modest. In any case, in a few short weeks you have greatly enhanced the experience for this community in my opinion. TCASSE deserves thanks as well for originally developing the plugin for the Winctrl FMC which got us all dreaming!

[Jamie]

Yes, he was definitely the catalyst that got everything rolling.

[Chris Stanley]

Yes, he was definitely the catalyst that got everything rolling.

Now that you have developed a connector for PSX to Navigraph Charts (https://www.jamiejets.com/psx/psx_simlink_v0.9a.zip) taxiing etc in PSX is absolutely accurate. Again thank you so much!
Maybe, once again I'm pushing my luck but does that re open the door for a simple direct link from PSX to vPilot?

[Chris Stanley]

I'll try a full flight (VHHH to VTCC) tomorrow.

Hi Jamie. Well I've had time to check it all out. Really impressed once off the ground and flying but for operating on the ground I'm finding the refresh rate really slow to make accurate taxiing very tricky. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? But with practice and reference to the ND, the process is getting better!!
Again, many thanks for making this possible.

[Jamie]

Hi Jamie. Well I've had time to check it all out. Really impressed once off the ground and flying but for operating on the ground I'm finding the refresh rate really slow to make accurate taxiing very tricky. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? But with practice and reference to the ND, the process is getting better!!
Again, many thanks for making this possible.

Hi! Concerning the refresh rate: I don't have the Full version of Navigraph. Still on the FMS data version, so I cannot test.

What is the refresh rate on ground approximately? From the XP plugin I saw a 1Hz update rate. Maybe that increases on gnd. Inhave to check again.

Regards vPilot: I'm involved in Vatsim as statf as well, so I cannot 'hack' into this. They're very strict about clients.

[Mariano]

Same here. Refresh rate for taxiing is a bit choppy.

Regardless, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, Jamie. This changes everything for those of us who do not use visuals and fly mostly standalone PSX.

Best regards,

Mariano

[Hardy Heinlin]

Refresh rate for taxiing is a bit choppy.

5 Hz? 1 Hz? 0.1 Hz?

[Kurt]

Hi! Concerning the refresh rate: I don't have the Full version of Navigraph. Still on the FMS data version, so I cannot test.

What is the refresh rate on ground approximately? From the XP plugin I saw a 1Hz update rate. Maybe that increases on gnd. Inhave to check again.

Regards vPilot: I'm involved in Vatsim as statf as well, so I cannot 'hack' into this. They're very strict about clients.

PM sent

Cheers

[Mariano]

I estimate 0.5 Hz., from my brief test yesterday.

Perhaps others can be a bit more accurate if they have access to it at the moment.

Best regards,

Mariano.

[Jamie]

Hi all, thanks for the logins I had a bit of a fight with all the headings, but got it right

The Simlink app is limited to 1Hz, I guess I sent it to Simlink at 2Hz or faster, so it has an actual position every 1s. Could be that it misses a position sometimes, resulting in an erratic movement, sometimes 1s sometimes every 2s.

Furthermore, when taxiing a heavy aircraft, it's quite normal to make a 90-degree turn at less than 10 knots groundspeed. Otherwise, you risk scrubbing the nose tires off the rims. Taxi with caution and then it works quite good. You can use the ND as well to point the nose in the right direction then use Navigraph to make slight corrections. It works well, it's not a C152.

I need to do some other things, but I'll send an update later today to check it out.

@Hardy:
True HDG comes from PSX Qs121.

Mag HDG/(HDG) is True HDG corrected with magnetic variation from Qs483.

GPSTRK (True Track) is calculated from consecutive PSX position updates from Qs121.

Magnetic TRK is GPSTRK (True Track) corrected with the same magnetic variation.

Wind direction, wind speed and magnetic variation come from Qs483.

...in the end it's more a cosmetic thing in Navigraph.

[Jamie]

An update here v1.0 (windows 1.0b, had some problems with the ascii boxes lol)

https://aerowinx.com/board/index.php/topic,8010.msg86285.html#msg86285