I have been trying to fly and land a jet aircraft at El Centro and find it not easy. Consequently, I have been using the default Cessna 172 and this has helped. Thanks to guidance from Sludge I have equipped my Cessna with an IFLOLS.
Following Paddles' release of vLSO I thought I would try to migrate to Coupeville using my IFLOLS equipped Cessna but Coupeville does not have a mirror landing sight. I realised the instruments on the Cessna panel are not really precise enough so I decided to also add a HUD as well. Again, with Sludge's help I now have a Combat HUD, IFLOLS equipped Cessna.
I hope this might help other virtual aviators.
Points to note:
1. Both the additional and Cessna gauges work at El Centro but vLSO does not because it is not designed to do so.
2. There is no ILS at Coupeville so the IFLOLS does not work. vLSO 0.7 does but not for Cessna's.
3. Both the gauges work with Javier Hernandez's carriers running under the control of Lamont Clark's AICarriers2. Both of these add-ons can be found at
http://www.fsxblueangels.com/other%20dowloads%20template.html4. The IFLOLS works at a range of 2.6 mls at El Centro and 1.5 mls when flying to a carrier.
NOTE THIS WELL: BEFORE YOU START MAKE A COPY OF THE Cessna C172 PANEL FILE (Panel.cfg) and SAVE IT SOMEWHERE SAFE. (What I do is copy the file, paste it into the C172 Panel folder and rename it as XXPanel .)
The following folders will be required and can be found in Sludge's FA-18 (I have assumed you have downloaded this add-on and installed it as per Sludge's ReadMe.)
1. Combat HUD located in FSX\Gauges\
2. IFLOLS located in FSX\Gauges\Avionics\
Copy these folders containing these gauges into your SimObjects\Airplanes\C172\Panel folder.
Do not open the folders, copy and paste them complete.
Copy the attached file Cessna Panel.txt into the C172 Panel folder and rename it to Panel.cfg
For those that are interested if you look in the Panel.cfg file you will see I have added the lines
Window06=IFLOLS
Window07=Combat HUD
in the [Window Titles] section
This adds the lines IFLOLS and Combat HUD to the Views\Instrument Panel\ menu
In the Combat HUD section [Window07] the lines
Window_pos =0.180, 0.000
window_size = 0.600, 0.600
are used to position and size the gauge. I use 3 screens in portrait mode which gives me an effective display of 2700 x 1440; I have found by trial and error that 0.180, 0.000 will position the gauge as I want it. These numbers refer to the position of the top left hand corner of the gauge; in my case the corner is 0.18 units from the left edge of the screen (the X value) and, strangely, 0.0 units form the top (the Y value). At one time I had a Y value of -0.12 but the HUD was too far up the screen. (The attached screen grabs show the position of the HUD.)
The IFLOLS can be moved in a similar way to suit your taste.
A quick way to adjust the settings is to make the changes in the Panel file, save them, go to FSX, change the Cessna to another aircraft (I used the Garmin Cessna), load it then change the plane back to the C172 – this will load the new settings.
In the HUD the “E” efficiency caret is not set correctly for the Cessna; it shows the ideal landing speed to be about 54kts which is on the edge of a stall with flaps fully extended. It also means the nose is so high the carrier is hidden.
I would like to change the HUD settings to a landing speed of 60-65 kts but do not understand the HTML file so I can't do it.
When you select one of the Missions from the Missions page you must tick the box “Enable changes...” to allow a different aircraft (e.g. C172, T-45) to be flown in the mission.
Good luck and enjoy your flying.
Clive Drake
Gatwick FlightSim Group
www.gatwick-fsg.org.uk
