Rudy_B Posted June 22, 2020 Author Share Posted June 22, 2020 Flight Sim Navigation 25 Radios and Autopilot Project: Parts Needed The second prototype of the panel has been laser cut in 3mm multiplex and the 4 panels are mounted on a wooden frame. It starts to look like something now. This post and video are about the parts needed to make this panel. Link to the blog post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted June 29, 2020 Author Share Posted June 29, 2020 26 Radios and Autopilot Project: Configure a Push Button in Mobiflight Mobiflight is the software that makes it possible to interface an Arduino Mega or Pro Micro with flight simulators like FSX, Prepar3D or X-plane. To make a start with Mobiflight we set ourselves a small challenge: we'll configure a hardware push button on our instrument panel to toggle the Autopilot Master Switch in the flight simulator. Link to the blog post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted July 6, 2020 Author Share Posted July 6, 2020 27 Radios and Autopilot Project: Configure an LED Output In video 26 we configured a push button to toggle the flight simulator autopilot. We'll now configure an indicator LED in Mobiflight that shows the autopilot on/off on our hardware instrument panel. Link to the blog post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted July 11, 2020 Author Share Posted July 11, 2020 Radios and Autopilot Project - Update on Hardware Progress This week finally the new encoders that I had to re-order came in, this time with thread. :) They are mounted on the panel and the four encoders besides the 7 segment displays are wired in the mean time. Which means the autopilot now is functional! Link to the blog post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lnuss Posted July 11, 2020 Share Posted July 11, 2020 That looks nice, Rudy. Thanks... Larry N. As Skylab would say: Remember: Aviation is NOT an exact Science! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted July 13, 2020 Author Share Posted July 13, 2020 28 Radios and Autopilot Project: Configure NAV1 MHz Encoder in Mobilflight We'll add an encoder in Mobiflight. The first step is to add it in the settings as a connected hardware element with the pin numbers it is wired to. Then in the 'Input' section we configure the encoder to control the events NAV1_FREQ_WHOLE_INC and -DEC. Link to the blog post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 The Radios & Autopilot panel is finished. More videos on Mobiflight configuration and on flying with it are in the making. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted July 22, 2020 Author Share Posted July 22, 2020 29 Radios and Autopilot Project: Toggle Radio Tuning MHz / kHz in Mobilflight We can tune a NAV or COM radio MHz or kHz part with an encoder. This video shows how we can use the encoder's built in push button to toggle between MHz or kHz. For this we'll use an FSUIPC memory location where we store the number 0 or 1. We change the number when the button is pressed. We read out the number in the Precondition tab of the encoder MHz and the kHz functions to decide which of the two will be active. Link to the blog post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted July 28, 2020 Author Share Posted July 28, 2020 Radios and Autopilot Project First Flight: ILS landing After some 260 solder joints the panel is finshed. The video shows the first flight, an ILS landing, with tuning of the ADF and NAV1 radios and using the autopilot buttons and the Heading and Course knobs. Link to the blog post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted August 5, 2020 Author Share Posted August 5, 2020 Radios and Autopilot Project 30 Tune the ADF Radio in Mobiflight The ADF radio has three digits, for the hundreds, tens and ones. We're going to use the encoder push button to toggle between the three, after which encoder rotation will change the value. What I also did is add tuning of the ADF HDG card after a third press such that we can rotate the ADF card to our current heading and can read the bearing the neadle point to. This way we have full control of the ADF, first tune the frequency in three steps then tune the HDG. Link to the blog post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted August 24, 2020 Author Share Posted August 24, 2020 31 Radios and Autopilot Project: Mobiflight Configuration of CRS/OBS With one encoder we can tune a CRS in the autopilot, or on a Garmin glass cockpit, or we can tune the OBS scale of the old fashioned CDI gauges. Pressing the encoder switch toggles between tuning OBS1 and OBS2. Link to the blog post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mallcott Posted August 24, 2020 Share Posted August 24, 2020 STILL no reference to a clock! How can one fly accurately without a clock? I make use of clock/timers all the time in real flight, gauging flight time and accuracy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted September 4, 2020 Author Share Posted September 4, 2020 32 Radios and Autopilot Project: Mobiflight Configuration of HDG, IAS, ALT and V/S. In the previous video we configured the course (CRS) setting. In this video we'll configure the other four autopilot settings: heading (HDG), Indicated Air Speed (IAS), altitude (ALT) and Vertical Speed (V/S). Link to the video. Link to the blog post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted September 7, 2020 Author Share Posted September 7, 2020 33 Radios and Autopilot Project: Mobiflight Configuration of 7 Segment Displays 7-segent displays can be connected to the Arduino via the MAX7219 controller with which Mobiflight can communicate. PCB modules with eight digits and a MAX7219 controller are available around $1,-. These modules can be chained with max eight in a row whereby the three connections Data, Load, CLK run from one module to the next. This makes it possible to control 64 digits with just three Arduino outputs. The video shows how to configure four modules to show CRS(3), HDG(3), IAS(5), ALT(5) and V/S(5). Link to the blog post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted September 22, 2020 Author Share Posted September 22, 2020 (edited) 34 Radios & Autopilot Panel Mobiflight LEDs and Buttons In the previous videos we configured the encoders and the 7 segment displays