Xpendable

Interesting... I tested again today with both the default C172 and the Carenado Skyhawk II 2.1 and it did work correctly on both this time. I do have a photo of my sim showing the needle way up with the Carenado. This is all with the 2.92 version of Panel Builder. I will keep an eye out for it when it happens again.

In X-Plane 10.30, with both the default Cessna 172 and the Carenado Skyhawk II (v2.1), the vacuum side of the vacuum/amp gauge does not appear to be working properly. The needle is showing full upwards deflection and not on the scale.

I like it! That's a good idea. Unfortunately I don't have any radio units to hack into, although I could hack the 2 GF45's I have. I could steal the encoders out of them maybe.

I'm posting this just for fun. I'm not selling or promoting anything. Just doing this for myself, time permitting. I was thinking the other day about buying the Saitek radio module (I do already own several other Saitek modules) which I think is actually a pretty good buy. It would match the other Saitek modules I already have (TPM, Cessna trim wheel, switch module). The problem is, I couldn't really justify dropping another $150 on something that I would then have to explain to my wife. I do have the original GoFlight GF45's which I don't use anymore. They are huge and take up too much space. Anyway, I was thinking about it for awhile and decided that I would use my Arduino and electronics experience to build my own radio module with an LCD. I'm using X-Plane's UDP protocol to interface to X-Plane. I wrote a small C# console program to connect to X-Plane's UDP protocol and sent the nav and com data sentences only and decoded them with the C# code. I then format them for the LCD display and transmit the text over the serial interface (via USB) on the Arduino. This is just a proof of concept right now to prove to me that it's possible. This is not the latest version, but is what I got accomplished after only a few hours last Friday. I have since tweaked the color (the LCD's backlight is RGB) to match the amber color in the Carenado 172. Anyway, here's what I have: I still need to get some rotary encoders and knobs and figure out an enclosure.

Welcome to the new Microsoft. What you are referring to was the old Microsoft.

@NismoRR : I like your video. The Skycatcher looks like a fun plane, unfortunately I think it's too small for me! I'm 6'5" 300 lbs.

What the above guys said. When you are flying straight and level, the wing is generating lift 100% upwards, or vertically. I call that the vertical component. When the wing is banked, that lift now also divided between a vertical component and a horizontal component. Maybe 90% of the lift is vertical and 10% of the lift is now horizontal. In fact, it is this horizontal component that allows your plane to turn. It is NOT the rudder that turns the plane in the air like many non-pilots believe. The rudder actually is actually used to correct for what is called "adverse yaw". It really is the the horizontal component of the lift from a banked wing that pulls the plane into a turn. I like to think of this as the wing being "sucked" into a turn, which isn't far from the truth at all. When a wing is developing lift, it is the low pressure created above the wing which actually "sucks" the wing up.When you are approaching to land with a crosswind and you are over the end of the runway, you want the upwind wing to be lowered. To keep the plane from turning, you use the rudder to keep the nose pointed straight forward. In fact, you will be using opposite rudder. When you do this, you are compensating for the wind that would blow your plane across the center line. Remember that a banked wing creates a horizontal component of lift. So if the wind is coming from my right, I want to dip the right wing. As an example, If the wind is a full 90 degree crosswing at 5 knots, I'll need to dip the right wing enough to generate a 5 knot horizontal component in the opposite direction to null out the wind drift. This will keep my plane from blowing off the centerline to the left. If I dip my wing too much, I'll have a horizontal component that is greater than the 5 knot wind and I'll start to see my plane drift to the right. That's my que that I need to lesson the dip of the right wing, which will allow me to be blown back to the left over towards the centerline. Once I get back to the centerline, I'll need to dip the right wing a tad more to again null out the drift from the wind. If I start drifting too much to the left, then the wind is greater than my horizontal component -- then that's my que that I need to dip the right wing more so that I can get back to the centerline. Keep in mind that this is all happening BEFORE the wheels touch down. Another thing that most non-pilots do not realize is that in a proper crosswind landing, you will actually touch down on the upwind main wheel FIRST, then you will touch down on the downwind wheel afterwards. You do not want to touch down on both mains at the same time.Here's a decent King Schools video to help you see what I am talking about: Also so info about forward slips and sideslips.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip_(aerodynamic)#Forward-slip_vs._SideslipIn the Cessna 172, I'll usually crab into the wind (forward slip) on approach but switch to a side slip (upwind wing down) somewhere around 15-25 feet AGL. Some pilots delay this until the last few feet, which is commonly referred to as "kicking out the crab". Usually this requires more experience.

I wonder if it will be an external-only model?

I think you need a #4. real life pilots who don't like flight. There are more than just a few.

I can't agree with you there. Some real world pilots have praise for it, and some do not. I don't know where you came up with "unanimously", but I would to know what data you have to back that up.

Oh yeah, one more thing to keep in mind also... Outside air temperature as well as how rapidly the temperature decreases with altitude (called "lapse rate")c an have a big impact. 30F degrees at 4000 feet is much denser air than 70F degrees at 4000 feet. The "standard lapse rate" is considered to be a drop of 2 degrees Celsius with each 1000' gain in altitude. If the temperature drops faster than 2 degrees per 1000 foot, then you have air that is considered denser and more stable. (We see this in the midwest with winter flying and the air is usually very smooth). On a hot, humid day, the temperature decrease with altitude might be less than 2 degrees C with each 1000' gain. This results in less stable air -- more prone to turbulence and other kinds of fun weather.

Not necessarily true... At least in the C172's that I have flown for real, if you are climbing past 4000 feet and don't start leaning out the mixture, your engine will eventually start running rough the higher you climb. Remember that the air density decreases with gain in altitude and the mixture should be adjusted to compensate. If you know you are going to be climbing for awhile, it's a good idea to periodically adjust your mixture. It's technically part of both the "climb" and "cruise" checklists. Also, if you don't lean your engine properly (and there is more than 1 accepted way of doing this, something that pilots have argued about for years), you can increase your fuel burn and decrease your range. Also, flying too rich for a long time can increase the risk of lead build up in the engine and can increase the chances of spark plug fouling. You don't want that! Of course that doesn't matter in a simulator so much -- but I like to try to keep things as real as I can. ;)

Unfortunately, these are all the things that I HATE about developing for iOS. I am a software developer and have built a corporate application for iOS, so I have some experience in this area. Fortunately my company pays the $99 a year developer's license and provided me with one of those Mac cubes to do development work on. I hated every minute of it. Their development tools suck. I'm primarily a C#/.NET developer, and doing Objective C programming for iOS was just so backward and inefficient compared to most of the other programming languages I've done coding in (and I've used a LOT of programming languages in my time, including ASM90 (mainframe Assembler), 8088 assembler, C, C++, VB, VB.NET, C#, Java, Perl, Fortran, Cobol, AMOS, javascript, pixi, and a number of others that aren't even around anymore. Apple has become very closed and authoritative in the past 5 years and Microsoft is now following suit with Windows 8 (and of course Flight). It makes me want to format my drive and go to Linux more every day.

Personally, I think Flying Magazine's review is spot on. As a fellow pilot and a very experienced flight simmer, I believe he really is spot on.

Then again, the chicken cargo challenge has you breaking FAA rules for being well over gross weight and also without having the minimum FAA required 30 minutes of extra fuel.