NavyAce

Hello, Early versions of the Mk I had a wooden fixed pitch prop and the later ones had a metal two-position constant speed three bladed prop. I have looked in all of my reference books including my Spitfire Pilot's Manual and can find no mention of a variable pitch constant speed prop, even in the later marks. Does anyone know if any of the Spitfire marks had a variable pitch prop with a CSU? Or does the prop control on the quadrant only have two settings that control coarse and fine pitch. Thanks to all who can help. NavyAce

Hello, I looked through the threads in this section and didn't notice anything relating to joysticks on the first few pages and other forums didn't seem to have any either so I thought I'd ask here. If this is not the appropriate place I apologize and ask that someone send this to the right place. I am trying to make my virtual flying as realistic as possible, being a retired commercial airline pilot with a longtime interest in warbirds from WWII. I have been lucky enough to have flown a real SNJ for about 20 hours (too expensive to do so very often) and I thus know from experience that flying even a trainer from that era is much different than flying an identical virtual airplane even with a realistic flight model because of one important fact. A control stick in a real aircraft is about 3 feet or more long, and mounted on the cockpit floor, which means that you need to use your shoulder and arm muscles to move the control surfaces. Virtual aircraft are maneuvered with a joystick about a foot tall mounted on your desk more or less at shoulder height and manipulated with your wrist. I would like to know if anyone makes a realistic control column (correct length) that can be floor mounted for a more immersive experience. I would also be interested in a WWII era control wheel so I'm not flying my B-17 with a Cessna yoke. Can anybody help me with this? I thank everyone for your time and expertise. NavyAce

Hello again, I have been having good success with people helping me with my FSX problems so here goes, although this is not really a problem, just something I have forgotten how to do. I have both the AI Carriers and the Vertigo Enterprise CV-6 addons installed in FSX and have successfully used the former in the past. The latter was a later purchase which I installed but never tried to use. The thing is that so much time has passed that I have forgotten how to place the ships in an area of FSX that has water so I can try to take off and land on my carriers. I can find AI Carriers on the FSX toolbar and can navigate to the selection page (I chose the CV-6 for my attempt) and then to the next page where it asks for a position. When I click on 5 miles ahead (to get it ahead of me and away from land) I get an error message saying that the position can't be recognized. I have tried bringing up the FSMap and plotting something but can't figure out how to plot wps on the map, and how to figure out how far away from the plane's position do I have to go to get 5 miles (or 10, or any of the other options). Apparently the download for AI Carriers doesn't come with a readme that details how to do this, nor can I find one in the readme for CV-6. Can someone please refresh my memory? Thanks. NavyAce

Hello again, Here I am with another problem. As all of you know by now I have recently begun playing with my FSX game after a long layoff and as I have been paying much more attention to detail this time around I have uncovered an inaccuracy that needs addressing. The aircraft in question is my Vertigo F6F Hellcat. Previously I flew the aircraft just kind of messing around with it but now I am trying to fly it accurately with my Grumman F6F-3/5 Pilot's Flight Manual. The plane loads normally but I have found that the game does not present normal engine readings. For example, when I start the engine, the oil pressure immediately goes from zero straight to 200+ psi and stays there until the engine is shut down. In addition, the Cylinder Head Temperature reads about 70 degrees C no matter how long the engine has been running. On one flight I started up, did an engine check, a takeoff, and an extended climb at Military Power with the cowl flaps fully closed and the reading never got much above 100 degrees even though the engine limit in the manual says 232 degrees C is the maximum allowable. The oil temperature reading never varies much from 25 degrees C, when the normal operating range was 40-85 degrees C. The mixture control should be set from Auto-Rich after takeoff to Auto-Lean according to the manual, but when I set it this way the game gives me a message saying my engine is losing power because the mixture is improperly set. I purchased the Hellcat in 2008 right after it was released but was working at the time so I didn't have much time for in depth play with it, and got involved in combat flight simming after that, so these things are just coming to light now. I have tried finding help by going to the Vertigo website but I believe they shut down in 2013 so no support from them is currently available. Does anyone know if this was a bug in the initial release of the plane, and is there a fix for it? Or do I just need to live with things as they are? I would appreciate any input as I try to keep things as realistic as possible and this is an annoying quirk in an otherwise good addition to my aircraft stable. NavyAce

