Cockpit Control with the Contour Shuttle

By Art Burke (17 April 2004)

In the never-ending pursuit of flightsim nirvana, I purchased an add-on GPS from a company named RealityXP. While very similar to the GPS 500, which made its debut in FS2004 (aka FS9, aka Century of Flight), this guy has so many functions it's mind boggling at times. The standard controlling technique is with the mouse (here we go again!) but, with the use of a configuration file, it can be controlled with the keyboard. If I had a dollar - nah, I've already gone over that!

The GPS 500 was complex enough that I printed out thirty or forty pages from the Learning Center and sat down for an hour or so, reading and playing with the functions. The learning curve was quite a bit steeper than with its predecessors. Eventually, I felt comfortable with it and used it (I prefer it immensely to the GPS 295) quite a bit, particularly on long haul flights. But something was still missing. Enter the GNS 530.

I won't go into a great deal of detail here on the device itself. It works in a similar manner to the default FS2004 version, but offers a lot more bells and whistles - and complexity. Maybe some kind soul will offer an in-depth review of the GPS itself - my purpose here is to demonstrate its interface.

For a week or so, I struggled through the learning curve. Did I say this thing was complex? The user manual is the actual user manual from Garmin - all two hundred pages of it! Between the user manual and the guide provided by RealityXP, I slowly but surely (yes, I'm serious and don't call me Shirley - been wanting to use that line for years!) waded through it. I thought I had found the answer to shuffling the mouse all over the screen by mapping a neat grouping of keys to function the GPS - mouse, keyboard! Arghhh! Enter the Contour Shuttle.

This innocuous-looking little gadget is unbelievable. It measures 8" x 4.25" and about an inch in height. The bottom is quite flat and the padded "footies" keep it nicely in place. Alas, I must confess I didn't discover the little beastie. That credit belongs to a woman who calls herself Kathy Pilot. I suspect Kathy is her real moniker, but the "Pilot" surname is because she's a pilot. One day, between slogging through the manual and visiting the support forum for RealityXP products, Kathy posted a note about the shuttle and a pic. Her description (and the fact it had two wheels that could simulate the small and large knobs) sold me. I almost immediately conned my girlfriend into springing for the $90 version you see above. Hey, it wasn't as chauvinistic as it might seem. She bought me FS2004 for Christmas (I've been simming for about ten years). The gift cost her around $50. Because of that gift, I've spent about $2500 - without buying another computer! But that's another story!

At any rate, Kathy waxed effusively about how neat the gadget was and I was hooked, sight unseen. A quick visit to B&H Video (on the web, of course - they're in New York and I live in central Florida), found the shuttle placed the order and several days later I entered hog heaven - figuratively speaking.

The Contour Shuttle (as near as I can tell, Contour is the brand name, Shuttle is the type of device) was actually designed as a media-management tool. It comes by default with a ton of set-ups (configurations) for many popular and well-known applications like Adobe Photoshop (including a huge line of other Adobe products), Microsoft Office, Music Match Jukebox, InSync (the application, not the group!) and a lot more. By default, it does not come ready for FS2004 - but it didn't take long!

A large folded sheet served as instructions for a Quick Start - one side for those of us in the Microsoft world and the other side for those of you with Macs. The accompanying CD has a full-blown user guide in the ubiquitous .pdf format. Between the quick start guide, the CD user guide and the shuttle's control panel (the actual software used to program the shuttle), it went incredibly smooth.

When the control panel is first opened (it sits in the "tray" by default), it displays the Global Settings configuration. You'll have to click on the drop box to see all the other applications provided. I scanned through them, impressed with the array of applications supported. As I knew already, and confirmed, FS2004 was not one of them. Off to the options button.

The options button offers, well, options! You can copy settings from another configuration. Settings can be established as a "clean start" i.e., empty and you provide everything, or you can save part of something else and create your own. For our purposes, it seemed perfectly logical to start with a clean slate. Having scanned the quick start sheet and perused the user guide for a few minutes, I started from scratch and pressed a button.

As you can see in the picture above, the top left button on the display is green. Each time you press a button, the control panel highlights it and identifies the number of the button, so you can keep track of (a) where the devil you think you are at the moment and (b) what the dickens did I program that button to do? Remind me later to tell you how to remember!

On the right hand side of the screen is where the "programming" takes place - i.e, where you tell the configuration file what to do with the button push or the wheel you just turned. At the moment, Button 1 has been pressed and the "Computer response" is to "Do Nothing." Well, that's certainly not very helpful, is it? I'm not sure I understand why, but every function in this Global Settings does the same thing - nuttin! Fortunately, it won't take us long to get where we want to go.

With the Options sub-menu, I identified that FS9.exe was the application I wanted to "match" to for my configuration file. The file gets tied to an executable file for a very good, convenient reason. When you launch FS2004, the configuration file loaded into the shuttle will automatically match what you set up - automatically. No fuss, no mess, no fumbling looking for the matching file, no extra buttons to push - just results! Now let's take a look at a typical screen where I've set up a function for FS2004 - specifically for the add-on GPS.

