wombat778

As an alternative to to the saving/loading a flight approach to getting a cold and dark cockpit, there is a little program I put together that does it for you. See this post: http://forum.avsim.net/topic/264302-cold-and-dark-switch/page__view__findpost__p__1887101

Yep, its in this thread: http://forum.avsim.n...lddark-startup/I actually simplified the process a lot from the original version. Here is an overview of easiest way:1) Download version 0.6 my program here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6RR4SY5N2) Extract the zip file anywhere on your hard drive.3) Run the enclosed file J41ColdDark.exe4) Load FSX5) Choose the J41 and select the weather, airport, time of your choice. Start the flight.6) Once in the cockpit, hold down the Tab key and press Q. You should see a loading box appear for a few seconds, then it should load to cold/dark.However, the program can still do the approach of modifying a saved flight if you prefer (see the first few posts in the thread I posted for details). Let me know if you run into any problems!

Enno, what do you mean by "absolutely no effect"? I have never heard of anyone that my program does not work for. Please do the following and let me know where you are running into a problem:1) Download version 0.6 my program here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6RR4SY5N2) Extract the zip file anywhere on your hard drive.3) Run the enclosed file J41ColdDark.exe4) Load FSX5) Choose the J41 and select the weather, airport, time of your choice. Start the flight.6) Once in the cockpit, hold down the Tab key and press Q. You should see a loading box appear for a few seconds, then it should load to cold/dark.If this does not work, please let me know exactly what step does not work and what the error is. Thanks.

Yet another way to get a proper cold/dark state is to use the little program I wrote. Here is the thread: http://forum.avsim.net/topic/264524-easier-method-of-j41-colddark-startup/ . The latest version is 0.6, which is the one in post #25. Basically, all you need to do is load the program before starting FSX, then press TAB-Q while in the J41 cockpit. After a bit of loading, the cockpit should be set to cold and dark.

Intel QX6700 running at around 2.9ghz, Nvidia 8800GTX, 6GB Ram, Win7 64 bit. Bought it all (except Win7) at the end of 2006, and haven't made any real changes since. Definitely not a cutting edge machine...

I also get very good performance with the ConcordeX both in 2D and VC (much better than many of my other addons), and my PC is over 3 years old.

Dunno, seems a little premature to me. There have been lots of great hardcore releases since then. The PMDG MD-11 was released less than 2 years ago. Even in the last year or so there has been some great stuff such as the PMDG J41, FSLabs ConcordeX, A2A B-17, Eaglesoft Citation X, Realair Duke, Flight 1 Mustang, Feelthere ERJ V2 and Simcheck A300. Plenty to keep me going (and manuals to read) for a very long time...

I think that statement is a bit misleading. Fly the Maddog is in fact for FSX, and works very well for FSX even though it is not a native FSX model. While I am sure it would be even better if the model was FSX native, this does not change the fact that it is perfectly usable in FSX right now. Personally, I care very little about a native FSX model, and I would far rather that Leonardo focus on other aspects of the aircraft (such as implementing VCs for the alternate and analog panels). I just wanted to mention that in case any readers get the incorrect impression that the Maddog only works in FS2004.

In my experience, the Flight Sim Labs forums are quite hit or miss. Sometimes I can get on with no problems, but sometimes I cannot get on for a day or two. My suggestion is to give it 24 hours or so then try again.

I don't think your TAT is wrong. TAT (total air temperature) measures the temperature that the aircraft "feels", which includes the kinetic energy of the air hitting the plane. The faster you go, the higher your TAT, and TAT is often much higher than OAT (outside air temperature). OAT is the true temperature of the air, and is what determines whether it is cold enough to snow.

If you use an Nvidia card, try setting "Antialiasing - Gamma Correction" to off in the Nvidia control panel. For me it made the lines less noticeable (but definitely still there).

IMHO, what you are seeing is completely normal and a natural consequence of the limitations of simming on a PC. Every simulator I have ever used has the same issue. What you are doing by setting the field of view so wide is squishing a full human field of vision into a monitor that occupies only a small portion of your actual field of vison. The end result is a fisheye type view that makes everything look farther away than it actually is. Take a picture with a fisheye lens, or look in a curved mirror and you will get the exact same effect (the reason why car mirrors say "objects are closer than they appear")!I think the best solution is to zoom in to a more normal level (probably somewhere around 60 or 70 degrees FOV total), then use something like a Trackir. Treat the the monitor as a small window into the world, and look around at what you want to see. Obviously there is no peripheral vision that way, but at least the perspective is largely correct.

The Concorde works great on my machine. Other than a few little issues that are being ironed out in SP1, I am not having any problems at all. Also, I have been checking out the support forum, and I think the support from the devs has been excellent.

Perhaps its a silly idea, but maybe that is a way to get it to work with EZDOK. Specifically, if there was a way to get EZDOK to start up TIR tracking before FSX opens, would the TIR keep piping data to EZDOK instead? I do not yet have EZDOK so I don't know how it works exactly, but it seems like this approach could be plausible if EZDOK runs as an external application through Simconnect...

Try ticking the "Disable turbulence and thermal effects on aircraft" box in the Weather tab in FSX settings. I used to have terrible S-turns until I did that, and have never had them again since.

