Made a quick CDU tutorial today!

I just picked up FS2Crew 2010 Voice Commander and I have to say, it’s AWSOME! In short it’s a ground crew / virtual co-pilot / flight attendant program. If you get it, read the manual, you might have some updates to do first. (Not fsx ones, but say march 2009 directx updates)

It does not interfere at all with VoxATC, because it does not do ATC. What a combo these two are together!!! It has a great manual, and adds a great virtual copilot to my sim that lets me handle the things I have hardware for (if I want to) and I let the program do the rest. It brings out the jetway, opens the doors. The flight attendant can even bring you a sand which! (Not kidding!!!) Another thing I like is that it doesn’t seem evasive as say, Flight Deck Companion Live Cockpit. In my simulator case, I’m running *all* software off one PC. Granted it has 8 cores and if I get everything going, then launch Flight Deck Companion Live Cockpit, VoxATC and FSX start to under perform. I just did a complete 35 minute flight with everything, except instead of FDC used Voice Commander and wow no problems at all!

I’m REALLY impressed with it!!! I spent over an hour today creating a Electronic Checklist for the TSR software with all the stuff associated with Voice Commander. So I know exactly what is coming, when, and what to say. Awsome!

Really cool piece of software and way worth more then $15 euro in my opinion. Great job guys, this program ROCKS!

Watch these movies, this thing is AWSOME!

I have to admit the TSR software is pretty neat! I picked up the whole package during the 20% off sale, so I have the B737 software, the Autobrake Pro and the Electronic Checklist. I added the extra sound information to pmsounds for the AutoBrake but have not really tried that yet.

Today I spent most of the day reconfiguring buttons, programming the offset information for the AFDS on the Captain’s side (I don’t have the F/O’s side wired up yet) and then setting up the electronic checklist. I setup four of my GoFlight P8 buttons to use FSUIPC offsets which control the program directly. Here’s a video of that in action!

One important thing I learned. If you create your own checklists, they MUST be created and / or edited in WordPad or the like. Notepad screws the formatting up and the software will default to the base file. Which, even after removed, still seems to find it somewhere. Anyhow, knowning that will save you lots of time! I sent Thomas an email for his new manual revision.

I picked up the TSR software, available now at http://www.technicalservicerichter.com (He moved his site, so he’s still cleaning things up) Anyhow, this software supports some of the things pmsystems doesn’t, autobrake, AFDS, has six pack logic and other stuff.

Its going to take me a while to figure out exactly how to get this working. In theory it’s simple, open FSX (Which has FSUIPC running) and then open the B737 software. You mouse over a display, it shows you the offset information. Open InterfaceIT, create an input/output for FSUIPC, enter in the info. But, I’ve tried that and things aren’t matching up. IE, my A/T P/RST doesn’t match hardware wise as it does software wise.

And my goal today is to get the switch sound stuff from TSR working within pmsounds.

So, lots to figure out. Plus, I want to see if I can setup one of my GoFlight P8 buttons to switch between PM and the TSR electronic checklist stuff inside the captains ND. That’d be kick butt! (or heck, even wire up the captains lower du switch to do it… HMMMM……

Today a new piece of software was released, as detailed by this article on AVSIM.

“Multi Crew Experience V1.7 Released
Posted: Friday, September 18th, 2009 – 0:42

The FS++ team is pleased to announce the release of Version V1.7 of their award winning add-on to both FSX and FS2004 known as Multi Crew Experience.

MCE is a speech based add-on that allows the flight simulator enthusiasts to fly the heavies in a far more realistic way.You can give verbal commands to co-pilot, and see them executed. You can go through the checklist interactively, like real pilots do. You can also interact with FS bult-in ATC by voice. This is a serious alternative to VoxATC.

A fully working, time limited demo, is available for download at the MutliCrewXP website, plus all the details about this title.”

It sounded like a really good thing so I decided to try it in their demo mode. I downloaded the Vista installer and ran it. It successfully installed, and then I had no clue what to do. I started FSX, and according to the manual I was supposed to get the typical flight sim request to run the module, DLL. Well, I didn’t.

