SPowell42

Barry, can't say enough how much I appreciate the help. Thanks for the links to the training, I'll try to get through that before asking more dumb questions Thanks for teaching me how to fish! Scott

Hi Barry, one question if I might - have you had to deal with "clipping" terrain mesh? I.e. the 9 arcsecond NED data comes in pretty big chucks. One of the local airports I fly out of (KDLZ) has a small rock quarry just off the end of the runway. I'd like to pull down photoreal imagery for it, and combine it with mesh data so that it sinks down appropriately....but in QGIS I haven't been able to figure out how to do that. And I don't want to muck around with mesh data for 20 miles around the quarry (although maybe I should just give that a try...) Have you had to "clip" downloaded NED data to just a small area? p.s. just realized I'm going to hit a similar situation when I get good enough to move on to the real scenery I want to do - the Outer Banks. There's lots of the NED data that's just water, I'd love to be able to remove that. Thanks! Scott

Barry - this worked out perfectly. Took me a bit to get everything going properly - but I'm able to generate the BGL, and when flying in FSX can now see that the sand dunes are there. Thanks a million for all of your help! Scott

I'll give this a try later today - thanks again for the help - I really appreciate it! Scott

Hi Barry, could I trouble you for a bit more help? I'm trying to follow along with what you've suggested, so far: 1. I got a .IMG file (and all the other related files) for Jockeys Ridge from the national map view NED 1/9 data 2. I'm able to open it up in QGIS 3. I found the option to "warp" it into the WGS84 reference But I just can't quite figure out how to save it into a GeoTiff file. I see both "TIF" and "TIFF" listed under "save as image", but neither one seems to give a GeoTIff...or at least when I try to execute the .inf file on resample.exe, it complains with warnings like "Pixel Width and Height must be greater than zero". Also the image looks "odd" after the WGS84 warp...maybe I hosed that up? Thanks! Scott

Barry - this is very helpful, thank you very much! I've been having a lot of trouble trying to understand the scenery systems - most of the tutorials say "do x then y" but don't explain why. But I just found the .chm file in the SDK that seems to contain the info I need. Again I appreciate the help. At some point I'm hoping to redo the entire Outer Banks - elevation, maybe photoreal, adding custom airports, etc. Looking forward to learning! Thanks! Scott

Yes, but I'm hoping to branch out and build out the Outer Banks with custom scenery - after adding a better mesh so Jockeye's Ridge shows up, I'd like to add the lighthouses, and then maybe start on customizing the airports. Just looking for some guides on how to get started. Thanks! Scott

Hi, I was flying over the Outer Banks in Prepar3d last night, and notice that even though the "sand" for Jockey's ridge is there...the terrain itself is (very) flat, instead of having the 90+ foot high sand dunes. I've never really done scenery design for either FSX or Prepar3d before. Can anyone point me towards some good tutorials? To get started I assume I need to learn how to edit the terrain mesh, but later on I'd want to add new objects to the scenery (like the Hatteras lighthouse, etc.) Appreciate the help! Scott

UTX v2 USA does not seem compatible with Prepar3d v2.5, I get an invalid path problem when trying to run the install tool. Scott

Hi, I hadn't heard that UTX was going to do an update to allow it to work with Prepar3d. If that's true, I'll definitely stick with it. I see on their website they say "coming soon" or somesuch - any idea on how far away "soon" might be? Thanks for the heads up! Scott

Well the good news is I finally saw a post on the Orbx forum where Bernd indicated that the new data for US didn't include beaches (???) The bad news is - I did open a post on this on the Orbx vector support forums, in December 2013. Seeing it's been almost a year, guess I'm not holding my breath. Scott

Hi, I'd like to say that I would really love to purchase ftx global and ftx global vector. However, I like to fly mostly along the Outer Banks, and the vector product there has been completely hosed up since it first came out (a year ago now?) I'm so glad I actually asked a few buyers of it to post screenshots before taking the plunge myself. Along the Outer Banks, which if you aren't familiar with the area is over 70 miles of beautiful beach along the coast, there isn't a lick of sand in global vector. I was very hopeful that since this huge, 10 month in the making vector 1.2 patch came out focusing on "Complete new coastlines, lakes and rivers for the US", that this would finally get fixed. Bug first noted in December of last year. But alas, more posted screenshots and still there isn't a lick of sand to be seen anywhere. I should have been suspicious when a bunch of people asked for screenshots from the developer, who promised them and then, strangely enough, end up posting screenshots of everywhere except the Outer Banks... I'm really trying to move off of FSX and over to Prepar3d, but in FSX my UTX from 8+ years ago has beaches. Sorry, bit frustrated. Does anyone have any insight into if this will get fixed? So glad now I didn't buy the product and wait for a fix, 'cause I'll still be waiting, almost a year later. Not like the Outer Banks is the birthplace of aviation or anything. Oh wait... :( Thx, Scott

Hi, I'm a real life pilot who will be training (in a month or two) on a glass panel Bonanza that has a G500, 530W, and 430W - exactly the same avionics as the Malibu JetProp. I'd like to find out how accurate the avionics are - if I train with them, are they close enough to real functionality that the training will carry over? I've always (real life) flown steam gauges, glass avionics are new to me, and I'm trying to find a way to learn them without having to rent time on the plane - at $200 / hour, if the JetProp is usable for training, I can save a bundle. Last and not least - I'm VFR only, so I don't need to learn anything related to approaches, etc. Just basic functionality - using the comms, pulling up airport info on a map, etc. Thanks! Scott

