London-Melbourne 2014: P3D

[spokes2112]

Rob,

Do you have FSUIPC? and if so, did you update it after each of the LM updates to P3D? (Must do) Current version is 4.937b, updates available here.

[rwhsim]

Yes I do use FSUIPC, and I was on V4.936c! . At time I installed P3D V2.4 Pete was on leave, and I neglected to regularly check for updates. Installed 4.937b, and BINGO problem fixed! From the saved scenario where I got stuck at Z13T, was able to takeoff crosswind, land downwind, take off downwind, and have been taxing all over that field, and pulling "wheelies", just to get rid of that feeling of having been such an idiot! .

Thank you for getting to the root of the problem so quickly and helping out!

Rob

[PRB]

I've been goofing off with Visual Studio. It's getting there! Airports don't show up in the FlightLog file because I don't have a P3D airport database. The airports do show up for FS9 and FSX flights. The duenna program uses one airport database, and I think it's an FS9 one, because some airports show up in FSX with the old FS9 ICAOs. But I can find the cfg files, for both versions, and detect the realism settings. Weather, well, who knows. P3D canna do "real" weather so that's up in the air (as it were).

[rwhsim]

Great effort there Paul.

Are you not able to use the files in the P3D root directory, like r4.csv, which has ICAO IDs and Lat-Longs for runways, as an airport database? These files can also be updated by Pete Dowson's MakeRwys tool, so if a user adds / modifies airports with add-on scenery these files can be kept up to date. Maybe a tool to parse this file into your own programs' database for quicker processing?

Is there not also an offset in P3D that can be read to detect weather being injected into P3D by an external program? As you say P3D cannot do real weather on its own, but there should be some way to "listen" into Simconnect chatter that the likes of ASN use to send weather.

I have only programmed in VB, wish I had learned C++. Bit of an old dog now to learn new tricks!

[PRB]

This was done in vb.net. I've done C++ a little, but more familiar with vb. I downloaded the MakeRunways program. It exports some sort of binary file. How do I get at the data? I'm currently borrowing the sdf database files that are created by Plan-G. Would like to use the MakeRunways tool, but not sure how to use it.

[rwhsim]

Paul

To use the MakeRwys tool you place the MakeRwys.exe file in the root of your P3D directory. Then double click on the MakeRwys icon in that directory, and you will see the program running through your sceneries directories. When completed, you will see that several .csv files in the P3D root directory have been updated (will have the time and date stamp of the MakeRwys run). These are;

F4.csv - List of Airports and NAV / Com frequencies
F5.csv - List of Airports and I think approach or tower frequencies
G5.csv - List of Airports and parking positions / codes
R4.csv - List of Airports, RWY IDs, RWY headings, RWY alts, and RWY end co-ords
R5.csv - seems similar to R4.csv - cannot find a difference in a quick visual check
runways.csv - Airport RWYS, RWY ID, end co-ord, Alt, True heading, Length (ft), ILS frequency if present
t5.csv - Airport list with detailed parking space names, co-ords, radii, and what seems like connections to taxi routes from parking. Bit complex, and large

Hope this helps.

[PRB]

It also makes a file called airports.fsm, which is an airports database, and that's what I need. But it's a binary file that I don't how to read, or connect to, or otherwise make use of. I suppose I could extract the airports info from the other text based files...

[PRB]

Been making progress on my visual studio “goofing off” project. I call it that for a couple of reasons. 1) It's entirely possible the Mr. Mueller will update his duenna program to add support for P3D before the next event, whatever that happens to be. 2) since P3D doesn't support “real weather”, and all our events require it, including the RTW Race, what's the point, really? And 3) there is that matter of the license agreement, which has never been settled to my satisfaction. As more and more people switch to this sim, these issues will likely loom larger in the future...

Still, it's been fun trying to duplicate what that duenna application does. With every challenge, my admiration for Mr. Mueller goes up another notch! There are still “issues”. For example, if, during the takeoff run, you lift off, then, having pulled back too soon, the wheels touch the runway again, this program detects that as a “landing” and gets confused... Still have to figure out how to deal with a few unexpected situations like that. Also, the generated image contains a map that only has two points, the start and end point, so you see just a straight line. Just need to add more points to that function. The generated KML file, however, does contain many more points. The program goes into “high rate telemetry mode” (1/sec) when you're below 500 FT AGL, as opposed to “low rate” of 1/min. When above 500 FT AGL. It's pretty cool. All those data points are in the KML file, good for “post crash analysis” ...

[rwhsim]

Paul this is looking really good! I am sure the remaining things will fall into place over time as you tweak the program. I sometimes find leaving a program for a while helps; sometimes out of the blue, the solution pops into ones head. As far as the licensing issue, the sim can be, and will be used for real-world race training, so having a tool that is P3D compatible should not be a problem. I am sure LM would welcome this sort of add-on development.

[PRB]

Paul this is looking really good! I am sure the remaining things will fall into place over time as you tweak the program. I sometimes find leaving a program for a while helps; sometimes out of the blue, the solution pops into ones head. As far as the licensing issue, the sim can be, and will be used for real-world race training, so having a tool that is P3D compatible should not be a problem. I am sure LM would welcome this sort of add-on development.

Oh, don't I know it. At work, most solutions to difficult programming problems happen at some point during the 30 minute drive home...

[spokes2112]

Paul,

WOW! some amazing things you are doing! I went down the same road you are doing but in the time frame of the Mac Robertson I found a certain " ___ " to have P3D working w/ duenna. Would still like to discuss with you as I think we should strive to keep the new simulators available for use in a race situation. If you would like, PM me and set up a time to go on voice for a bit.

Roman

[epwatson]

Paul,

I didn't even notice this thread so I am getting caught up real fast. This looks very promising. I was looking into the possibility of re-creating the duenna myself to interface with the current site but looks like you guys are way ahead on this. I was going to use sim-connect for FSX and P3D and FSUIPC for FS9 but if you guys already have a program going we can expand on that.

More discussion i think is needed.

[PRB]

Hi Eamonn,

That project, to me, is a two part effort. Part 1 was to build an application that "did the same thing as" the duenna, but with P3D, but not addressing the weather issue. Part 2 would be the issue of "real weather". I think I'm about 75% of the way there on part 1. It doesn't save the flight results to a web site database, as the duenna does, and the flight image map needs a bit of work.

Part 2, the weather, is the hard part. As we know, P3D simply doesn't support "real wx". You can use third party "real wx apps" like RealWXLite, but even so, FSUIPC cannot tell us if some third party app is generating wx or not. That said, Roman has come up with an idea that might work.

Short version is, we're not quite there yet...

[epwatson]

Well if you need help, let me know. I'm going to have a discussion with Roman today over on the team avsim teamspeak about his progress. I really would like to include P3D into this years race if it all possible, and I know the executive committee would like that as well.