GPS units 530 and 430 are already implemented. We implemented them for Aerofly FS 2 for Just-Flight and these two should still be in the executable and are available.
That sounds great! Any chance IPACS could update the Aerofly FS 4 Aircraft SDK DR400 to use a 530 and 430 combo to show exactly how to do this for the volunteer model design guys?
Edit: Also, if that is the case why didn't IPACS update the default C172 to use a 530 instead of just repeating the scrolling map display output?
We currently do not have any display that you could re-use to fit into that landscape GPS display. And it is unlikely that I'll get time to develop this exact GPS display. The closest match would be the 787 PFD or you could use the display area for a moving map.
Thanks for the info, I am sure we can come up with something. The analog panel is a good alternative too.
aenbacka As long as you can find out from IPACS how to interface to their G430 implementation here is am example of steam gage with G430 from X-Hangar's X-Plane 11 implementation of a Super Cub instrument panel. I would hazard to guess that you would still need to design the 3D G430 bezel with buttons and knobs and associated manipulators tied in to an updating texture for the G430 LCD screen provided by Aerofly FS 4, if it's anything like X-Plane 11's implementation. Of course you would need to find out the correct Aerofly FS 4 tmd interface command data references for the 3D knobs and buttons as well as what the LCD panel texture path is from IPACS.
Source: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipN3…U1yVE5NUWFfeGxn
aenbacka If you by chance have the Aerofly FS2 Just Flight versions of the PA-38 Tomahawk (G430) or PA-28 Turbo Arrow III/IV (G530) you can look at their respective controls.tmd, pa38tomahawk.tmd, and pa28rt201t.tmd files to see how the Aerofly FS 2/4 GPS interface is called I would think. If not, then maybe you can ask IPACS for that information.
aenbacka Actually, if this is your first time aircraft model effort where you want to maximize your learning experience, rather than take over someone else's project mid-way through where some of the work is already done wouldn't it be better to just do your own project from scratch so you can learn about everything from Blender 3D modeling to creating the aerodynamic model based on the aircraft specs and airfoil type to flight testing your airplane and that maybe is a bit simpler than the Piper Super Cub? Why not just do a version of the Quad City Challenger which is a ultralight that has a very simple instrument panel, no flaps, no GPS, uses a Rotax engine with auto-mixture so no mixture control lever required (which does not do anything anyway in Aerofly FS since fuel air mixture is not modeled). There is plenty of info on it available on the internet and you can even look at the freeware version done by GHansen for X-Plane 10 to get an idea about what its specs are and the airfoil type used. You can even download the free X-Plane 10 demo so you can use its Plane Maker and Airfoil Maker tools to get a look at the details of the model that could save a lot of research time. You would still need to do all the steps for Aerofly model creation including making your own Blender 3D model, textures, sound, and all the TMD and TMC files yourself but with much less complexity involved.
aenbacka Actually, if this is your first time aircraft model effort where you want to maximize your learning experience, rather than take over someone else's project mid-way through where some of the work is already done wouldn't it be better to just do your own project from scratch so you can learn about everything from Blender 3D modeling to creating the aerodynamic model based on the aircraft specs and airfoil type to flight testing your airplane and that maybe is a bit simpler than the Piper Super Cub? Why not just do a version of the Quad City Challenger which is a ultralight that has a very simple instrument panel, no flaps, no GPS, uses a Rotax engine with auto-mixture so no mixture control lever required (which does not do anything anyway in Aerofly FS since fuel air mixture is not modeled). There is plenty of info on it available on the internet and you can even look at the freeware version done by GHansen for X-Plane 10 to get an idea about what its specs are and the airfoil type used. You can even download the free X-Plane 10 demo so you can use its Plane Maker and Airfoil Maker tools to get a look at the details of the model that could save a lot of research time. You would still need to do all the steps for Aerofly model creation including making your own Blender 3D model, textures, sound, and all the TMD and TMC files yourself but with much less complexity involved.
Thanks a lot for all the detailed information, I might have to look at the gps panel integrations, if I can find out how to implement them. It would be a good idea to work on a project from scratch indeed, could definitely be worth to consider. Have already been doing some work in Blender to learn, as it is the best way (hands on).
Will check out the Challenger and see if it would make sense to try model it.
