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Stuck at home thanks to the Corona virus I started a series of blog posts and videos about flightsim navigation with NDB, VOR, DME, GPS, which might be of interested to those who like to start flying IFR. The first posts are online, more to follow. / Link to the blog
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Why are there so many airports that can't be entered into the Garmin to fly direct to?
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Guys have anyone here ever used S/B flightplan software to plan a flight? How did you get it to follow the plan? The 727 has no GPS and, you cant get it to follow an FMC neither. I love the plane but I'm tried of flying vor or heading, sometimes i get lazy and just want to press that GPS button and go. Any ideas on how to get this done?:D
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RNAV GPS Approach Tutorial - Microsoft Flight SimulatorBy thecorporatepilotdadA professional pilot guided tutorial on how to do an RNAV GPSapproach to LPV minimums. This approach is conducted in theBeechcraft (now Textron) Bonanza in Microsoft Flight Simulator. Theapproach used is the RNAV (GPS) Y RWY 6. The RNAV approach can be done in MSFS 2020. I show how to do itcorrectly and how to make the RNAV GPS approach have a successfuloutcome. This, and other videos on my channel show how to doinstrument approaches with ease. RNAV Approach Tutorial to runway 06 in Teterboro, New Jersey(TEB). thecorporatepilotdad Youtube channel About The AuthorThis video is produced by thecorporatepilotdad. He has been aFlightSim.Com member for close to twenty years and using FlightSimulator since back in the day of FS98 and FS2000. He is also aprofessional pilot with over 7000 hours of real world flightexperience ranging from Cessna 152s to super-mid size businessjets. About KTEBTeterboro Airport is a busy general aviation reliever airport locatedin Bergen County, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City.It is owned and managed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
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In my favorite plane (Daher TBM 930) is there anyone out there who knows how to change the size (zoom in and out) on the map to the right (Big yellow rectangle) If i click where the yellow arrows are it only zooms in and out on the map in the (small yellow rectangle)?? Best regards Lars. :cool:
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I can't get the nav mode to switch to nav on the cj4. When I try to switch it, it temporarily goes to vor, but then goes back to FMS ENR. -
/images/notams/notams20/tops1109.jpgPilots flying IFR use instrument approaches to arrive at theirdestination airports accurately and safely, and pilots flying VFR canuse them as well. The GPS devices in MSFS 2020 make followinginstrument approach procedures easy because routes, fixes, anddistances are plainly displayed on the GPS moving map. Use GPS to Follow Published Instrument Approaches!Select, load, and activate published instrument approaches Choose transition points See your approaches in the GPS screen Follow your approaches by GPS Use autopilot to guide through the approaches Recognize transition points, initial fixes, and intermediate fixes. And much moreEnjoy the Advantages of GPS NavigationYour GPS shows the selected approach path and data. You can access detailed information about your approach. You can allow GPS and autopilot to follow approaches accurately. Or you can maneuver through the approaches yourself. You can change approaches if necessary. And many more skills.Learn From an Instructional VideoScripted and edited narration Separate screens for each step Animated highlights for key concepts Succinct explanations for everything Crystal clear audio qualityFocus and LimitsFocuses on published instrument approaches. Explains Garmin 530 in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 For home flight simulation Does not cover basic GPS navigation. Does not explain everything about IFR. Not for real-world aviation.Purchase TopSkills - GPS for Instrument Approaches in MSFS See other TopSkills books and videos
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/images/notams/notams20/tops1020.jpgNavigate Precisely Anywhere in Your Simulator The Global Positioning System is used by military, commercial, andcivilian pilots worldwide. Make your simulations as realistic aspossible by using GPS navigation for your cross-country flights. Navigate With the Garmin GPS DevicesLearn to use the Garmin GNS 530 and GNS 430 to navigate easily andprecisely anywhere in the world like a real pilot. Read and decipher data on map screens Learn functions of buttons and knobs Change map and data screens Access detailed data about airports and waypoints Add waypoints en route Change destination en route Enable GPS in your OBI and autopilot Use en route, terminal, and approach phases And much moreEnjoy the