X-Plane 9 Upgrade - Flight Engineer’s Station

At last, the Flight Engineer’s station is complete. Everything that has a dataref in X-Plane has been animated; needles flick, and switches click.



Of course, the real Comet had many more gauges and switches than X-Plane simulates, and it took time and a bit of head-scratching to find ways to make unsupported instruments respond. All the important stuff works correctly. For example, each engine had a generator, and the ammeters and isolation switches work perfectly. Using several nested datarefs, the voltmeters and their rotary selector switches work, too; but where the real Comet had four hydraulic systems, X-Plane only has two, so I’ve made the second pair of gauges echo the first pair. Similarly, where there is a single “avionics” switch in X-Plane, there were eleven individual switches in real life. Click one switch and you’ll find several other switches move in unison. I don’t feel so bad about that, since many real aircraft had them ganged together, anyway.



The fuel panel, Panel K, is better supported: engine oil pressure and temperature for each engine is fed from the simulator, so is fuel flow, fuel gauges for no fewer than nine fuel tanks, and fuel pumps in each tank. Fuel temperature is estimated, based on outside temperature. Where the Comet had two or three pumps per tank, X-Plane only simulates one each, so, again, two or three toggles waggle together with one click. The fuel cocks should be for each tank, but I’ve had to make them left, centre and right. That’s something I’d like to come back to eventually, because the Comet had no way of transferring fuel across tanks; trimming the centre of gravity had to be by burning fuel through the engines, isolating tanks or opening cross-feeds to correct any imbalance.



Panel L (below) is for heating, ventilation and cabin pressure. Key information is supported, such as pressure, rate of climb, and the pressurisation controls; but I’ve had to use a number of datarefs in nested animations to give the right values for cabin mass flow and duct temperatures, and so they fluctuate more or less correctly with speed, altitude and engine pressure.

Panel M contained the de-ice and engine bleed levers. They work; also a lever that, in real life, bridged five of the Comet’s six 24V batteries to provide 120V for the engine starter motors, when no ground supply was available. I used a slider, which makes the volt-meter increase, and will allow the function of the engine start panel when the lever is in the correct position. Engine start procedures for this model will call for some dashing to and fro’.

On Panel N, the de-ice valves and their associated indicators work for each engine. Also the pitot heaters, left and right wing de-ice switches, and the master switch, which, on the real thing, was a metal bar that flicked all switches at once. Pitot heater gauges respond to the switches, showing 6A when on; and pressure gauges respond to the de-ice valves.



There is a little tidying up to do, and some texture detailing to add. During development, I make it so some textures change colour, or numbers appear, so I can check what’s going on, and I must put all that right. That goes for the rest of the cockpit, too, and I am starting the final sweep.

So there it is: a Flight Engineers station that looks right, and everything that can be made to work in its proper place.

I really can see the light at the end of the tunnel now ...

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GMM-P (27/08/2009)

Tags: Cockpit