Thanks to all who replied. Overspeed3 I have a 3rd party PBY Catalina addon that has the cold and dark feature that you mentioned. I wish all of them came that way. Bruce, I tried your method first. I followed all the instructions but when I clicked Fly Now the selected aircraft appeared at the correct location but again with the engine running, and for some reason instead of at idle it was at full power and I rammed the terminal building! Charliearon, I tried your method next. Again I followed all the instructions exactly, using the Baron58 and configuring it as stated. When I reloaded the game and selected my plane, it loaded with the engine off and chocks in when I clicked Fly Now. I will try this with a couple of other 3rd party planes and locations but apparently you have found the sweet spot. Thanks for your help. I have another problem but I will address that in a separate post. NavyAce

Hello, I am hoping someone can help me with a long standing problem. FSX has, to me, a very annoying feature in that when the game loads and you select an aircraft and click Fly Now, the plane always appears on the screen with the engine running. I am a pilot in real life (retired airline captain with some SNJ time) so I want my virtual flying to be as realistic as possible. This means getting into an aircraft in a cold and dark state and doing the engine start and runup myself. To date I have not found a way to do this. One person over at A2A offered the suggestion of doing a flight with one of the default aircraft (he mentioned the tryke or the 152), shutting down after landing and taxiing to parking, then saving the flight. He said that when you selected the saved flight the next time if I was to change the player plane and location to where I wanted and then save the flight again, the next time I elected it the plane should appear in the new spot with the engine off. I tried this and the selected plane appeared in the new spot but again with the engine running. Having to go through an engine shut down checklist every time I want to do an engine start is very annoying. I realize this is built into the game as a default thing but I would certainly like to find a way around it. I would be glad to hear from anyone who has any suggestions. NavyAce

Hi Jim, Here's the latest. I thought I would let you know that AccuFeel is apparently working on my Win 7 Desk Top. I did an uninstall and a fresh, clean install of my v2 and the first time I tried starting the game (as an administrator) with it enabled I got the same old fatal error message. I then tried running the game with AccuFeel disabled (still as an administrator) and the game started. I then tried starting the game twice more (still as an administrator) with AccuFeel enabled and on the second try it loaded normally. I have started the game numerous time since then (the last few times not as an administrator) and it has continued to load, so I think all is well but I will continue to monitor the situation. Thanks for your help. Wayne

Hi Again Jim, I realized after I had sent my previous post why I was having trouble editing the dll.mxl file. I opened it with a mouse click instead of using Notepad, which I have had on my computer for some time. When I right clicked on the file and used the Open With/Notepad option I was able to gain access to the file for editing. I quickly made the changes to the two modules as you suggested, clicked Save and tried to restart the game. Bingo! It is now loading normally (although it seems possibly a bit slower than I remember but this is probably just my imagination), so evidently AccuFeel is the culprit. Interestingly enough the stuttering, semi-cycling landing gear problem has disappeared, but the throttle range is still limited. I am now going to go to the A2A website and see if they have any updates for AccuFeel. If not, I may try uninstalling the program and then doing a reinstall to see what happens. Thanks for all your help. Stay tuned and I'll keep you advised! Wayne

Hi Again Jim, I hope your Christmas went well and Santa brought you a lot of new toys to fly. I wanted to let you know that I have made more progress with the dlll.mxl file. I typed FSX.cfg into the search box and it took me to a list of links for further information I selected one and it took me to a forums page that gave me the following pathway: If you've got Vista/Win 7: C:\Users\(Your Windows User Name)\Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX I followed this and found the dll.mxl file in the same spot just as you mentioned. I opened it and found a list that included the mention of two addon modules that I thought would be appropriate: A2A Feel and AccuFeelMenu, since both of them refer to the AccuFeel program and have pathways that mention modules. I then wanted to apply the change you mentioned, making the False entries True, but couldn't find a way to do this. I tried clicking the cursor after the e and back spacing the word out and then retyping the False entry as True, but the cursor wouldn't take. I can highlight the word False but I was afraid to click delete in case I would then not be able to type in the new word. Is there a way to get around this? Thanks for your help. I am learning a lot from going through all this. Wayne

