Alejandro, what are the final fixes that you could include in the cockpit ?
I know the version you gave me is not recent enough anymore, however it had quite a lot of problems in the gauges:
- the number of Ampere falls down to zero when you deactivate the APU, even if engines are running and engine generators are ON.
- the "runway turnoff" switch acts as cabin switch and it also activates the logo light
- the logo light switch has no effect
- the taxi lights switch has no effect
- the wing lights have no effect
- the gauge displaying the slats+flaps position doesn't work, excepted the for the "test" button.

That's all I could spot while seating at the gate.

Hi Alejandro,

I received you PM. Tomorrow I'll have time to do the tests you asked, so I'll provide you some feedback.

Concerning the lights, I understand that it's just like landing lights: they are attached to the 3D model instead of being defined in the aircraft.cfg. However, I wonder if some simple taxi lights could be added simply by editing the aircraft.cfg.

Concerning the problem with the gauges language, I know what you're talking about. I've been trying to mess into some gauges in the past, for example to fix the engine starters of some FS9 plane that do not start properly in FSX... and that was just impossible. I hate this 'post-fix' programming language 

Cheers,
Stephane.

Indeed Alejandro, the wingflex will prevent you from adding those "wing lights"... Anyways, I'm not even sure what those "wing lights" are.... I noticed that the "navigation lights" will trigger both the gree+green lights, and some white lights on the back of the wingtip... perhaps those are the wing lights, and by mistake they react to the navigation lights button ? Ah well, it's fine as it is.

I could make my tests this morning.
Here are the conclusions:
1- The slats panel
It works now, but there are still some mistakes. The test button for example, doesn't work at all anymore. Also, the central yellow lights are ON when you are on the second crank of flaps, but they switch OFF when you deploy the flaps more. This should be the contrary, they should be OFF when the flaps are only 5 to 15 degrees, and they should turn ON when the flaps are more than 20 degrees.

2- The GPSW
It works very well, but as you said the default FSX GPSW must be turned OFF first, because you can hear both of them when you are flying. The default GPWS can be turned OFF from the aircraft.cfg, there's a line for this if I remember correctly. Also, I confirm that my sim crashes as soon as I try to reload the aircraft, just like you said.

3- The electric system
In my default flight, the avionics are switched OFF. As a consequence, if I start your 737 manually, even after swithing ON everything, I still have no radios at all. I am forced to press CTRL+E to get my avionics. I believe the 737 in real life has no avionics switch, so I'll have to make a new default flight, but perhaps you'll have to write a short warning about this in your readme file that you will include in the package.
Also, what does the "panel switch" do ? The swith between the "Engine HYD" switches ? 

4- The lights
There is, on the top panel, the "runway turnoff" swithes. I am not sure about what they are supposed to do, and I wonder if they could be reduntant or in conflict with your cabin and instruments lights switches. This should be clarified if possible.


Some screenshots of the test flight around Bowerman. 30% fuel, no passenger, no lugage. 







Cheers,
Stephane.

I landed without using any brakes.
Keep in mind my 737 was almost empty. 30 to 20% fuel, no passengers, and no payload at all. Approach speed ketp around 140 knots, I had enough runway to make a soft landing and then I activated the retro thrust and the plane stopped gently before the end of the runway. I used the brakes for that last 5 seconds, something like that, I didn't really need them.

Bowerman runway is not *that* short.

The GPWS voice volume was a bit higher than the default one, but it was OK. I think...
Yes, the engine sounds are much lower than this GPWS, but the fuel pumps are also quite high volume, so... You can lower the volume of the wav files a little bit I think, it won't hurt.

I thought there was a line in the aircraft.cfg to disable the GPWS, but I was wrong.
Also, I suppose your custom GPWS gauge needs the [GPWS] section in the aircraft.cfg, right ?

For the avionic switch, the problem is that the real 737 doesn't have it.
I think a good solution could be to modify, if you are able to do it, the various generator switches, so that they do not only turn ON the generators, but also turn ON the avionics. In this way, the avionics would be OFF with only the battery, but they would get ON with the APU gen, while the engines are still OFF. Then, during the flight, when the APU GEN is OFF but the engines GENs are ON, the avionics would still be available. What do you think ?

No it would not be a good idea to use this switch. It would be confusing for the user, because of the "ground power" label.

I understand a little bit better your situation. In fact, until now I was thinking that all those switches were assigned to XML gauges that you could edit. But I just had a look into the panel.cfg and I saw that these switches ARE NOT assigned to gauges. I suppose they are assigned to some function directly into the 3D model definition, right ? That's why you cannot assign two functions to them (GEN and AVIONICS). Now I understand.

Then, there is another solution. What about an invisible gauge (only declared in the panel.cfg) that constantly checks the various GENs of the aircraft, and sets the AVIONICS to ON as soon as one of the GENs are ON ? The coding (in human language) would be like this:
Code:

if (APU = ON and APU GEN = ON) or
  (ENG1 = Running and ENG1 GEN = ON) or
  (ENG2 = Running and ENG2 GEN = ON).
  set AVIONICS = ON.
endif.
 

What do you think ?

Daube wrote on Feb 4^th, 2012 at 3:30pm:

I think its great and Ill do it ,if you translate that into the whole and single line of the gauge string

Ok, here it goes.
I used an example from a random XML gauge in FSX. It turns ON some light effect (engine flames) when the throttle is above 65%:
Code:

(A:GENERAL ENG1 THROTTLE LEVER POSITION,percent) 65 > (A:LIGHT LOGO,number) 1 < && if{ (>K:TOGGLE_LOGO_LIGHTS) }
 

Then, to make it more readable, I put it on several lines, to show the structure.

Code:

(A:GENERAL ENG1 THROTTLE LEVER POSITION,percent) 65 >
(A:LIGHT LOGO,number) 1 <
&&
if
{ (>K:TOGGLE_LOGO_LIGHTS) }
 

That showed me how to make a IF, and how to make a AND.
Since && means "AND", then I suppose the standard || means "OR".
So I wrote this:

Code:

(APU = ON)(APU GEN = ON)&&
(ENG1 = Running)(GEN1 = ON)&&
||
(ENG2 = Running)(GEN2 = ON) &&
||
if
{set AVIONICS = ON} 

Which, on a single line, gives this:

Code:

(APU = ON) (APU GEN = ON) && (ENG1 = Running) (GEN1 = ON) && || (ENG2 = Running) (GEN2 = ON) && || if{set AVIONICS = ON} 

That's as far as I can go, because I don't know how to get the status of the GEN. Surely, it's something like "(A:GENERAL GEN1.... , number)", and setting the avionics ON would be "(>K:TOGGLE_AVIONICS)"... I suppose....but I think you know much more than me about these FSX functions