Advantages of GPS NavigationMakes navigating easier and precise Enables direct routing Shows position, distances, speeds, and estimated times Removes guesswork Minimizes navigation errors Saves time Improves fuel efficiencyLearn From an Instructional VideoDeliberately designed and constructed Well organized Scripted and edited narration Separate screens for each step Animated highlights for key concepts Clear explanations for everythingCompatible With Popular Software and Operating SystemsUses common video players such as Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, and WinAmp Instructions for use are included. For home flight simulation onlyLimitationsThis video focuses on using the GPS 530 and 430 devices for basiccross-country navigation in Microsoft Flight Simulator® 2020. It doesnot explain instrument approach procedures. Basic principles andmethods can be applied to other GPS devices in other simulators. Includes TranscriptText of the entire video is included in PDF format for convenientreferencing. Includes Free V-Speed CardMost common general aviation V-Speeds Minimums, maximum, and optimums Listed by abbreviation alphabetically on one side Listed by abbreviation by relative speed on other side Clearly described Applies universally, not to any particular aircraft Free with purchase of this flight-sim videoPurchase TopSkills - Navigating With GPS for MSFS Also available: Flight Planning In MSFS 2020
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The cub x has a nice gps nearest airport feature, where you can goto many local airports, with only the mouse. You don't have to turn any little knobs at all.
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Hi all, How hard would it be to make a GPS (for FSX) out of a Raspberry Pi? Maybe even some buttons via a Leo Bodnar board? There are small touchscreens made for attaching directly to the various Pi models (I think it uses GPIO), possibly eliminating the need for physical buttons? My main worry would probably be software - I have very little knowledge in terms of how to interface with FSX. I could probably 3d print the case/frame. any ideas are appreciated! p.s. this page of a thread lightly touches on my idea, but like I said earlier, I'm barely understanding the talk about the coding/interfacing part: https://forums.simviation.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=27826&p=1293170
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A few mistakes contained in the original Guidebook have been corrected and a few graphics updated in version 1.1 (June, 2011). The v 1.1 changes (491 KB) or the entire v 1.1 document (7,645 KB) can be downloaded from the Blackbox website: http://www.robbiemcelrath.com/blackbox/?guide Cheers, Bob
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How To...Enlarge The On-Screen GPS By Robert Heffner (29 December 2004) If you have trouble reading the GPS, you can enlarge it by opening the aircraft's panel.cfg file and edit the text in Notepad. Make the following changes and save. (Note: the red letters indicate the changes.) ////////////////////////////////////////////////// [Window Titles] Window00=Main Panel Window01=Switch Box Window02=GPS Window03=Radio Stack Window04=Fuel Panel Window05=Elev Trim Window06=Mini Panel Window07=RealView Control Panel // change size from 150mm x 250mm: [Window02] size_mm=150,250 position=6 BACKGROUND_COLOR=16,16,16 VISIBLE=0 ident=GPS_PANEL gauge00=gps!gps,0,0,150,250 // to 350mm x 450mm: [Window02] size_mm=350,450 position=6 BACKGROUND_COLOR=16,16,16 VISIBLE=0 ident=GPS_PANEL gauge00=gps!gps,0,0,350,450 ///////////////////////////////////////////// You can enlarge any panel to whatever size you wish, however it's a good idea to add equal amounts to each side so as not to distort the window. Always make a back-up of the original panel.cfg file to be safe. Bob Heffner xam@ma.rr.com -
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How To...Fix The GPS Display Bug In FS2002 By Ulrich Klein One of the things that irritated me most in the latest version of FS2002 is a minor glitch, I must admit, although it is an issue many flightsimmers had and perhaps still have when using the default GPS in FS2002. The quirk I mean is that the default GPS frame (gps.gau) does not adapt to the night coloring of the cockpit panel window. This is obviously an old FS2000 carryover flaw as we had exactly the same trouble there in that previous version of MSFS, as stated in an earlier review. I guess even a year after the release of FS2002 not all flightsimmers know that there is a solution to this problem, probably because most of us can hardly deal with flightsimming all day and all of the night. And, what is more, I was told lately that there are newcomers from time to time, too, right? Until a few weeks ago I myself haven't had the slightest idea that there is an easy trick or work-around to this display bug. And that's what the default GPS looks like without bugfix, both at