Hi everyone, I appreciate the replies. Sounds like it's not going to be easy to get where I wanted to go. Couple of items related to the above: 1. When I said "wiring up the controls", what I meant was editing the controls properly so that the 530W and 430W properly drive the G500, etc. Not building any type of "real" cockpit. 2. When it's said that "gauges can't be swapped in Carenado because they are built right into the panel", I want to clarify what this means. Does it mean I can remove the gauges, but then it leaves 6 "holes" in the panel? I'm 100% good with this - I am not trying to make this pretty, just functional. 3. Knowing nothing about panel work in FSX, would it be possible to add a G500 and just make it "slightly in front" of the other gauges so it blocks them out? Again, goal here isn't for perfect (or even good) looks - it's to set up a plane that I can practice the avionics with and learn how to fly a bonanza with. If that isn't really possible, I may go with the Carenado F33a for learning to fly the bonanza, and then the carenado Malibu for learning the G500 on. But is the G500 in the Malibu "close enough" to actually learn on (remember I'm VFR not IFR so I don't need any pages that deal with IFR stuff) Thanks! Scott

Hi everyone, I'm a real life pilot, and all of my training so far has been in Cessna 172s with steam gauges. The aircraft club I'm a member of has a bonanza F33A that's all glass panel. I'd like to use FSX to help learn both how to fly the complex airplane, as well as learn the glass panel stuff. My question is - how hard is it to modify the panel to match what our club's plane has? I've never played with modding panels, and truthfully would not want to spend a lot of time doing this - I think I'd like to just quickly get stuff in approximate place, and not worry so much about a perfect fit and finish. Our club's plane has a Garmin G500 PFD / MFD, a Garmin GNS530W, GNS430W, a JPI EDM-930 digital engine monitor, and a wx-500 stormscope. Is this something I could do in a few days, or am I looking at investing weeks of time in this? (I'm not even sure if the above components are available for purchase / free, let alone how to "wire" them all up so they work properly together. Thanks in advance! Scott

I miss landing at airports that look anything like their real world counterparts. I don't know what data thy used for the airports, but my local airport KDLZ lengthened the runway and flipped the airport to the other side of the runway over a decade ago. But xplane still has the old configuration. Plus if I go to one there and don't take time to customize the airport myself (which is NOT why I bought the sim), then th is NOTHING there but an incorrect length runways with a single taxiway on the wrong side.... Scott

I would look at the gauges, figure out was was wrong and solve the issue. Unable to do that in a cockpitless model. Scott

I was talking real life!!! A little extra hp and I would be standing in line for one!Scott

I just wish the icon had a 120 hp engine instead of 100 hp. It only cruises around 95 knots, sport pilot is allowed to go up to 120. And I think the extra ummph would be good on takeoffs and water takeoffs especially.Scott

Hi, I have a couple of questions on the Icon A5 flight model.1. When I reduce power, I typically see the Icon nose pitch up (initially), not down. I'm assuming this is because it's a "pusher prop" rather than a pulling prop?2. I've seen a couple of instances of very odd behavior with trim. I've always been taught (and always observer when flying C172 in real life) that trim is like cruise control - it sets a speed the airplane configuration is "happy" with. But for instance if I trim the Icon to 60 knots and then drop the gear, it dives for the ground and picks up TONS of speed - last time I pulled out of dive at 100+ knots. What's going on with this?Thanks!Scott

Well, in theory I checked out in a Cessna 182 that has prop RPM, but never flew it enough to be comfortable. But in regards to prop RPM, generally you set it to high RPM when taking off and landing, and lower RPM when cruising. My CFI likened it to a 10 speed bike - fast gear when starting / stopping, slow gears when cruising.Having said that,not sure what you should do at high altitude. I suspect, since there isn't very much air up there, you'd want to take it full "slow" so that your prop can take the biggest bite of air it can get.Scottp.s. forgot to mention "if I want it slower, why not just lower the throttle". Lowering the throttle is like pedaling with less energy - you're reducing the power. Think of it like:Throttle = powerProp RPM = gearHope this helps,Scott

Stoli, are you talking about setting it up as a button in the saitek software (which I don't have installed but can)?ThxScott

Ok, that's what I was afraid of. So I tried to go to the Microsoft Flight pages, but there doesn't seem to be any way to submit a bug. Their "support" pages don't seem to have any way to respond. Anyone know how to get this in front of Microsoft?Thanks,Scott

Stoli, I think I have a way to explain this better. Go in to the aircraft controls, go in to the trim up command, and try to assign it by moving your joystick left. Then go to trim down command, and try assigning it by moving your joystick right. It doesn't work - these are "axis" controls, not buttons. The trim wheel works exactly the same way. It doesn't show up as discrete buttons, it is a continuous axis also.Hope this explains it. If you can figure out a way to assign joystick left / right movements to the trims, then I could use the same method to get my trim wheel to work. But I can't figure out how.Thanks,Scott

Stoli, when I do that, I only get the word TRIM to show up as the "button". It doesn't show trim up if I turn the wheel up, or trim down if I turn it down, just TRIM. I can't assign TRIM to both up and down trim functions. And if I assign it to just one, then no matter which way I turn the wheel the trim only goes in that one direction.ThxScott