Hangar doors opening with radio freqs?

[Navy Chief]

Years ago, I recall having hangars in sceneries with doors that would open/close by tuning to a specific radio freq.

Is this still used a lot in sceneries? Always thought it was a cool feature. And, along the same train of thought, is it something that could be added after the fact? NC

[jmbiii]

I don't know how often it's used, but the hangars are still available on Avsim and Flightsim.
Search for EZ-hangers by Sidney Schwartz.
and they work fine in FSX.

[Geomitrak]

ACG's freeware Duxford has a gate which is triggered by radio frequency. Thats the only one I know of.

[sonicsolutions]

Too bad you couldn't rig it up so a hanger door would open when you pulled up in front of it, that would be cool.

[Navy Chief]

And it would be nice to know if existing hangars could be modded to do this?

[falcon409]

And it would be nice to know if existing hangars could be modded to do this?
I don't think so. It would require that the animation for the doors be done as part of the original build. Just my guess.

[spotlope]

There would probably be a lot more of this kind of animation if the Aces hadn't stripped conditional code out of the FSX MDL format. You can still do opening hangar doors, but you have to export the model using the FS9 tools, and a lot of us don't like mixing in old code & tech with our new projects. I'm surprised someone hasn't come up with a module that can do this sort of thing from outside FS, though. I'm sure it's possible.

[falcon409]

There would probably be a lot more of this kind of animation if the Aces hadn't stripped conditional code out of the FSX MDL format. You can still do opening hangar doors, but you have to export the model using the FS9 tools, and a lot of us don't like mixing in old code & tech with our new projects. I'm surprised someone hasn't come up with a module that can do this sort of thing from outside FS, though. I'm sure it's possible.
Wouldn't it still be dependent on how the original Hangar was built? Seems like whatever hangar you intend to animate would have to have doors that were modeled as separate objects (within the model). I've done Hangars before but they were built to appear open "only" and no amount of exporting would ever make them animated. . . .same with hangars that are closed.

[Navy Chief]

I am sure that including this type of animation requires much more design work. But it is an interesting addition to the realism aspect. For that matter, just having the hangar doors open is (to me) preferable to being closed. Out of curiousity, why did Aces "strip" the conditional code from FSX? NC

[spotlope]

Wouldn't it still be dependent on how the original Hangar was built? Seems like whatever hangar you intend to animate would have to have doors that were modeled as separate objects (within the model). I've done Hangars before but they were built to appear open "only" and no amount of exporting would ever make them animated. . . .same with hangars that are closed.

Yes, absolutely Ed. You still have to code in the functionality. It's just that even if you do, exporting the model in the FSX MDL format will strip out your conditions.

[sonicsolutions]

I'm guessing Aces stripped away some legacy code that's been hanging around for many versions of FS. I know when I worked at Bioware working on one of my first games, Mass Effect, we were using legacy code and systems from as far back as Balders Gate. Even now with all the new fancy game engines on the rise...legacy code makes it's way in...if it works...use it was the theory.

It would be nice to sit down with some of the shakers and movers of the old Aces team and get some info on the hows and whys...sure would help us going forward.

[Meshman]

It can be done and has been done, see FSDT's Honolulu. Notice different shadows applied to buildings depending upon time of day, as in FSDT's Vancouver. It involves using and controlling through Simconnect and there are not too many modelers who happen to be proficient in programming.

There have been a couple of utilities previewed/discussed that would allow a simpler manner to access such features of FSX/P3D and not be a code hack! There is already one such type of utility, but it serves to keep the flow(s) going and is not available otherwise, from what I can gather.

[Paul J]

Just have to throw some Kudos to Bill, as his great FS9 KRDG still works very well in FSX - DX10 - the MAAM hangar doors operate as they did in the older flight sim - actually, so does Briefing Time and the old gooney bird, too, thanks to Steve's Fixer.

All the Best,

pj

[guzzi]

Gary Summons has this happening in some of his Extreme airport sceneries. Hangar doors open automatically when plane comes near - just noticed it in his Bristol scenery.

[andersel]

I have Aerosoft's Anchorage 2004 scenery, and there is at least one gate in it that opens automatically when an aircraft approaches.

LA

[PHo17]

In my FS2004 times I remember having an utility with which one could make his own hangar (size, shape? and texture), place it where wanted and make the doors open with some radio frequency one liked. It was freeware if I recall right. Haven't encountered anything like that for FSX. Unfortunatelly I have forgoten even the name of the utility and have nothing of FS2004 installation left on my HDDs anymore (only the original installation DVDs or CDROMs?).

Pekka

[n4gix]

Hm, that sounds like Arno's famous CAT utility (Conditional Animation Tool).

[ThinkingManNeil]

Just wondering. If you have, say a Cessna 152, sitting in a hangar facing the open door, is there a way of pushing it out without cranking the engine? I know that SHIFT+ P/P1/P2 works for pushback, but is there one to push a plane out of a hangar so you can do the start outside of it?

N.

[JoeW]

You could program them with Radio Freq or with Proximity, just getting close would open the doors.

[norab]

don't know if this will work in FSX but it might

http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/2637/fs2004-eaglesoft-fbo-hangar-scenery-kit/