cold and dark

[Quicksand2015]

hey guys, Im a huge flightsim fan and general airhead....where can i find a/the cold and dark file that will allow me to start a flight with everything turned off and shut off? i like realism

thanks in advance

[Stefano Zibell]

Here's one solution: Save a flight with your most used plane completely cold & dark and set it as the default flight.

[Stickshaker]

As far as I know it depends on the plane. Sometimes there is a 'cold and dark' option under shift x (x being a number) after loading a plane. See the manuals. You can also turn everything off and save the flight for a subsequent cold & dark start.

[Quicksand2015]

thanks for the tips, ill give'em a whirl :running:

[SH427]

What I do personally is I run the default Cessna 172 and park it where I want my default flights to start. Load up the sim, shut everything off but leave both fuel tanks selected (which I learned after discovering some of my a/c don't have fuel tank selectors) save, then select as the default flight.
Just a nice little base point to put anything you want in its stead and you're good to go.

[donnybalonny]

Its a polemical question this one.
I had the C172 on a default airport everything off as my default flight.
I bought the Lionheart Fairchild 24 and had lots of problems with it. Bill from Lionheart kindly told me that it was wrong to make a default cold and dark Cessna flight. Correct was to use the default flight that fsx/P3D has. Load that, change to your new Ac (In my case the Fairchild) Turn everything off and save as Fairchild cold´n dark. From there the AC can be moved to other airports and flown from there.
Its a bit annoying, but it was the only way to make the Fairchild work properly.

I have since then, because I find the above to be annoying, returned to my C172 cold and dark as default flight, because 95% of my AC work with that. I load the different AC directly from the start menu and have no problems. It gives me lees loading time. But the Fairchild 24 and The PMDG JS41 need to be started using their saved cold and dark.

[Daube]

As far as I know, there are only two problems that can occur, when using the default C172 to create a Cold&Dark situation:
- the mixture: in the C172, you would set it to 0%. But in some jet aircrafts which don't have smart gauges or fuel controls, this can prevent the engine start. You'll have to use the SHIFT+Ctrl+F4 key combo to set the "mixture" control to 100% to allow the jet engines to start. So you might want to leave the mixture in the Cessna to 100% prior to save your defaul flight.
- the avionics switch: a lot of planes, modern or vintage, including payware, do not have an avionic switch in the cockpit. If you set the avionics to OFF in your Cessna and save the default flight, then all of your planes will have avionics OFF when starting a new flight. If your new plane doesn't have an avionic switch, then you'll be forced to use a key combo (to be defined by yourself in the control options) to activate it, which is not nice. I would recommend you to let the avionics switch to ON after you shut down the Cessna and save your flight. It will save you some trouble.

Finally, just like the avionics switch, some planes don't have a generator swich. This is quite rare, but it can happen. So you *might* want to let the generator ON in your default flight as well... I set mine to OFF though..

[donnybalonny]

Finally, just like the avionics switch, some planes don't have a generator swich. This is quite rare, but it can happen. So you *might* want to let the generator ON in your default flight as well... I set mine to OFF though..

So my guess is that you dont have the Lionheart Fairchild. Thats exactly its problem.:teapot:

[Stefano Zibell]

Yes, every plane is it's own case. I Ctrl-E then turn everything off, then save flight as default. I do this every time I want to fly a new plane.

[WarHorse47]

As far as I know, there are only two problems that can occur, when using the default C172 to create a Cold&Dark situation:
- the mixture: in the C172, you would set it to 0%. But in some jet aircrafts which don't have smart gauges or fuel controls, this can prevent the engine start. You'll have to use the SHIFT+Ctrl+F4 key combo to set the "mixture" control to 100% to allow the jet engines to start. So you might want to leave the mixture in the Cessna to 100% prior to save your defaul flight.
- the avionics switch: a lot of planes, modern or vintage, including payware, do not have an avionic switch in the cockpit. If you set the avionics to OFF in your Cessna and save the default flight, then all of your planes will have avionics OFF when starting a new flight. If your new plane doesn't have an avionic switch, then you'll be forced to use a key combo (to be defined by yourself in the control options) to activate it, which is not nice. I would recommend you to let the avionics switch to ON after you shut down the Cessna and save your flight. It will save you some trouble.

Finally, just like the avionics switch, some planes don't have a generator swich. This is quite rare, but it can happen. So you *might* want to let the generator ON in your default flight as well... I set mine to OFF though..My default flight starts with the default C172. I edited the *.flt file and turned off all the systems to create a "cold and dark" state for my default flight.

As for the avionics, generator and battery I use hotkeys for each in case I load an aircraft without the corresponding switches. I just had a discussion on the CBFS forum about this same issue on the IRIS Vulcan, which has a master electric switch but no generator switch. Without the hotkey I can start the aircraft, but it will run on the battery for only so long until I turn on the generators. I have to use the default SHIFT+Ctrl+F4 or Ctrl+F4 for mixture controls on most helos as well.