day and at night: However, having been bothered by this nagging visual bug for almost one year, I decided to do something about it to stop this annoying aspect of the GPS. Heck, it's not a thing I myself found out. All the credit goes to someone else, a guy that most of us know from the Internet, and who has given us lots of pleasure in the past. You'll see. Wandering through the Search File List of FlightSim.Com, I came across an old file by which we could add a pink color to FS98 gauges that did not adapt to the night coloring of the main panel in FS2000 at all. Needless to say that it would no longer be possible to modify FS2002 gauges by this wonderful but outdated tool (to be honest I tried to use it anyway, you never know). So I wrote a first email to, guess who, Chuck Dome of course, and he was so kind to answer it in next to no time. And here is his solution. Nice one, Chuck. So, follow him and all you have to do is: The default GPS gauge can be modified for night lighting if you are familiar with hex editing. In the original GPS.GAU file, the byte at address 76F0 is 04. Changing it to 00 will prevent the background BMP from lighting at night. Note: It shouldn't hurt your computer but, if you imagine it has, we accept no liability. This goes for all modifications of the hex code that have been made with the default gps.gau file. And here's a screen shot of the hex editor at the address that must be changed: If this works fine, more modifications should be possible. So if you also want to add night coloring to the buttons, you will have to change the byte 04 to 00 at the following addresses too: 07430 (for the MODE button); 07490 (for the -D- button), 074F0 (for the MENU button), 075B0 (for the ENTER button), and 07610 (for the CANCEL button). I did not make any changes for the ARROW buttons as I found they should be somehow highlighted at night time. But this is my personal opinion only, and whether you agree to this or not largely depends on your mind-set. For those of you who even want to night light the ARROW buttons, this is where to make the change: the byte at address 07550 is 05. Changing it to 01 will yield the desired result: That's all there is to it! If I can do it, so can you. But if for any bizarre reason you might choose to "go back", you should back up the original gps.gau file safely first. Then I started FS and toggled on the default GPS. Wow, wow, and triple wow! It really cut the mustard and I was gob-smacked by the instant effect of the above change. With lots of things which can be downloaded in the internet but don't always work in the end, there is someone who really knows how to kick the odd one out and solve the problem. It was one of the shortest emails I ever got, but with the best possible result you could expect (no wonder though if you know Chuck). Admittedly there is still one thing that does not fully please me. For example, clicking on the MODE button opens other information displays: the waypoint info display or the route info display. The bright, white background for the font should adapt to night time in some way or other. I don't see that this should be so difficult to do for insiders, right? Now look, this is what the default GPS looks like at dusk or at night now, with its daylight color no longer standing out like a sore thumb within a night-colored cockpit: It wouldn't do justice to the whole thing if I did not mention another friendly guy who, a little bit later though, gave me the same advice to fix the bug but also gave Chuck all the credit for it: Ike H. Slack whose wonderful Honeywell GPS gauge (downloadable here) I strongly recommend for use in the Learjet first of all, but it also fits perfectly in the B737-400 main cockpit panel as revealed in the following screen shots of the Learjet and B737 main cockpit panel windows. Thanks to the enhanced possibilities of adjusting FS2002 panels and their cfg files it was relatively easy to place the GPS windows at exactly the desired positions: There! I feel a bit better now using the default GPS at dusk or at night, or in the early morning. But my gosh, morning has broken, really and outside, not virtually in FS. I guess nights are an excellent time for writing. At least that doesn't make any beeps or sounds of engines spooling up because there's nothing worse than waking up my wife with a booming outer marker on an early morning approach at a time when she no longer sleeps like the dead! Work-arounds for several bugs or problems can be found in the FS2002 Forum FAQ kindly compiled by Andrew Herd. Perhaps I may suggest, Andrew, you take this one up in your list, too, will you? I really wonder whether we will have this bug in FS2004 again. In that case it would have survived three versions of FS, a record in itself I should say. Well, we'll see. It's but a year to go, but the wait will be painful. Happy Flying Ulrich Klein huki.klein@t-online.de -
