Your helpful tips.

[Steve Waite]

Indexing to create a subset collection:

On the start page popup menu, "Maintain Indexes" menu item, check the menu item "Create Subset Files".

When this menu item is checked, it will become deselected when the function is completed. It works once then we can forget it. Creating the subsets takes several minutes.

This function will be performed the next time the scenery is indexed. A collection of Subset files is created and these can be seen on the Flight Generator Page, Airports Subset dropdown menu.

Subsets can also be created, and combined and subtracted together, on the Browse Airports, map page.

NOTE: With an AIRAC loaded the subset will only include those in the AIRAC. Generally we would build the Subset collection without AIRAC.


Soft Loose and Hard surfaces:

Notice also in this menu there are items for Soft Loose and Hard surfaces. These are the definitions into which those surface values belong. We can specify here which surface types appear in each group.

These Soft Loose and Hard surfaces types are set against aircraft preferences in the Mission page, Surfaces checklist window.

These settings in Ideal Flight are what we use to extract routes between grass strips or gravel or sand and so on.

[Steve Waite]

Restoring Flights from cold in P3D

When restoring a flight we see, In P3D, the avionics have not been set from the values in the flight file.

This is a bug in P3D (reported), so we have something in Ideal Flight professional to deal with it until it is fixed.

On the Startup page popup menu we have the "Startup Behaviour" menu items. we can resume from cold (Sim not already running) by choosing the sim reset option. That way the sim is already running before the flight file is loaded. But no default flight file has been loaded, only the IF flight file is loaded.

Some Aircraft are not strictly operating within the simulator recommendations and they might not resume unless the Simulator is already running when we start the resumed flight from IF Pro. That's just because they have to do some other things to create their simulations.

There are two other modes of startup behaviour to try:

Load Default Flight, this starts the sim with the default flight, then loads the IF flight.
Terrain Startup, this loads the sim up to the terrain then loads the aircraft.

If none of these methods allow the aircraft to resume from cold then we must start the sim first, maybe use the P3D Icon on the main IF Pro page. Then after it has loaded up, we go back to IF and start the flight then.

[Steve Waite]

Missing Aircraft

Install latest Preview version from newbuilds or from the Accessibility Phase 2 discussion in general section.

For the A2A and others only appearing in the AI list.

A while back last year during the upgrades, a mistake in the way IF Pro recognises the uses of an aircraft, meant that some aircraft did not show up in the selection. But they appear in the Ai list. That's been cured a while back so make sure to install the latest build.

If you have a Preview build installed, make sure to look for updates and install those. Update the latest build and report issues.


The version menu item shows Flight 1 version, it does not show preview builds.

[Steve Waite]

Missing Thumbnails

If an aircraft does not supply a thumbnail image then IF cannot show a picture in the Aircraft Selection page. Instead it shows an empty sky with a question mark.

We simply drop a .png .jpg or .bmp onto the image and we have an image installed in the IF profile for it.

However what if the aircraft does not come with the thumbnails, so we want to modify the aircraft files to have a permanent image saved...

I have a new aircraft, the MilViz 350i, and it comes without the traditional thumbnails in the variation texture folders, essential for a machine reader like IF to display a picture, without the need to invoke a 3D engine.

Since we may not like those images included, or want to put our own in or there are none. We can make our own.


to demonstrate how we include our own images, I have made some thumbnails which I placed in the texture folders:

http://download.codelegend.com/other/MV-KA350i_thumbnail.zip

Unzip and copy the files to the four folders, one in each corresponding to the tail number:

For example, copy "N70EU_thumbnail.jpg" into:

C:\Program Files\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\SimObjects\Airplanes\MV_King_Air_350i\Texture.N70EU\

then rename to

"thumbnail.jpg"

by removing the first part of the name including the underscore.

So then IF will display the aircraft thumbnail instead of the question mark that IF shows for missing thumbnails. That installs into the aircraft permanently.

Images we drop onto IF are saved in the IF Profile.

[Steve Waite]

Passengers with Luggage?

