Posts by Armitage

Weekend is the time for a new release:

Release Release v2.4.0 · fboes/aerofly-startgeraet

Downloads are available for Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS and Linux. Download the appropriate artifact for your platform below. aerofly-startgeraet-gui-*…

github.com

The Startgerät got a minor feature, and lots of fixes:

• Quickly set-up flight plans by choosing departure & destination airport. (Currently this does a very, very simple flight plan, but actually this feature will be required for the upcoming mission generator.)
• Fixed the auto-save feature, so the Startgerät will save 2 seconds after the last input has been made. Thankyfully saving on closing the application has always worked.
• Improved handling of MSFS 2024 EFB pln files (that's a mouth full). Some rather bad decision at MSFS led to somewhat different file formats sharing the same file extension, which leads to import errors (EFBs do not contain coordinates 🤦).
  The Startgerät is now able to tell the two apart and throw an appropriate error message on trying to import an EFB file with a pln extension.
• There is also now a small warning next to the flight distance if this is greater than the current aircraft's range.

As always I am happy about any feedback. Have fun!

Quote from Jugac64

Thanks Frank, oh, I hope the devs can add the date to the sim, at least month and day (not year).

Looking at the general Aerofly UI I believed it to be an interface topic. As the time picker was displayed as a slider, I did an experimental date picker looking like a slider. It actually worked like you described it: the slider had 365 settings, and thus only set the day and month, while the year was automatically set to be the current year (or last year, if the date would have been in the future).

Jet-Pack also mentioned (see RE: More Settings for Environment Conditions) that obviously there was concern that a date picker (at least in conjunction with custom missions) could confuse users.

Ok a side note: for the Startgerät I had a side project with touch compatible UI elements to change time and date:

Simulator Form Elements

This is truly a great thread. I love the recommendations. It is easy to forget how many adventures and experiences still wait in this simulator for us to discover. Thank you all for the inspiration.

If you want to make your approaches even more of a challenge, try using unusual aircraft. I once did a simulated Scandinavian tour in the Pitts S-2. 😉

Quote from Jugac64

By the way, does the position of the sun changes related to the date in the sim?

Yes, it does. That is why I always missed a date selection in Aerofly FS 4, and the Startgerät has a date selector. Try setting the date to winter / summer solstice and visit the poles. 😀

In recent versions of the Startgerät a small icon indicates which sun position to expect for a given time / date combination.

Quote from Cicciopotamo

Hello,

Just few feedback/tips that maybe helpful to others. Maybe I do something wrong or not: I do not have the time or knowledge to explore the details of "why's and why nots" sorry. Here is what I noticed:

Mac platform and little NavMap: in order to work with Startgerät the export format needs to be: .pnl for MFS 2020 not the .pnl for MSFS 2024

I noticed that, after using the startgerät to import and export the flight plan, you need to close Startgerät in order to make the changes available in FS4. If Startgerät is open the flightplan is not imported into FS4.

If this helps keep the post If don't, feel free to delete it.

Startgerät overall is AMAZING. It doubled the fun of using FS4.

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Actually the MSFS2020 / 2024 issue I also noticed. I check if I can make it clearer what format actually works best, because the EFB as well as the mission file format share the same file extension, even though they are somewhat different.

And this morning I also discovered the auto-saving feature being broken, because... ah, well, I broke it.

Stay tuned for an update that is right around the corner, possibly this weekend.

The Startgerät reached 2.3.0, aka "When the going gets TAF..." 🤣

Release Release v2.4.0 · fboes/aerofly-startgeraet

Downloads are available for Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS and Linux. Download the appropriate artifact for your platform below. aerofly-startgeraet-gui-*…

github.com

Main improvements:

• If the date / time of your flight plan is in the future, the Startgerät get weather information from a TAF API
• The date / time selector will display the sun position (day, civil twilight, night)
• There now is a setting for font sizes in the app
• The app now restores position and size from the last session

Have fun!

