skyscraper

I had a St. Bernard as a kid. When I was eight my little sister was born and Barney had to go He had a little too much energy, hair and slobber to be in the same room with an infant. My parents gave him to the town butcher so I'm sure he had a quite a happy life. He must have felt like he died and went to dog bone heaven. I cried for quite a while when the butcher came to take my pal away, but my Dad who was an electrical engineer at IBM converted his pretty large dog house into a space capsule, complete with a panel full of flashing lights, dials and switches that actual could fire retro rockets and everything. At least in my mind.. Well, to go along with my new baby sister (who was supposed to be my kid brother but that's another story of 8 yr old woe) I already had two older sisters. So my capsule became a place where I could just shut the hatch, light the fire and get away from it all. Just me and all the space I could imagine. I don't know Bill being an only child or an eight year old in the 60's with three sisters. I think it would have been a toss up... But, many hours in my dogs house, I mean Fireball XL-5 (thanks Dad). In a five gallon ice cream container helmet and foil spacesuit (thanks Mom). During the age of Gemini. My life with three sisters was bearable.

... and oh what a place that would be indeed Fr. Bill. I can a l m o s t "imagine" that until I read on the front page of the morning paper that some folks couldn't. I've been to the blue yonder for countless hours upon days in a consequence of your and many others imaginations "flying" that Cessna, Beech or Boeing with less than nary a care except perhaps a stutter, OOM or CTD from replacing my overclocked imagination with a few too many sliders to the right Imagination has been essential both as a kid playing cops and robbers and in my post-childhood, making family and making buildings. I can't imagine life without imagination and the simplicity of this ad tickled mine like not many others. Thanks for everyones thoughts on this I have enjoyed the 'conversation".

My wife and I just moved from the US northeast to the southwest. Let's just call it a "pre-retirement, empty nest, time to live where we really want - move".. After numerous yard sales, donations, give-aways to family, friends and the Salvation Army not to mention trips to the "recycling" center we still had over ten tons of "stuff" to put on the conestoga wagons. A large majority of that (since most of our NE furniture simply couldn't "work" in the desert SW) were book-books, professional journals, CD's and record albums. We did recycle a ridiculous weight in magazines. I think we recycled another ten tons of stuff. So yes, from personal experience, moving the e-version of the "library" is much easier on the 'ol sacroiliac.. ...but that being said, there is nearly nothing like a good book-book in front of a mesquite fire here in the high desert. Don't even get me started on the mp3's our kids listen to on their phones vs. the sound from a nice thick slab of vinyl... Skyscraper

A clever piece of marketing in the hyper-digital age: B) http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/ikea-pokes-fun-at-apple-in-ad-for-latest-catalog/

Thanks Bert Of course those worked perfectly. :Doh: I would have sworn I looked for the gauge bitmaps in that directory while I was dimming down the panel night lighting but didn't see them, so the 10 min. fix took a few hours. The good news is the gauges are now dimmed down as well.

Hi Bert, In the spirit of "teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" I attempted to edit the nav/comm gauge bitmap myself using >Gauge >Edit selected Gauge >Edit Bitmap in FS Panel Studio. I edited the bitmap in Photoshop and saved. The modified bitmap shows nicely in the Bitmap Preview and the VCockpit01 window in Panel Studio which is saved and closed. Loading up the Skymaster in FSX their is no change to the gauge. This gauge appears to be embedded in RadioC337.dll. The FS Panel Studio Help does not shed any other light on this. What did I miss? I have some other gauges I would like to "clean up" if I can get this working. Thanks for all your help here.

Would love to know what the real thing sounds like. I wouldn't be surprised if there was more than one accurate voice over the years. Maybe what we have is how it sounds in the plane that Carenado modeled? Sound like the speaker is blown. I have the Flight Video Productions video of a King Air 350 (recommended) and the voice for the "500" is female. Not the same voice as the F1 Mustang though. Here is another video of a 90GT with EGPWS that has the male "caution terrain caution terrain terrain terrain pull up" at about 1:05 into the video. The GPWS was apparently upgraded in the newer model.