Ideal Flight attempts to read the aircraft.cfg file for information about what might be stored in each station.

Needless to say the FSX format hardly ever gets used and all kinds of terms are employed for

Seat, Seats, and Cargo.

We get Captain, Crew, PAX, Passengers, Luggage, Pilot, Attendants, Passagiere, Besatzung, etc. etc.

IF reads what it can deduce and if we get 3/4 or more cargo we might see Crew and Cargo described. Really there is no cargo or crew, just weight at each station.

So with the IF briefing showing Passenger and Luggage 270Lb, this denotes one 170Lb object, the person and the difference of 100 is the cargo.

We find we can attribute Person weight to each of our aircraft on a per aircraft basis. The form is in the Flight Parameters page, Payload Definitions.

in the aircraft.ini in each Profile folder we get these values appearing as simple text:

PersonWeight=170
Loads=200, 200, 200, 200, 200, 18000
LoadTypes=1, 2, 3, 3, 1, 3

Load types are:
1=Seat, 2=Seating (multiple seats), 3=Cargo

So these can be edited with Notepad.

[Steve Waite]

Quick Plans

In the flight gen page near the top

Plan Type. Choose IFR, Approach Included. With the included approach we select from the Mission page.
Plan Builder: Any Airways.

Below those is the 250Knot restriction at 10,000 and the runway or parking place.

After that the selection of the start location. Active runway is predicted from wind in the Weather page.

The sim will choose the runway from the final weather you use when the sim starts.

On the Mission page near the bottom

Approaches and departures: Choose Computed Approach (that’s like an RNAV), and choose IDF (initial departure fix. You can lock your AP to that after setting off.

The computed approach places waypoints by your speed of approach selected in Flight Parameters.
The time between them can be chosen above in the Leg Times.

That approach will bring you down onto the landing end of the runway.
The approach is 90, 60, 30 degrees to capture the LOC and to avoid AP latency.
A 45, 45 degree approach is selectable from the Other Approach Settings.

Remember to set the flight parameters for your plane.

The max altitude is in feet and the computed altitude depends on terrain during the flight. So If we put 20,000ft max and 20% usual, we get 4000ft cruising altitude, that is then adjusted for the terrain elevation and to the local rules odd and even and 500ft increments.

If the final altitude is not that which is desired, or the local rules are different, adjust the altitude in the Edit plan section and rebuild.

Most of the time these plans suffice. Alternately we can download a plan and drop it on IF.

The starting place is ignored from downloaded plans since they don't correspond to everyone's sim and addons. Ideal Flight let's us choose the parking or start runway.

The start runway is predicted from the winds. We can choose runways in the Edit plan section. But ordinarily we set winds to force ATC to use runways.

[Steve Waite]

Quick setup: P3D v4 CPU Graphs

This is an ongoing part of the Ideal Flight project and so far has not much by way of instructions and is partly experimental. The CPU activity can be viewed with the Show CPU Window menu item. Affinity and EFSA can also be set in there very easily.

Use a Mooney to test the sim and CPU to start with, then later see what adding complex planes does.

On the start page select Sim Startup Behaviour sim reset. That gets over the P3D bug, P3D doesn't start the AP from a saved flight unless it already has a flight loaded. We are starting right into the cockpit with the IF flight. When we come to start mid flight we want to be on AP so we continue as is.

Set Pause and Paused to Off, Unchecked in the Cold and Dark section on the Flight Generator Page, Runway icon. We want the flight to go right in.

On the settings page set three minutes into the time to pause box and check the enable.

On the records page popup menu, Sim data recording check all.

Data recording values check frame rate 34, average fps 37, quality 40, cpu average 42, core max 43.

Data recording delay set to one minute for flying toward scenery test, and zero for startup tests. Startup testing shows from zero seconds.

Graph width, limits high and low you can play with later.

Use zero delay for a start test first.

Build a flight, start it from the Fly! button, and it should go right in to the sim and continue un-paused.

Then pauses at three minutes.

