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Post by jwh on Sept 16, 2019 5:24:26 GMT -5
Have uploaded the Lodestar to my new install and it now flies perfectly, unlike last year when it was completely unstable. Am really pleased as I'm a great fan of the Lockheed twins. Have a few questions as follows. I noticed that there were no icons for radios, maps etc. in the normal cockpit so went to the VC and saw that I could set the ILS and VOR there. No problem with those two but have been unable to tune the ADF in the usual manner. Is there a special trick to it as I can only get the four segment settings to show?
How are the cowl flaps opened and closed as I can't see where to alter them?
Is there some way the Map and GPS icons can be accessed?
Lastly, I may be wrong but I thought there was a Trans Australia Airlines repaint available for FS9. Found one for FS10 but the textures don't work in FS9. Is there a FS9 TAA repaint available?
Thanks
John
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Post by phlyer on Sept 16, 2019 9:52:30 GMT -5
Go to Sim-Outhouse. The file for the TAA paint is MF_L18W_TAA.zip. Works for both FSX and FS9 Lodestars.
Phil
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Post by jwh on Sept 18, 2019 5:36:10 GMT -5
Hi Phil Took a while but found the TAA repaint at Sim-Outhouse. But after installing found the listing and aircraft were there but no textures. Upon further checking I found the textures as downloaded from Sin-Outhouse are in .dds form rather than the usual .bmp as per all of the others.
Is there any way that these .dds files can be converted to .bmp?
Thanks John
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Post by jwh on Sept 18, 2019 6:10:32 GMT -5
Worked out the problem. The other texture TAA_1024 had the .bmp files. So I renamed the texture and reloaded the aircraft, but when I go to the aircraft in the listing something shuts my FlightSim down. There must be a little glitch somewhere. Any suggestions to what the problem is much appreciated. Being Australian I'd like to have an Aussie Lodestar to fly.
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Post by phlyer on Sept 18, 2019 10:58:35 GMT -5
Can't figure what the problem could be. Did you follow the installation instructions provided? You might try loading another aircraft in the sim, then switching to the Lodestar instead of trying to load the Lodestar initially in the sim. Sometimes, that'll happen to me and I'm thinking it might be a memory problem with the computer as the texture files are kind of large on the order of 67 megs! FWIW, I just loaded up the TAA L-18 and it ran fine in the sim. My system is on the ancient side too...running XP as my gaming computer. Let me know how you make out.
Phil
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Post by jwh on Sept 19, 2019 5:53:25 GMT -5
Hi Phil Thanks for your suggestions. I tried starting with the Cessna and switching to the TAA lodestar but with the same result of FS crashing. I've totally deleted the TAA aircraft for the present and will start from scratch and have another go. I run my old computer which isn't connected to the internet on Windows7 and everything else runs pretty well. With your lodestar install how do you tune your ADF? Iknow you can start with a different aircraft to to set your navaids, but what about when you are en-route and you have to switch to another ADF?
I really like the Lodestar now that I have it flying as it should and would like to do some route flying with it, but just need to sort out the ADF and map and GPS.
John
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Post by phlyer on Sept 19, 2019 9:16:10 GMT -5
John,
I re-installed the Lodestar and TAA texture and found various errors with the installation: First, the texture dir is labeled "texture.TAA_1024" which has to be renamed "texture.TAA" Next,the model in the install directions shows "L18W_MF" which should be re-labeled "L18W" as my installation doesn't show a "L18W_MF" model. Yours might be different. Also, to get the TAA textures to show, I had to load all of the bitmaps that were 3,145,784 in size into the DXTBmp utility and re-save them all as "extended 32 Bitmap 888-8". A lot of work I know to get the TAA Lodestar to load up! As for tuning the ADF, if you put your mouse just left or right of the Vol knob, you'll see a "+" or "-" where you can change the frequency. Hope this helps somewhat.
Phil
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Post by jwh on Sept 23, 2019 4:14:46 GMT -5
Hi Phil Have had to run the white flag up regarding the TAA repaint. No matter what I did it still crashed Flightsim, so I will have to live without the TAA aircraft. I also found a LAN Chile repaint somewhere which would not show up at all. It may well have been for FSX only, although the write up was a bit unclear.
Still cannot master the ADF tuning. For example when I click the ADF1 tuner it jumps from 164 to 354 to 833 to 1491. There must be something simple that I'm not doing correctly. You have obviously mastered it so any idea as to what I am doing wrong.
