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FSLabs A320

PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 5:27 pm
by Steve Waite
The FSLabs A320 is by no means a regular package, for a start it is one of the few aircraft that really make you go WOW! There are some considerations to respect.

Remember to disable the package in the add-ons menu and exit the sim before using other aircraft.

Remember that you can't use any special IFPro startup functionality: Startup Behaviour = "None" for this aircraft.

If you've not added the A320 to the IF hangar (manually required with bug fix) then wait for Preview 03 available very shortly. There are path errors in the A320 installer that IFPro fixes in the IFPro configuration and aircraft Index for reliable operation with IFPro.

Re: FSLabs A320

PostPosted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 6:37 pm
by Steve Waite
Preview 03 coming shortly includes support for removing aircraft from the hangar and when re-introduced will pick up the parameters when it was last used. Useful for this beast of an aircraft package if we turn it on and off in the add-ons configuration page of the sim.

Also including the automatic location of the A320 uplink folder in Preview 03 for exporting the plan.

Don't forget also that we don't have to start the sim from IF we only need export the plan and the flight and AI/ATC .PLN will be linked to that in the Docs folder where the plans and .fxml files go.

Working to get that out quickly now. Includes some new stuff too.

Re: FSLabs A320

PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 7:32 am
by Steve Waite
Uploading plans to the A320 links in the SID and STAR if they are available. We can use various AIRACS and fsAerodata in IFPro which can find different routes and capabilities.

Image

I just build the flight in IF and when I next run the sim the FMC loads the plan automatically when I Type IF. Sounds nice too. I'm just checking SID/STAR with IF routes. The aircraft uses the components from the training modules so the database has nothing to do with the sim, fsAerodata, or whatever. Although it's a pretty standard AIRAC. No other planner supports this like IF.

Preview 03 automatically picks up the location to send the data - otherwise we do it manually to the uplink folder. Choose the two items in the Exports dropdown, make an export object for each.

C:\Users\UserName\Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-ons\FSLabs\AOCService\Uplink

Re: FSLabs A320

PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 10:56 am
by Steve Waite
...I was asked where TOC and TOD were in the table. They are not accepted in the A320 plan.

IF computes TOC and TOD, even accommodates your step climbs or whatever you want to do. Shown in the table and in the exported route to the A320, the SID is pre-selected in the FMS and it's up to us to do our climb routine. IF sends the runway details and departure requested and the airway to the FMS and the SID or STAR is filled in by the system.

Other routes available in IF with TOC and TOD, user and computed waypoints would not suit. With no TOC/TOD the table shows the plan cruise altitude. So don't go dive-bombing the airport from 27,000ft!

Re: FSLabs A320

PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 11:01 am
by Steve Waite
We must know how our aircraft works and what is acceptable in a plan for it, before we build plans to export. Exporting is done automatically each time we do a new build, we set up an export object we can enable and disable. There's no menu item "Save File As" in IF.

Re: FSLabs A320

PostPosted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 8:07 am
by Steve Waite
How many of you download a plan for the FMS import and set Off?

How many of you download a plan for the FMS import, make a P3D/FSX .PLN file exactly the same and load into the sim flight before setting off?

Ideal Flight users are automatically set up with the .PLN that reflects the export file to import into the FMS. The PLN is slightly different and all this is handled by IF. If you download a plan and drop it onto IF you get a .PLN, you get the export file, and the flight file - the starting situation all handled by IF.

They guys with no .PLN inserted into the sim flight do not have ATC or AI traffic initialised for their flight.

Only in IF do we get this thorough functionality all done for us. We just do more flying.

Re: FSLabs A320

PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 7:57 pm
by Steve Waite
When we make plans for the A320 like that above, and instead we include TOC/TOD, we get those waypoints shown in the table - but they are not sent in the export as they will not be recognised.

When TOC/TOD is recognised in an export and we don't want those, we build the flight "Ignore TOC/TOD".

We use TOC and TOD because they are also the three letter ICAO for the waypoint, so we don't say T/c and T/d.

In general, IF's exports know what's to go in the export file for the aircraft supported.

We set up the climb/descent rates in the Flight Parameters page to coincide with the TOC/TOD expected in the FMS calculations and our step climbs. The climb distance is shown in the briefing. I'm including the approximate descent distance in the briefing for the next build.