Exit the sim do nothing in the sim, just exit.

IF comes back - wait a few seconds for the sim to end in the background, and then IF offers to show a graph, say OK.

Later the Graphs can be viewed again in the records section, minus the texts we see right after the sim.

[Steve Waite]

AIRAC Settings manual

Information can be set with Notepad:

C:\ProgramData\Ideal Flight Professional\Config\Config.ini

Here the AIRAC is not Integrated:

Code: Select all

[Indexes]
AIRACCycle=C:\Program Files (x86)\Ideal Flight Professional\NavData\PMDG\NAVDATA
AIRACDataBiased=True
AIRACCycleFrequencies=False
AIRACCycleInUse=True
AIRACCycleCurrent=

Here the AIRAC is Integrated:

Code: Select all

[Indexes]
AIRACCycle=C:\Program Files (x86)\Ideal Flight Professional\NavData\PMDG\NAVDATA
AIRACDataBiased=True
AIRACCycleFrequencies=False
AIRACCycleInUse=True
AIRACCycleCurrent=AIRAC-1805, APR26MAY23/18, PMDG, NavDataPro

Notes:

Integrated = The subset of navigation data and airports that exists similarly in both simulator data and AIRAC. Airport searches would only show airports existing in both sets. The AIRAC Common Subset contains the list of common airports.

AIRACDataBiased = Preference is given to data in the AIRAC when it differs from simulator data.

AIRACCycleFrequencies = Frequencies are taken from the AIRAC, otherwise simulator data is used.

[Steve Waite]

Run as Administrator

Some addons require the simulator to run as administrator. Also as mentioned elsewhere in the forums and help system, FSX:SE (Steam Edition) desires to be Run as Administrator.

In the next edition of Ideal Flight an option to Run As Administrator is available in the popup menu on the startup page. (Available from Preview 11 March/2020).

This menu option saves having to set the desktop shortcut icon Properties to Run As Administrator.

When Ideal Flight runs as administrator, the simulator, in turn, is started with the same administrator privileges.

When the IF shortcut is set to Run As Administrator the program starts right away with administrator privileges.

When the shortcut is set to run as user, and Ideal Flight menu option to Run As Administrator is checked, Ideal Flight will restart and the system will present the option to elevate privileges to Administrator. That way takes a little longer.

The program checks itself for tampering before elevating privileges. If tampering is suspected, the program backs out and terminates.

[Steve Waite]

Start a program with core affinity

Always start with a simple plan then build from there. In this example I start Notepad.exe with Ideal Flight when IF starts:

On the start page popup menu I selected “Start other programs”.
On the “Starting Period” I selected “With Ideal Flight”.
I pressed “Add Program”.
In “File Name” box I added “C:\Windows\Notepad.exe”
In the parameters box I added “IF10AM=6” (I can use the x0 button on the right to enter affinity). AM6 decimal = 0110 binary, second and third cores 1 and 2.
I chose OK and OK.
I closed Ideal Flight.
I restarted IF and Notepad appears.
In Task Manager I chose the “Details” tab.
In the list I chose Notepad.exe, right clicked the popup menu.
In the menu I chose “Set Affinity” – Notepad.exe is running on the second and third cores only.

The same system will start .BAT files and other file types.


Incidentally:

In the IF popup menu I chose to view the Profiles folders in Explorer - Main page, Explorer locations, IF Profiles. In the folder back I can see the folder: "\Config". This folder contains the file "Config.ini".

I opened "Config.ini" in Notepad and I can see an entry in a section "RunWithIF" that describes the action to start Netepad.exe:

[RunWithIF]
RunCmd_1=C:\Windows\Notepad.exe
Params_1=IF10AM=6
ShowWindow_1=True
Disable_1=False


Notes on Wait periods:

In this system Wait periods are entered as if it is an application to start. We insert waiting periods and move them up or down in the list of items contained within a “Starting Period”.

Do not wait past the next starting period since all remaining apps yet to start will start at the end of the period they are assigned to.