MAAM DC3 issue

[connieguy]

I bought the MAAM DC3 years ago and although I do not fly it very often these days I would spend more time with it but for a curious issue - whenever I change from windowed to full screen view or vice versa the trim resets to zero, which is actually quite a problem. I have never had this issue with any other aircraft, including MAAM's B25, and although I bought the latest version of the DC3 on the MAAM website the other day nothing has changed. Has anybody else noticed this phenomenon and, in particular, does anybody know if anything can be done about it?

[Tom/CalClassic]

It sounds to me like a gauge may be resetting the trim each time the gauge loads. This might be fixed by a change in the gauge code, if it is in XML. If a .gau file, then swapping out the trim gauge may be a solution?

[connieguy]

Thank you Tom. There is no separate trim gauge, it is part of the MAAM_R4D!Quadrant gauge, but that is where the problem lies. When I disabled it in the panel.cfg the problem disappeared, although I can still alter the trim from my joystick. Of course the Quadrant has also disappeared in the 2D panel, though it can be summoned as a pop-up. I may experiment with flying in the VC and creating gauges which will open the 2D panels from there, something I have done with other aircraft. Fascinating that the MAAM people never picked this up, although of course active development of their simulations ceased quite some years ago.
Ken

[connieguy]

It is quite a time since I raised this issue but I have now found what the problem is. If one eliminates gauge 17 from the main panel - called a quadrant gauge though in fact it displays engine gauges as well - the problem with the trim re-setting disappears. As the aircraft can be flown entirely from the vc this is not the end of the world.

Edit. I notice with some embarrassment that I did find the cause of the issue some time ago. I no longer have a good memory for such things, but it would help if I read my own posts.

[johnhinson]

That DC-3 has some strange behaviours in FSX-SE, is that what you are in?

For me (not in a virtual cesspit) I can't use the panel because every time I try and change to the overhead panel window, FSX-SE crashes. Never got to the foot of that one, in the end I built my own panel with the good bits from there and odds and ends from elsewhere. Just taking the offending overhead panel gauge out stopped most of the dials on the quadrant gauge from working - everything seems to interlink.

Such a shame as it is one of the best-looking (non-VC) panels around. I get the impression that many aircraft (and utilities) for FSX have never been tested in SE, as it came along much later.

J

[connieguy]

I am using FS9 John. The MAAM simulations were really made for that and I don't know that they were ever really adapted properly for FSX. The MAAM site is still there and they are still selling the aircraft, but many of the download links to the free paints are now dead. Their B-25 and Avenger are very good, but the DC-3 and C-47 have more playability.

[johnhinson]

Interesting. I never had any problems in FS9 at all, the version I used there was actually built for FS2002. I had to buy it again for FSX.

When I moved to FSX I re-downloaded the liveries I needed - although there are a lot of broken links I did find I could find almost all of them once I knew what to search for. Many can actually be found at flightsim.com. There were very few I didn't pin down somewhere.

John

[connieguy]

I originally bought it on a disc which had both FS8 and FS9 on it - I was using FS8 at the time. It occurred to me that perhaps the earlier versions did not have the fault in the gauge file so I loaded the disc, extracted the gauges from both of them and replaced he existing gauge. It did not work. This fault seems to have been present throughout the life of this simulation and it seems quite remarkable that it was never corrected because it does make an important difference in flying the aeroplane if you are using the 2d cockpit.