Beechcraft B200 King Air - Systems Simulator

[capetonian]

Hi everyone, I shot this short clip a while back when Alfred started to mention the Master Caution Annunciator but I never got around to posting it. Here it is, I shot this when working on the logic behind the annunciators.



Of course still nowhere near a distributable version but I am making progress, albeit very very slow progress!

Cheers and thanks for reading this!!

[meistereder]

Good morning!

This is interesting! How did you arrange the logic? How many situations do fire up the Master Warning? Looks - as always - promising.

I am shortly before getting my first panels laster engraved/cut. This is exiting and I yet I have to play around to find the best method (material/color/background/leds) - so many things to test. The I/O cards of Leo Bodnar have been tested recently - I am very much surprised how easy it is to get rotary encoders and 12-position-switches soldered with this one.

Further more I am now 100% dedicated to Collins Pro Line 21 Avionics. After flying around for a year with the networked analog version of the King Air I have to admit that the complexity is limited. I have just bought and installed the pretty old Frindly Panels King Air Pro Line Gauges and was impressed how deeply the functions are simulated. Having configurable REFS speeds directly on the speed tape, getting minimum warnings, having the flight plan on the EHSI or having a round ALT bar showing on the EHSI where a certain climb/descend will be finished on my track just ist great!

Only downturn - there are some functions (about 7 buttons) that have to be clicked in the virtual cockpit - so I still not can get them on mouse makros. Flightline Simulations may this year release their suite - then everything should be possible!




As it comes to the panels I have to leave out some switches due to limited space in my Piper Arrow. I have made a quick list of buttons that may not be part of the panels. Likely some would be on your list of supported functions that maybe should be on the panels - of course that is no guarantee from your side - but if there are 4-5 that you would put on the panels I will do that certainly!

Thank you and best regards,
Alfred
Here the list of functions not yet incorparted in my panels:

CAPTAIN SIDE

Landing Lights double - I have just one
Ice Protection: Wshld Anti Ice (dual)
External Power
Bat Bus Norm/Emergency Off
Prop Auto/Manual
Hyd Fluid Sensor
Fuel Vent
Surface De-Ice
Stall-Warning De-Ice
Defrost Air
Actuators-Stand-By
Gen Ties Main Close/Open
Bus Sense Reset/Test

COPILOT SIDE

Cabin Air
Cabin Temp Mode
Cabin Temp
Manual Temp inc/decr
Vent Blower High/Lo/Auto
Window Defog
Engine Fire Test (left/right)
Aft Heat
Elec Heat
Overspeed Warning Test
Cabin Alt Warn (Test)
Cabin Alt Warn (Silence)
Envr Bleed Air Manual

[capetonian]

Hi Alfred, .. you got me thinking, .. and as i am now in Zurich with nothing to do for the next two days I decided to do a little work on the project.

I have added a Tab for the Pro line controls. If one chooses 'standard' cockpit on the main screen then all the controls on the Pro line tab age grayed out and cannot be used, if one choose Pro line Glass then the controls become active. I see the diagram that you have of the Autopilot/MCP panel is not the same as the ones i have seen on pictures found on the internet. I would need some references and a list off all the actual buttons and switches on the control panels as well as the DCP (Display Control Panel). To make this work with 3rd party software like Friendly Panels I will need a list of the offsets that they use for the button presses, if I have these then I can link them to hardware buttons.

Of course the best option will be to make my own version of the Pro line software, .. but this is serious graphical programming, maybe there other people put there that are good with C# who are willing to get on board and help.

Two screenshots for you:





Maybe some of the German KingAir builders can shed some light on the correct buttons and knobs on the AP panel.

Again, thanks for following this thread everyone.

[meistereder]

Good morning!
Very good news that you plan to implement the Pro Line. 1 add-on is coming up and 1 networked version, in the meantime the only available source is Frindly Panels. They are indeed rather good, but it was not meant for being used in a simulator. So there are no offsets and no Lvars available for getting those missing 9 buttons of the Display Control Unit into the simulator - beside of getting those on mouse makro keys.

Still I will hide those little panel and catch the buttons there including the line select keys with the mouse as the overall impression of using this system is very much what I am expecting from a high quality cockpit.

Here should be more correct lists of the PL21 panels as far as I got to understand them:

AP:

FD (button)
CRS (rotary)
VS (button)
VNAV (button)
VS (wheel Down<->Up)
FLC (button)
Speed (rotary)
NAV (button)
1/2 Bank (button)
HDG (button)
HDG (rotary)
APPR (button)
ALT (button)
ALT (rotary)
YD (button)
CPL (button)
AP (button)
YD/AP DISC (button)
FD (button)
CRS2 (rotary)

The Display Control Unit:

Baro (Pushbutton/Rotary)
REFS (Momentary button)
Menu ADV - Data (Pushbutton/Rotary)
NAV/BRG (momentary button)
RADAR (mom. button)
GCS (mom. button)
TILT-RANGE (Pushbutton/Rotary)

Radio Tuning Unit

Double Rotary
Ident (momentary button)
DME-H (mom. button)
1/2 (mom. button)
Line select keys: 2x COM; 2x NAV, 1x ATC, 1x ADF, 1x SPARE

Reversionary Display Panel and other panels can be seen here pretty good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qna5vR_hRd0 - to be honest beside of TCAS and Display buttons the majority is not clear to me yet.

All the best!
Alfred

[pilotctk]

Capetonian - I would agree that this is an amazing project, and I am very excited to hear that you are doing this. Thank you for using your IT & programming skills to simulate the King Air systems. I look forward to perhaps using your project as the foundation for building a realistic King Air simulator with my son. I tried contacting you the other day through your website since my account on this forum was slow to be approved (perhaps b/c I live in the United States, I'm not sure). Anyway, I look forward to keeping up on your progress.

I flew the King Air 200 and the Beechcraft 1900 for about 3 years, so please let me know if there are any questions with which I may be able to assist you. I would be glad to help!

[capetonian]

Bonjour.

Just a quick note to say that this project is still alive and kicking. I have been extremely busy with work and private life and I had to give things a break. But I am back and will post an update within the next few days!

Cheers from Holland.

[pilotctk]

That is good news! Many of us look forward to seeing your progress!

[capetonian]

I'm back!!!

After letting real life get in the way I have finally dusted off my programming books and I have picked up the KIng Air project again. It's been about 6 months since I last did any work on the Core and I have to strip out some of the things that Ihad programmed and write them again. Several people offered to jump on the wagon and help me out with graphics programming, hardware as well as software gauge development and the like but I never really heard from them again. So I am back on my own as it were, don;t expect any miracles but I will try to post an update at least once a month.

[capetonian]

I have started rewriting the code from the ground up and have no reached the point that I was at at the end of last year. Now the interfaces are done and I have to start actually writing the code to make things work. I am curious to what kind of demand there is out there for cockpit builders and who flies what.

I myself am at a point where I should choose what I want to develope for: X-Plane, FSX or Prepar3d. I have been flying the milViz King Air 350 (I have been beta testing and was one of the first group of customers to actually purchase it( and I absolutly love it. But FSX limits the stuff you can do. Some suggest X-plane and some Prepar3d. I have started a poll and am curious as to the answers.

Cheers for now,

[capetonian]

Oh , .. I cannot seem to find an option to start a poll, .. scrub that idea for now then :)