We now have the 2.2.5 update - do not ask what happened in the meantime. 😉 Here it is:

Release Release v2.4.0 · fboes/aerofly-startgeraet

Downloads are available for Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS and Linux. Download the appropriate artifact for your platform below. aerofly-startgeraet-gui-*…

github.com

What's inside:

• Lots of GUI improvements, including wide-screen support as well as forcing dark mode. (Hat-tip to Aerofoil2011 und AeRodri )
• Added keyboard shortcuts
• Fixed the update notification mechanism

Have fun.

Quote from Aerofoil2011

Armitage That seems like such a great project and it seems like great minds think alike 😂 this project seems so similar to mine and I would be happy to collaborate on different versions, sharing my ideas and experiences and working on a proper live weather function. I am using the NOAA Aviation Weather Center (AWC) for METAR data.

Actually I could not get live weather inside of Aerofly FS4. I concluded that main.mcf only sets the weather at the beginning of a flight, while the DLL cannot change the weather settings like clouds while the sim is running. I finally gave up on that idea, believing the static weather to be a inherent restriction.

Otherwise I would like to share how I convert between Aerofly's normalised weather values and real live weather values. My findings are in this document:

BTW: Python should possibly allow for Cross-Plattform execution. Most likely your tool could run on other operating systems too. I attached a list of folders to check for the main.mcf, to be compatible with other operating systems:

aerofly-startgeraet/src/core/io/Config.ts at main · fboes/aerofly-startgeraet

More comprehensive options to set-up flights in Aerofly Flight Simulator 4, including import of flight plans and weather. - fboes/aerofly-startgeraet

github.com

Aerofoil2011 This sounds very interesting. If you like to get inspiration for your next steps, you are free to checkout my take on your idea:

GitHub - fboes/aerofly-startgeraet: More comprehensive options to set-up flights in Aerofly Flight Simulator 4, including import of flight plans and weather.

More comprehensive options to set-up flights in Aerofly Flight Simulator 4, including import of flight plans and weather. - fboes/aerofly-startgeraet

github.com

I especially like the backup idea.

Which API are you using for METAR information?

There is yet another release for the Aerofly Startgerät, this time the 2.2.2 (aka the "Airwolf" update):

Release Release v2.4.0 · fboes/aerofly-startgeraet

Downloads are available for Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS and Linux. Download the appropriate artifact for your platform below. aerofly-startgeraet-gui-*…

github.com

This time, I incorporated even more feedback (special thanks to AeRodri for detailed bug reports), so this gives you:

• Made flight plan import more bullet-proof (it now imports legacy file formats, even with their subtle changes)
• The app now checks every now and than if any updates are available, so you do not need to check for yourself
• In case you missed it: The SimBrief import has been made more robust in the last update, so it does not fail on unknown ICAO aircraft codes. Also the ICAO aircraft codes as well as the ICAO airline codes have been made more prominent in the Startgerät selection, so you know how to set-up your flight in SimBrief

Have fun testing this, for the next two weeks the development of the Startgerät takes a break. And as usual: I am happy for any feedback.

I really enjoy the last 60+ posts of this brilliant discussion. I believe to have this discussion more meaningful, each user should state their level of expertise along with their post. Here is a list of items you should provide:

• [ ] I bought Aerofly FS for [Windows / MacOS / Linux / iOS / Android / Switch / all plattforms]
• [ ] I represent [an important user group / the majority of the users]
• [ ] I did not read [the initial post / any official posts by IPACS / anything at all] before posting
• [ ] I like to reference a fact which I [have no source for / read somewhere and missed the part that this war speculative / I made up]
• [ ] I have worked for [Boeing / Airbus / Embraer / SpaceX] as an [engineer / test pilot / rocket scientist / janitor] for [x] years
• [ ] I have considerable experience as [a pilot / a co-pilot / a sim pilot / forum user] for [x] years, my expertise is based on detailed knowledge
• [ ] I know quite a lot about [software development / QA / PR / PM / business stuff] with [x] years of experience, I have my numbers ready
• [ ] I want to talk about [a livery request / an aircraft request / an airport request] (yet again)
• [ ] My mother told me "You can make demands if you pay the rent", and now I am paying the rent!