So, I reran the installer, did a “repair” and then I did receive the notice. I set it to always run. I did a free flight, and sat in the cockpit. I tried talking nothing. I waited, waited, nothing. Alright. So, finally I find there is the software running, it’s in the system tray (hidden) and I click it, force the UI to the front. OK.. now I have options. The manual says nothing about it in the system tray or HOW TO actually show the UI.

I played with the settings etc and then decided to give it a whirl. I rebooted my simulator and fired up all my software. That includes Project Magenta, the GoFlight driver, InterfaceIT, PMSounds, the Project Magenta MCP and CDU and of course, FSX.

MCE loaded and I had my co-pilot ready to accept direct voice commands. One thing that was very annoying was MCE kept popping the ATC window up for a split second, then making it disappear. I guess I could resize the window if I wanted to or stick it in a corner. The main reason I even had the ATC window checked on was that I had no clue WHAT to say to this co-pilot. I’m NOT a real pilot… but at least in VoxATC you get a window that tells you the correct phrasology to say.

So, eventually I figured some things out on my own. Tune radio 1 to ground, it would say “Yep” and then tune the radio. I heard clicks and could see my GoFlight 166 radio tuning, sweet. It comes “strict” out of the box, so when I didn’t get the right procedure in the right order, it would just tell me something to the likes of that isn’t what I’m supposed to do at that time. I wanted to see how it’d react to checklists. I said “After takeoff checklist” when in the air, and then said “Landing gear”, it said “Up”. I said flaps, just to see what it would say, it said “I’m sorry, flap, I didn’t understand” lol.

And it also started to argue with me about the air conditioning. Oh boy. So then, I said “Set heading to 140″ and it said ok, setting heading 1 4 0. I heard the clicks, but my GoFlight MCP PRO was not updating. Nor was the heading bug in my glass cockpit software powered by Project Magenta.

I emailed MCE support to let them know this and got this reply:

I replied back that I was using the default 737 in FSX and again, my question was as to why it wasn’t updating my GoFlight MCP PRO or my Project Magenta software. I got the following reply from them.

“There maybe something worth investigating here.

We use our own custom dll to interface with both FSX and FS9. It’s called fsInsider.dll, and it runs in the FS process.

We could have gone the FSUIPC route, but the latter could not provide everything we wanted.

Example, when you say heading 120, it should be dialled incrementally, and not just splashed on the MCP out of the blue. If we had to do that sort of things through FSUIPC, it would be ineffective. Too much needless IPC calls, when it can be done the native way.

In addition FSUIPC does not provide any ATC information, which the ATC feature of MCE needs.

MCE does not interface with Project Magenta Software at this time.

Thanks for your feedback

Sincerely,

The FS++ team”

So while this seems like a good project for desktop aviators, high end enthusiasts like myself are out of luck, since this software doesn’t support Project Magenta, which means if I ask this co-pilot in MCE to set anything on the MCP, it won’t work because my GoFlight MCP works directly with the Project Magenta MCP. So, I had to uninstall Multicrew Experience 1.7. I guess I’m stuck with the fully functional and working VoxATC….

To boot, after I ran the uninstaller, it did not remove the .dll it had installed into the main FSX installation folder. I booted up FSX in my sim, and FSX just hung up. I couldn’t figure out why. Well, it turned out a window had appeared that said the software was removed and I had to manually remove the .dll. Problem was, it had appeared on my 7″ screen that is for my temp. CDU, so I never knew it was there. OK, no problem, that is not their fault. I removed the .dll and started FSX up again. NOW…. my main visual window that shows you the aircraft you have selected has the dreaded black screen of death that I now have to fix. I have done NOTHING else other than install and uninstall MCE! Want to know the funny thing? On their websites FAQ, here, it says:

“

Q: I have built a very strong simulator rig over the years, is there a possibility MCE might mess-up my configuration?

A: The answer is No.

