Control doors with tailhook or wingfold keys

Howdy, quick question for those more knowledgeable in technical stuff than myself: in the case of an addon aircraft that has multiple doors/exits, which are opened and closed using the usual SHIFT+E+2, 3, 4 etc key commands, is there any way possible to assign the operation of opening and closing the doors of that specific aircraft to the tailhook or wingfold keys?

 

To put it in other words, I've got a plane featuring certain external animations that are activated with the usual door key commands (SHIFT+E+2, SHIFT+E+3 etc.). What I'd like to do, is to activate those animations using the tailhook or the wingfold key commands, instead of using the door key commands. Is there any way to bring about such a modification to an aircraft?

 

Yes, I know the tailhook and wingfold key commands must be assigned by myself, since FS doesn't have default key commands for those functions. And yes, I have assigned them (SHIFT+T for tailhook and SHIFT+F for wingfold). And yes, I know I could simply assign the SHIFT+T command to opening doors in the FS menu, but that's not what I want. I want to modify that specific aircraft itself, so that the tailhook command (or the wingfold command, or even the concorde visor commands) activates those animations that are originally assigned to door opening/closing commands on that particular aircraft.

 

I doubt this is possible for a regular simmer with next to no dev or technical skills whatsoever, maybe I would even need the original source code to bring about such a modification, I just don't know...but I figured I should give you guys a shout, just in case it's doable (unlikely). So what doya think, doable or no?

 

Many thanks!

Hi MiB, unfortunately the key commands for the doors, lights, gear & control surfaces etc. are all programmed into the model itself and can't be re-assigned later.

I recall a switch panel gauge which allowed assignment/reassignment of all the various animations to its switches. Don't know if that would help.

Search in the library for "door conrtol". It offers three variants of a small switch panel for installation on your aircraft panel. One variant has a button for Tailhook and Wingfold... single click gives the relevant command. Has very explicit usage and installation instrunctions that even I could follow. The guy who made it is Georg Aubele !!! A priceless addon for free !! Roy.

Thanks fellas, much appreciated. I'm afraid Tim is right, those commands are programmed into the model itself, and if a specific animation was originally programmed to be toggled with the door opening commands, there's no way we can toggle that animation with any other key, such as the one for tailhook.

 

I know about Georg Aubele's gauge, as a matter of fact, I added it into the panel before I wrote this post, it really is extremely useful for my project, I wouldn't be able to toggle the animations assigned to door opening keys without this gauge. But even with this gauge, there's no way to toggle a specific animation with a different key combination that the one originally assigned to it. Why this is so important to me?

 

Well, I intend to merge the external models of the ISDT ATRs with the panels, air files and aircraft config files of the ancient Aerosoft Eurowings Pro ATRs. Those old simulations are decent for my liking, but the external models are very poor. The ISDT models are good, albeit not perfect. So I want to hook up the ISDT models with everything else from the Aerosoft ATRs.

 

Probem is - the Aerosoft panels won't allow me to open the doors (or toggle the animations assigned to door opening keys) using the keyboard commands, except for the main door. So SHIFT+E opens the main door as it should, but SHIFT+E+[digit] won't do anything. The reason for that being that the Aerosoft external models have a GPU animation built into the model as "dor number 2". So normally, when you press SHIFT+E+2, a GPU should pop up hooked to the aircraft. But it would be awkward if the user would press SHIFT+E+2 expecting to see a door opening, but a GPU materializes out of thin air instead, hooked to the aircraft. So the only way to make the GPU show up is to press the button for external power form the overhead panel, which is a much more logical and intuitive than presing SHIFT+E+2. That's why the panels ignore SHIFT+E+[digit] commands. That's fine for the Aerosoft models, but I want to use these panels with the ISDT models, which have a cargo door animation assigned to SHIFT+E+2 command, as well as several other animations for SHIFT+E+3 and SHIFT+E+4 commands, all of which are ignored by the panels. So the only way for me to toggle the animations normally triggered by SHIFT+E+[digit] commands is to use a door opening gauge. I searched for something like that, and I first came across such a gauge that only featured a button for the cargo door (SHIFT+E+2), then I found Georg Aubele's gauge, and I was thrilled, as I can now operate all animations toggled by the door commands, without the panel preventing the gauge from doing that, as it would do with the keyboard commands.

 

However, a tiny little oddity remains - like I said, the Aerosoft panels have an "external power" button on the overhead, which, if pressed, provides the aircraft with external power, AND also activates whatever animation is assigned to the command for door number 2 (normally SHIFT+E+2). This is because in the case of the original Aerosoft models, that animation was an external GPU hooked to the aircraft, but in the case of the ISDT models, that animation is the cargo door, opening and closing. So each time I press that button to get external power, the cargo door of the aircraft opens up. ;) Another possibility would be to modify the panel gauges so that the pressing of that button only connects the external power, without also triggering the animation assigned to the door number 2 command, but I reckon that's about as doable as what I was originally asking in this thread.

 

So what I do is this: When I want to give the aircraft external power, before pressing that button n the overhead, I first open door number 2 from Gorg's gauge, then I press the GPU button. That way, the door starts to open upon pressing the "door 2" button on Georg's gauge, and then it immediately closes upon pressing the GPU button. When I want to disconnect the GPU, I do the same, I first press the "door 2" button on Georg's gauge, the door starts opening, then I press the GPU button, which will close the door.