Bill Womack put together the definitive tutorial on Carenado repaints. I messed with it some but realized quickly i have neither the skill or the patience for repaints. http://forum.avsim.n...nting-tutorial/

Oops, my apologies for the typo. :sorry:

Hi Wycliff, Good point. To be on the safe side I inquired with Carenado to make sure prior to posting this texture mod and to be clear their is no hacking of code involved, this is a minor bitmap adjustment with all due credit to Carenado. As stated in their copyright that came with the product, they have no problem with with uploading modified textures. They do have a problem with uploading unmodified t extures. As I wanted to be sure that their copyright applied to interior textures and not just exterior repaints I sent them a support ticket and they responded immediately. I'm not sure this is true of all third party developers though so it is always prudent to get permission. Here is their response: Skyscraper, Apr 18 20:19 (CLT): We have been having a discussion on your forum at AVSIM regarding the lighting levels in the night VC in the King Air. I have tweaked CNA_int_1_night.bmp to dim the brightness of the highlights of that texture. Is it acceptable to share this modified texture with others? Your copyright clearly allows this for exterior repaints, but I wanted to be sure that cockpit textures could be shared as well. Otherwise, great work on the King Air. Carenado Support, Apr 18 20:26 (CLT): Yes no problem uploading any modified texture. What it is no allowed is uploading any original texture without modifications.

Happy it was useful for you. :good: Tweaking the "office" the way I like it is part of the hobby for me. I encourage the folks at Carenado go the last few miles to clean up the remaining issues. This would make a great flagship for them. They do seem to be listening... Brett

My pleasure. Thanks for the tip on the function of the third knob. I'll check that again. A simple diagram of what the functioning instruments and controls do (as provide with their earlier work) and more importantly which ones are INOP would save some frustration. :Idea: Not a deal breaker though as the info is usually available from folks here who have time in type or elsewhere online. Just part of the hobby for me...

Thanks for adding the finishing "touches"

Fixed the typos - Thanks ... and your welcome Brett

Here is a download link for the modified night VC panel texture seen in my earlier post. http://www.mediafire...ij99wb987pytn2l The file basically "dims" the lighting on the night VC panel with a modified texture. I use it with the mod in the OP by stckx. The overhead dome light can still be switched on an off if more light is needed. To install: Make a copy of CNA_int_1_night.bmp located in your ...\SimObjects\Airplanes\Carenado C90 King Air\Texture.Common folder and put it somewhere you can find it if you want to go back. Copy the file in this zip to the Texture.Common folder and over write as prompted. (you did make a copy, didn't you?) If you don't like the results just copy back the original file. If you have a copy of DXTBmp (free download from Softpedia) you can compare the modified file with the original Might be a bit too dark based on what I have seen on the web. But, I have never been in the real thing and the original seems to be too light. You can take the original file through DXTBmp into your favorite bitmap editor and season to your own taste.

The image I uploaded above is pretty low res, but the airspeed looks fine in the sim. The main panel "floods" are just a texture that can be adjusted to your liking using DXTBmp / Photoshop. I have no issues with the night VC once I toned down the texture except a few of the switches on the left side panel are hard to make out. Btw, on the overhead there are three rotary lighting knobs that work (at least on and off). One backlights the overhead, one backlights the breaker and fuel panels below the side windows and one does... well nothing that I can tell. The aircraft.cfg mod by the OP turns off the reddish ambient lighting which I have done as well. If I need to see around the cockpit the domelight is still available. Just want to be clear that we are talking about the same thing

JimJam The gauges are backlit nicely here. Checking the obvious... Do you have the "master panel light" rocker switched on on the overhead panel? That controls the main panel gauge lighting here. If there is interest I can try to put together a step by step on modifying the texture. It's a piece of cake and one can use the same technique on other panels. Otherwise, I'll check with Carenado to see if it is cool with them to share their texture as modified for those who want to pass on the doing the minor mod. Reading their copyright it seems that texture mods are OK to share, but I prefer to err on the side of caution when it comes to others work.

I was able to tone down the baked in panel floods which when coupled with turning off some of the ambient light in the aircraft.cfg as previously indicated in the thread makes the night cockpit lighting a bit easier on my eyes. Basically, you take CNA_int_1_night.bmp (in the Texture.Common folder) into your favorite bitmap editor (I use Corel Photopaint) using DXTBmp and simply tone down the brightness and contrast to taste and save it back through DXTBmp. be sure to make a copy of the original. I do this with most of my Carenado planes as they are usually too bright for my taste. I have no idea how bright it is in the real thing. This image is from before SP1 with the EFIS and Avidyne also dimmed using bliksimpie's tweaks. Give it a shot.

