Arctic Autopilot Question

[Roger]

Possibly an interesting thread for this subject... http://mainescenery.proboards.com/index ... hread=9511

[Swanoir]

Thanks Roger, I'll have a look into that.

[Swanoir]

Downloaded the sun compass, which looks really interesting, but there are no install instructions. I've tried my best to get it to show up in the panel but to no avail. Never mind.
Took off from Juneau at 7AM (sim time), climbed cautiously over the mountains and clung perilously to 10,000ft. With tanks nearly dry I found a little place called Norman Wells in Canada and got down just in time, literally. The engines cut out just as I turned onto the taxiway. Even the wife was impressed with that!
Soldiering on in a minute...

[Swanoir]

Well, I think I found the Pole. Flight Sim thinks there's no ice there this time of year, not sure how accurate that is...
Anyway, interesting trip nonetheless.

[emfrat]

Downloaded the sun compass, which looks really interesting, but there are no install instructions. I've tried my best to get it to show up in the panel but to no avail.

I discovered that too, but I got it to appear in Jens' Southern Cross.
If you:
1 - unzip sun_compass.zip to a temporary folder.
2 - copy/paste Sun_Compass.cab into the panel folder of Jens' Fokker VII/3M.
3 - Edit Jens' panel.cfg to look like this (edits in red):

[Window Titles]
Window00=Main Panel
Window01=Radio
Window02=GPS
Window03=Throttle Quadrant
Window04=ADF Receiver
Window05=Autopilot
Window06=Clock
Window07=Mini Panel
Window08=Sun Compass

and

//--------------------------------------------------------
[Window07]
file=panel_hand.bmp
size_mm=350,263
position=6
visible=0
ident=270

gauge00=Lockheed_Vega!clock, 106,78,141,143

//--------------------------------------------------------
[Window08]
Background_color=0,0,0
size_mm=250,250
position=2
visible=0
ident=SUN_COMPASS

gauge00=Sun_Compass!Sun_Compass, 0,0,250,250

Note: smaller than 250x250 is unreadable - 300x300 might be better.

//--------------------------------------------------------
[Vcockpit01]

You should be able to see this:



Cheers
MikeW

[Swanoir]

Nice one Mike! I'll have a go at that later, thanks.

[Swanoir]

Sun Compass installed and working, thanks again.

[Tom Clayton]

Adding autopilot to the Ford Trimotor doesn't work because some of the needed avionics functions are missing. Here's how I got it working in mine...

The three gyro sections need to be modified first:
[direction_indicators]
//1 Type: 0=None, 1=Vacuum Gyro, 2=Electric Gyro, 3=Electro-Mag Slaved Compass, 4=Slaved to another
//2 Indicator number of slaving indicator if Type = 4
direction_indicator.0=3,0

[attitude_indicators]
//Type: 0=None, 1=Vacuum Gyro, 2=Electric Gyro
attitude_indicator.0 = 1

[turn_indicators]
//Type: 0=None, 1=Electric Gyro, 2= Vacuum Gyro
turn_indicator.0=1,1 //Turn AND Bank

Then you need to install the proper type of radio receivers:
[Radios]
// Radio Type = availiable, standby frequency, has glide slope
Audio.1 = 1
Com.1 = 1, 1
Com.2 = 1, 1
Nav.1 = 1, 1, 1
Nav.2 = 1, 1, 0
Adf.1 = 1
Transponder.1 = 1
Marker.1 = 1

Once that's done, I use a Com/Nav popup that replaces the stock handheld radio:
[Window01]
Background_color=128,128,128 //Only black shows up invisible, so this eliminates the need for a background bitmap.
size_mm= 359,313
window_size=0.45 //Adjust this number to fit your needs.
position= 0
visible=0
ident=RADIO_STACK_PANEL
gauge00=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio AP, 1, 2, 176
gauge01=bendix_king_radio!Bendix-King Radio Nav-Comm 1, 180, 2, 176
gauge02=bendix_king_radio!Bendix-King Radio Nav-Comm 2, 180, 67, 176
gauge03=bendix_king_radio!Bendix-King Radio Xpndr, 180, 133, 176
gauge04=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio DME, 180, 187, 176
gauge05=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio ADF, 180, 232, 176
gauge06=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio Audio, 180, 278, 176
gauge07=Extra-300!Pitch-Trim, 126, 104, 35
gauge08=Lear_45!Nav GPS Switch, 133, 59, 20
gauge09=Cessna208!Horizontal-Indicator, 1, 80, 113
gauge10=Mooney_Bravo!OMI Lights, 38, 56, 50
gauge11=Beech_Baron!RMI,32,195,113,113

[Swanoir]

Thanks Tom, I'll have a fiddle with that when I get a chance.

[mgchristy]

At the risk of stating something others might have already said here:

Adding an autopilot to the panel.cfg doesn't actually mean you have a functioning AP. You must enable the autopilot in the aircraft.cfg section as well.

Open the aircraft.cfg for the Tri-motor with Notepad. Scroll down until you see this section:

[autopilot]
autopilot_available= 0
flight_director_available= 0

Then change the 'autopilot_available' to read 'autopilot_available= 1'

Hope this helps.