Release 1.1

[dragonflightdesign 100]

is being uploaded now. Thanks to all of your feedback the following major problems have been fixed:-

Fuel transfer

Gyropilot

RDF ident and VC NDB needle behaviour

VC startup

- along with a lot of minor stuff that you've reported. I have also updated a lot of internal textures (no Rafal - it will still be too dark for your liking in v5! 😄 ) and all four manuals.

Part 1 has a picture of the scrappage notice and two hulls being dismantled in Baltimore.

Part 2 has received a major overhaul. As requested, detailed info on fuel dump and fuel transfer has been added ('Fuel Transfer', p31). The biggest change is around the gyropilot description ('The Sperry Gyropilot', p18) - please read this very carefully because you must get out of any 'autopilot mindset'. It simply doesn't work like that; in fact, in RL the A-2A barely worked at all except in almost calm weather. To kill the morse ident, see 'Radio Navigation', p34.

The Modern Startup Cheatsheet has been updated to allow for those of you that just use the VC. Page 4 section 7 is the really important part for you guys. The missing 'how to dry-crank the engines' has also been added to page 4 section 8. The VC startup has no time constraints - the prop will keep cranking until the battery goes flat. Battery rating has been upgraded so that it goes flat after two hours if you do nothing. When cranking an engine, this can drop to thirty minutes. Crank all four together (it can be done) will drain power in under ten minutes.

The Sperry A-3A Gyropilot (a.k.a. 'Elmer Carries On') has a minor change to the introductory page.

Attention has been paid to event flooding. Gerard - if you're logging events with FSUIPC then what you see now is absolutely necessary, particularly around the fuel events. You will also see one (maybe two) autopilot heading events. I'm using these to compare to the gyropilot feedback loops.

 

Please keep the feedback coming. Would there be any interest in a paintkit?

 

Edited January 16, 2021 by dragonflightdesign
Additional info on the battery.

[qqwertz 800]

You knew my birthday is coming up?

Thanks so much, Dai! Wonderful news, I am downloading it right now.

Cheers,

Peter

[dragonflightdesign 100]

If you haven't done an island-hop across to NS, from what I've seen of the museum at Botwood, it is well worth the visit. You can get to play with the Clipper Mk1 release too 😄. I've promised them a copy of this one for the help they gave me (e.g. copies of all of the flight ops for the Clipper as well as access to a lot of private photographs I would never otherwise have seen!), but I suspect it will mean a major upgrade of their display PCs.

[Scorpio47 22]

14 hours ago, qqwertzde said:

Thanks so much, Dai! Wonderful news, I am downloading it right now.

Thank you, Dai !!

I can only reinforce what qqwertzde said and I thank you particularly for taking care of the fuel management issues. I am confident that now most glitches will be history.....
What concerns the Clipper Museum, I have been longing to pay them a visit since I read Ken Follett´s novel "Night over Water"; I think it is the only place on Earth where you can close to that glorious era of luxury air travel offered only by the B314.....
If I ever get to Ireland again, it will be on my itinerary for sure!

Again, thank you very much for all your work and have a great start into the new week. Best wished to your wife and family as well, may you all stay healthy and strong in these difficult times.

Cheers
Juergen

Edited January 17, 2021 by Scorpio47

[IanFisher 10]

I can only echo what the guy's above have said. Looking forward to flying this again since that very dissapointing first week when we discovered all the issues. Thanks you Dai.

Regards

Ian

[gaab 111]

On 1/16/2021 at 9:46 PM, dragonflightdesign said:

Attention has been paid to event flooding. Gerard - if you're logging events with FSUIPC then what you see now is absolutely necessary, particularly around the fuel events. You will also see one (maybe two) autopilot heading events. I'm using these to compare to the gyropilot feedback loops.

 

Please keep the feedback coming. Would there be any interest in a paintkit?

 

Hi Dai,

I wonder if we got the intended "Boeing B314.dll", because I don't see any improvement on event flooding 😞

I use the Doug Dawson's "dsd_p3d_event_logger_x64.dll" (and not FSUIPC) and I see 500 events per second as soon as the aircarft is loaded !

The following sequence is repeated at high frequency (time is in seconds), hence no chance to ever open any of the non main doors.

Quote

Doug Dawson :

This gauge is designed to detect repeating P3D Key_Events which interfere with normal panel operation.  Symptoms of repeating Key_Events include an inability to select a second exit or second engine, as well as accelerated selection on autopilot controls (Course and Heading controls increment by 10 instead of 1, Altitude Select increments by 1000 instead of 100.)  
This gauge will not tell you which gauge is sending the repeated Key_Events, but by identifying the events themselves, it should make the task of identifying the offending gauge somewhat easier.

