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Bob Familton

Taxi and Landing Lights Help Please

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I downloaded an excellent FS2004 P-51 package (p51pkg.zip) at Flightsim.com. The planes are GREAT but the panel toggle switches don't turn on any lights. I edited the aircraft.cfg and was able to get the strobes, beacon and navigation lights to work OK. I can't get the taxi or landing lights to work. Are these lights coded into the model? There were no Lights or Electrical sections for the lights. I fixed these OK. There was no mention of the author in the file so I can't contact the author. Any help sure would be appreciated. Thanks, regards, Bob.

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Guest grb

Bob,This is sooooo common! People who design the aircraft using FSD and GMax in particular do not know how to assign the required TAGS to things such as Landing lights, and quite frankly do not even...as far as GMAX goes, know how to create the LANDING LIGHT, FORWARD TAXI LIGHT elements and then assign the tags that FS2K2 and FS2K4 must useto recognize that the landing lignt etc., is activated then produce the required beam of light. So that is why we have seen the hundreds of aircraft we download not properly or not at all produce taxi waybeams, landing light beams and retract and extend the gears.....At least a year ago plus ..........this was the case with Gmax simplybecause the techniques required to create the landing light, and gearfunctionality was little known by many of us. Then a few folks started to contribute at a site that no longer exist, and told us how to do it. It was simple once understood. But many probably have started in the past year or so to design aircraft with said tools andsimply do not have the information to create a fully functional aircraft.I know this is a fact because I got so ###### about a year and a half ago that I started to work with Gmax and learn how to create an aircraft that would have fully functional landing gears, and landing light beam not only for player aircraft but when the plane was used for AI. My Wildcat designed in Gmax.........which I forget how to use most of what I had learned, worked great as a fully functional AIaircraft. But the learning curve was horrendouse at best! And as a result I stopped trying to design more exotic aircraft, particularlymodern military aircraft. My aircraft also displayed a neat looking panel with various colored guages etc., when you viewed it from theoutside (it being a AI aircraft taxiing for instance) that you whereclose to in your plane. Again.........I spent endless hours/weeks/months gaining the basic experience to create this things. Blame Microsoft............yes........they as usual promised by the very nature of marketing FS2K2 PRO version with an included Gamx module to allow us to then make our own planes.........then did not support the user community with very well documented SDK tool kits and accompanying documentation that made sense for some time. So if you have followed my explaination........the bottom line is that people are not programming the landing lites and gear/movements etc., into their designs, most probably because they do not know how to do it. But other then that they often can produce a really nice looking aircraft and fancy panel etc.. But just do not go the extraeffort and design an aircraft that will include the basic functions we all expect. Sad but true.hang in there.George...................PS...If I don't respond should you respond it is because I am quite busy with other things currently.

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Hi George. Thanks for the excellent info. You are right. It's a shame that the designers and uploaders don't check their creations before upload. I was able to fix the nav, beacon and strobe but was stymied by the landing lights and taxi lights. After doing a lot of searching I came to the conclusion that the landing and taxi lights were coded in the model, but was not positive. From what I have learned there is no way to edit the model file. It's in a format that I don't understand at all. Guess I'll live without the taxi and landing lights until someone posts an update. Are your planes available anywhere? Thanks and best regards, Bob.

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Bob, the LL and TAXI lights are indeed part of the model file. Both FSDS2 and GMax can make the lights easily, as it is a trivial matter.The other gentleman simply didn't look hard enough for information, since it was on his hard drive all that time!FS included several sample .gmax aircraft for us to "play with" and "learn from," but apparently some can't be bothered to actually look at what's already available... :)There have been at least ten tutorials available for the last 18 months on "how to model landing & taxi lights."OTOH, the model you d/l'ed may have been created with FSDS1 or Aircraft Factory, in which case those programs couldn't create the lights to begin with...BillAVSIM OmbudsmanFounder and Director,Creative Recycling of Aircraft Partshttp://catholic-hymns.com/frbill/FS2002/images/fartslogo.jpg

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Guest PhLem

Hello,Bill, I totally agree with you on the other gentlemans reply. I would have said it different, but your version is better. Planes not having working landing gear ? This was one of the first things that was figured out. And since I have been working with Gmax for the past 2 years, I should know. Also, ALL the tags are known, so I cannot see that being a problem. As you said it may have been created with an older design tool.Seems some people think designers are stupid and/or illiterate people, how dare he.Enough said.Take care, and good luck with the P-51.UdoPGT:-wave

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Hi Bill. Thanks for the info."There have been at least ten tutorials available for the last 18 months on "how to model landing & taxi lights."Bill where are these tutorials?"OTOH, the model you d/l'ed may have been created with FSDS1 or Aircraft Factory, in which case those programs couldn't create the lights to begin with..."How can I check how the model was made? Can I fix it myself? Thanks, regards, Bob.

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Update:I got an e-mail message from Hawk, the author. He said the lights fix was at: www.fs2004.rocks.it.I tried going there and got an error message "Connection refused contacting fs2004_pacair.tripod.com". Will keep trying to get more help from Hawk. I'll keep you all posted. Thanks for all the help so far. This was a real education for me. Best regards, Bob.

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The www.fs2004.rocks.it site now works. It was down according to Hawk. It has a light mod update but it does not fix the landing or taxi lights which are not set in the model. The site has some neat planes for download. Try it. My thanks to Hawk for his help. Regards to all, Bob.

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