No oil quantity shown in DC-6 gauges

[SSI01]

I'm using Greg Pepper's DC-6s on my sim and the KMCC panel installed in the Aircraft folder as per instructions. All gauges and so forth work on the aircraft with the exception of the engine oil quantity and meth/water quantity gauges, which both show pegged at "0". This has just started happening tonight, not sure what's causing it. I get "low oil quantity/pressure" blinking warning lights in the l. upper inst panel on the aircraft inst panel. I've never seen this happen before. Does anyone have any idea about why this is going on?:icon_eek:

[Sunny9850]

First of all I suggest for all things related to Tom Gibson and Greg Peppers Douglas aircraft to go directly to the source at CalClassic.com .... Tom does take customer service to a whole new level and usually the first answer is the correct one.

But I think that this particular problem is related to incorrect loading of the aircraft and its associated panels. The oil system needs a XML gauge to run in order to properly track oil consumption.
I suggest loading the default Cessna flight once before you load the Doug's and also activating the auto-reload feature Tom has built into the panels.

Cheers
Stefan

[Maarten -]

I'm using Greg Pepper's DC-6s on my sim and the KMCC panel installed in the Aircraft folder as per instructions. All gauges and so forth work on the aircraft with the exception of the engine oil quantity and meth/water quantity gauges, which both show pegged at "0". This has just started happening tonight, not sure what's causing it. I get "low oil quantity/pressure" blinking warning lights in the l. upper inst panel on the aircraft inst panel. I've never seen this happen before. Does anyone have any idea about why this is going on?:icon_eek:

I think you have run out of oil and of water-methanol. Next time when you open you DC-6 on your fliight simulator, before doing anything else, click with your mouse a number of times on each gauge. You'll notice the dial going back to "full" again. Make your oil and water-methanol check part of the whole "before starting up" procedure. It saves you high virtual expenses in the first place.;)


Cheers,
Maarten

[SSI01]

Good point about the clicking. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to afford running this thing much longer at the current price. We may be museum-bound!

[tgibson]

Hi,

There are two ways to fill the oil tanks. For all of this you need to be on the ground, engines stopped, with the parking brake on.

1. Click the oil gauges repeatedly. I don't know if this will also fill the ADI tanks or not, I don't think so? You may also have to click the water quantity gauges?
2. The faster way. Open the Flight Planner notepad gauge, plan a flight (to get the correct amount of fuel to load/dump), and then click the green Total Fuel value. The tool tip will show the fuel being loaded/dumped to the planned value. This will also fill the oil and ADI tanks.

The fuel and ADI tank quantities are saved between sessions, so eventually they will empty and you will need to do this again.

Hope this helps,

[SSI01]

Thanks, Tom. I did the "click" business but didn't get a result. The other thing you mentioned, I never thought of. That's another one that's going into the "tips and tricks" notebook.

I may have found the problem on my own anyway. Just for fun I went into one of the other iterations of FS9 I have that has DC-6s in the hangar. They had no problems and showed all fluid levels correct based on my settings. Next step was to visit CalClassics and download both the DC-6 and DC-7 that have the panels enclosed. Separated all the panel/gauge/sound files out, applied them to the iteration of FS9 where the problem DC-6 was. They were missing from the "gauges" - "effects" - "sound" folders (I still don't know how that happened as I distinctly recall putting them in there in the first place). After reinstallation and another try I get all levels where they should be.

A pretty good friend here on SSI is a former DC-6 pilot, we're going to take a hop or two once we're moved into the new place in a few days.

BTW - I have a notification system set up in my email that tells me about changes at CalClassics (one of my favorite sites). I saw the one yesterday about the new United scheme, and visited the site. For some reason nothing was happening when I clicked on the image of the aircraft on the site, trying to download it. I'll give it another try when I get back from school.

[tgibson]

Hi,

Glad to hear things are working again.

I tried the UAL DC-7 link this morning and it works fine for me.

Two things:

1. You must already be signed up at the AVSIM library for the link to work.
2. Your computer must "work" with AVSIM's automatic-start download system. If not, you will need to click the link at the bottom of the page that appears instead.

Hope this helps,