Events, Vars etc. in FS2004

[spokes2112 179]

Karl, Doing it this way will read from Aircraft.cfg, you culd put in fixed values but if there is any change to the aircraft.cfg it would need recoding. (A:FUEL TOTAL QUANTITY WEIGHT, ) (A:EMPTY WEIGHT, ) (A:TOTAL WEIGHT, ) - - (>L:Payload, enum)Regards,RomanGREEN BAY PACKERS][/i :-ukliam :-beerchug

[Guest]

That's sort of how I'm doing it, although your method forgets the one important weight I'm looking for: Total weight (from a:total weight)- fuel weight (from a:fuel weight)- empty weight (copied from aircraft.cfg)- station loads (can't be copied anymore, changable)---------------= drumroll... ICE WEIGHT.No kidding, monitoring total weight during flight in icing conditions gives an increase in total weight even though fuel is used, as well as changing the profile of the wing. The wing profile change has a lot heavier impact on flight dynamics than simply adding the resulting weight of ice to a station. 200 lbs of ice on the baron can cause havoc on flight dynamics and stall speeds, yet 200 lbs of "regular" overload doesn't affect much at all. this is FS2002, haven't checked yet with FS9.K:Structural deice (something?) will work if you copy some air-file records from the C208 into the baron's .air-file. Sorry, I don't remember at the moment which ones they were, but they weren't obvious with my air-ed inifile. Lots of trial and error - mostly error until one lucky day :DNote that the "toggle structural" event turns on/off a constant deicing system, to get operative boots you need to make a sequence of events turning off (just in case), wait, turn on, wait, then turn off again the structural deice system. Wait for buildup, then repeat (manual booting). As ice breaks off, there is a gentle of major pitchchange as the wingprofile is restored, depending on how much ice was present. Problem is - _all_ structural ice is removed, also those areas not covered by the boots. Maybe part of the ice weight could be added to an invisible spoiler and/or adding invisible fuel to simulate some of this ice? Haven't tried yet but should be fully possible.The last piece of realism can be achieved by setting the deice system "locked to off", if deice was attempted prematurely, creating a cavity under the boots rendering them useless. Tried and works well (FS2002). Instead of a visual cue for checking ice on the wing, a warning lamp can be used as a fakeish replacement.With the much improved icing conditions in FS9, I can't believe the Baron (and possibly others) gauges still call for fake icing switches when they can be made operational... A shame really...

[Guest Ron Freimuth]

>That's sort of how I'm doing it, although your method forgets>the one important weight I'm looking for:>> Total weight (from a:total weight)>- fuel weight (from a:fuel weight)>- empty weight (copied from aircraft.cfg)>- station loads (can't be copied anymore, changable)>--------------->= drumroll... ICE WEIGHT. AFSD displays ICE WEIGHT. It assumes any extra weight is due to ice. Using AFSD, I found Prop Deice has an effect on the Prop. The prop efficiency will decrease in icing conditions and a functional prop deice brings it back up. Not necessarly to full efficiency. Perhaps one also has to cycle the prop deice, I'd thought it simulated heaters, but maybe deicing boots instead. Or, perhaps one or the other.>No kidding, monitoring total weight during flight in icing>conditions gives an increase in total weight even though fuel>is used, as well as changing the profile of the wing. The wing Main effect if ice is increase in Cdi, reduction of Stall CL, and decreased prop efficiency. >K:Structural deice (something?) will work if you copy some>air-file records from the C208 into the baron's .air-file.>Sorry, I don't remember at the moment which ones they were,>but they weren't obvious with my air-ed inifile. Lots of trial>and error - mostly error until one lucky day :D Recent versions of Aired.ini ID 'wing' and 'prop' deice. Actually, I think the tail efficiency is also affected.>Note that the "toggle structural" event turns on/off a>constant deicing system, to get operative boots you need to>make a sequence of events turning off (just in case), wait,>turn on, wait, then turn off again the structural deice>system. Wait for buildup, then repeat (manual booting). As ice>breaks off, there is a gentle of major pitchchange as the .. When a situation is saved, an 'ice' variable is included. It would be nice to have that variable directly available during flight.>The last piece of realism can be achieved by setting the deice>system "locked to off", if deice was attempted prematurely,>creating a cavity under the boots rendering them useless.>Tried and works well (FS2002). Instead of a visual cue for>checking ice on the wing, a warning lamp can be used as a>fakeish replacement. More examples of a fairly sophisticated 'flight model' virtually undocumented and poorly utilized by MS.>With the much improved icing conditions in FS9, I can't>believe the Baron (and possibly others) gauges still call for>fake icing switches when they can be made operational... A>shame really... I think I had to used KB switches to experiment with prop and structural deice. Ron

