apollosmith

Congrats AvSim on bringing the baton around the world! An incredibly clean and well-flown race by all involved. It's always a privilege to compete against you. And kudos to Eamonn for his hard work on the excellent race web site.

We didn't find our route until Friday. We had it calculated as just a bit longer than your planned route and figured it would have less optimal winds (which it did), but not having the distraction of flying right next to other teams and allowing you guys to "scout" out the path for us from Greenland to New Zealand tipped us to using it. I'm glad we did or we very likely would have made the same Australia routing mistake.The SoH route was... interesting. We didn't see or even consider it, though we looked at polar options. We did our planning if FS9, so didn't even have that airport (which brings up an interesting race dilemma - perhaps FS9 can't win this race anymore?). We did a bunch of testing yesterday and found that it's certainly possible to land there (probably adjacent to the runway with some creative ways of getting the plane stopped). With some practice, it is no more difficult than other dangerous landings. It is what it is and certainly paid off big for them.

Welcome back Team AvSim. As one that does much of our flight planning, 'glitches' like you experienced are my worst nightmare. I actually had that airport in our flight plan and very likely would have flown the exact same route as you if you hadn't been so far ahead of us. Great job finishing things out and fantastic flying!

Oh no!!! We would have given you the heads up earlier, but didn't notice the routing issue ourselves until just now. We were just chatting about this on TS and are unanimously heartbroken to see this impact what was shaping up to be an epic race. With SoH's creativity, this is certainly going to be interesting.

My list of RTW experiences is much too long to list here. There's no doubt that the race has made me a much better sim pilot. And I've learned much about geography, politics, history, aircraft, navigation, avionics, and generally have always had a blast with great pilots in a friendly, yet competetive environment.My first race was 2004, I think. I was looking for people to fly online with and happened to join a server (I think we used MSN Game something-or-the-other back then) with FlightSim.com's pilots about 1/2 way through the race. I was flying the baton an hour or two later because there was nobody else around to take it (yeah, things were a bit different back then). It was a trial by fire. Over the years I've had some incredible experiences - like flying alone across the Atlantic and landing on a dark runway (the other team members parked along the runway to give some basic markers) with only 5 gallons of fuel left, flying Concorde across the Pacific and having my nose wheel collapse on landing in Chile but not crashing, etc., etc.The RTW race is the pinnacle of sim aviation and anyone who wants a fun experience and wants to master their flying skills and ability should participate.

Yes, much more so than knowing the alternate flaps procedures. There is a much higher likelihood of needing to make a zero flaps landing then there is that you'll need alternate flaps (or at least that you'd be in a situation severe enough that alternate flaps would be needed).

Alternate flaps will (or at least should) only be utilized if there is a full Hydraulic System A & B failure. In other words, if hydraulics are working fine and the flaps won't go down, alternate flaps won't (or at least shouldn't) do anything to help the situation. So your situation is a bit abnormal.Alternate Flaps will fully extend leading edge flaps/slats. They are all or nothing and there's no retracting them. Holding Alternate Flaps switch will VERY SLOWLY extend the trailing edge flaps. T/E flaps can be VERY SLOWLY (duty cycle is ~25 minutes) retracted by the same method. I'm not sure if this is correctly modeled in the PMDG - as you note, it might just send everything to flaps 40.Of course getting to the point of needing Alternate Flaps would require an A & B hydraulic failure. As was the case in your instance, there would certainly be a lot going on. Due to the systems loss, you would be flying manually, lowering the gear manually, and dealing with other issues. You'd want to be VERY careful of any flap asymmetry - if you went to alternate flaps and one side didn't respond, you'd be in big trouble quickly. Because of the inability to retract L/E slats, inability to retract flaps very quickly, and stuck with a down landing gear, you'd be operating in a relatively small performance window and had better get your first landing right because you would be unable to execute a proper missed approach.Considering that an A/B failure would probably be caused by or would result in significant damage, you might be just as well doing a flaps up landing. I don't have a Non-normal Checklist to know what is actually recommended.But in the sim, with this seemingly isolated failure of just flaps, I guess you'd just get to about flaps 15 speed, extend fully with alternate flaps, and then land normally.Jared Smith

Congrats! You guys did awesome this year. In fact, all the teams did amazingly well. This was the cleanest and most enjoyable race I've seen in 6 years of doing this. While it stings a bit to see my team fall short by such a small margin (Just 39 minutes! And fs-mp just 9 minutes behind us!!!), it's hard not to feel successful with the results of such a hard-fought, yet clean, well-flown, and well-planned race. You better be prepared to defend the trophy next year, but for now, a huge congratulations is in order.