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How To Understand The Inner Workings Of The GPS By Stephen R. Goldsmith So, how does one go about using the GPS to navigate in FS2002? Microsoft's documentation on the subject is ridiculously incomplete, and I've noticed the occasional question in the forum, so I thought I'd submit a little GPS primer. This is my first submission to FlightSim.Com, and I'd prefer it not be the last. As such, you all may feel free to contact me with feedback, good or bad, as long as it's constructive. Before I start in earnest, I need to state a disclaimer. Flightsim purists might not like what I have to say. Some like to navigate using VORs, NDBs, Intersections, and the like. Some like to navigate via the GPS. This tutorial deals with GPS-based navigation, and if you don't like using the GPS, there's nothing here for you. For those of you that enjoy flying with the GPS but want to learn more about how to operate it, this is for you. Part 1: The Buttons Mode: The Mode button allows you to change the way the that GPS presents its information. There are 3 modes available; the moving map display, the waypoint information display, and the route information display. Direct To: The Direct To button (the little D with the arrow through it), brings up a display that allows you to select pretty much any airport or navigational aid (VOR, NDB or Intersection) and calculates a direct route to it. It also gives you access to the Emergency display, which lists the 20 closest airports and will calculate a direct route to the one you select. Menu: This brings up a menu the allows you to change the look of the moving map display. Arrows: The arrow buttons allow you to navigate the different menus and displays of the GPS as well as make selections in the different menus. Enter: The Enter button confirms a selection. It is used with the Direct To displays and the Menu display. Cancel: The opposite of the Enter button, the Cancel button cancels a selection or change. Part 2: The Three Main Displays The three main displays can be accessed by clicking the Mode button. You click the button to cycle through the displays. Moving Map Display Waypoint Info Display Route Info Display The Moving Map display is a graphical representation of where you are in relation to different airports, your intended course, different VORs, NDBs, Intersections, Jet and Victor Airways. It also gives you six basic points of information: 1. Your next waypoint; 2. Your groundspeed (in knots); 3. The distance to your next; Waypoint 4. Your current heading; 5. The bearing to your next waypoint; 6. The distance from your intended course (along with a left or right arrow to tell you which side of the course you're on). One of your best friends will be the range rings displayed on the map display. There are three rings shown, the innermost being 5 miles, the middle being 10, and the outer being 20. You can use this to estimate your range to an airport or navigational aid with just a glance. The Waypoint Information Display gives details concerning your next waypoint. I'm not going to repeat what was already said concerning the information at the top, as it is the same information as what was on the moving map display. There are four new pieces of information given in this display, though. You are given the ETE, or Estimated Time Enroute to your next waypoint, the ETA or Estimated Time of Arrival at your next waypoint, and your current Latitude and Longitude. The Route Information Display gives details concerning your entire route. You can use the up and down arrows to scroll through your different waypoints. It displays the name of the waypoint, the course from the previous waypoint and the distance from the previous waypoint. You are also given four new pieces of information, the Route ETE or the ETE for the entire route, and the Route ETA and the Latitude and Longitude of your destination. This display is great for getting an overall sense of how your journey is progressing. Part 3: The Direct To Displays The two Direct To displays can be accessed by clicking the Direct To button, and it works exactly the same way as the Mode button. The Direct To display allows you to select an airport or navaid and calculate a direct route to it. The top line of the display is your destination type. You can use the left and right arrows to cycle through the different types (Airport, VOR, NDB, and Intersection). Once you've selected a type, you can hit the down arrow to move on to the ID line. Hitting the down arrow once highlights the entire ID line. You'll want to hit the down arrow again, because by doing so you can highlight individual letters of the ID, making it much easier to select your destination. Once you have a single letter highlighted, you use the arrow buttons differently. Now the left and right arrows control which letter is highlighted and the up and down arrows allow you to cycle through different letters and numbers. Once you've got the ID in there, you should be able to confirm