Here is an example:

Quote

• [x] I represent an important user group

I hereby demand to not have public betas, nor to make announcements about upcoming features. Instead have a closed beta with a selected circle of QA users, bound by an NDA to keep silent about the content of the beta. Also I demand a separate section of the forum only accessible to QA users, and invisible to everyone else.

I am looking forward to more constructive comments following these guidelines 😉

Thank you all for your feedback - it is very valuable to me. It helps fix issues in Startgerät, and provides me with lots of new ideas to implement.

Next features will be improvements for import/export, as well as notifications on new releases.

(But don't hold your breath for the mission generator. 😉)

There is a new release for the Aerofly Startgerät.

Release Release v2.4.0 · fboes/aerofly-startgeraet

Downloads are available for Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS and Linux. Download the appropriate artifact for your platform below. aerofly-startgeraet-gui-*…

github.com

It contains multiple minor improvements to the GUI - and multiple major changes:

• Setting position and initial speed of the aircraft has been improved. (It is still recommended to manually set the starting position in Aerofly FS itself.)
• The fuel & payload selector has been removed as it was not working as intended. As of now, there is no way to reliably set fuel & payload in Aerofly FS by the Aerofly Startgerät.
• Flight plan UIDs have been improved and are now almost exactly matching UIDs generated by Aerofly FS - but for airports, runways and named fixes. Still there should be some improvements visible in the flight planning menu as well as navigational displays inside Aerofly FS.
• The aircraft and livery menu will also show ICAO codes if available. These ICAO codes can be used by SimBrief to set aircraft and livery directly from SimBrief.

The release does not yet cover the upcoming changes to Aerofly FS (more liveries, more airports) - this will be a separate release.

AeRodri Yes, proper UIDs will be in the next release of the Startgerät. 🥳 If everything goes well the upcoming weekend will see a new version being published.

Yes! That did it. Thanks a lot. And also thank you, Dav111 for taking the initiative.

Sadly setting it to "Custom" does not seem to work, either.

Quote from Jugac64

Hi Frank, if I remember well, you had a webpage where we can see the world map with the sim airports (not inside Missionsgerät). Could you share the URL please?

Of course, here it is:

(It already contains the beta airports)

But is there some way Aerofly stores the amount of fuel in the aircraft when it gets closed?

We need a place to set the fuel / payload while the sim is closed, to be available on the next start of the sim.

(Actually keeping the Startgerät up to date is already an ongoing task, so even an experimental route would still be helpful.)

So fuel & payload cannot be restored to the menu after closing the simulator, and reopening it again? Because after setting the values and closing the simulator, on the next startup all settings are set back to 0 in the menu.

Is there a way to set the fuel & payload from the outside, but for altering the aircraft state file?

I suspect that the fuel settings in the main.mcf are neither read nor written.

If I change the fuel settings from within Aerofly FS 4, the settings will notnot saved to the main.mcf - and consequently will not read from the main.mcf on the next startup, completely resetting the values:

1. Start Aerofly FS 4
2. Set the aircraft to Cessna 172
3. Set fuel and payload to anything, e.g. 70 / 100
4. Start a flight
5. Quit Aerofly FS 4
6. Check main.mcf - fuel settings have not been saved
7. Restart Aerofly FS 4
8. Check fuel and payload - it has been reset to 0 / 0

Additionally:

1. Remove fuel_load_setting from main.mcf
2. Start Aerofly FS 4
3. Set the aircraft to Cessna 172
4. Set fuel and payload
5. Start a flight
6. Quit Aerofly FS 4
7. Check main.mcf - it now contains an invalid fuel setting block
8. Restart Aerofly FS 4
9. Check fuel and payload - it has been reset to 0 / 0

        <[tmsettings_fuel_load][fuel_load_setting][]
            <[fuel_load_configuration][configuration][Invalid]>
            <[string8u][aircraft][]>
            <[float64][fuel_mass][0]>
            <[float64][payload_mass][0]>
        >

Anyone else encountering this issue?