When MCE recognises the aircraft on loading from where does it read the various aircraft speeds to monitor (v1, vR, v2 etc). I'm currently flying the Dash6 Twin Otter, but the v-speeds shown by MCE are way to fast, and even if I change them in MCE, the next time they have reverted to what they were before.

 

Cheers,

Stuart

When MCE recognises the aircraft on loading from where does it read the various aircraft speeds to monitor (v1, vR, v2 etc). I'm currently flying the Dash6 Twin Otter, but the v-speeds shown by MCE are way to fast, and even if I change them in MCE, the next time they have reverted to what they were before.

 

Cheers,

Stuart

Hi Stuart, I believe it depends on the aircraft. If they were able to integrate fully or the aircraft had an SDK (in which case the developer of the aircraft has done the hard work already) then MCE will read the V speeds from whatever you set up in the aircraft.

 

If the aircraft Vspeeds cannot be read by MCE, you don't need to write them anywhere, simply tell your F/O what the speeds are.

 

For example, "Takeoff V1 is 130", he will ask you to confirm, just say "Yes", "Affirmative", etc.and do the same for VR and V2. Your First Officer will then monitor the speeds to you.

 

Sent from my Mobile thing

Hi Stuart, I believe it depends on the aircraft. If they were able to integrate fully or the aircraft had an SDK (in which case the developer of the aircraft has done the hard work already) then MCE will read the V speeds from whatever you set up in the aircraft.If the aircraft Vspeeds cannot be read by MCE, you don't need to write them anywhere, simply tell your F/O what the speeds are.For example, "Takeoff V1 is 130", he will ask you to confirm, just say "Yes", "Affirmative", etc.and do the same for VR and V2. Your First Officer will then monitor the speeds to you.Sent from my Mobile thing

Good idea to tell FO the v speeds, but what do you mean by the aircraft having an SDK? Most FSX aircraft that I'm aware of only have an 'aircraft.cfg' file, but I don't think they normally contain v speed references.

Could someone from the MCE team advise where MCE reads those figures from?

 

Cheers,

Stuart

Good idea to tell FO the v speeds, but what do you mean by the aircraft having an SDK? Most FSX aircraft that I'm aware of only have an 'aircraft.cfg' file, but I don't think they normally contain v speed references.

Could someone from the MCE team advise where MCE reads those figures from?

 

Cheers,

Stuart

 

For aircraft that have SDK like the PMDG 737 NGX or iFly 737 or Level-D, the plane builder tells you exactly how to read button state and manipulate it.

 

Most complex aircraft including PMDG MD-11, 747, J41, all CS aircraft, all QW and CoolSky aircraft, and many many more don't have one.

 

In that case, you need to be armed with a thourough knowledge of the FSX (P3D) SDK as well as advanced C and C++ Windows programming.

 

You could spend 2 to 3 months full time on each aircraft and not get to all the info you need. That's why reading V speeds isn't guaranteed for all aircraft. If one spends more time, one  could eventually get it, but we have to balance the need to get thorough with each aircraft versus supporting as many of them.

 

Ultimately, we are the only ones who can interface just about any aircraft, with or without SDK.

 

We start from the most used things like auto-pilot and overhead panels, to the least, like Doors control (although with the successful GSX this is now becoming essential items)  .

 

Move to another aircraft....

 

Then if necessary come back to a previously interfaced aircraft to give users more control with it.

 

...etc, etc...

Many thanks for the explanation. Guess it's more complicated than I imagined.

Perhaps one thought for a modification would be to save the manually entered settings on the Monitor tab in an INI file for that aircraft, so that the next time one loads up MCE in the same aircraft, it could load those parameters from the INI file if it exists. Might this be a possibility?

Regards,

Stuart Hyett

Many thanks for the explanation. Guess it's more complicated than I imagined.

Perhaps one thought for a modification would be to save the manually entered settings on the Monitor tab in an INI file for that aircraft, so that the next time one loads up MCE in the same aircraft, it could load those parameters from the INI file if it exists. Might this be a possibility?

Regards,

Stuart Hyett

 

Trouble is, those values normally depend on actual takeoff weight, flaps and operational conditions, therefore whatever you store there would be irrelevant, unless you takeoff with the exact same conditions all the time.

 

We do something similar to what you suggested, which is to have default Vspeeds for a particular aircraft written to a reference file. The values that end-up in UI.

 

Send the "aircraft.cfg" file to support along with whatever values you want saved for

 

V1, VR, V2 and VAPP and a reference file will be generated.

 

William suggestion is a better one. Just let FO know what the Vspeeds are and he'll be in synch.

 

MCE can get Vspeeds automatically with some aircraft

 

PMDG 737 NGX

Aerosoft Airbus X

Majestic Q400 (provided you run the latest version)

CoolSky DC9

PMDG J41

And a few others I can't recall

Thanks. Appreciate the v-speeds will change slightly with different weights, but not usually by much. Perhaps a means to save a default per aircraft would help.

Meanwhile, I'll do as suggested and simply tell the FO the speeds.

Thanks again,

Stuart