schachow

Hi, BillI have a similar issue. I would like to enter a real world flight route into the FSX flight planner or the Garmin 500 GPS but have not found a way of doing this. :(I guess I will have to try FSBuild and see what it can do for me.

Thanks for the tips, flight simmers. :D Jeff, I had not thought about using the mouse. Good tip. I will have to try that one for sure. :)

When changing a value, e.g. altitude, in a default MS aircraft the numbers tend to jump rapidly causing me to zip by the value I want to set. This happens in previous versions of MSFS also. Is there a way of changing something in a .cfg file to make the numbers "roll" in a linear fashion?Bill

I have flown the iFly 747-400 in FSX many times. Most of the time it works perfectly, but...I have had some problems that have shown up during approaches:1 - ILS approach: LOC and/or GS would not hold. Had to select the a/c again to clear the problem2 - Approach Go-Around: change to Speed or Altitude would not hold. E.g. the a/c would climb at a high VS even though it was set to a negative value or the Alt Hold was on. Had to reselect the a/c to clear the problem.Note: you must have the SIMM in the FMC set to "State of last exit" for "Select next startup state". Or at least "Normal State" to be able to recover.I have never had any problems during taxiing, takeoff or cruising. LNAV and VNAV work quite well with the flight plan in the FMC.I don't use STARS or SIDs. I use ATC (with FS flight plan) until after takeoff. Then FMC takes over. For approach I let ATC vector me to the runway - LNVV and VNAV are turned OFF.I am running FSX with SP2, 3gb DDR2 RAM, nVidea 8800 GTX with 768mb RAM.Bill

I made up several easy-to-follow checklists for the iFly 747-400.1 - Basic flying with the iFly 747 without FMC2 - Flying the iFly 747 with a minimal FMC3 - Flying the iFly 747 with full use of the FMC4 - Start with a Cold & Dark iFly 747.5 - How to use FSNavigator to create a flight plan for iFly 747Would AVSIM be interested in making these available to iFly users?If yes, please let me know what I need to do"ThanksBill

MartinI find it is very little trouble creating a flight plan for the iFly. Aside from using the Convert Utility that Wayne mentioned, you can easily do your own using the FMC/CDU.I created a flight plan in the FS (FS9 or FSX). Select IFR and VOR to VOR. Then print the Navigation Log.In the CDU Route enter the VOR points along the right side of the CDU. You don't need to enter all the VORs if you don't want to.When done ACTIVATE the Route and EXEC it.Then go to Menu and SIMU and selct SAVE to save the flight planIt takes me at the most 10 minutes to do the whole thing. One more tip: once you have a whole bunch of flight plans in iFly's folder create a shortcut to access that folder. That way you can see what flight plans you have for the iFly.Enjoy....

Hi, S&BI have just recently started using the iFly 747 in Cold & Dark mode. And I have that problem with the engines attempting to restart after everything is shut down. And also when I reload the aircraft to start a new session.And I have NOT renamed the Directory/Folder that the iFly was installed into. It is not a problem, just a bit annoying.:(

Hi, DanNo, you can not use the mouse magnifier with the screen in full-screen mode. I run my FS9 and FSX in non-fullscreen mode (windowed mode). Anyway, was told some time ago that performance of the flight sims is better when NOT running in windowed mode. And my experience bears this out.Regarding the pop-up screens obscuring your view: Do you have a "Z" buttonOne of the display buttons: on my 737 it enlarges the PFD, ND and EICAS in-place and does not obscure my view. Unfortunately I find that the PMDG aircraft (I have the 737NG)has the worst resolution for characters (numbers, labels, etc) than any other aircraft I have. Even with my magnifications I still have to sometimes have my wife help me out.I run my primary monitor, a 21" CRT, in 1024x768 resolution and my 22" LCD (wide screen) also at 1024x768.Happy simming......Bill

Hi, DAnI am also vision impaired and have a problem reading the numbers on the panel and the labels on the switches, etc.I get around most of these problems with a Microsoft Mouse with a built-in magnifier. It has only 2X magnification - but with the other suggestions made you should be able to set something up to be able to work with the panels.The magnifier can be turned on and off with a special button at the side of the mouse. The magnified area can be sized and it follows the mouse.Happy simming.....Bill

Hi, Kendall. I think you are right. The progressive taxi guide is probably coded in the program itself. I know FSX uses yellow markers but these are smaller and sometimes get lost in the taxiway lines.I guess I will just have to live with what we have - which is pretty good anyway.ThanksBill

When you turn on the ground control taxi guide to take you to the runway you get the purple broken line. I would like to change this to a different, brighter color but have not been able to find the bmp file to do this with. I assume it is a bmp file but I may be wrong.Any ideas? This is for FS9.

