FSX F/A18 custom sound pack

[Paddles]

SpazSinbad, thanks for useful NATOPS info. Your hook bypass idea is feasible, provided we do want to use flashing/steady behaviour of approach lights. I'd also think about a visual gauge like the HUD control window (or maybe embedding into?..). This one would be convinient to control both approach and landing lights. But if we don't care and happy with steady lights, it's ok.  

Sludge, what lights do you want to shut off at touchdown? Approach lights already don't work when on ground.

I think there will be a single .cab file containing both my .xml lights gauges (and perhaps a control gauge).

PS. Almost forgot - there's another ready to use gauge - the Betty. She starts annoying Power, power if gears retracted, speed less than 210kts and altitude less than 150 ft. She also warns Altitude, altitude when descending below 300ft. [GPWS] section in my aircraft.cfg doesn't work anymore. This gauge could be easily managed via above mentioned visual gauge. I mean activating/deactivating and setting speed/altitude that trigger voice announces w/out leaving your cockpit and messing with any .cfg files. Something like that...  

[SpazSinbad]

fsxnavypilot, good idea if possible to have the 'hook bypass' without having any 'flashing lights' function. For example no one is likely to see flashing approach lights except in special view via LSO but my FCLP (ashore) looks very odd with the hook down during approaches.     I got used to it but non-pilots look at these 'hook down FCLP ashore videos' and always query 'WHY?'. So that would be nice to be able to do 'steady AoA approaches ashore with hook up'. Nice one. Whatever is easier to do would be OK with me regarding gauges, many thanks again.

People modding the default Hornet from / via this forum ROCK! 

[Paddles]

Spaz, you just saved me a lot of working time. I've been thinking about that blinking...   But if there are no flashing approach lights then what's use of the 'hook bypass'?
Anyways, a visual gauge to control landing lights, to set altitude warning, and perhaps to do some more useful things is welcome, IMHO.
Besides, do my Power warning figures match NATOPS? And why not to put these in that gauge, so the pilot will be able to set them in his favor?

[SpazSinbad]

fsxnavypilot, I'm not sure we are saying the same thing here about the 'flashing approach lights'.

Best I should use the term 'flashing AoA indexer' because I had assumed that the 'AoA Indexer' was directly connected to the 'flashing approach lights' in FSX. If not then I'm not concerned about the 'flashing approach lights' but would rather have the 'flashing AoA indexer' (next to the HUD) NOT flash when the hook is up - thus using the 'hook bypass switch' to enable this function. In the real aircraft both the 'flashing' aspect of the 'AoA Indexer' (to warn pilot) and the 'Approach Lights' flashing (to warn the LSO externally) work together to indicate that the hook is not down.

My preference would be to able to do FCLP - hook up - without having the AoA Indexer flashing. I realise a lot of people do not use the AoA Indexer (a mistake in my book - but whatever) and use the HUD AoA indexer (please never use KIAS) instead - fair enough; but does not the 'flashing AoA Indexer' distract?

Anyway I do a lot of FCLP for testing and have the hook down to stop the AoA Indexer from flashing. When flashing the Indexer is unusable. Hope that is clear. Sorry for the confusion. Remember in the actual aircraft the AoA Indexer and the Approach Lights are directly connected (although the approach light is not as accurate as the Indexer in operation - nor does it need to be).

To do FCLP (necessarily with hook up because all landings are touch and go) the 'Hook Bypass' switch bypasses the flashing phenomena with the Hook NOT Down. In the Skyhawk this bypass was made externally by ground crew. Then all went well. If Bypass not made the LSO ashore would be furious because the aircraft would have to return to get this switch enabled. It must be nice to have the bypass switch for the pilot to use. Also in the Skyhawk when the AoA Indexer was flashing - it was unusable. Without a HUD it was impossible to land using only airspeed (too coarse and unreadable - indicator was not optimised to be seen for this purpose) at night (for FCLP which is usually practiced mostly at night).

Just to reiterate - at moment I do FCLP with the hook down. Thank goodness this is a simulator.  

[Sludge]

Sludge, what lights do you want to shut off at touchdown? Approach lights already don't work when on ground.

FSXNP...

Right on, thats what I was hoping for...  As far as the earlier Landing Light fix (LLIGHTS.cab that ensures nosegear landing light turns off on gear up) you did, this Approach (AOA) Lights mod shouldnt interfere with that, right?

Very interesting bout the fully working Betty controls.  Looking forward to that.  Also, since I land using the 2D HUD with an "always-steady" (non-flashing) indexer thats part of the Sludge Hornet, can you send out your initial basic version of Approach AOA Lights (w/out any "Hook ByPass" features) for those of us that wanna try it as-is?