Thanks for looking into this, I think Again, certainly not a deal breaker, but please consider adding this to the wish list for future upgrades if possible. How do I get to the forum settings shown in Ryan's post? I believe he posted that a few days after the latest upgrade. Thanks again.

Thanks Chase for investigating. I use the thread follow feature often, that's not what I'm looking for as the "View new Content" feature usually manages current threads fine for me.. However, it was possible to "set and forget" the forum settings to take you to the first unread post in all threads, but now I need to click "go to first unread post". I was just wondering if I was missing something obvious, or the feature was removed or not implemented in the latest upgrade. Not the end of the world to make an extra click, just one of those things that irks the heck out of me because it used to work perfectly. Some forums don't have any way to get to the first unread post, which seem to me to be a critical feature. I did notice in one of the PMDG threads that Ryan Maziarz included a screen shot showing forum settings. I remember those in the past, but I can't seem to find them since the upgrade. I'm sure I'm missing something right in front of my nose>>>. http://forum.avsim.n...es/page__st__25 How do I get to the dialog box in post 39? Anyways... Thanks again for looking in to this. I will definitely "Follow" Brett

Hi Folks, In the previous iteration of the forums I used to be able to click "View New Content" and then clicking on any thread would take me to the first unread post in the thread. Doing so basically filtered out everything I had read in the forum. Clicking my user name at the top now only gets me to my General Account Settings The AVSIM Forums >>> Your control panel>>>Settings>>>>Profile Settings I seem to recall (been awhile, and my memory isn't what it used to be) that FORUM settings were available in the control panel (when I click on my user name), but those options seem to have gone missing in the latest forum update. Is it still possible to set up forums so that I'm automatically taken to the first unread post in a thread. I realize I can still get there by clicking "Go to first unread post" but it is not nearly as elegant as it is always what I want to do. btw, thanks for the ongoing maintenance on the forums here. I'm sure it is a daunting task and other than this glitch, the new build is a pleasure to read.

That's true Pao, but for serious reading - War and Peace, NGX FCOM's and the like, I much prefer e-ink over the LCD glare on my kid's iPad. Particularly if I'm outside. Much easier on these 1/2 a centennial eyes...Brett Linker

My wife and I share a Kindle DX (Graphite). She for her book group novels and I for my sim manuals, AOM's QRH's POH's etc.The DX has a larger format and pdf’s are perfectly sharp and readable. I'm not sure this is true for the smaller Kindles as I would think 8-1/2 x 11 pdf's might be a bit small. We may pick up the smaller one for the wife as she just uses it for ebooks and it doesn't always fit in her bag (hard to believe as she could outfit a platoon with what fits in some of her bags...)PDF functionality is a bit limited as hyperlinks, unbelievably, do not work. Instead you have to look at the index or TOC to see what page you want and use the GOTO page feature. Its a bit cumbersome for browsing, but for reading chapters at a time it's fine. Many of my docs don't have hyperlinks anyway...You can zoom in on a page to 150%, 200% 300% or "actual size".It's not a fast machine by any stretch. Takes me back to my 8086 days. PDF page changes can only be described as "sluggish". Text is clear, diagrams and images in your typical AOM are wonderful. The thing goes a week on the beach on a single charge if you turn off the wireless connection. Also works great in direct sunlight.I often have the relevant PMDG manual, QRH and charts open when in FSX. Works fine for that. It's a nice to have for pdf's, but probably not a must have given the limitations. If you're in the US take one for a spin at a nearby Staples.Brett Linker

Hi Lmaire,If you haven't already, take a look at VRS Homepage(http://www.vrsimulations.com/) where they offer a few things to try if you are having problems logging on to their support pages. I has to delete the cookies for their website in Firefox before I could logon this morning.I know it's not much help for you, but the installation went flawlessly here.

My amazing wife took me on a surprise three week tour of your wonderful country for my 50th. We spent most of the time off the beaten tourist path in Volterra, but also drove up through the vineyards to Florence and then on to Venice (wanted to stay there forever). All the time we were there Alitalia was threatening to go out of business, not that I would have minded an excuse to stay longer. Alas, it would take a lifetime to visit every place I'd like to see in Italy, but I saw enough to for me to long to return as soon as possible. Ciao!Brett Linker