the name on the next line. You can also see your distance from, bearing to, and the latitude and longitude of your selected airport or navaid. Hit the Enter button and your GPS will now be set to guide you to where you want to go. The Emergency display allows you to select an airport to divert to. It gives you the 20 nearest airfields (it's not an intelligent GPS, as it will show a 400 foot airfield even if you're in a 747, so be conscious of where you're diverting). As the name suggests, it's generally only used in emergencies, but it's a fun feature to experiment with. You're on a VFR flight and you want to stop and stretch your legs, highlight an airfield using the arrow buttons in this screen, hit enter, and you've got immediate directions to the airport you selected. Part 4: The Menu Display Most of this is pretty self explanatory but I'll go over a few of the options. You select an option using the up and down arrows, you change an option using the left and right arrows, and you confirm your selection by pressing the Enter button. All of these are ease of use issues. Whatever works best for you is how you should set it. The first option is the orientation of the map. You've got three choices for it. You can orient the map so north is up, you can orient it so your heading is up, and you can orient it so your planned route is up. I tend to keep it at north up because it's easier for me to keep my bearings straight. The next six options are the self explanatory ones. It's exactly the same as if you're looking at the Map View. Airports are displayed pink, VORs displayed blue, NDBs displayed as pink circles, Intersections displayed as bluish-green points, Jet Airways as bluish-green lines, and Victor Airways as deep blue lines. The Display Text On Map option concerns the heading, course, speed, and waypoint information displayed on the Map display. It toggles whether or not that is shown. The Flight Plan and Track options are pretty self explanatory as well. The Flight Plan option displays your intended course in green, and the Track option displays the course you've actually taken in yellow. The Display Range Rings option toggles, you guessed it, whether or not the Range Rings are displayed on the Map Display. Final Notes A couple of final notes. As far as I can tell you cannot use the GPS to program different waypoints into a flight plan, you can only use the Direct To display to get direct routes. If you specify a flight plan when creating your flight, it will be loaded into the GPS. If you select a different route or airport, your flight plan is lost as far as the GPS is concerned. So be careful about changing your route if you're flying an IFR flight plan. Knowledge of how the GPS works can be a great help in your simulated travels, and I sincerely hope I've helped make it clearer for some of you. Stephen Goldsmith khirsah13@mail.com -
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How To...Add FS2000 GPS to FS98 Panels By Art Burke With the advent of faster, more powerful computers in the last few months, more and more flightsim enthusiasts are discovering FS2000. Many, if not most of these new users, bring lots of their FS98 aircraft with them. In the midst of failing attitude indicators and dying batteries lurks the dilemma of adding the default FS2000 GPS to older-style panels. A dedicated, persistent simmer can often accomplish this task with the bare essential - Windows Notepad. However, most users will find the addition of one more tool quite beneficial - CfgEdit. CfgEdit is a WYSIWYG panel editor by Ed Struzyinski. It is freeware, easy to use and has become invaluable among my personal list of tools. This panel is from an A-4F Skyhawk. There is a gauge missing next to the turn coordinator, but we'll ignore that for the moment. Everything else is what one would typically find (and need) on a panel for use in FS98. FS2000, however, has a GPS gauge and, as yet, there's no way to access it with this panel. So let's add the GPS and a "switch" to turn it on and off. There's not much extra room on the panel at the moment to add much, so we'll have to make just a little bit of room. (We can't use that space at the lower left. That's where the fuel gauge is supposed to be.) However, at the upper right of the panel is a device used to identify the Outer, Middle and Inner Marker. We can alter its position just enough to give us a little breathing space. Before you begin, make a backup copy of the panel.cfg of the plane you intend to alter! Microsoft Panel SDK (Software Development Kit). Fortunately, to utilize CfgEdit, only the basics are really necessary. Here is a piece of the panel.cfg file for the A-4F Skyhawk. You can see gauge16 has the same information we see highlighted above in CfgEdit. What we're essentially going to do now is move the cessna_182.omi down a little. If you understand the numbers, it's relatively trivial to change the "Y" coordinate to something slightly smaller than 