You can see the Target Application is now fs9.exe and over on the right-hand side we can see the "Device events control." The little wheel in the center is highlighted green (the little wheel is called the Jog Wheel and the outside ring is called the Shuttle Ring) and for "User action" I've indicated I'm turning the jog wheel to the right. I want the "Computer response" to be "Type Keystroke" and the actual keystroke I selected was Shift + Control + Page Down. In the .ini file for the 530XP, I've defined keystrokes (don't panic, we're not going to actually use the keyboard!) to support a ton of functions to operate the GPS. Instead of using the keyboard, I'm going to have the shuttle "translate" my wheel turn or button push into a keystroke - and quickly. The "Smart release" checkbox is checked. That simply means it's going to make an assumption about how I would have pressed the keys, i.e., it assumes when there's a keystroke I just press and let go the key normally. Thus far, I've not entered a function where I needed to uncheck the box.

In the "Frequency" dialog box, I've selected Hold Down and Auto-Repeat. Now here's the really, really neat part. (Can you tell I'm excited?) The Shift + Control + Page Down keys are assigned in the .ini file to rotate the small knob on the GPS to the right. If I use the actual keystrokes (which will still work if you insist on using your keyboard) I never could find any way to make them repeat. Consequently, you have to keep banging away on the Page Down button to keep turning the small knob to the right. But - with the Contour Shuttle, you put your finger in that little depression and just turn the knob to the right, clickety clickety! My "Comment" down below helps me remember later on what I programmed the thing to do. Hold on, there's more.

If you move the little wheel to the left, that's a different function! The "User action" box will indicate "Jog Left" and you can set the response, keystroke, frequency, etc. to turn the small knob on the GPS to the left. It's awesome, it's simple, it works a great deal like the knobs work and it's intuitive. Here's another example.

Here, I've pressed button number 7. You can see the center button on the second row from the top is highlighted and the button number is identified over on the right hand side of the control panel. That button is tied to a keystroke (there is, unfortunately, no way to link a mouse click to the shuttle - snoop around on the web for "key2mouse") as well. In this case Shift + Control + F. Instead of repeating, like the jog and shuttle wheels, this is a single keystroke, and when I'm in FS2004, clicking this button will open the Flight Plan window in my GPS. The comment at the bottom of the dialog window echoes that so I can remember if I ever want to change it to something else.

This particular device (Contour makes at least two others) has 13 buttons and the two wheels. The next model up from this one has two more buttons. I'm not sure about the model below this one - I think there's one that sells for around $50 but I'm not sure of its capability. The next model up is programmed identically to mine because I've communicated with someone who owns one. There's one last function that shocked my socks.

In reading the user guide, there was a reference to "previous" and "next" settings. At first I got the impression that one of the keys could be utilized like an "Alt" key and you could get multiple (at least duplicate) use of the buttons. I struggled with it and contact Kathy Pilot to see if she had any ideas. Kathy was very busy at the time studying for something relating to her pilot license, so I avoided going back to her for additional advice. One day, the idea hit me partially, and when I tried the idea, I got the rest of the answer.

If I set up one of my buttons for the "alternate" functions, i.e., next or previous settings, what if I created a second configuration for FS2004, but named it something like FS9A or FS9B? Well, I opened the Target application window but it wouldn't let me create a name on my own. I had to select an application. What the heck. I selected FS9.exe for the second time and voila! Here was the result!

The control panel was aware there was already a configuration setting for fs9.exe so it created fs9.exe 1 - and I had my "next" setting at my disposal. Then I went back to the manual on the CD and what was written there made sense. The button you use to get from one "settings" to the next, should be the same button you use to get back - i.e., the "previous" setting. As near as I can tell, you can have two groups of settings for an application, because there's a "next" and a "previous" choice, but not anything like a "forward" or "back" choice. So now I've discovered how to use almost all the buttons again. For what? My ATC interface.

I didn't need nearly as many buttons for an ATC interface as I did for the GPS. On the GPS I programmed buttons and wheels to control virtually all the buttons along the bottom, the buttons along the right side (including the zoom out and zoom in functions) and the knobs on the right side (including a function to "push" the cursor on). The buttons and knobs on the left side are used for the COM/NAV radios and I've tended, thus far, to use my conventional radio stack (primarily because I have an external avionics stack to control all my avionics).

The top two rows of buttons are programmed as buttons 1 through 9 for the ATC menu. The large button in the extreme lower left is the button I use to "get back" to the "previous" setting, the button above it is my "zero" button and the button on the far, lower right is programmed to toggle the ATC menu. When I'm in the mode to control the GPS, hitting that large button at the lower left gets me to the ATC interface. When in the ATC interface mode, hitting that large lower left button gets me back to the GPS mode.

So, there's no longer any mouse or keyboard to control the GPS or the ATC interface. Operating the GPS is almost as easy as reaching forward with your hand as you do with the real Garmin GSN 530. Now, can I throw my keyboard away? Well, not really, but, ask me about my external switch panel! Obviously, I couldn't type this and, every once in a while, there is something I use on the keyboard when I'm simming - but it's getting less and less!

Almost forgot. The Contour Shuttle comes with a whole group of little labels. There's a sheet of pre-printed legends and a sheet of blanks for your own functions. The transparent, plastic caps pop off the buttons so you can change labels at your whim.

By the way, I have no affiliation with B&H Video or Flightsim.com - just a satisfied customer/participant.

Art Burke
aburkefl@comcast.net

Visit manufacturer Contour Design at: www.contourdesign.com