“

Sigh. Well, I didn’t have the black screen before, and now I do. You can make the decision on your own… Update on this: Before I install ANY add on to my simulator, I make backups of ALL important configuration files. FSX.CFG… (located in well, for Vista.. Users/Username/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/FSX) the PM config files, GF config files, etc. I restored to the FSX.CFG file I had made prior to installing and uninstalling MCE 1.7 and guess what, the black screen problem is gone. So, they obviously add and removed something to my FSX.CFG file that screwed up my video. Nice!

And, then, I felt compelled to notify AVSIM that I wouldn’t directly consider MCE an alternative to VoxATC… Below is my email to Tom at AVSIM:

“Hey Tom and AVSIM Staff, I just wanted to note an update on the MultiCrew Experience 1.7 you released. While you might consider this a good alternative to VoxATC, I have to disagree with you simply on the standpoint of flying FS vs flying in a simulator. I’m currently building a 737NG-800 simulator with full hardware from Flight Deck Solutions, using Project Magenta. I tried MSE 1.7 today in the demo form and while impressed, ran into some issues that I don’t think were considered when the article was written. One of the main issues is that it does not interface at all with FSUIPC nor Project Magenta. So, I can certainly “tell” my virtual copilot to set a heading, but the heading bug in PM won’t change. Thus, my visual representation of what I should be doing vs the audio representation of what MCE 1.7 was telling me are off. And on top of that, despite doing 2 hours of voice training with the MCE 1.7 app, there were lots of annoying “I didn’t get that, say again, maybe you should wait until I’m finished” sort of remarks that in the long run made me uninstall the software. VoxATC works, and does its sole job, ATC within my simulator. In my scenario, I’ve got a real co-pilot anyhow. MCE does have a place among great software, but at this time, I don’t see many of the high end enthusiast sim builders using it. Sincerely, Matt Riggins www.my737sim.com”

I guess I’m the type of guy who is motivated to do something when I have things on my mind. There is a small family issue going on, and I’ve been up for hours trying to get my mind off of it. Then, I finally just decided to pull out the old GPS screen I had back in the cessna sim and turn it into a temp. CDU screen.

The beauty of course is that when I do order my first CDU, this can become a temp screen for the F/O side. And, the outer bezel fits the FDS cdu tray perfectly. No it’s not touch screen or full size but it beats having the CDU on the bottom corner of the main projected display!

If you get delayed on a flight, tweet about it! (Or Facebook it heh, if non friends can read what you post on your wall) It seems the major airlines are watching and may respond!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/09/14/airlines.social.media/index.html

Thanks to Stuart Goldhawk for a link to http://737throttle.com

The site is new so there isn’t much there yet, but its goal is to “gather as much technical data, photos, measurements and experiences for all those who are planning to build, buy or just love the 737 throttle.”

I look forward to checking back with this site in the future!

Oh yeah, oh yeah! So I just flew the FSX Mission Amsterdam-UK Airline Run. It starts out as a typical flight from Amsterdam to London, in torrential rain and thunderstorms. But around FL120 the cabin crew report a passenger is having a heart attack and after “World Travel” dispatch is notified, it’s decided that the plane needs to land immediately with a medical emergency at the nearest airport.

I turned towards the destination airport and descended to 2000 feet. I could not see anything, torrential rain and cloud cover made visibility maybe 5 miles. But, I had the airport showing up in my ND so I knew which way to go. And even cooler, the little compass/arrow that these missions show you in the game was wrong! It had me pointed about 30 degrees left and 4 miles away! Awsome that my full fledged cockpit software (Project Magenta) was completely accurate and was showing me exactly what I needed to know.

I captured the glideslope and set the MCP to [APP]roach.We landed successfully and taxied to the gate where an ambulance was waiting to pick up the heart attack victim. Success and I was awarded the “Pilot of the Hour” medal!

WOW!

I found a great pdf, which you can download here, on various communications systems on the 737 including the ACP, SELCAL, CVR and more! Good information for 737 simmers!

I’ve never flown in Italy, so last night after double checking button configurations I decided to pick two random airports in Italy and see the scenery. Unfortunately, the destination airport was not meant to land a 737!!!! Holy smokes! More pictures below!!

Holding near the active at Tessera, Italy, LIPZ

More pictures below! Click…

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