59. Since we have our WYSIWYG editor, however, it's very trivial to simply move the gauge to a convenient spot. We need to take care, however, not to cover up parts of any other gauges. Here, you can see I've moved the gauge down just a little, staying clear of the gauges below. It's also been shifted just a hair to the left, but not enough to make any difference. We'll leave it here and take a peek at what's happened to our panel as a result. We can see our OMI gauge has been moved down exactly where we want it! Now we're ready to place our GPS toggle. You can see above I've executed the "add gauge" menu and chosen the KINGAIR.GAU. This particular gauge (like all the default FS2000 gauges) has the characteristic of having all the gauges for this plane consolidated in one large file. We'll see shortly how identifying the specific gauges is accomplished. On the right side of our dialog box we can see there are 59 separate gauges in this one folder. We need only one specific gauge at the moment. Here is the selection: The bitmap in the lower left is a real jumble, but that's only because it's been magnified. Once it's on the panel it will look just fine. By clicking OK to verify the selection, the gauge will be placed temporarily in the middle of the panel. Then you can move it wherever you want it on the panel. Obviously, we're going to put this one just above the OMI gauge. Particularly since we went to the trouble to move it in the first place! Here I've placed the GPS toggle just above the OMI gauge and selected it so we can see the gauge properties. Here's what our panel.cfg file looks like: You can see we now have a new, 20th gauge. It's our new GPS Display Toggle! The hard part's over. Now we have the toggle. Next (and our last step) we'll add the actual GPS itself. We won't need CfgEdit for that. Notepad is all we'll need. Let's start by looking (and copying) what was done in one of the default FS2000 aircraft. Since it has the GPS gauge already, we'll just "borrow" a little from it! This is a part of the panel.cfg file from the King Air 350. I've clipped the first couple of windows (the main panel and the radio stack) just so our excerpt doesn't take up too much room. Window02 is for the GPS. When we click on the toggle on the panel, the contents of this window (i.e., the GPS instrument/gauge) will be displayed. If you already have a Window02 in your panel, you will need to renumber the window in both the [Window Titles] section and the window itself. Now, when you click on your new panel toggle, here's what you'll see: Oops! There's gonna be a problem! When I started building this example, I put the toggle just where we have it now. When I realized there was a problem I left it there, on purpose. I'll show you how easy this problem is to rectify. Our problem is we've displayed the GPS, but, in the process, we've accidentally hidden our "switch!" It's currently hiding behind the GPS data. We could close the GPS window by pressing SHIFT+3 (on the main keyboard NOT the numpad), but that tends to defeat our purpose. The solution - start CfgEdit again, highlight the GPS toggle and just move it somewhere where it will be convenient to use AND won't get covered up in the process! In the example below, I've moved the GPS toggle to the opposite side. After a few minutes practice on your own, you will be able to do the same thing! Once you're convinced the panel is okay, and you have the gauge (the GPS toggle is technically a gauge) where you want it, you can safely remove the backup copy you made before you started. Here's our final result: You can see the GPS toggle at the upper left side of the panel. The GPS display is showing on the far right. Clicking on the GPS toggle will close the display. Presto! Now you have the GPS on your old-style panel. Only one potential problem remains. You should be able to fix that on your own, now that you've had some experience. If you look at the default FS2000 panels, there's a small toggle switch on the panel, typically labeled as "NAV/GPS" or something similar. When the switch points towards the NAV side, the autopilot functions are in a mode with which you should already be familiar. You can view the GPS display, but the GPS will not currently "control" your flight. To have the GPS control (i.e., link to the autopilot) your flight you need to do the following: Establish a flight plan using the default FS2000 Flight Planner Initiate the flight plan and Flip the toggle switch from NAV to GPS The details of how to use the flight planner and GPS are available in the on-screen help of FS2000. Following the above examples you should be able to add the necessary switch to your panel using Notepad and/or CfgEdit. Enjoy your own labor and don't forget to make that backup before your start! Art Burke Aburkenc@aol.com Download CfgEdit -