Hi again Jim, I think I'm almost there. When I follow your directions I get to my Folder Options screen and under the Viewing tab I see that the Show Hidden Files, Folders, and Drives option has a radio dot in the circle indicating this has already been selected. But this still doesn't take me to the actual folder, it just says that it should be possible. Am I doing something wrong or just missing part of your instructions? I know the file has to be somewhere but I just can't seem to get to it. Thanks for sticking with me. Wayne

Hi Jim, Thanks for the quick response. I can't find the dll.xml file anywhere. I tried looking at the bottom of the root folder inside the C drive and also in the FSX folder with no results. I also tried using the search box and while I got some hits they were all for things like dll...gauges.xml" or something similar. Nothing just dll.xml. I also tried to find FSX.config but no luck either in my own search or with the search box. I was thinking though if we are just trying to test AccFeel to see if it is the problem I could just uninstall it for a test launch. I could always reinstall it later. What do you think? I also tried starting the game as an administrator (my properties tab show I am so listed) but I get the same error. Thanks for being so patient. Wayne

Dear Jim, Thanks for your reply and the good information. I had previously deleted FSUIPC from my desk top Windows 7 computer where I am having the trouble, but today I downloaded and installed the latest update for Active Sky Next (Update 5+New Hotkey). The install seemed to go okay and I shut down the game and computer and rebooted as instructed. However, when I launched the game, although it took the update (showing me the pathway for the install and requesting permission), I eventually got another Fatal Error message. I went back to the Events Viewer and saw that now I was getting an Event 1000: Application Error. Here is what was listed in the Faulting Module. Faulting application name: fsx.exe, version: 10.0.61637.0, time stamp: 0x46fadb14 Faulting module name: A2A_Feel.dll, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x50dc6814 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x00028d47 Faulting process id: 0x1bc0 Faulting application start time: 0x01d5b8ea2765d07e Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\fsx.exe Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Modules\A2A_Feel.dll Report Id: db22984f-24de-11ea-87df-d0df9ade4ac1 I do have several A2A products on this computer, all of which worked fine the last time the game launched successfully. One of the programs was called AccuFeel. Is this possibly something else that needs an update? Thanks so much for your kind attention. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. NavyAce

Evidently my problem is related to an Event 1002 Application Hang. Does anyone know how to troubleshoot and fix this? I am looking online but so far have not found anything definitive. Thanks. I may also put this in a post with a new title so others may look in with suggestions. NavyAce

Thanks again Charlie Aron, I was able to navigate to the Administrative Events but under that could find no mention of Fault Module or CTD under the Action header. I did find a long list of Warnings and Errors from several years. The latest ones that concerned my problem were the following: Warnings: Event 1014, DNS, Events. Name resolution for the client isatrap.lan timed out after none of the configured DNS servers responded. Errors: Event 1002, Application Hang. The program IEXPLORE.EXE version 11.0.9600.19572 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. I hope this helps. NavyAce

Hi charliearon, %hanks for the quick reply. You say to look for "any errors for FSX and look for a "Faulting Module." Where do I go to look for FSX errors and the Faulting Mode? Is this anything like the log.txt in Il-46? I tried a similar pathway by looking in the FSX folder under Program Files x86 in Microsoft Games but couldn't find a Faulting Module folder anywhere or anything resembling a log file. I also clicked on the AVSIM CTD Guide but this took me to a link to print out the entire folder, but this was currently broken and under repair according to the header. Do you have any other ideas you could pass along via a post or message? Thanks.