 Time=1658.327417; id=391; event_in=MAGNETO1_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327444; id=397; event_in=MAGNETO2_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327452; id=403; event_in=MAGNETO3_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327458; id=409; event_in=MAGNETO4_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327465; id=426; event_in=FUEL_SELECTOR_SET; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327473; id=987; event_in=FUEL_SELECTOR_2_SET; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327503; id=1032; event_in=FUEL_SELECTOR_3_SET; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327513; id=1040; event_in=FUEL_SELECTOR_4_SET; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327519; id=426; event_in=FUEL_SELECTOR_SET; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327526; id=987; event_in=FUEL_SELECTOR_2_SET; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327532; id=1032; event_in=FUEL_SELECTOR_3_SET; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327542; id=1040; event_in=FUEL_SELECTOR_4_SET; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327553; id=300; event_in=RADIO_ADF_IDENT_DISABLE; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327560; id=1021; event_in=RADIO_ADF2_IDENT_DISABLE; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327568; id=279; event_in=AP_HDG_HOLD_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327575; id=278; event_in=AP_APR_HOLD_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327585; id=277; event_in=AP_LOC_HOLD_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327592; id=580; event_in=AP_PANEL_VS_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327599; id=280; event_in=AP_ALT_HOLD_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327606; id=558; event_in=AP_AIRSPEED_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327612; id=276; event_in=AP_ATT_HOLD_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327622; id=574; event_in=AP_PANEL_MACH_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327628; id=281; event_in=AP_WING_LEVELER_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327635; id=568; event_in=AP_PANEL_ALTITUDE_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327643; id=250; event_in=SPOILERS_SET; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327649; id=521; event_in=PANEL_LIGHTS_OFF; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327658; id=520; event_in=PANEL_LIGHTS_ON; evdata=0
 Time=1658.327665; id=520; event_in=PANEL_LIGHTS_ON; evdata=0
new sequence 0.067 seconds after
 Time=1658.394345; id=391; event_in=MAGNETO1_OFF; evdata=0

I am also very sorry to say that the Tooltip added are not very helpful.

For example <TooltipText>Elevator Trim</TooltipText> is not giving any usefull information. What we would need is the actual position in degrees in order to set it up for takeoff.

<TooltipID>TOOLTIPTEXT_PITCH_TRIM</TooltipID> which translate to "Elevator (Pitch)Trim && Position Indicator (%((A:ELEVATOR TRIM POSITION, degrees))%!4.1f!°)"

As well for most switches to tune "values". Most of these ToolTips are predefined by FSX and Prepar3D.

 

An other type of example : It is difficult to determine if the primer is on or not on the VC :  Engine 4 Primer (On) or (Off) would be nicer...

Sorry if i sound harsh, but you explicitly mentionned my previous reports.

Gérard

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by gaab

[dragonflightdesign 100]

Not harsh at all. I forgot to mention I hadn't added dynamic tooltops yet because I ran out of my (self-imposed) time. I had some in there, but removed them when I realised I couldn't get them all done before my deadline. Better none than just some. They will be added.

Of those flood events, I'm guilty of not stopping the following:

Magnetos

ADF Ident

The AP stuff

Fuel events need to flood because there's constant switching going on between the tanks to mimic the Clipper system.

Spoilers are a bit of a problem. There is a feedback loop going on to provide on-water drag and also to provide cowl flaps drag as the sim doesn't do it very well. I can probably reduce that when in the air, but not when on water.

PANEL_LIGHTS is being abused to force screen updates when I want them and not when the sim wants them, although they should not be flooding like that because there is a code trap in place to stop it.

 

Thank you for catching those.

 

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by dragonflightdesign

[dragonflightdesign 100]

All flood events except PANEL_LIGHTS are stopped. Dunno what's going on there - yet.

[gaab 111]

4 hours ago, dragonflightdesign said:

They will be added.

Thank you !

Dai,

I really know that events are here to be used when necessary 😉

But useless one lead to the shft-e n issue for doors (and I don't see  any KEY for all doors)

 

Issue with the Start Up from VC :
after making several start up sequence, in various order, seams that after starting engine n°3, it becomes impossible to start any other engine, the booster staying up and the remaining of the procedure not possible.  - maybe cut & paste issue here also 😉

 

Gérard

[gaab 111]

9 minutes ago, dragonflightdesign said:

All flood events except PANEL_LIGHTS are stopped. Dunno what's going on there - yet.

Will uninstall and reinstall to cross check...

edit : Reloading from Pilot'S site to be sure...

Gérard

Edited January 18, 2021 by gaab

[dragonflightdesign 100]

1 hour ago, gaab said:

Issue with the Start Up from VC :

after making several start up sequence, in various order, seams that after starting engine n°3, it becomes impossible to start any other engine, the booster staying up and the remaining of the procedure not possible.  - maybe cut & paste issue here also 😉

Not copy'n'paste - simply a wrong check variable. I didn't go through all sixteen possible engine startup combinations so yes, missed that one.

[gaab 111]

So

- uninstalled
- reboot
- reload from Pilot's Site
- standard install

only mod = adding dsd_p3d_event_logger_x64.dll gauge to panel 1 (= shift 2)

just after loading = same 60000 events the first minute
starting the engine 3 last (to be able to finish the engine strt up)
ready to take off 45000 per mn

😞

Gérard

Note : I am starting from a seabase, nevertheless I have the "tractor" in the water.
Desappears after startup (don't checked exactly when)

[dragonflightdesign 100]

For some reason my brain wasn't firing correctly when talking about engine 3. The failure of the 'auto-release' shouldn't be a problem - just left-click on the pump, the prime button, the booster switch and the starter switch. My original idea was to leave the user to do this, but changed my mind later as there was enough to do anyway. Also, I felt it was too easy to miss the booster button.

Tractor should disappear after first engine start, IIRC.

 

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by dragonflightdesign

[lightwriter 7]

Few words about the latest release...

First of all it is great!))) But i've got some bugs: 

- unable to engage gyropilot from VC

- unable to set aileron index via aileron knob from VC (sperry manual, page 5)

- elev trim wheel and index don't move when i use trim buttons on my joystick

- sperry instrument lighting doesn't work

- flight engineer's instruments lighting: scales are lighted, pointers are not lighted.

[dragonflightdesign 100]

Can't reproduce any of the first four problems but I'll keep trying. I've always tested from the VC.

The needles problem I know about - it's most likely that the 'outer' part of the light area is not big enough.