[Guest Karl R Pettersen]

Arrgh. I had a huge reply to this post, and somehow the window closed on me. God, I hate being forced to use MS IE :( Anyway, I won't go into details this time Ron, so, see if the files attached can be of any use to you.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/32728.zip

[Guest Douglas K]

>Perhaps one also has to cycle the prop deice, I'd thought it simulated heaters, but maybe deicing boots instead. Or, perhaps one or the other.

[Guest Karl R Pettersen]

>For real world ops, if a choice between propellor and airframe>de/anti-icing systems had to be made for economic or other>reasons I would go for the hot prop, since most airplanes will>carry a load of ice, but thrust absolutely must be maintained>if you want to haul that load to your destination. Yes, agree. Speed is easier to trade in than lift :) I do however believe that real aircraft/wing ice is more to be concerned about than MS has put into FS. There has been a couple of accidents with C208's which seem to be quite picky about icing. In FS, 100lbs of ice, which takes too long to build imho, cause a tremendeous effect on trim when removed suddenly (as FS does), and not enough effect on stallspeeds. I'm not into FDE nor much real world flying, but I've read quite a few accident reports. Ice IS dangerous for all aircraft not equipped for it, and should be handled with great respect for aircraft that can "handle" ice.Try out the above files for the Baron, severe ice in freezing clouds, with no anti-ice on. (_Never_ use keyboard H key). Prop and structural ice is handled separately by the switches. Flying into severe icing works as follows: First the airspeed drops dead (all too sudden btw) as the pitot seem to get a huge icecube blocking it. Then the warning light goes yellow, indicating icing conditions but that you should wait for enough ice to prevent a cavity building up under the boots. The airspeed starts to drop due to props getting inefficient. Wait until you've lost about 10-20 knots then turn on the hotprop. The speed rises quite fast as ice is removed from the prop. However, the light which may have gone green by now, indicates that there are still ice on the wing - which you can now (if green) boot safely. Fly a 'long' time (generate 50-100 lbs according to the warning light's tooltip). The effect of 'all this ice' isn't all that dramatic on airspeed. (Didn't test the following, but it worked in a Fs2002 version of this system): The stallspeed have increased greatly, and trying to land with lots of ice 'attached' can quickly cause a fatal crash. Switching on the boots (springloaded switch), activates a delay of a few seconds (inflating), then toggles the structural deice system on then off - voila, all structural removed, a tremendeous trimchange (1500 fpm climb not uncommon), and goes back to 'normal'. You can also run the boots without removing any propeller ice. Thus; these are two completely separate systems in FS. The 'real' problem was experimenting with which records in the airfile made it possible. In any case; _never_ use the keyboard H key, which seem to toggle _all_ ice fighting.

[Guest Douglas K]

Karl,I gave your gauge files a try in FS2002 with the weather conditions you specified, and while the prop heat works as advertised, the ice warning light stubbornly stayed green and AFSD reported a steadily increasing load of ice. Cycling the boots with the switch did nothing, but then neither did the keyboard event for TOGGLE_STRUCTURAL_DEICE. Pitot heat restored the ASI fairly fast, but nothing I could do would remove the airframe ice. Perhaps these gauges are for FS9 only and not FS2002.It seems I can never achieve complete satisfaction with the FS icing simulation, pitot heat wouldn't work for me in FS2000, and now this in FS2002! :D

[Guest Ron Freimuth]

>Karl,>>I gave your gauge files a try in FS2002 with the weather>conditions you specified, and while the prop heat works as>advertised, the ice warning light stubbornly stayed green and>AFSD reported a steadily increasing load of ice. Cycling the>boots with the switch did nothing, but then neither did the>keyboard event for TOGGLE_STRUCTURAL_DEICE. >Pitot heat restored the ASI fairly fast, but nothing I could>do would remove the airframe ice. I think it is broken in FS2K2. Herve' has released AFSD 2.0 for FS9. I just got another one; it is supposed to fix the 'IMEP' reading. People can check his web site to see what he has posted. Ron