John
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Post by phlyer on Sept 23, 2019 8:12:24 GMT -5
John, Looks like you're hitting the band switch there. When you place your mouse just inside the adf's volume knob, you can activate the ID mode. If you place your mouse just outside of the volume knob, left or right side, you can activate the adf's tuning mode. When you hit the correct spot, you'll see a + or a - sign for tuning up or down the band you've selected. An alternative to getting the TAA textures to work would be to install just those corrected TAA BMP's into another lodestar's texture directory that does show correctly such as the bare metal one. There are 9 files: wings, tail, fuselage and engines. These 9 bmp's are the only necessary ones to show the correct external view. I've tried this method and it works great. I have those files zipped into a 8.8 meg file and if you'd like, I could send them to you via email. Let me know.
Phil
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Post by jwh on Sept 26, 2019 6:41:56 GMT -5
Hi Phil Finally got a chance to do some more on the Lodestar. Tried your suggestion of moving the relevant TAA BMPs into another aircraft and renaming the texture etc. but still no luck. For some reason my Sim just does not like it. Once again it shut down so as I said I will live without it for now and wait until a dedicated FS9 version is created.
Followed your instructions and can now see the band moving but there is no readout showing for you to tune it to the NDB that is required. In the panel I have the navaids can only be selected in the VC. For example if I am at my local Brisbane Airport where the NDB is 302 I can't see any readout to enable me to lock the ADF into that frequency.
It just struck me that I've been assuming that we are both using FS9 as I did see a panel screenshot for the FSX version and it showed the navaid selection area in the normal cockpit at the very top of the panel above the switches etc.
I'm sure there must be a way to tune the ADF. Is there some sort of update that I have missed?
Will get there eventually I'm sure.
John
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Post by phlyer on Sept 26, 2019 12:20:24 GMT -5
Hi John,
What I used to do was to tune the ADF as close as possible to the beacon frequency and then watch the signal strength meter as I tune up or down by a kilohertz or two. When it jumps, you can be pretty sure you're tuned to the correct freq. I then confirm by ID'ing the signal. Lately though I've been cheating by using FSNav. You can tune all your radios, Comm, ADF and Nav via the map page as well as set your autopilot parameters. If you have the freeware DXTBmp utility, you can change all of the TAA bitmaps to extended 32 bitmaps (or at least the 9 textures that include engines, wings, tail and fuselage). I'm pretty sure that's why your sim crashes when you try to load the TAA Lodestar. The author of the TAA textures included the wrong texture format for them to show in FS9, which I am using too. Like I said previously, I have the 9 TAA textures already converted where you can just install them into a Lodestar that does show correctly in the sim such as the "white" model. You just overwrite those textures with the converted ones and viola...the TAA aircraft loads correctly. Like I said, I can upload those textures (8.8 megs) to you if you want.
Phil
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Post by phlyer on Sept 26, 2019 12:34:58 GMT -5
John,
I was just playing around with the Lodestar's ADF and found out that if you place your mouse on the green band selector, you'll get a tooltip popup that shows the freq you're tuned to. You can tune to the approximate NDB freq via the + and - next to the Vol knob, then check it by just placing the mouse on the band selector (don't click it, just place the mouse pointer on the selector). You can then make small tuning adjustments to get to the correct freq.
Phil
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Post by Tom/CalClassic on Sept 26, 2019 12:51:00 GMT -5
Hi, Yep, Phil has the technique. Look at this image: Click where it says Minus to lower the frequency, Plus to increase. To see the tuned frequency, hold the mouse over the band selector knob. Hope this helps,
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Post by jwh on Sept 27, 2019 2:27:28 GMT -5
Hi Phil and Tom Thank you gentlemen. I now understand it. Knew it had to be something fairly simple.
Another question. I tried it out flying from Aaron's classic Brisbane scenery with just the bare metal Lodestar. I noticed this aircraft has cowl flaps whereas others, for example Airtaco's Lodestar doesn't appear to have cowl flaps. But for those models that have cowl flaps how do you open and close them?
Again, many thanks for all your help in assisting myself to be able to fly this aircraft. Another of the great things with this Forum.
John
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Post by phlyer on Sept 27, 2019 6:58:48 GMT -5
John,
You're very welcome! Cowl flaps can be opened with the CTRL+SHIFT+V keys and closed with the CTRL+SHIFT+C keys. This with operate the cowl flaps incrementally. As far as I can determine, the TAA Lodestar doesn't appear to have any cowl flaps and there isn't any panel control for them either both in the 2D and 3D panels.
Phil
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