On 01/08/2007 10:06 AM, Stuart Buchanan wrote: > Are you particularly interested in using the c182?
Well, yes I am. A lot of FBOs will let you rent a 182. If we make an XY plot trading off availability versus a combination of speed and roominess, the 182 has high availability for a given niceness, and high niceness for a given availability. Also the 182 RG is one of the two aircraft most-commonly used for transition training, as pilots transition to "complex aircraft". > If so, I'll spend some time this evenign adding some lighting. :-) > you are of course welcome to implement this yourself - the model > readme should provide enough information to get you started. Maybe we should work together. If you enjoy working on models, there's lots of things that could be done to kick the realism up a notch. I've been keeping a list of nitpicks, creeping features, and other notes at http://www.av8n.com/fly/fgfs/c182.notes > I have never actually been in one, let alone at night, so could you answer > a couple of questions for me: > > 1) Presumably the panel itself is lit from behind as it is implemented > currently. Is that correct? It's more complicated than that. -- There is "area lighting" including a white dome light and a red dome light. This is useful for e.g. looking at the position of the flap handle, landing gear handle, fuel selector, and other things that are not well covered by the post lights. (Also in the real world, not in the model, this would be critical for map-reading.) -- Radios are internally lighted. Either they have glowing LED segments, or LCDs with a backlight, or something similar. -- There is a class of instruments unlovingly referred to as "steam gauges" including the airspeed indicator, altimeter, VSI, et cetera. These are lighted from the front by "post lights", i.e. little posts that stick out from the front of the panel and shine light back onto the front of the panel. (Modeling the post lights would require a ton of detail work. It may be expedient to do a better-than-realistic job of area lighting so as to make post lights unnecessary.) -- I have a light attached to my headset, which I can turn on as needed, so that wherever I turn my head gets lit up. Also any pilot who flies at night has a flashlight, typically dangling from a strap around his neck, as a backup for all the other lighting systems. (I don't expect the model to capture this :-). > 2) Do you have any reference for where the nav, panel, landling light > switches are located in the c182? Here's a nice shot of the panel http://www.linkscomputer.com/images/ebay/skydive/c182panel_06.jpg A lot of the interesting switches are behind the horizontal part of the pilot's yoke in that shot, i.e. in a row above the row of circuit breakers. That's a problem, because if the model puts the switches in the realistic place, they will be very hard to see. Other factoids: Just to the left of the lower-left corner of the yoke you can see, left to right, the master switch and fuel boost switch. The magneto/start switch is next in line, hiding behind the corner of the yoke. Below the master you can see the primer knob. Below the lower /left/ corner of the yoke is the gear handle. On the pedestal beside the pilot's knee you can see elevator trim, rudder trim, handheld mike, and cowl-flap lever. I'd offer to scan the relevant POH page but it is no clearer than the photo cited above. I may need to take my camera to the airport. > 3) Am I correct in thinking that any light to see the flaps, yoke etc is a > reflection of the panel light, and therefore very low intensity? The > easiest way to implement this will be with a low-intensity emissive light > source on the objects. There's also area lighting, coming from somewhere above the pilot's head. > 4) Is the flap indicator illuminated from behind like the instruments, or > does it also rely on the panel light reflection? Area lighting. The flap indicator doesn't have its own post lights or anything. Throttle/prop/mixture knobs are in this same category, and the fuel-tank selector. > BTW, you should be aware that we currently don't have any landing light > implementation, so I guess landing at night will be quite unrealistic. Well, yes, I noticed ... but landing without a landing light is not the least bit unrealistic. I put this near the bottom of the list at http://www.av8n.com/fly/fgfs/c182.notes That stands in contrast to cockpit area lighting, which is near the top of the list. The contrast is odd, but I just call 'em like I see 'em. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