[Guest]

>Pitot heat restored the ASI fairly fast, but nothing I could do >would remove the airframe ice.Huh? Did you use the modified .air-file? Max realism? It works for me, and I've put it to use on many aircraft - default and downloaded for FS2002. It worked with FS2002 also, but since we didn't have access to station loads, the weight had to be calculated manually, so I didn't bother too much on "other" aircraft. The "trick" is that the C208 has working structural deice (anti-ice switch on panel). All that was needed was to include some "strange-looking" records from the default C208 airfile. That is, by the aired.ini they doesn't look relevant, but they are.Ron, where is this website - I'm lost :)

[Guest Douglas K]

Karl,It isn't possible to use the modified airfile from your zip directly in FS2002 as it lacks tables 506 and 507 for throttle profile and torque vs fuel/air mixture and without them the Baron will only sit on the runway with the engines at idle. There are other missing bits and pieces in the FS9 airfiles that render them useless in FS2002, including something that causes the "Overspeed" warning to be constantly displayed.Looking through the Baron airfile in your zip, I don't see any new data types, can you identify the "strange looking records" from the C208 airfile that you added to the Baron?If you can be specific then I will include them in the FS2002 Beech Baron airfile and retest.Boolean types 1518 & 1519 are present in the Baron airfile and are identified by the latest AirEd ini file as Prop Deice available and Wing Deice Available. They are set to True(1) by default and I assume that they enable the aircraft ice protection.The older ini file for AirEd identified these as Turboprop AC? and Prop/Turboprop AC?. I did use maximum realism when testing, clouds were set to stratus/overcast 8/8, very heavy rain, icing at severe, temperature at 29-33 degrees F.I tried to set weather conditions that I know would produce very heavy clear ice structural icing in real world flight. A nice thick stratified cloud layer full of large supercooled water drops. I found that FS2002 apparently models aerodynamic cooling and the effect it has on ice formation because I was able to produce the icing effect at 33 degrees F (above the freezing point). The prop heat on the Baron will work from the keyboard command, but not from the default panel switch. As Ron mentioned in an earlier reply to this topic the prop efficiency is only returned to about 95% of its original value. When using your XML switch however, it seems to return to 100% of its pre-icing thrust so if this were a real propellor ice protection system I imagine you would have a better shot at receiving a STC for it from the Feds. :DSince I don't have much experience with using the icing weather option in FS, I have to wonder why static port icing is not modeled (VSI and altimeter still function normally in severe icing conditions), and that induction system icing is not operating in FS2002 despite a keyboard event command ("H" for carb heat/engine anti-ice on/off) being assigned to it. Anyway Karl, I'm not saying that your gauges don't work nor am I trying to dispute your results in any way. Perhaps Ron is correct that the structural deice option is inop in FS2002, or it may be that I'm doing something wrong or that it's something peculiar to my computer setup. I sometimes think that the phrase "computer science" is not applicable to me, I believe "computer alchemy" is more descriptive and appropriate where I am concerned. Or perhaps this will have to wait until I can use FS9.Your ice warning light reminds me of the ice detection system on the old Shorts SD3-30's, they used a fuselage mounted mechanical detector and a cockpit warning light that illuminated when ice buildup increased the torque and current draw on the ice detectors motor. Crude but effective. That airplane could carry a load of ice, I've seen them land after flying through strong New England winter storms with so much mixed clear and rime ice that you would swear it had been parked in a Artic snowstorm for a week. The VHF Com antennas looked like icicles! This is Herve Sors website:http://perso.wanadoo.fr/hsors/FS_Soft/the new AFSD can be found there on this page:http://perso.wanadoo.fr/hsors/FS_Soft/afsd.htmlthis page has the latest AirEd ini file:http://perso.wanadoo.fr/hsors/FS_Soft/fsairfile.html

[Guest Ron Freimuth]

