How do I see a current setting without a visible control?

[Kennyfly]

Hey all,

I bought my first add-on plane for FSX the other day, a DHC-4 Caribou from Virtavia. The plane is pretty cool and the keyboard controls are exactly the same as for other multi-engine prop jobs, so it makes the transition fairly straightforward.

However, I discovered that this model doesn't have a designated window for the throttle quadrant, so you can't pull up an image of your prop, mixture, and throttle controls. You can still make adjustments to these by keyboard command (which I tend to do anyway since my controller only has a throttle control and not prop/mixture controls).

But one thing I don't seem to be able to find is a way to tell what my current mixture setting is. In some of the default planes in the sim I would pull up the throttle, point to the mixture, and it would pop up a little box to tell me what the setting was (e.g., 31%, 20%, etc.). But without a mixture lever to point to, I can't figure out how to tell what my mixture rate is in the Caribou.

Other than those tool tips, is there any log file or menu option you can check in the sim to tell you what your current mix rate is? I like being able to know what setting to use when I fly at a certain altitude in a certain plane to get the best performance, and without knowing what the mixture rate is, I find myself falling back on those little popup messages warning about the engines losing power due to improper mixture settings, and that gets annoying.

[Adam24]

Has this plane a VC? If yes, then there should be a mixture lever somewhere. If not, then maybe the mixture lever is in the panel, but you missmissed it?

[StringBean]

You could add a 2D popup window with the default Baron throttle quadrant if you wanted.

See the Baron panel.cfg for inspiration or ask back here if you need more help.

I do not believe there is any other way to have FS tell you what the mixture setting is other than to have a mixture gauge, which is what the lever is.

peace,
the Bean

[fxsttcb]

Grab the Throttle Quadrant pop-up from the Baron and put it in the Caribou.

panel.cfg:

[Window Titles]
...
WindowXX=Throttle Quadrant //Add this to the Caribou panel.cfg as the last entry, and change the number to be consecutive.

Then add this as the last entry before [VCockpit01]

[WindowXX]
size_mm=215,337
windowsize_ratio=0.73
position=0
visible=0
ident=THROTTLE_PANEL
gauge00=Beech_Baron!Engine Controls Unit,0,0

Make sure you change the description's number to match the title.

If you want an Icon for it you need to add it to the main window{ [Window00] } description, at the end and number correctly.
gaugexx=Beech_Baron!ECU Icon, X, Y, 12, 12,

Where X is the right/left pixel coordinate in the panel *.bmp, and Y is the up/down pixel coordinate, of the upper left corner of the Icon.
the 12, 12, is width and height, in pixels. You can match it's size that way, to other Icons that may exist in the Caribou.

I don't know if the Caribou's VC 3D model mapping(Different than 2D) will allow adding an Icon to the VC...Don

[Kennyfly]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll backup the .cfg file for the Caribou and then see if I can follow those instructions to add the window and link to the images and icons to put them into the plane.

Thanks again for the swift replies, and happy landings!