Integrating a flight physics model within MSFS grapics

[Ashley Bryant]

Dear Pete,

We are developing a flight physics model of a Harrier Jump Jet style vertical take-off and landing aircraft, hence the requirement to design our own flight physics. We have decided to integrate our flight physics model with the MSFS graphics environment to animate all of our flight control systems (nozzles, ailerons, elevators, flaps, etc). This is now working well using FSUIPC integration tools, but we have two challenges that we have not yet been able to overcome:

1. Using MSFS to record flights at the correct playback speed.

The problem here seems to be a time-stamp issue. We have set the MSFS minutes & seconds clock time (0239 Clock Min & 023A Clock Sec), but this is not working, not surprisingly because the display frame rate is in frations of seconds, whereas Clock Sec is an integer variable. We have also taken a look at other internal MSFS variables such as Control Timer 1 and Frame Rate, but these are read only variables. What time-stamp variable should we be using to get the correct playback time having recorded a *.fsr video file? Would the variable 062C Replay timer countdown have the effect we are seeking?

2. Taking off and landing from a dynamic scenery item.

Because our flight physics model incorporates vectored thrust, we are able to take off and land our aircraft from a moving dynamic scenery platform such as a vehicle or ship. We have been able to build our own static scenery item, but the question now is how to animate this item such that whilst our aircraft is "attached" to this platform it moves with it, and then as it disengages, it is under it's own (our flight physics model) control. Can you advise on what we need to do to control the animation of either 3rd party dynamics scenery animation (such as an aircraft carrier) or the animation of a current static scenery item such as a launch vehicle that we have created ourselves?

Yours truly,

Ashley Bryant

excitingrcm@btopenworld.com