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How To...Add GPS To FS2000 Planes By Art Burke In my previous article we learned how to add the default FS2000 GPS window to our older-style panels (i.e., non-default FS2000 aircraft). In my example the GPS window accidentally covered up the toggle we used for opening and closing the GPS window. My quick fix in that article was to move the toggle from one side of the panel to the other. That's not the only way to accomplish our task. Here is an excerpt from the panel.cfg file for the Beech King Air 350. By default, this "window" will not be visible (you have to open and close it - with the toggle). This is accomplished by the statement: visible=0. If the window is to be visible by default, it would read: visible=1. [Window02] Background_color=16,16,16 size_mm=150,250 position=8 visible=0 ident=GPS_PANEL gauge00=gps!gps, 0,0,150,250 The GPS window for the King Air will appear in the lower right-hand corner. That's because of the statement: position=8. There are actually nine (9) total positions available, as follows: 0 = upper-left corner 1 = upper-middle side 2 = upper-right corner 3 = middle-left side 4 = middle 5 = middle-right side 6 = lower-left corner 7 = lower-middle side 8 = lower-right corner These positions are in reference to the panel only, not the windscreen. Therefore, if you wanted the GPS window to appear in the lower-left corner instead of the lower-right corner, you could open the panel.cfg file (Notepad or Wordpad work fine - if you use a word processor make certain you know how to save the result as a simple ASCII text file!) and modify the position statement to: position=6. When you left-click on the toggle for the GPS, it will then open on the lower-left hand side. Note: any gauge or window can be altered simply by editing the panel.cfg file. The numbers look daunting at first, but once you understand what those numbers mean, your ability to manipulate and modify (even create) your own panels will be enhanced significantly. For those willing to "take the plunge" download the Microsoft SDK for panels (Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 Software Development Kit - Building Panels and Gauges). Even if you don't plan to build/design panels and/or gauges, there's a lot of very worthwhile information available in this document. Following my previous GPS article, I received e-mail from many, including some designers/creators. Here are two excellent suggestions I received: You may also add (easily) older (FS98 style) GPS instruments/gauges to your FS2000 aircraft. Some examples are Navstar99, GPS98, ACS-GPS and Proflight<. Here's an example for including GPS98 in a plane you're using in FS2000. Windowxx=GPS98...where xx will be the next available number for a window The window itself will look like this: [Window07] file=...\GPSDATA\GPS.BMP size_mm=150 window_size_ratio=1.0 position=8 ...remember, you can change this position, if necessary visible=1 ...this window will automatically be visible ident=125 gauge00=GPS98, 0 0 , 150 ...or use another GPS in place of GPS98 Or to be more tricky - say for the Proflight FMS or Navstar FMS you can use positioning in two ways. Notice there's no BMP file for FS2000 parameters. [Windowxx] size_mm=370,500 position=8 visible=0 ident=GPS_PANEL gauge00=FMS, 0, 0, 370, 500 And last, for placing with an FMS or with the FS2000 GPS for the exact position and size. [Windowxx] size_mm=290, 500 window_pos=0.402, 0.460 pixel_size=0,0 visible=0 ident=45 gauge00=gps!gps, 0, 0, 290, 500 ,gauge00=FMS, 0, 0, 290, 500 The comma before the gauge statement will cause the gauge to not load. This is a good method for toggling back and forth without going back and forth editing everything. These examples above are courtesy of John Schumacher. You may have already seen some of John's work. He's quite thorough in his documentation. If you download any of his planes/panels, he's good at providing what you need to know for proper installation/usage. Last, but certainly not least, came an excellent tip from Lou Betti. Lou has "graduated" from the gauge tweaking days and currently uses custom bitmapping for the heralded DreamFleet work. For those of us still editing and tweaking, Lou offers the following advice. Run FS2000 in Windows mode, with the panel you want to adjust loaded. Open up the panel.cfg file for the panel you have loaded (you should now have the panel.cfg file and FS2000 open simultaneously) Make your adjustment to the gauge's parameters (x, y, size - even add another gauge!) Save the panel.cfg and just resize the panel slightly, by dragging it in left or right, or up or down from one edge and voila! Your change takes effect! As always, prior to making ANY changes to a panel.cfg file, make a backup copy! You can trash the resultant copy to hell and back. When you have it so fouled up you can't even begin to figure out what to do next, trash it, restore your original copy and have at it again! And again! Happy simming and happy panel tweaking! Art Burke Aburkenc@aol.com Download CfgEdit -
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