Mission Impossible??

[garry2005]

Maybe someone else here has had experience with this: I'm trying to come up with Event codes that will allow me to add weight to Payload stations via XML or some other interactive means. The goal is for the pilot to select items (say, from a warehouse inventory) and assign the item(s) to Payload Station "X". I seem to recall seeing something like this in a Payware bird, but can't remember where or which one...and maybe I'm just dreaming. The SDK Event codes allow all sorts of stuff, such as adding to the weight of gas, but I can't find a single thing related to cargo/passenger weight. There are output parameters that show you gross weight, etc., but I can't find anything that allows you to set it or change it. We're a small bush-flying outfit (LewisAire), and this would be a fantastic feature...loading up the aircraft with selected items (of a fixed weight), versus just entering a number in "Change Payload". That's if it's possible to do, of course...

Many regards, and thanks in advance if anyone has ideas for this.

Garry

[Frank.O]

Hi Garry,

well I don't know anything about event codes and such but I think it's not what you need. The weight of payload and passengers is stored in the aircraft.cfg file of the respective aircraft and read every time the aircraft is loaded via aircraft menu or a saved flight. Have a look at the [weight&balance] section. To change passengers and payload you need a program that edits this file properly and you have to either do this before actually loading the aircraft/launching the sim or reload the aircraft via aircraft menu. At least that's what I know about it :)

Regards,

Frank

[Pete Dowson]

To change passengers and payload you need a program that edits this file properly and you have to either do this before actually loading the aircraft/launching the sim or reload the aircraft via aircraft menu.

FS does allow payloads to be changed via the same Aircraft menu entry as the one which sets the Fuel levels. You don't need to reload the aircraft.

FSUIPC does allow you to change individual payload weights dynamically, but I think in FS2004 this didn't actually affect anything unless you then went into and out of that payload menu. I never found out how to "broadcast" the change to the aircraft dynamics sections.

FSX now officially supports payload changes via SimConnect, so FSUIPC4 uses that method. It should deal with the changes properly, but I haven't tested that. I'm not really the best person to test it, not really knowing that much about aircraft dynamics. I suppose I could fly the Cessna with just a pilot payload, then use FSInterrogate to put a huge weight in the other seat and see if that causes lateral balance to go awry. I might do that when I get time.

I didn't answer the original question because I don't know much about programming aircraft panels, and zero about XML.

Regards

Pete

[garry2005]

Thanks to both of you:

Hi Frank...good to hear from you again; it has been a while since I've posted here. Your idea is a good one, and it's one that I never gave a thought to. But you're right; payload can be set in Aircraft.cfg, then it's a matter of cobbling some means of recalling that aircraft.

Pete: You're right, of course; we can always go into Aircraft/Change Payload and plug a number into any payload station...but I'm trying to engineer something with a little more fun & realism than that. As I said, we're a small, regional bush outfit, and much of what we do is ferry goods to the little settlements in our region (fuel, dry-goods, canned goods, produce, meats, clothing, tools, building materials, and so on). I'm thinking it would be more entertaining to have a "warehouse listing" of all this stuff...the pilot has a manifest in the Flight Briefing (on the Kneeboard), then he "goes into the warehouse" and selects the the items for his load, and the item-weight is added to his aircraft payload stations. We already do TONS of unique stuff with the Kneeboard now (with HTML and Javascript), so maybe it wouldn't be such a far reach to add this level. I dunno, though; I've built a zillion new gauges in XML and I'm fairly okay with it, but I'm certainly not a brainy expert with it. Frank's idea might actually work okay, if I can figure a way to re-fire the bird when the pilot is done loading up. Should prove to be an interesting project, eh?

Thanks for your help, gents, and I'll make an offer in return: If either of you might have a need for some new gauges, feel free to go have a look at our panels (http://www.lewisaire.com/fleet.html)...let me know if something tickles your fancy, and it's yours. Almost everything you'll see there is my own design, in XML (not everything, of course, but most of it)...very easy to modify or fix XML stuff, as opposed to .GAU files.

Regards,

Garry