I've updated your bonus on the tracker site. There is a mistake in your calculations - variety bonuses are worth 30 minutes each, giving you 4.5 hours in variety bonus and a total of 25.5 hours of bonus.If this is incorrect, let me know. I'll monitor and will update as bonuses change.

I have updated your team bonus on the tracker site. It's still not entirely clear what your total bonus is. My math gives me 13 hours (3 burger run, 6 team flight, 3 diversity bonus, and 1 for VHHX which you didn't record). If you could provide a total each time you update, it will make things a bit easier.Keep up the excellent flying!

The "Baton-carrier or wingman?" option only shows if you have "Send real-time position to server?" selected in the settings. Also, be sure to create a user (if you already exist, it won't create a duplicate).

A few things to note:- Once you download the new Duenna, go to Settings and select Default for Server+URL. Then create a user. Be sure to select your team name.- In order for the tracker to track your flight, "Send real-time position to server?" must be checked.- If you are a baton holder or wingman, you MUST check the "Baton-carrier or wingman?" option on the main screen. DO NOT select this option during the race unless you have the baton or are flying a wingman leg, otherwise the Baton Tracker will add your flight. Also, YOU MUST select this option for the Baton Tracker to record your baton flight.- With the "Baton-carrier or wingman?" deselected, your flight information will still be tracked at http://www.fsrtwrace.com/track/ListFlights.php- The Duenna will automatically upload your Duenna graphic and text file to the server after your flight. If all goes as planned (and the race committee allows it), you should not need to post these files to the forums unless this process fails for some reason.- We'll be working out bugs (we're aware of several) and making improvements up to and probably even after the race begins, but if you have feedback, recommendations, or bug reports, let us know. In the mean-time, please use it.Jared "Smitty" Smith

This is certainly a useful tool. However, this puts load on my server (I own the smithplanet.com server) and a little bit of load on each multiplayer server. It's not a big deal, I just ask that if you aren't monitoring what's happening that you hide the servers in Google Earth. Just uncheck the checkbox next to the server name in My Places in Google Earth.I also will be updating the following graphic every few hours throughout the race. You can get full details and compare bonuses, speeds, and other race elements at http://smithplanet.com/rtw/If someone from Team AvSim would like to help update your legs as they happen, that would be great. Just log in at the link above.Cheers and good luck!http://smithplanet.com/rtw/rtw.jpg

I can't really help, but I too am quite interested in moving this P-38 to FSX, so if/when you get this problem solved, if you could post your gauge or code, I'd very much appreciate it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "when altitude alert is triggered", but you'll want something like this...(A:PLANE ALT ABOVE GROUND, feet) 1000 < This will display the warning light when your altitude is less than 1000 feet AGL.This same logic will work for your previous questions as well. I'd recommend that you also search the forums here for help and read the basic tutorials at http://fs2x.com/Jared

I'll see what I can figure out with the C gauge. Thanks for your help. Here's another related question...Instead of writing to a file, can you display text in a gauge that is selectable - meaning you can copy it from the gauge and paste elsewhere.I want to build a gauge that essentially saves, prints, or displays a flight report with a bunch of variables that are set/checked throughout the flight.Jared

Great! I have sent you an e-mail through the forum system. Thank you!UPDATE: The PM and e-mail forms on this forum seem to be broken. It won't send any message. Error says the message field is empty although it is not.I've sent you an e-mail to the one in your profile.Jared

I'm assuming the answer is no, but is there ANY way to have an XML gauge write to a file? I'd simply like to store some variables externally at a certain point.

You are one sick puppy! I still have nightmares about flying that Concorde hop in 2005 and overrunning the runway at SCEL. (shutters)It's been a few years, so what are the best Concorde models available?

I'm not certain what you're asking. But I'll try to answer what I think you're asking.The Axis element defines the rotation point for your needle. By default, the rotation point is the top-left of the needle image. You want it to rotate around the point where it would be attached or pinned to the rest of the gauge. In this case, it means that the needle image will rotate or pivot around a point 9 pixels FROM the top and 57 pixels FROM the left of the image. Because the position of the image is defined at 77, 77 this means that the top-left of the needle image will be 9 pixels up and 57 pixel to the left of this point OR the top left of the needle will be at X=68, Y=20 in your gauge.At least I think I'm explaining this right. :-)The Main Body Sections of the tutorial at http://fs2x.com/Tutorials.htm explains this quite well, though the syntax is for FS9.I'm still struggling to figure out why MS changed the basic syntax of so many of these elements from FS9 to FSX.

