Just out of curiousity...

[ThinkingManNeil]

...is it possible to insert a pilot figure into the cockpit of an aircraft that isn't showing one? There are a couple of types I really like - namely Darell Woodhouse's Seabird Seeker SB7L 360A in FSX and Ralph Wishart's RANS S-12XL Airaile in FS9 - that don't show any pilot or passenger figures seated at the controls in the cockpit in flight when viewed from the outside. I had communicated with Darrell about the Seeker pilot on this issue and he told me that the original developer hadn't included one for whatever reason and had essentially left the project in that state with no intention of going back to it. So I'm just wondering can some pilot texture files be transplanted from another sim aircraft and the aircraft CFG file modified to make up for this?

N.

[Roger]

I know it can be done in Cfs2 but I don't think it can be done in Fs8, 9 or 10.

[spotlope]

Sorry, there's no way to do it without adding the figure to the original model and recompiling it.

[ThinkingManNeil]

OK, guys, thanks for the info. I kinda suspected as much. Odd that a pilot wouldn't be included that's visible in flight. I can see not necessarily doing it for large, multi-engine aircraft, but in small single engine aircraft, twins, or helos it sticks out like a sore thumb.

N.

[jetstreamsky]

How are bombs called into a model? Is there a special tag or something to associate them with, if not why cannot a 'bomb' pilot be loaded into the cockpit space, for that matter why not make parachutists like bombs so they can be air dropped?

[Delta_Whiskey]

you could cheat by making an effect that uses a pilot bmp as its texture , think of the cool burner effects seen on some jets ... 2d
but it would just be a cheat, more like a cardboard cutout of a pilot not a 3d one.

[Lionheart]

That would be cool if you could do that. You could do cargo, passengers, missles, bombs, etc.... Just add coordinates and direction to point, type of object. Let Prepar3D know about this as a dream request for 2.0 and maybe they can do this.

But in FSX, its not possible. Best to contact the person who made it and kindly ask them to think about putting one in. They just install a model of a pilot, fit them in right, graphics installed/mapped, then re-compile (run it through the export machine) and Voila.

[DaveWG]

I was just thinking last night about something similar, but using SimConnect to "attach" bombs / pilot / passengers etc to a model. Use a cfg file to define the points or offset from the models center point and the mdls to attach on a per-aircraft basis.

Should be fairly straight forward for a half-decent programmer, but beyond my skill level!

[jetstreamsky]

Not necessarily just 2d, some models have droppable ordnance that lives as a separate 'aircraft' model in the selection list.

[Daube]

Not necessarily just 2d, some models have droppable ordnance that lives as a separate 'aircraft' model in the selection list.

Indeed... I'm pretty sure SimConnect could pop an "aircraft" with pilot-shape in the right place.

[MCDesigns]

Indeed... I'm pretty sure SimConnect could pop an "aircraft" with pilot-shape in the right place.

That would make for a great addon. Imagine a small interface that allows for a library of objects to be placed in or around the aircraft, pilot figures, passengers, cargo, weapons.

[SkippyBing]

Let Prepar3D know about this as a dream request for 2.0 and maybe they can do this.

If I understand the version 1.4 SDK properly, it's already there. They've added code to SimConnect to attach weapons to aircraft, rather than having to include them in the model to show them before they drop off.

I did try doing the same in FSX but I had issues keeping the stores in the same place relative to the aircraft, basically the faster you went the further behind the aircraft they got. Having said that it probably is possible using I just hadn't thought it through properly in terms of update rate and anticipating where the aircraft is going to be rather than just using it's last position.