>>Pitot heat restored the ASI fairly fast, but nothing I could>do >would remove the airframe ice.>>Huh? Did you use the modified .air-file? Max realism? It works>for me, and I've put it to use on many aircraft - default and>downloaded for FS2002. It worked with FS2002 also, but since>we didn't have access to station loads, the weight had to be>calculated manually, so I didn't bother too much on "other">aircraft. The "trick" is that the C208 has working structural>deice (anti-ice switch on panel). All that was needed was to>include some "strange-looking" records from the default C208>airfile. That is, by the aired.ini they doesn't look relevant,>but they are.>>Ron, where is this website - I'm lost :) Douglas gave several links in a new message. AFSD is also at Herve's site; it shows ICE in red numbers. But, if you change the payload when flying in FS9 it thinks the addition is ICE. No way to get payload weight through FSUIPC at this time. Reload the AC to put it back to the aircraft.cfg payload. Yes, the 'airframe deice' and 'prop deice' were ID'ed quite recently. 'Airframe deice' is kind of a guess. I had the prop deice T/F wrong some months ago, but it gets added in aircraft.cfg correctly when an AC is first run. I have never seen an 'airframe deice' in aircraft.cfg; one never knows what is in the AIR file and what in aircraft.cfg. I set the AIR file and aircraft.cfg lines the same to be sure. I assigned keys to prop and airfram anti-ice and know I had to use the prop-deice keys to get it to work in the Baron. I know airframe's deiced in FS2K, but don't think I ever saw that work in FS2K2. Ron

[Guest Douglas K]

Karl, I decided to install FS9 this afternoon and give your deicing gauges a try in the FS9 Baron. I found that they work exactly as you described in your earlier reply!I had a good time shedding ice from the airframe and exploring the new features of AFSD 2.01, and let me say that I can highly recommend your gauges, they work perfectly and add to the realism by a considerable amount. Thank you for making them available for testing.My only suggestion would be to change the green light to red, as it is a universal standard in aviation that yellow or amber repesents caution, while the color red means warning - as in do something NOW or you will die. Green is the soothing and reassuring color associated with all systems operating normally; landing gear down and locked, or left engine DC Generator set to ON etc.I have the ice warning light installed between the airspeed indicator and the clock, where it will be highly visible during a normal instrument scan in IMC, and I noticed that the color green tends to blend in with the flight director and autopilot switch power on indicators (they are also green). I changed the warning light color from green to red to indicate that the boots should be activated, and this color illuminating on the panel really got my attention much faster than the green. Force of habit I suppose.I see from the warning light gauge code that the red light is intended to illuminate if the boots were cycled prematurely. Contrary to what you may have heard, ice bridging with modern pneumatic deicing boots is not a problem and current FAA policy (after the Roselawn, Indiana Simmons/AE ATR disaster) calls for cycling the boots in the auto mode at the first signs of icing conditions.Also, I found that the default FS9 Baron airfile does enable deice protection, and that your gauges would work normally with this airfile. No changes or additional data were necessary.Thanks again for the gauges, they are much appreciated! :D

[Guest]

Phew, well at least I know it works for others as well, had me going for a while :D Without being sure, I believe I *had* to enter/copy the last unknown record of the airfile in order to get the structural deice to work separately from the rest of the ice protection systems (maybe this was only required for FS2002, not sure). We had this work in FS2002 also, but there we had no access to reading the station loads, so more initialization data was needed when the aircraft was loaded, to precalculate the weights. Luckily not so anymore. I fixed one small bug yesterday where some things went a little whacko when time was turned back (lots of timer usage in these gauges) - basically just resetting all timers.Yesterday I made an extra function to the propeller deice system. Goes something like; IF in icing conditions (check current ice weight against that of the previous gaugecycle) AND with hotprop on, THEN turn ON the smoke-effect. ELSE (no longer in icing condition or hotprop is off) turn smoke-effect OFF. The smoke-effect is a copy of the dummy effect (no visibles), but with the top lines from the barn effect (to enable the barn.wav when turned on - hardcoded in sound.dll :( ) Then replace the barn.wav with a few big bangs; you can now hear ice being slammed into the fuselage (on a twin :)) As Hal Stoen wrote in his C421B stories: "the first bang always gets your attention" :DI have not yet been able to get ice above the freezing point (0