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Precision Flight Controls

5 min read

Installing Win10 on old hardware

Originally Win 7 Pro installed on two WD Blue HDDs. Target set up: Windows 10 on a WD Blue 500G SSD to speed up boot times.

Problems encountered: old motherboard, no driver support, “missing media drivers”, “no OS found” after install.

Solution: Install Windows 10 on SSD via a different motherboard and configure. Then plug SSD to old computer

Setting up X-Plane

X-Plane 11 installation was straightforward. NVIDIA drivers needed to be updated: GeForce GTX 750 Ti installed with drivers version 4xx. Update to 512.15.

X-Plane appears to work and boots well. However, there is concern over COM port usability for hardware flight controls. Install PFC drivers; need to compare FSUIPC and XUIPC → specifically, check if the later depends on the former, and whether it is required. Nonetheless, download all DLL as a precaution.

Hardware was working before, so plug in old HDDs and browse for relevant files. Copy Custom Maps into X-Plane, copy PFCTest software to manage COM port. Suspect ignition issue at hardware level related to this or mismatch of hardware inputs and datarefs assignment.

Testing network communication

Install X-Plane 11 on Arch Linux to set up instructor station. Concerns: OS incompatibility.

Running on Linux

Installer fails due to missing libGLU.so.1. Name is apparently outdated, and often just a symlink for glu. To install, yay -S glu; after a .14 MiB download, X-Plane installer runs.

April 20th, 2022

After installing X-Plane on both computers and plugging all hardware in, including the PFC MDF, started up X-Plane.

Initial notes:

  1. computers were unable to send data to each other,
  2. visual computer had trouble displaying all menus and a correct FOV,
  3. flight model was completely out of whack (aircraft moving scholastically around space, in all directions).
  4. no scenery was visible (only water around runways),
  5. Flight controls not working as expected:
    1. poor left roll control,
    2. excessive pitch sensitivity,
    3. starters seem to be on at all times
    4. only pitch control when battery is off

Solutions:

  1. Reset networking configuration on both visual and master computers. Ensure roles are specified, and lock view on visual computer to master. If needed, add IP address and ensure Wi-Fi is off.

  2. On external visuals computer, adjust settings to include every monitor (need to scroll all the way down for horizontal slider). Set each monitor to “default resolution for this monitor” and select option for displaying external views only (no panel). Set FOV to required value - this can be done experimentally - a FOV of 45 degrees mean the side monitors still seemed to be looking forward. Adjust with lateral offset views on same menu.

  3. Ensure correct aircraft model is loaded on both computers. Aircraft models are located in $ ../X-Plane/Aircraft.

  4. Global scenery is available with the purchase of a professional license. Alternatively, it is possible to download specific geographic areas under Custom Areas - untested.

  5. Calibrate controls under settings, User Profiles:

    1. Set each axis to center, min, and max
    2. Adjust pitch, roll, and yaw rate sliders and acceleration profiles
    3. According to various X-Plane forum posts, XP11 is incompatible with serial port connections. It does appear that there is poor support for COM-connected controls, given the lack of settings and auto-discovery options (see 1 and 2 for small fixes)

May 19, 2022

Using Elite Datarefs plugin was inconclusive. Suspect the plugin is designed for a COM panel but does not address the use of yoke/rudder pedal combinations.

Using the Precision Flight Controls testing software we were able to ascertain which signals are being delivered to the computer under different conditions:

  1. At all times the left ignition/mag switch is inop. The right ign/mag seems to deliver information to the master computer, although it maintains a state of Start L+R at all times
  2. The left brake was unable to be fined tuned: functioned as an on/off switch rather than having access to a spectrum of values.
  3. The yoke and rudder pedals worked normally, except when the battery switch was turned off. In that scenario, no data was received by master computer - explains why with battery of in flight we lost all roll and yaw control. Suspect improper connection set up or hardware fault.

Specific fixes for 5.3 above

According to the XP11 desktop manual, a serial port can be set up by adjusting Dataref Read/Write parameters:

### Serial Port Flight Instruments Set Up

If you have flight instruments or other hardware you plug into a serial port, you can send datarefs from X‑Plane to the serial port to drive them. To do this, first go to the Data Output section of Settings and click on **Dataref Read/Write**. Check the box next to **A COM port**, then select the com-port number and enter the baud rate in the lower-right.

Now you can choose any number of datarefs from the list on the left to write or read from the serial port. They will show up on the right. If you selected a dataref that contains an _array_ of data (like sim/cockpit/engine/fuel_pump_on, for example), then you simply select the array index you want from the field there.

Source: https://x-plane.com/manuals/desktop/index.html#configuringflightcontrols

Some people in forums have suggested using HID drivers; however, these appear to be geared towards serial to USB adaptor set ups.

Have you downloaded the XPUIPC plugin (equivalent of FSUIPC) and put it in your resources/plugins folder? With this every button/switch is automatically recognised on the C2 if the aircraft has the button/switch.

Can also test using PFC serial test utilities and other legacy software: https://flypfc.com/legacy/

https://flypfc.com/wp-content/uploads/support/Set_Up_Guide_Serial_Avionics_XPlane9.pdf

https://flypfc.com/wp-content/uploads/support/Serial_CATIII_%20and_X-Plane_9_%20Setup_Guide.pdf

Other resources

X-Plane 11 Manual Discussion on drivers for serial controls Calibration issues with serial ports Converting serial port to USB for XP11 Avionics stack set up for XP9

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