To add a GPS unit you have to model the knobs and buttons just like any other part of the aircraft and add a screen object with a luminance input, just like the DR400 example GPS screen. Once that is modeled in the sim I can show you what parts need to be added to the TMD to get a working GPS.
Evidently there is a TMD.GPS class that is not documented anywhere for the general public. It can be sent command messages based on user inputs and provides an animated 2D screen that emulates the GPS 430 or 530 LCD panel display. This lack of public documentation about the TMD interface to the flight simulation engine is why there are not many quality fixed wing aircraft from anyone other than IPACS. Very disappointing that everything seems to need to be kept a big fat IPACS secret, 180 degree opposite of how Laminar Research does things in it's X-Plane products.
Will check out the Challenger and see if it would make sense to try model it.
I hope you do end up doing the Quad City Challenger II as it would be the only ultralite in Aerofly. Its and excellent low and slow sightseeing airplane and I can only imagine how good it would be in VR (I don't have) if VR support is included in your model.
Edit: Info on planes including construction manuals (home build)
Challenger Advanced Ultralight & Light Sport Aircraft - National Ultralight Canada
http://www.challengers101.com/Ral_CG_1.html
Challenger 3-View Line Drawings
https://www.challenger.ca/airframe_3view_side.pdf
https://www.challenger.ca/airframe_3view_top.pdf
https://www.challenger.ca/airframe_3view_bottom.pdf
https://www.challenger.ca/airframe_3view_front.pdf
Canadian Challenger Owners Manual
EDIT: QCQII wing airfoil used is not exactly known. GHansen used a NACA 2412 but it could have easily been a Clark Y airfoil Never mind, NACA 2412 has better performance than Clark-Y (better Cl vs AOA)
NACA 2412 (naca2412-il) Xfoil prediction polar at RE=1,000,000 Ncrit=9
XP10 Airfoil Maker NACA 2412.pdf
EDIT: Actually, the default Cessna 172SP also uses NACA 2412 airfoil for its wings so you could just copy the tmd.airfoil parameters from its tmd file.
EDIT: If you are going to start from scratch, I would recommend making a model of the latest version of the Challenger, the XL-65
www.challenger.ca - /manuals/assy-xsxl/XL-65 20150326/
Here is a picture of the panel using in the construction manual
Shown below: Freeware Ghansen Quad City Challenger II for X-Plane 10 slightly tweaked to run in X-Plane 11 and shown using the Forkboy2 US OrthoPhotos Scenery Package Grand Canyon HD addon.
aenbacka Regardless of what airplane you end up making for Aerofly FS 4, you might find these two Youtube video tutorial series by Build It Better (actually GHansen on X-Plane.org who created the XP10 Quad City Challenger II and XP11 Sportsman 2+2 the later being the tutorial series topic and eventually a payware aircraft addon for X-Plane 11) to be useful as far as info on using Blender for creating a flight simulation aircraft model. Of course the parts about X-Plane specific ACF creation using Plane Maker is not going to do anything for you.
His payware product covered by his video tutorial series
Other links of interest:
ModelConverterX | SceneryDesign.org
Modifying Xplane cockpits using Blender/Gimp – Flight Services
Blender Push Pull Levers
Other Blender videos related to aircraft modeling
Simple Lego Airplane to Blender tutorial (although XPlane2Blender plugin specific parts are not shown). Might be worth doing to have a quick way to get a 3D airplane model so as to have something to tie into use for getting some practice at creating the aircraft tmd file.
Sound:
Only ebooks I could find on creating airplane models using Blender. Not specific for flight simulators and published in 2015 for Blender 2.7 so not current Blender.
Not sure if good or bad, your decision.
Downloadable free versions if you can read Polish language:
https://airplanes3d.net/wm-000_e.xml
AC3D video - this is about cockpit animations using x-plane 11 plugin for AC3D. Aerofly FS unfortunately all animations must be manually defined in the aircraft tmd file instead of in the 3D modeling program. The underlying concept seems the same, just the finals steps of the implementation are different.
aenbacka Here is an interesting point of interest to note. The Aerofly FS 4 SDK DR400 actually already has the 3D blender model for the Garmin G496, it just does not do anything in the flight model other display the Aerofly moving map on the LCD panel screen. In theory you could try to gain some experience in using the TMD.GPS interface with some help from IPACS to actually implement the flight sim relevant functions to it in the command.tmd and dr400.tmd files. Although I am not sure that is entirely possible given that the TMD.GPS is supposedly modeling the more advanced G430 and G530 units. Anyway to save you the trouble here are the relevant links. Note that the DR400 folder contains all the raw data files including the Blender file for the aircraft 3D model. I am not a 3D CAD person nor am I interested in spending the time to figure it out so I am happy there are guys who are. Oh, the G496 is an option for the actual QC Challenger II.
