hull@hao.UUCP (Howard Hull) (11/20/86)
Someone asked if Flight Simulator uses proportional joysticks...
As near as I can tell, proportional joysticks are the *only* kind it supports.
None of my microswitch types work with it! However, using the mouse becomes
more natural with time. The default sensitivity (like the default Preferences)
is too low (uses about a square foot). A menu can be used to adjust it to a
more suitable value.
Other comments: It hasn't got either a mixture control or cowl flaps (though
a C285RG does). Also, at low speeds the control is as though it had ailerons
only - unmanageable, really. For example, try landing on the Golden Gate
bridge from the Marin County side. If you can get turned in between the
bridge and the rising slope of Mt. Tamalpias without wobbling through the
bridge rigging, you have done better than average. There are keyboard rudders,
but they are far from natural, and are not very proportional.
Then there is the matter of continuity of the topography. By the nature of
the coordinate system they use, you'd swear it would be possible to fly clear
across the country. (They have area maps for Boston/NY, Chicago, Seattle,
San Francisco, and Los Angeles.) But when I tried to fly from San Francisco
to Los Angeles by following the coast line, I came to a place where it stopped
to read from the disk, and thereafter I found myself in a vast green desert
with no radio nav facilities. By heading back to North, I was returned to
reality at the next disk access - back on the San Francisco map.
Then there's the Omni Bearing Selectors. As well as I can tell by working
with them, the only way to change the OBS setting is by clicking with the
mouse on the left or right side of the adjustment knob, depending on whether
you want to adjust to a higher bearing or a lower one. If you want to flip
it by 180 degrees (a rather common desire, if you don't like reading it like
a back-course ILS) it's about 300 clicks on the mouse, since the beastly thing
doesn't seem to pay attention to the mouse buttons when it has anything much
else to do. The documentation says you can change the setting by clicking to
the left or the right side of the indicator as well, but that only seems to
work on the Nav radio freq., and not on the OBS. In actual instrument flight,
you could be well beyond the OM before you got things reset in going from the
VOR to the ILS.
The Nav settup is either two VOR receivers (one with ILS) or one VOR with ILS
and an ADF. Selecting the ADF writes the ADI into the place where the second
OBI was. The autopilot is rather inaccessible compared to even the lowly
Radio Shack COCO FltSim I. The "z" key does toggle it on or off, but to do
anything significant, you have to bring up a menu, then select what you want
from a half dozen options. The options include wing leveler, altitude hold,
bearing hold, and coupling to VOR #1. With only the documentation supplied,
for an airport with a VOR on the field, much of the time I couldn't tell which
runway was the one with the ILS glideslope. The autopilot can't couple to
either the glideslope or the ADF. But ADF's a mode that I'll bet almost
nobody uses in real ATC controlled IFR. But there's no simulated GADO
inspector to be waiting at the destination airport either, so what the hey...
What's irritating is that in order to set the altitude hold you have to
disable it each time you set it. When you do this, you better have things
trimmed out, or you're going to be busier than a one-armed wallpaper hanger.
Other than the basic objections enumerated, it is a really dandy program.
The Gates Learjet option, though not a real jet control panel and system,
is lots of fun and gives you an idea what its like to shoot the ILS at
130 to 160 knots - and you don't dare do it any much slower than that,
or it will get behind the power curve and magically turn from an airplane
into a row crop cultivator.
It has provisions for wind and multiple cloud layers, and, as with the
Microsoft simulator for the IBM, when nightfall comes, it starts to get
dark and you have to turn on the panel and nav lights. I didn't see a
switch for a landing light, though.
The Amiga sound is excellent, though, and the motion is noteably smoother than
on the IBM. As with the Microsoft simulator, there are all kinds of views,
slew mode, and map features.
A suggestion for the sadistic: set up for the tower view point, then use the
slew mode to take the plane to 3000ft., (with no airspeed), set full up
elevator and full aileron, set the crash detect to null, and let her go.
You can play like a simulated flight instructor, and watch as the plane
crashes, bounces back up, stalls again, crashes, etc. etc. Hilarious -
reminds me of my student days...
Best Regards, Howard Hull
[If yet unproven concepts are outlawed in the range of discussion...
...Then only the deranged will discuss yet unproven concepts]
{ucbvax!hplabs | decvax!noao | mcvax!seismo | ihnp4!seismo} !hao!hulleric@ulysses.UUCP (Eric Lavitsky) (11/20/86)
Eh? I've used my Atari switch type joystick with the release version. It's much handier - I leave the mouse free to do things like click on the landing gear and the joystick gives much better control of my stick. Oh yeah - the joystick goes into port two (the mouse stays in) Eric -- ARPA: Lavitsky@RED.RUTGERS.EDU UUCP: ...ulysses!eric ...caip!topaz!eric ...hplabs!well!lavitsky
hull@hao.UUCP (Howard Hull) (11/21/86)
In article <1483@ulysses.UUCP>, eric@ulysses.UUCP (Eric Lavitsky) writes: > Eh? I've used my Atari switch type joystick with the release version. > It's much handier - I leave the mouse free to do things like click on > the landing gear and the joystick gives much better control of my stick. > Oh yeah - the joystick goes into port two (the mouse stays in) > > Eric Aw rhight! I quote from the Flight Simulator Documentation, Page 11: "JOYSTICK SETUP (OPTIONAL) "If you will be using a joystick for flight controls, plug it in outer connector slot number 1." Evidently WRONGO Thanks for saving me from the RTFM crowd, Eric... !hao!hull