I also use Google Earth to get oriented with the surroundings of the airport. Turn on terrain to view any terrain obstacles and you can identify rivers, populated areas, or other landmarks that can help. FS models all of these quite accurately.I have some tools at http://smithplanet.com/fs2004/tools that can help. Just enter in the airport code to see it in Google Maps or Google Earth - as well as lots of other airport information (real-time weather, runways, navaids, etc.). If you're flying online, you can also view your real-time location in 3d in Google Earth. I've found these quite helpful in the past RTW races.Now, I'm heading back home to FlightSim.com before my teammates over there catch me giving tips to the 'enemy'. :-)http://smithplanet.com/temp/GoogleEarthTracking.jpgJared

Here's what I found:- the .zip file posted above is corrupt.- I also could not get a keymapping for RELOAD_PANELS to work. You can map the reload aircraft in Settings... Assignments... Reload User Aircraft. I mapped it to CTL+SHIFT+;. So CTL+; will "Reset Current Flight" (at least that's the default) and CTL+SHIFT+; will reload just the plane. Neither of these is RELOAD_PANELS though.- To add a Reload_Panels gauge, add the following to your aircraft config file:gaugeXX=ReloadGauge!Reload, 10,10,10,10- Within your aircraft's panel folder (or your main /Gauges folder), create a folder named ReloadGauge and within it create a file named Reload.xml. Add the following (without the *'s) to the file:*********<Gauge Name="Panel Reload" Version="1.0"><Size X="10" Y="10"/><Element><Polygon FillColor="Red" Bright="Yes"> <Point X=" 0" Y=" 0"/> <Point X="10" Y=" 0"/> <Point X="10" Y="10"/> <Point X=" 0" Y="10"/> <Point X=" 0" Y=" 0"/></Polygon> </Element><Mouse><Tooltip>Panel Reload</Tooltip><Click> (>K:RELOAD_PANELS) </Click><Cursor Type="Hand"/></Mouse></Gauge>*********- This adds a red square to the top left of your panel. Click to reload the panels.- Clicking the gauge will instantly reload all XML. I had to reload the entire situation (CTL + ; ) to see changes in any gauge BMPs.- I am currently working on my gauges within the aircraft panel folder, so things may work differently for things in your /Gauges folder.- When you first load the plane, you must click the gauge once to unlock your XML and BMP files. Otherwise, you cannot save changes.- Using this set up, I was able to go 7 hours with FS open while editing gauges like a mad man. By using the .cab method and resetting the flight all the time, FS would crash every 3 or 4 resets.Jared

Yes, that IS much faster. I had it in my mind that the Reload Plane keyboard command and Reload_Panels did the same thing. I'm finally getting the hang of this! I'm building a custom panel for the Round the World Race and have now replaced about 12 other independent gauges with one gauge w/ a lot of XML files. It's nothing fancy, but I have digital displays of all sorts of vital flight information.Thanks!

> Just keep everything in a FOLDER with the same name > you are GOING to use for your CAB files. That way > you won't have to change any references in the > panel.cfg as long as you don't rename the XML files > themselves.I assume you mean a sub-folder in the /Gauges folder. But when I do this, FS locks the .xml files so they can't be edited. The only way to save changes to the files is to close FS, save the changes, reload FS. It's easier to just re-cab and then reload, isn't it?> Never "Cab" the gauges, just leave xml and bitmaps in a > folder, say mygauges, and put this folder in the panel > folder of your aircraft. Much easier to edit.> You don't need to restart FS, but reload the panel, see > faq 5 upstairs.Same as above. FS locks these files and I get a sharing violation, so reloading the aircraft does no good.The only way I've found to get around this is to change the panel.cfg to remove all references to the folder, reload the panel, make the xml changes, save xml, re-edit the panel.cfg to reference the folder, then reload the panel. Clicking a .bat to cab, then copy/paste, then reload aircraft is MUCH faster.

Thanks tons for your help.>I've explained FS XML stack's basic and advanced operation in>quite a number of threads on this forum. You might search for>"taguilo" in Author's field; even there is one I recall that>explains in detail how spaces are treated by the XML parser.Yes, but sorting through the less helpful posts is difficult. I've started using Google to search just this site and that helps because the search engine here only sorts by date, not by relevance.I think I understand the stacking relatively well, it's all of the rules about spacing, syntax, when FS recognizes change, and where stacking structure is processed, etc. that is more difficult.>what other resources are there for XML newbies>like myself.>>The ULTIMATE resource: MSFS Aircraft and Panel Design Forum>:-)>About every aspect of FS XML has been treated here already. I'm finding that, but the tutorials and most definitely the SDK could better address some of these more basic principles. Thanks again!