@crash and nemo: Judging from your prior posts, I am guessing both of you are using FS9. If that is true, since you seem to be the only two people reporting that the TAT problem still exists in ASE (so far!) I am wondering if maybe the TAT issue is only fixed in FSX and not FS9. The root cause/solution identified by Lek in this thread: http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=270839 was a SimConnect/FSX problem, so I am thinking that maybe the FS9 problems are caused by something completely different. Just a thought...

So, by that logic, the PMDG J41 is "inferior" to other most other aircraft (including the a300) because it has no 2D panels, panel state saving/loading and is very FPS hungry. It is also inferior to the ERJv2 because it doesn't do FMS holds or a weather radar. But the ERJv2 is "inferior" to the a300 because it has no widescreen panels, and it is inferior to the J41 because it has poor VC panel nightlighting. Of course they are all inferior to the LDS767, as it has failure modelling and a SDK. But the LDS is inferior as its overhead panel in the VC is not modeled in 3D, and it does not work properly with the Accel pack. The point is that every single product has strong points and weak points, and there is no one product that does everything perfectly (IMHO the MD-11 is about as close as it gets, but of course it is twice the price). While a particular feature may be important to certain people, its absence does not make a product "inferior" just not suited to that person. All imho, of course.

Simcheck did not claim that it is impossible to overcome those limitations. They said that overcoming those FSX limitations was impractical due to effort, time, cost and performance. Unless adding exterior lighting effects tied to the switches was trivially easy (highly unlikely), adding them would have surely done at least one (and possibly more) of the following: (1) delayed the release, (2) added cost to the product, (3) reduced the time spent on other features, such as simulation of systems, or (4) reduced performance. That is the nature of dealing with any product for which there are limited development resources. For me personally, exterior lighting effects have absolutely no value, so to me it would not have been worth any of the above happening to get them. I think Simcheck made exactly the right choice.

You must be kidding. FSX is absolutely CHOCK FULL of limitations. Some of these limitations are easy to get around, some are difficult and some are downright impossible. Every developer has to decide how much time, effort and FPS to spend in trying to get around those limitations. I can guarantee you that there is NO aircraft for FSX that addresses all limitations of the simulator, though there are a few that get close. Hang on, the exterior light switches work fine in the a300 in that they turn the lights on and off (so its unfair to say they don't "do anything"). Its just that the lighting effects (e.g. the light shining on the aircraft itself) are tied to the panel lighting. I went through most of my other aircraft just to test, and found that they all pretty much work that way except for very few. Regardless, like I said, I only spend time in the cockpit. I can see an animated switch, I can use click-spots, and I can hear sound. I do not sit viewing the external model while flying, as any pilot trying to do that would be dead. I frankly would not care if the light switches put purple dinosaurs on the exterior because I do not see them. You obviously feel that the lighting is a big deal, and asked for a refund because of it. I personally don't agree, but you are entitled to your opinion. Like I said to each his own.

I think it has more to do with FSX limitations than "lack of effort". See this explanation from one of the simcheck developers: http://www.forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?sh...st&p=206886For me personally, I could not care less what the exterior lights do, as I never see them. I treat FSX as a cockpit-based flight simulator not an external screenshot simulator. I would not sacrifice even 1 fps or 1 extra working switch or system to have fancy external lighting effects. But, thats why different products cater to different types of users... Anyhow, I have bought the simcheck airbus, but I have not yet had a chance to fly it. It looks like it will be a wonderful aircraft, and one of the very very few properly simulated classic airliners.

Yep, that was it. With the battery on it works great. Interestingly the Backspace key still does not work, but that is a minor problem (using Tab works). Thanks very much for your help!Anyhow, I will go ahead and make a quick idea for an improvement, though it is not a big deal. I would love an option to have it operate as a push-to-talk rather than a push-to-mute. There is often a lot of background noise in my house (aka, a screaming baby), so my choice would probably to have it muted all the time except when giving commands. One cool way that it maybe could be implemented would be as follows:1. When given a single tap quickly, the key would toggle mute on or off.2. When held down, the key would temporarily toggle to the other mode, and would return to the prior mode on release.In this way, FS2 would start unmuted, and holding the key down would mute it (as it works now). To change to a push-to-talk, all you would need to do is tap the key quickly to go into mute mode. Thereafter, holding the mute key would unmute the sound while the key is held.It seems logical to me, but maybe others would find it too complicated;)

LOL, I bet thats the problem. I will try that as soon as I get home. Every time I ran my tests, all I did was load up the AC from cold/dark and then hit the mute key to look for the "M". I never turned on the battery, and I don't think I ever tested it during flight (as I assumed it would not work). I will report back what happens. Thanks!!

No, it has an INS/CDU. From the product description page: "The A300B4-200 series is a first generation Airbus with analogue steam-gauges and a (for that time) advanced autopilot. Some of the current operators have made cockpit upgrades based on various GPS systems where the ADI was replaced with an EADI, the HSI replaced with an ND, the CDU replaced with a (basic) FMS. We have not simulated these upgrades as they where not included in the original aircraft!"

Thanks. Yes, I have UAC disabled (using Win7).Here is the contents of my FS2CrewInputMapper.CFG:FS2_Main=BACKSPACE Backspace is the last key I tried, which also does not work.

Its not a very exotic keyboard...a Logitech G15 keyboard with US layout. I'll try re-installing DX later tonight.The only other thing I can think of is that maybe it is related to the fact that I don't have a dedicated USB headset, but instead am using the mic input of my normal soundcard. Anyhow, thanks very much for your help and troubleshooting.