https://www.challenger.ca/manuals/garmin/GPSMAP496_GPSMAP496OwnersManual.pdf
aenbacka I would probably forget about doing anything that has any kind of GPS instrument in the panel. You can look at some of the code snippets from G430 and G530 enabled aircraft tmd files for yourself and if you can make heads or tails of it without any documentation on the tmd.GPS class in Aerofly FS 2 then go luck to you.
Edit: Better G430/G530 code snippets version
These are all the Aerofly FS 2 wiki pages I could find for aircraft model development information. I could find no wiki documentation for tmd.engine, tmd.GPS, tmd.graphics, tmd.camera, tmd.sound and other a many other things you will see in a typical tmd file.
Updating Aircraft for Aerofly FS 4 | Aerofly FS
sdk:aircraft:modelling [Aerofly FS Wiki]
sdk:repaints [Aerofly FS Wiki]
sdk:aircraft:definition [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmd_preset [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:controls [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmc [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmd [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmd:inputs [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmd:logic [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmd:events [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmd:actuators [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmd:electrical [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmd:instruments [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmd:rigidbody [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmd:aerofuselage [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmd:airfoil [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmd:aerowing [Aerofly FS Wiki]
aircraft:tmd:propeller [Aerofly FS Wiki]
Here is an interesting video series on Youtube by WhitleyVideos (LSA pilot instructor)
Introduction Challenger II Flight Training videos (2022 series)
Introduction to Challenger II LSA Flight Training (earlier 2018 intro series )
Display MoreHere is an interesting video series on Youtube by WhitleyVideos (LSA pilot instructor)
Introduction Challenger II Flight Training videos (2022 series)
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External Content www.youtube.comContent embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.External Content www.youtube.comContent embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.External Content www.youtube.comContent embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.External Content www.youtube.comContent embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.
Thanks for all the video links, seems very interesting!😀 I also looked quickly at the TMDs for the gps 430 and 530. I guess that if the 3d model uses toggles and switches with the same ids, it should be possible to reuse a lot (some coordinates need of course to be adjusted).
Additional tmd info on-line resources
https://www.aerofly.com/community/forum/index.php?thread/14816-aircraft-tmd-self-help-group
https://www.aerofly.com/community/forum/index.php?thread/13510-tmd-file-again
I think the following are Jan's (aka Jet-Pack) unofficial Aerofly web site before he started working for IPACS.
Since this has become an explanation thread on how to create your own aircraft model for Aerofly FS it seems worth mentioning that if for some reason you cannot find the airfoil Cl, Cd, Cm polar plots for an airfoil that your airplane uses at airfoiltools.com then as long as the aircraft is subsonic you can use a free program called XFOIL to generate this information in order to create the tmd.airfoil object for your aircraft's wings.
Here are some info links for getting and using XFOIL
https://web.mit.edu/drela/Public/web/xfoil/
More details on how to set boundary layer transition criteria (nCrit)
Here is the relevant wiki page for the tmd.airfoil object
aircraft:tmd:airfoil [Aerofly FS Wiki]
Also, while not necessary, it may be useful to use a utility program that is included in the free demo version of X-Plane 11 called Airfoil Maker to help visualize this data graphically.
Here are some info links for that.
Here is an example of what Airfoil Maker would look like using as an example the NACA 2213 airfoil from the X-Plane 11 freeware version of the Spitfire by DomHenry (source: https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/fil…ne-spitfire-mk1 )
Handy link for finding out what airfoil a particular aircraft uses:
The Incomplete Guide to Airfoil Usage
IPACS this is not the original thread content. Arbitrarily cutting and pasting posts from one thread to a different thread to create a conversation that is not even true anymore is a form of public disinformation .
Since the discussion branched off into two separate topics I moved out the Carbon Cub development. For new users it would have been really irritating to see screenshots of an airplane in a thread called helicopter development whilst most the discussion is about Garmin devices. As a moderator I sometimes have to step in to avoid off-topic discussions.