Hi, MikeThanks for the tip. That was the answer.I downloaded xenon2.zip and replaced the spotlight.bmp with one of those provided by the xenon2.zipBill

Mike, what I did was turn on the Landing Lights with the switch on the aircraft's panel. Then, after landing and ready to taxi, I now press Ctrl-L. That will turn off the landing lights and leave me with just the taxi lights. One more press of Ctrl-L turns the Taxi light off. Both would now be off.BillP.S. I will look into your suggestion and see what it will do for me. Thanks.Hugo, thanks for the tip. I will look into that site and see what it has to offer.Bill

Thank you to all of you who gave me suggestions. I suppose I should have been more specific about what I wanted.I wanted Taxiing Lights. Most aircraft to not have a taxi switch. And so I wanted to cut down on the brightness of the Landing Lights so that I could use them to taxi.If I had told you that in the first place you probably would have told me to just use Ctrl-L to turn OFF the Landing Lights. Because Ctrl-L leaves the Taxi Light ON when it turn OFF the Landing Lights. And so all I had to do is look at the Control Assignments to find my answer. Sorry fellas. But I did learn some things from your suggestions.Bill

Thanks, Yak Yak and Tango PapaI appreciate your suggestions and I am still trying some of them. So far no success but still have a few things to do.When I get my final, successful solutions I will post it.

Is there a way of changing the brightness value in a cfg file to cut down on the brightness of the landing lights of many aircraft that do NOT have taxi lights?Many aircraft come without taxi lights and the landing lights are too bright to be used for that purpose.Is this a function of a cfg file or is this built into the aircraft's program?

I have purchased the PMDG737NG (600/700) FS2Crew product. I can not get beyond waiting for the FA to close the cockpit door. I waited as long as 1/2 hour.I started with the Cessan shut down with Avionis switch ON. Everything proceeds fine but I can not get to do the Before Start checklist.I am using the PMDG 737 700 with stairt, winglets and VC.The FA just keeps checking the passengers' tickets but refuses to close the cockpit door.I have been reading my documentation, checking the Forum and trying for over a week now without success. I am doing something wrong but I can not see what I am doing wrong.Any hints would be greatly appreciatedBill S.

H, John. I tried your suggestion by adding AS to model=. It did not work for the aricraft I was using at that time. But I will need to look into that a little more. On another note: did you ever open the door at the rear of an aircraft and then not been abble to close it? It has happened to me several times. And I have had to fly with the door open. I hope the passengers were OK .Bill

My apologies, simmers, I have only been flying the Continental 737s. Finally I realized what Robert Randazzo meant that certain airlines do not have air staris. And so I discovered that you have to fly the PMDG with Stairs 737 to get that effect. Thanks Robert. No wonder you couldn't figure out what I was talking about. And yes, using the Space with Ctrl and with Shift works very well. Thanks.Bill S.

Hi, I noticed someone else has the problem of getting the stairs to extend and retract. I only recently purchased PMDG737NG. I set up Ctrl-F10 and Ctrl-F9 to "Extend the Concorde Nose & Visor fully" and "Retract the Concored Nose & Visor fully" After many tries it extended once but could not retract again until I reassigned the "Retract....." to Ctrl-F6". But that only worked this one time. Then I reassigned the commands to Ctrl+Shift-F10 and Ctrl+Shift-F9. Nothing else was assigned to those key combinations. It has never worked. This is just a nit-picky thing in the whole aircraft...but why does it not work? I have tried this with Battery power only, with APU power,and engine power. No dice.Bill S.

Thanks, Jozef. That is just what I was looking for!Bill S.

Weird & wonderful scenic scenery sites and sights.I have run across several unusual sites and wonderful sights in the world of Microsoft Simulator.These include the nice work done on the city of Las Vegas and special buildings such as the Taj Mahal, the Pyramidds in Egypt, the fireworks on July 4th in Seattele, Niagara Falls, the working rides on Coney Island, the Grand Canyon and the list goes on.There are also some weird sites, like the airports located within a volcano(for example SESM in Ecuador) and my latest discovery: the small canyon off Stockton Lake in Missouri that is more than 2 miles deep.When you land the amphibian on the water the altimeter will show -11552 feet (yes, minus).Does anyone know if someone is collecting all these wonderful and weird items and making a list of them?Bill S.

If you can start the engine with Ctrl-E you should be able to start it manually.Here is the procedure I follow.Press Shift-5 to bring up the Startup Panel.Turn ON the Battery and Gen switchesTurn on the Master switch (located between the Magneto switches) It should show as all whiteNow turn on the Magneto switches: The left magneto with the right mouse button The right Man with the left mouse button The mag switches should be in the horizontal positionTurn on both OIL switches. To start the Left Engine - Turn on the left FUEL switch (buzzing sound) - Hold the Primer Switch in the left ON position at least 5 seconds - Click the left START switch ON (will whine) - Click the left VIB swtch ON while the START is still whining.The left engine should now cough into life.Right Engine: repeat the above steps After both engines are running turn OFF the OIL and FUEL switches.Good luck and Happy Flying.Bill

>>Sure enough my numbers were off, but even after changing them>I still get no joy. What could possibly be causing this?Do you mean you still can NOT start the engines? Even with Ctrl-E?Bill

Just a follow-up on my previous post.If you want to repair one of the MAAM flights then you will have to go to your FS2004/flights folder. There you should find the MAAM flights and their .flt files. Good luck.Bill