DC Designs F-14 Tomcat Wing Sweep

[Andy Waghorn]

Hi,

Just a quick question.  Has anyone found a mapping for manual control of wing sweep on the new DC Designs F-14? 

Thanks...

[John Dowson]

 

18 minutes ago, Andy Waghorn said:

Has anyone found a mapping for manual control of wing sweep on the new DC Designs F-14? 

Have you tried listing the available lvars? Also check the documentation that comes with the aircraft (does it contain an SDK?), and maybe ask on DC Designs support.
Sorry, cant advise any further as this is the first I have heard of this a/c. Maybe some other users/owners can comment.

John

 

 

[Andy Waghorn]

Hi John,

I have made some progress.....

I have found an LVAR for the wing sweep cover, but not the sweep control itself ..  L:WingSweepCover = 1.000000

The wings do however respond to Engine 1 Anti Ice, both as an MSFS command and as an offset x08B2.  The thing is that this only works as a toggle.  MSFS parameter "0" fully extended and "1" fully swept, or offset parameters "x0000" fully extended and "x0001" fully swept.  I can't therefore use increments or decrements to contol anything in between.

A full range of control is available using the mouse to control the slider in the cockpit, so am I right to assume that there is another offset that I haven't found allowing this full control? 

I have attached the LVAR list in case you can spot something I haven't...

Thanks

FSUIPC7.log

[John Dowson]

1 hour ago, Andy Waghorn said:

A full range of control is available using the mouse to control the slider in the cockpit, so am I right to assume that there is another offset that I haven't found allowing this full control? 

Not necessarily - in fact I doubt very much there is an offset for this as there doesn't seem to be s standard simvar that holds the wing sweep position.
Found this on the wing sweep:

Quote

Successful tasks completed this week included finishing the coding for both the manual and auto wing-sweep modes, which are controlled by the throttle-mounted wing-sweep handle in an F-14. With the handle-cover down, the wings are in auto-mode, with sweep governed by Mach number. Raise the handle, and manual mode is activated, allowing the user to sweep the wings throughout their range and also into “over-sweep” mode for parking on cramped aircraft carrier decks. 

So it sounds like the lvar L:WingSweepCover  is the one that determines cover down (auto-mode) and cover-up (manual mode). As that says, when the cover is down, the sweep is determined by the mach number.  so you can only change the sweep position manually when the cover is up.

With the cover up, try changing the manual sweep mode and see if any of the lvars change (I can't see any suitable candidates). Also, try activating logging for both Events and Axis Controls, open the log console and see if any events are logged when you change the wing sweep in the UI. If there is something logged, you should be able to use that to control it.

Its also worth asking on the DC Designs F-14 support forum, to see if there are any custom controls for this.

[Andy Waghorn]

Ok...

Geting there now.  Logging the axis controls worked.  It is assigned to a sim axis ANTI_ICE_GRADUAL_SET_ENG1

So I have now assigned that to my controller axis easily enough, but the axis needs reversing and only the top half (0 to 16383) of the axis is effective.   

There doesn't seem to be a way to easily calibrate this axis, so I looked in the profile .ini file to see if I could set it manually and this axis is not shown in the [JoystickCalibration] section, just the [Axes] section:

10=HS,256,F,67012,0,0,0    -{ TO SIM: ANTI_ICE_GRADUAL_SET_ENG1 }-

Any suggestions?

[John Dowson]

1 hour ago, Andy Waghorn said:

10=HS,256,F,67012,0,0,0    -{ TO SIM: ANTI_ICE_GRADUAL_SET_ENG1 }-

Any suggestions?

Yes - see the section Additional parameters to scale input axis values on P39 of the Advanced user manual - you can reverse  and scale using that, and it looks like your usage is the same as the example given (i.e. add ',*0,5,+8192' to your axis assignment line), so try

    10=HS,256,F,67012,0,0,0,*0,5,+8192    -{ TO SIM: ANTI_ICE_GRADUAL_SET_ENG1 }-

John

[Andy Waghorn]

Brilliant!

Thank you for your help John.  I'm all sorted.

[John Dowson]

👍😎