Inflight map?

[RoY]

Hello, Is there a way to pull up inflight map while in flight? Shift + 3 brings up GPS. I notice when flying the piper cub there is a small panel with like 5 buttons across and the one that was like a star brought up a cool little map in a box that showed my location and heading, other airports and landing strips. How I would I pull up this same panel or map in other aircraft. Thanks

[gtrbarbarian]

You should be able to assign 'map open' to a key via the 'controls' menu. Or alt+w+m should do it. I would recommend something like PlanG (free and awesome) or Flight Sim Commander (payware and good) though to use as a moving map, if you have a second monitor you can use. Although the fsx map is functional, it is far from 'great'.

[Dan-TXHills]

Are you referring to the map you get when you go to the main menu and select World | Map ...? You can set up a hot key for this (or a button or switch from a controller if you like) through the Settings | Controls and assign it to 'Map (display/hide)'. Agree with 'gtr' - I have both Plan-G and FlightSim Commander and use them both regularly. Plan-G also allows you to switch to satellite and road map views (although many folks don't know that) and a bunch of other functions (again, many are unaware of) and all for free! The moving map (and the map of others if you are connected on a server and flying with others) is just the start (and there is a tweak that allow you to see aircraft anywhere in the world - another little-known feature) - and all for free.

Plan-G is a much better way to go - even if you uncheck the 'pause on task switch' (the thing that when you go to another window it keeps you from being paused you come back your aircraft actually does pause when you have the map open. Some find Plan-G does not 'play well' with FSX - I have never had an issue, outside Plan-G occasionally crashing (BUT NOT FSX) - but again, its free.

[RoY]

Plan-G sounds like the way to go. The map I was refering to in game I found when flying the cub. There was a small panel with 5 buttons. The one with a star brought up a small map while in cockpit view. The map came up in small window similar to the way the GPS does in flight.

[briman44]

I just downloaded Plan-G and I works great. And it makes since. Now I can see where i'm going without having to memorize a bunch of numbers. This is so helpful. Great idea and good find. Highly recomended

[RoY]

I am new to FSX and Flight. Used MS flight for a year or so but that was more of a game and less of a flight SIM . 2 weeks in FSX so far, So yea I am trying to figure out how to better navigate and try to have a plan. I assume there is a way to set a plan and then have a route to follow on the map but have not figure it all out yet. For now I have set one of my un-used joy stick buttons to bring up the in game map

[stickmon]

Big fan of http://www.skyvector.com then use the world VFR tab/button to bring up the sectional(s) Just something less to add to FSX and free as well to use, just real world sectionals for anyone to utilize.

[chelmo]

I use this on my IPad:

http://fsxonline.com/fsxproducts/osx/fsxfollow/

Brilliant app. There are loads of other apps you can use as well which will put various gauges etc on to a separate device.

[barnstormer1]

There are quite a few Movinf map tablet apps for Ios and Android, I use FSCommander on a remote computer in a Sim network

[Sistermatic™]

Using the silly map and then switching to Plan-G after reading this thread?

Vinegar and a 1996 Chablois'....

Kudos and Thx.

[Dan-TXHills]

You might find this information helpful - {LINK REMOVED}http://www.mediafire.com/download/b9fiabqfwjbch6p/PlanG-Tutorial.zip

[ZombieHunter]

Well before GPS the way to navigate in Flight Sim and in real was VOR radios and NDBs. TACAN has not been simulated in FS to date (AFAIK).

The GPS is easy to use in FSX. Either create a flight plan via the menu or you can select the D button on the GPS which is the Direct to Waypoint button that will allow you to set a destination while in flight. Click the bottom right knob on the left or right to bring up the cursor and then type in the airport ID. Press enter twice to confirm and the GPS will be programmed to fly to your destination. Set your autopilot heading hold to NAV and make sure the NAV / GPS switch is set to GPS and set your altitude and desired speed. If the switch is set to NAV your autopilot will follow VOR 1 instead of the GPS. For jets ensure the SPD autopilot button is depressed and make sure the autothrottle is turned on.