Thanks
Sludge

[SpazSinbad]

Have been looking for an equivalent diagram for the Hornet in NATOPS but none found. This Goshawk diagram shows the correlation between the cockpit AoA Indexer and the approach lights. The approach light indicator is more coarse allowing a more steady light for the LSO to see. He is not really looking at the lights but at the all over aspect of the aircraft otherwise with the approach lights only as a rough distant guide and of course for the hook down/up problem. Even with this indication I have read about carrier pilots landing hook up when they meant to have hook down (at night).

Also in the search discovered in the Hornet NATOPS PCL (Pocket Check List) a diagram showing in text format the Approach Airspeed / AoA so this has been added to the main NATOPS graph as shown.

[Paddles]

Spaz, we are saying the same thing  
The Accel Hornet AoA indexer flashes (as IRL) when the hook is up, but unfortunately there's no way to change anything in this AoA behaviour. When talking about the hook bypass feasibility I meant first of all flashing/steady feature of approach lights, not AoA.

Now, down to correlation between the AoA indexer and the ALA. My ALA gauge currently implements the same light switching scheme as the AoA indexer does, i.e. there are 5 lights combinations: green, green+amber, amber, amber+red, red. You could see this on my short video. Perhaps this is wrong and I should get rid of two-lights combinations... No problem

The only way to have always-steady AoA is to use the 2D HUD version. But I think it needs some corrections in that the AoA indexer shouldn't be visible when the aircraft is on the ground. IMHO.

The Betty. I've used two empty and meaningless (in the Hornet) sound.cfg slots - cabin Seatbelts and No smoking alerts, which are now used for Power and Altitude alerts respectively. Using these gives me the ability to control the Betty in-flight. All I have to do now is to develop a visual gauge like the HUD Control or so...  

Sludge, I'll send you my current gauges as-is (perhaps I'll put 'em into a single .cab). Right now my biggest concern is approach lights in MP and nighttime. You do know the FSX has some awful glitches displaying light effects in such conditions...  

[SpazSinbad]

fsxnavypilot, bad luck about the AoA indexer. I'll look for information online about behaviour of Hornet Approach Lights compared to AoA Indexer, but given the correlation seen of the Goshawk and Skyhawk, I'll imagine the Hornet Approach Lights mimic the Goshawk graphic (seen here) for the same reason. The LSO is not really looking at these lights except from the far distance when he cannot see the other lights and aspect of the aircraft on glideslope to gauge what is going on. Yes the flashing behaviour is important to show that the hook is not down otherwise. I'll have a look at other NATOPS to see if these have this 'goshawk AoA/Approach light graphic'.

[Paddles]

Ok, I'll remove two-light combinations from ALA logic.

[SpazSinbad]

Are you going to follow the logic of the Goshawk graphic? Note the colours indicating combinations in it. Is that what you are going to do? For the rest of this evening (here) I'm stuck reprinting a large PDF to make a smaller PDF and in the meantime cannot look at any other PDFs....

[Paddles]

Are you going to follow the logic of the Goshawk graphic? Note the colours indicating combinations in it. Is that what you are going to do?

Yes, I'll change my gauge so the approach lights will illuminate one at a time, i.e. red-amber-green. I use following AoA numbers for activating approach lights: green if AoA > 9.3, amber if AoA in range 9.3..6.9 and red if AoA < 6.9. That's match NATOPS, I guess...

[SpazSinbad]

fsxNP, sounds good (but I cannot check numbers - do these match the graph?). Cool.

[Paddles]

Spaz, I used numbers from an AoA indexer gauge (which is part of the FA18_HUD). I've made a quick flights with both these gauges running - everything works like a charm... 

Sludge, I've sent to you all my cabbed latest gauges along with the necessary files and instructions. Report any bugs immediately 

[Sludge]

FSXNP...

Much thanks buddy.  What a day, just got the SuperBug and had a quick test before I came into work today.  Wow!!  Its such a fantastic looking and feeling jet!!  And I didnt even get to fly it.  Just some basic control loading and overview.

But, back to point, will test out when I get the chance this weekend.  Although, if the SuperBug is as addictive as my initial play test w/out flight, the Sludge Hornet will be going on the back burner for quite some time.

Thanks and talk to ya
Later
Sludge

[Paddles]

This is how my approach light assembly gauge works now. 
There was a little bug when approach lights remained lit upon touchdown. Corrected.