Flight Instrument Panel

451: Hidden Tachometer on A2A C172R

| Tom Tsui

This morning I received an email from Paul Wasserman who asked me why the red line on my A2A C172R tachometer is set at 2,400 rpm, rather than 2,700 rpm as shown on his cockpit.   Looking at his photo, I was bewildered because I had never seen the gauge before; and it was the first time someone reported to me about this inconsistency.

In order to confirm that there were nothing I had missed, I re-downloaded, re-installed and re-updated the aircraft in the following hours.   “Without luck”, the result was the same — the red line is still at 2,400 rpm.   I really had my head scratched. Continue reading →

446: Cessna Fuel Gauge Now with Back Light

| Tom Tsui

The Integrated Fuel Gauges (INTFG) for the default C172SP and A2A C172R and C182T have just been updated to version R5 and R2 respectively.   They are the second group of Cessna gauges now enhanced with back-light effect, following the earlier Wet Compass.

Actually, in order to make the back-light effect right, I have taken far more time and effort than I expected in the first place.   The new updates are the result of numerous attempts and many days of work.

Therefore, I wouldn’t be able to give any estimated date when the next one will come nor what gauge or gauges it or they will be for the moment; however, there will be updates for sure, which I can promise. Continue reading →

441: Cessna Wet Compass with Back Light

| Tom Tsui

Here’s the updated Cessna Wet Compass implemented with back-light effect after the B737 gauges.

The feature applies to both the default and A2A models, but not the X-Plane one as it uses a different set of codes. Continue reading →

322: Wind Indicator on C172 Heading Gyro

| Tom Tsui

Different to the Integrated version, the design of my Standalone C172 Heading Gyro doesn’t come with anyC172_HDG_Wind_Taxi indication of wind direction so as to render a more realistic appearance.

Many users, however, have been requesting to include such a feature because it is a useful reference while taxiing on the ground so that proper aileron and elevator actions could be conducted against strong headwinds, crosswinds or tailwinds as in the real life situation. Continue reading →

320: SPAD.neXt with FIP Support Released

| Tom Tsui

SPAD.neXt (Saitek Panel Advanced Drivers neXt Generation) by Ulrich Strauss is a replacement driver for Saitek’s Flight Simulation Panels.   The just released version 0.8 now provides full support to Saitek’s Flight Instrument Panels as well.

HDCMPIndeed, the recent drivers from Saitek have brought improvements over older versions.  That’s no doubt about it.  But they are still lack of flexibility and configurability.   Especially, the company’s FIP driver still only support a subset of the simulation variables.  This has caused incompatibility issue among those 3rd-party aircrafts which use the simulation variables extensively in their designs. Continue reading →

314: Connecting FIPs on Networked PC

| Tom Tsui

TechLevel02W
Running Flight Instrument Panels (FIPs) will drag the performance of the simulator to some extent.   To minimize the impacts on some not so high-end PCs, off-loading them to a spare computer isn’t a bad idea.

FIP B_Gauges
Off-loading FIPs to Another Computer Could Minimize Performance Hit to the System.

To those who are “network-phobia”, here’s an example how I put the FIPs (with some help from Ricardo in the first place) to work on a spare computer in my family network. Continue reading →

308: Switching Between inHg and mBar

| Tom Tsui

A friend recently asked if there is a simple way to change the barometric units from inHg to mBar on the Altimeter.   Unfortunately, no, it is NOT possible on the earlier free gauges.   But YES, it is possible on the paid gauges as their codings and image designs have been rewritten.

This automatic barometric unit switching feature should have been implemented earlier.   Anyway, here it comes at last.

C172_ALT_inHg-mBar

Users of  the current Continue reading →

302: Commands Assigned to FIP Not Working

| Tom Tsui

What a coincidence of receiving a few emails in the past two weeks asking why the commands (such as the barometric settings — KOHLSMAN_DEC and KOHLSMAN_INC) assigned to the rotation knobs and buttons on the FIPs are not working any more.   After checking their SaiFlightSimX.xml files, I found another coincidence that the <X52Pro> section in the beginning of their files was somehow removed.

Yeah.  I do remember as they reported that the SaiFlightSimX.xml file worked properly without the <X52Pro> section before.   Continue reading →

290: Standalone C172 Gauges

| Tom Tsui

My C172 Integrated Gauge Series combine 14 instruments plus many other functions found on the C172 cockpit.   The project was started a year ago since I only had seven FIPs at that time.   And it was not economical (still true) to put some of the simple instruments each onto standalone FIPs.

However, never stop receiving inquires from friends asking for their standalone versions.   So, before moving forward onto twin engines, I will spend some times working on these standalone gauges first.   They include: Continue reading →