Adjustable searchlight on Helicopters

[Team_P3DSpacePort 6]

Here's the plan:I'd like to add a pitch-adjustable searchlight to a helicopter I'm building in GMAX. For that, I'd like to "hijack" FLAPS (yes, flaps) functionality (GMAX part Animation) to animate the searchlight. Flaps would give me the control of several pitch positions (from straight down to forward facing) by using F5-F8 keys. I've done all the part animations and keyframing (tried without keyframes as well, as per SDK) but I am not getting flaps functionality at all. To test the animation (and my sanity), I assigned "light_land" to the part and it works perfectly - except it turns off the lights at the end of the cycle :(Question is: Is it possible to invoke flaps in a helicopter flight model? I already cut-and-pasted all the flap-related vars in *.air and *.cfg files, but still, no music. Is it a built in limitation that as soon as you define aircraft type to 1 (helicopter), flaps variables are ignored?Thanks in advance,Misho

[n4gix 4,947]

AFAIK, "flaps" do not work with helicopter models.I would suggest that you use a custom L:variable and code a small "joystick" type gauge to place on the panels.

[Team_P3DSpacePort 6]

Thanks Bill, you saved me a lot of restarts :)I will look into the joystick approach...Misho

[n4gix 4,947]

>Thanks Bill, you saved me a lot of restarts :)>>I will look into the joystick approach...May I suggest that you may find reading the "XML Parts" forum at http://freeflightdesign.com of possible benefit? It just might help preserve your sanity and help you to avoid reinventing the wheel... ;)