luke
CV-990
Posts: 36
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Post by luke on Apr 27, 2006 5:44:01 GMT
I am extremely excited to see George's 707 panels taking wing as the new panel offered by HJG2006. I have two questions based on my experiences with the old panels:
1) Whenever the autopilot is engaged in pitch, it seems that the wing leveler gets turned on automatically, and roll control is significantly more difficult than in the DC-8s, which can be easily manually controlled in roll while using the standard HJG panel. I have updated the aircraft.cfg to turn off the default wing leveler, yet this seems to continue. Is this expected?
2) Is there any way to use the autopilots with the standard FS2004 flight planner and GPS, instead of the included INS, or some easy way to import waypoints from the flight planner? I enjoy it greatly, but sometimes the hassle of typing in the waypoints gets in the way of a good flight.
Cheers!
Luke
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Post by George Carty - HJG on Apr 27, 2006 7:39:54 GMT
1) It is not possible to engage the autopilot in pitch only. If you want to turn the aircraft while the autopilot is on, turn the big knob in the middle of the autopilot - this will bank the aircraft.
2) I deliberately excluded the FS2004 GPS from my panel as it is un-historic. Some time after I get the panel and the flight model sorted out, I may investigate as to whether my bundled INS can be modified to load standard FS2004 flight plans. Another possibility would be to add the CIVA INS to my panel (once I discover how to integrate it with my panel).
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luke
CV-990
Posts: 36
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Post by luke on Apr 27, 2006 15:50:28 GMT
Thanks for this valuable information. Just for clairty, if the 707 A/P doesn't support pitch-only mode, is this a difference from the DC-8 autopilot supplied with the HJG panels, or is that an inaccuracy in the DC-8 A/P?
I agree with you on the FS9 GPS - I've simply put in the klm90b unit that appears in the DC-8 panels. I don't think that too much effort should be required to allow your INS to import an FS2004 flight plan; the lat/lon coordinates can be imported without much difficulty (the ACARS package I wrote already does this.) The only thing that might be out of the ordinary would be how to handle more than 25 waypoints; I think that's the limit in your INS.
Again, thanks for the feedback and your great work!
Cheers!
Luke
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Post by chris on Apr 27, 2006 19:53:38 GMT
The HJG DC-8 autopilot is actually very well done, and is fairly accurate to the real one in operation, especially considering the fact that it must operate under the constraints of Flight Simulator. But there is no way to have only pitch control on it, just like the real thing. When you turn it on, both the pitch and roll control are activated (as well as yaw), pitch going to the default "vertical speed hold" mode, and roll to it's default "turn knob" mode. But you are right that it will not automatically level the wings, and rather will hold the roll angle that the aircraft was at when the autopilot was turned on. But it will keep the aircraft's wings "level" if the aircraft was level when the autopilot servos were turned on. Chris
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luke
CV-990
Posts: 36
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Post by luke on Apr 27, 2006 21:43:02 GMT
But there is no way to have only pitch control on it, just like the real thing. When you turn it on, both the pitch and roll control are activated (as well as yaw), pitch going to the default "vertical speed hold" mode, and roll to it's default "turn knob" mode. Maybe my aircraft.cfg tweaking did the trick, but none of my DC-8s hold the roll setting. Is it because I've set default_bank_mode=0? Cheers! Luke
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Post by chris on Apr 27, 2006 23:19:35 GMT
I flew my HJG DC-8-61 (with original aircraft.cfg file) to try some things out, and I found out what's going on. Apparently, Right when you set the autopilot servo switch to "auto pilot", the bank stays where it is at, IF you don't touch the controls (which I usually don't do once I set the autopilot), but if you do, you'll see that the bank is not locked in place after all, just as you stated, and the yoke/joystick will bank the aircraft any way you want, and what I thought was the autopilot locking the bank angle was merely an illusion. But once you touch the "turn knob" in the center, it will level the wings, and lock the bank, and the only way to get the bank unlocked is to turn off the autopilot and re-engage it. I guess since I never fly in "turn knob" mode, and always immediately go to another mode, I took it for granted that what I was seeing for those few seconds was really what was happening.
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