Note the autopilot has a bug in it. If you takeoff and set ALT only or any other hold it will also hold the current heading and you won't be able to turn. To remedy this toggle the HDG button on the autopilot and you will be able to turn while the autopilot holds ALT and SPD. Turning on autopilot should NOT also engage current heading hold but for some reason it does.

Note the Learjet has a throttle hold bug. If you are on MACH hold instead of SPD and you toggle SPD hold on and off it won't disengage. Your throttles will be useless. To remedy this set the hold type to SPD and toggle the SPD hold. The Lear throttles will now work manually as expected.

[yellowjacket]

Originally posted by falcon_x:

Note the autopilot has a bug in it. If you takeoff and set ALT only or any other hold it will also hold the current heading and you won't be able to turn. To remedy this toggle the HDG button on the autopilot and you will be able to turn while the autopilot holds ALT and SPD. Turning on autopilot should NOT also engage current heading hold but for some reason it does.

There is no autopilot bug.

Turning on autopilot should NOT also engage current heading hold but for some reason it does ------- is because that is the way you have set it to work. All autopilots DO NOT work the same so FSX gives us the ability to set the auopilot based on type plane we are flying.

default_pitch_mode ----- This determines the default pitch mode when the autopilot logic is turned on.
0 = None
1 = Pitch Hold (current pitch angle)
2 = Altitude Hold (current altitude)
If no value is set, Pitch Hold will be the default.

default_bank_mode ----- This determines the default bank mode when the autopilot logic is turned on. The Douglas DC3 uses default_bank_mode=2 //Default to Heading Hold
0 = None
1 = Wing Level Hold
2 = Heading Hold (current heading).
If no value is set, Wing Level Hold will be the default.

The following flags are legacy, and were enabled to allow aircraft to be configured with no pitch and/or bank modes. While these flags are still supported, the preferred flags are included above in the respective vertical and lateral sections.

use_no_default_pitch ---- Setting this flag to 1 will cause the default pitch mode to be "None". It will actually set the variable default_pitch_mode to zero, so that there is no default pitch mode when the autopilot logic is activated.
The preferred method is to set the default_pitch_mode directly.

use_no_default_bank ---- Setting this flag to 1 will cause the default bank mode to be "None". It will actually set the variable default_bank_mode to zero, so that there is no default bank mode when the autopilot logic is activated.
The preferred method is to set the default_bank_mode directly.


Adding these 2 entry's into the aircraft.cfg's autopilot section will allow full control of the plane even with the autopilot master switch on.

default_pitch_mode=0
default_bank_mode=0

[Dan-TXHills]

Both FSX-SE and FSX "box" version have the heading hold on autopilot activation bug. I have gotten used to "double clutching" the heading hold button. I was unaware (frankly, never bothered to look) of the very easy tweak described by yellowjacket (Georgia Tech??) - thanks. Some folks are aware of the many tweaks that you can make in the aircraft.cfg file - way too many to go through here but one I found very helpful was to reduce the elevator_trim_effectiveness down from the default 1.0 (usually change it to 0.5 or 0.6). Very helpful for those of us who hand fly our aircraft.

I have a licensed version of FSUIPC which handles all of my controls including buttons AND thanks to a very bright friend I also use it to enter altitude, heading and vertical speed via the numberpad on my keyboard - no fumbling with the mouse. I can also tune Nav and Com radios, transponder code and omni bearing / HSI cursor heading using the number pad. FSUIPC is more than worth the investment. I can give you the Lua scripts that allow use of the number pad for direct entry (you even see the numbers change as you punch them in) but you will need to have a licesned version of FSUIPC. This function works perfectly in FSX-SE.

For those interested in navigation by VOR and NDB (and doing non-precision approaches) along with informaiton on communicating with ATC, doing flight planning and reading approach plates please visit us at http://www.elitepremairvirtual.com/home.html - you will need to register to get to the part of the website that has this information but here is no cost and absolutely no obligation if you chose to register.