System Time and Time Zones

[seippg]

Hi Pete,

 

A while back you added a cool feature to "Use system time for flights".  I was wondering if it would be possible to respect the timezone where the airport is with respect to the computer.  For example, if your computer is in North Carolina and you're flying in England you would add 5 hours.  If you were flying in California, you would subtract three hours.  That way your view of the world would be the same as other online pilots.

 

Thanks,

Gregg

 

 

[Pete Dowson]

A while back you added a cool feature to "Use system time for flights".  I was wondering if it would be possible to respect the timezone where the airport is with respect to the computer.  For example, if your computer is in North Carolina and you're flying in England you would add 5 hours.  If you were flying in California, you would subtract three hours.  That way your view of the world would be the same as other online pilots.

 

It should do what you ask already.

 

FSUIPC has no idea about time zones -- it has to rely on FS to set those correctly. It sets the UTC (Zulu time) from the Windows GetSystemTime function, and writes it to the Zulu time setting in FS. That should mean you get local time in the place set for the flight. Are you saying this does not happen? FSUIPC does not set local time (i..e. local time at the PC location).

 

To quote the Windows documentation for the GetSystemTime function:

 

"Retrieves the current system date and time. The system time is expressed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

To retrieve the current system date and time in local time, use the GetLocalTime function."

 

I'll check here. Maybe FSX messes up the local time difference?

 

[LATER]

No, it works, and it works exactly as intended. the time you get is based always on setting the current UTC time, and relies on FS operating its time zone differences. I just loaded a flight based in Seattle and it correctly set the local time to 05:32 which is correct for a UTC time of 12:32.

 

Pete

 

[seippg]

Holy cow...how did I miss that?  All I needed to do was add a feature to my brain.  LOL.

 

Thanks Pete.