for the radios and autopilot panel. What's left are the push buttons and the LEDs for the autopilot functions like AP on/off, heading, speed, altitude, vertical speed and more, 12 buttons and LEDs in total. A list of the Event ID's and the FSUIPC offsets that are used is included in the blog post. Link to the blog post. Edited September 22, 2020 by Rudy_B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted May 6, 2021 Author Share Posted May 6, 2021 Finally as of April 2021 I have a new rig ... more info here. I plan to continue the video series on Flight Sim Navigation from here on. And because the quality of some of the old videos was in fact sub par, runniong FSX on a PC that stuttered even with that, I also plan to redo most of them. Before instrument navigation continues I like to do a couple of videos on basic operations in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This is the first of those: Cockpit Camera Control - Rotation - Translation - Quick View - Instrument Views - Custom Views (save / recall your own camera views) Link to the article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted May 8, 2021 Author Share Posted May 8, 2021 The Radios & Autopilot Panel Project I had been working on the past months performs well with FSX. I had not yet had a chance to test it with Microsoft Flight Simulator though. Until now … yesterday I was able to put it to the test and I can gladly confirm FSRadioPanel (Android app) and Mobiflight (Windows app to connect hardware) both work well with MSFS. Link to the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted May 8, 2021 Author Share Posted May 8, 2021 The external camera can be controlled via the mouse (right click hold and move) and it also has quick views (Ctrl Arrow) and Instrument Views (Ctrl 1,2,3…). What it lacks are keyboard shortcuts for moving the camera. These can be added in the Control Settings by configuring keys for move up, down, left and right. The Arrow keys seem a logical choice. Keyboard camera moves are rather fast. Much smoother control can be achieved using a second joystick and create the bindings for it in the Control Settings. Link to the article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted May 11, 2021 Author Share Posted May 11, 2021 MSFS contains a camera drone that can be controlled fully independent of the airplane. The drone can follow the airplane, but it can also move (far) away from it. This makes it possible to create cinematic shots from the flying plane or from beautiful places on earth. The drone can be controlled via keyboard commands, however, for butter smooth control that enables wonderful cinematic camera work, a joystick or an Xbox controller is highly advisable. Link to the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted May 13, 2021 Author Share Posted May 13, 2021 Besides the Cockpit-, External- and Drone cameras MSFS also contains a series of fixed camera positions whereby the camera is mounted at several spots on the exterior of the airplane. The Drone also has three fixed camera options. The video shows all this. Link to the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted May 22, 2021 Author Share Posted May 22, 2021 The S key toggles the Smart Camera on/off. The Smart Cam automatically focuses on a nearby airport or a POI. Ctrl Page Up/Down can be used to cycle through the list of available targets. A target can also be created manually using the T key and the right mouse button to move the target ring to the position we want to point the camera at. Link to the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted May 24, 2021 Author Share Posted May 24, 2021 The Y key toggles Slew Mode on/off. It allows us to quickly move the plane to a new position and attitude. This comes in handy when we like to fast forward to the next waypoint of a flight plan, or when we want to position the plane at a certain spot on the ground. The keyboard controls don’t allow for accurate positioning because of the high movement speed. To position the plane with higher precision we can create slew bindings for a joystick or yoke and rudder pedals in the control panel. Link to the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted May 29, 2021 Author Share Posted May 29, 2021 Navigation nowadays is primarily based on GPS (Global Positioning System). It can be fun to plan a GPS flight, load the waypoint data into the flight computer, take off, engage the autopilot and watch the plane follow the line. On the other hand it can be more fun to have some more interaction and fly the plane ourselves and navigate the old fashioned way, using NDB (Non Directional Beacon) and VOR (Very High Frequency Omni-directional Range) radio beacons. And to land the plane with the ILS (Instrument Landing System) is fun too. The locations and the radio frequencies of the beacons can be found on aeronautical charts. These are available on the internet and there also are some wonderful apps which also cater for the creation of flight plans. Among the best are Skyvector, Plan G, or, my personal favorite, Little Navmap. This video is an introduction to the videos that are about to follow on flight planning and instrument navigation with NDB, VOR, ILS, GPS, SID, STAR. Link to the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted May 31, 2021 Author Share Posted May 31, 2021 In this video we install Little Navmap, create a plan for a visual flight (VFR), save it, load it in MSFS and fly it. Navigation is performed via timing of the plan legs with a stopwatch, combined with the visual clues of the landmarks we picked as reference points along our route: canal, highway, city, lake, bridge, coastline. Link to the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy_B Posted June 4, 2021 Author Share Posted June 4, 2021 Non Directional Beacons (NDB) are one of the two types of radio beacons used for air navigation. In this video we’ll make a flight plan with Little Navmap that solely uses NDB’s. We’ll then fly the plan in the Cessna 152 in Microsoft Flight Simulator using the Automatic Direction Finder (ADF). When we tune the ADF radio to the NDB frequency, the ADF indicator points to the location of the NDB. Link to the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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