Very cool !

This has been a very cool decision:

Since my main P3D sim computer is overclocked to 4.7 ghz and the housing contains also 2 Geforce GTX TitanX grafic cards, low and stable temperatures of CPU and grafic cards were impossible to achieve. Therefore the system was not always running as stable and smooth as it should.
Although the CPU was already cooled with a Corsair H110i GT watercooling.

So, when talking with my computerspecialist Michael Rosenboom (http://achimer-computershop.de), Michael suggested an external watercooling system. First I was  skeptical about this, it seemed to me a bit of an overkill and it is not cheap. But finally Michael convinced me to go for that. Now I must say, that this was the best investment I have made into my computersystems since long. The CPU temperatures are as low  as max. 55 degr. with full overclock and load and the grafic cards  stay cool at around 30 degr., although I have overclocked them a bit also now. Before, sometimes the CPU was going up to 80 degr.
The system runs smoother, stable and also the sim seems to be smoother, with less microstutters.

The cooling system is quite simple: There is an external cooling machine, 2 hoses go to the computer, one for inlet, one for outlet. CPU and grafic adapters are then cooled with a water heat exchanger. With this machine, also more then one computer can be cooled. It is made by Aquatuning, Germany.
The cooling machine is not quiet (60db at 1 mtr. distance). This is not a problem here in my sim, as there is already a noise level when it is running. If you use the machine for cooling a desktop workstation, you don´t want to have it close to your destop. The machine can be placed up to 10 mtr. away from the computer, even in a different room.

the computer inside, with new cooling system

The computer runs 3 HD beamers, grafic adapters in sli configuration and one extra HD monitor for system maintenance. P3D3.4 and Immersive Display Pro.
Here are the specifications of my computersystem, as it was before the upgrade:

i7-5960K 3.0 GHz - R9 390X Premium
Lieferzeit: 5 - 9 Werktage
Gehäuse:Corsair - Carbide Air 540 mit Fenster, schwarz
CPU (Prozessor):Intel Core i7-5960X, 8x 3.00GHz
CPU-Übertaktung:Übertaktung Stufe 2 - Extreme (Details beachten!)
Mainboard:ASUS Rampage V Extreme/USB 3.1, Intel X99 (Details beachten!)
Grafikkarte: 2 x NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB
Arbeitsspeicher:32GB Performance DDR4-2400 (4x 8GB)
SSD:1TB Samsung 850 Pro Series
Festplatte:2TB Toshiba Desktop Series
Laufwerk:DVD-Brenner 24x Samsung SH-224DB/FB
Netzteil:1200W - Corsair AX Professional Platinum AX1200i (digital)
Soundkarte:HD-Audio Onboard
Wireless LAN:WLAN integriert (PCIe) 150MBit/s
CPU-Kühler:Corsair H110i GT CPU-Wasserkühlung (Bitte Details beachten!)
Silent-Gehäuselüfter:5x Corsair Air Series Lüfter

Spoiler vibration

Since long I wanted to have vibrations in my buttkickers, that increase when the spoiler extension is increased. Until now, the vibration sounds have been triggered by the Prosim gate "spoiler extendet". But then, the vibration started, even when the spoilers where only extended just a little. Not realistic.

Now, with a lua, 4 different soundlevels are played, for 4 spoiler extension levels. In addition there are vibrations on ground, speed dependent. Ofcourse there can be as many sound level steps as you like. I found 4 to be enough. The sound is 0.5 sec. long  and played continously via my Prosim soundmodul for the buttkickers. This sound is just copied and then imported to prosim audio. So I have 6 - 4 in air, 2 on ground. The soundlevel of these are individually adjusted in the Prosim modul.

The lua and sound can be downloaded here.

Feel free to write me an email via the form on the bottom of the page, if you have any suggestions. I have also played arround with a combination of indicated airspeed and spoiler levels to adjust the soundlevel also to the airspeed. For some reason that didn´t work.

lightning simulation with stroboscope

I have added a small and cheap stroboscope that give more realistic lightning effects by throwing flashes onto the screen. A LUA  switches the stroboscope on and off for 400 msec by a random function and if storms are present. In air it also gives flashes when cumulus, moderate or more turbulence and heavy precipitation are present. The LUA sets an user offset, which switches an user gate in Prosim. The user gate finally switches an Phidget relay card output. This Relaycard is used only for 220 Volts.

The in air function for cumulus clouds requires the .dll, that was programmed by Benny and reads weather parameters from AS16 and writes them into user offsets. See also this post:
http://b737sim.blogspot.de/2017/03/turbulence-in-buttkicker-for-as16.html
If you delete the second part for the cumulus clouds inside the LUA it will work without the.dll.

If you have any ideas for improving the LUA I would be happy, if you let me know that. Use the form on the bottom of the page to contact me. The LUA can be downloaded here:

The LUA parameters random, ipc.sleep and event.timer can be changed to tune it for your needs. I found the present adjustements fit very good to the lightning frequency of P3Dv3.4 and AS16.


You may see it in this video:

This is the stroboscope:

Here you can buy the stroboscope (Conrad/Voelkner):
https://www.voelkner.de/products/798627/Renkforce-Stroboskop-Weiss.html

I am also thinking off adding a second, much stronger stroboscope which gives very bright flashes, but then very rarely.

Video: Madeira VOR 05 circling approach

Here you can see 2 VOR 05 circling approaches at Funchal, Madeira (LPMA) - one in daylight, one at dusk.  I used the new Aerosoft Madeira X evolution scenery and liked it, especially the leed in lights. Below there is a link to a youtube video of a real VOR 05 approach, quite nice to compare the scenery.

Approach in a real B737:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kSvOGU ... ubs_digest

Switching views between Capt., middle and FO

With screens or projection - despite you have an extremely expensive colimated projection - there is always the problem, that the view of the runway during approach is never aligned to the eypoint of the pilot if it is set to the middle axis of the cockpit. The impression is, that the airplane crabs, although it doesn´t.

This happens because of the short distance from the pilot´s eye to the screen. In reality the lines of sight to a distant object are almost parallel. In the Sim they are not.

In normal sim operation this can be accepted. For landing training, and even more in crosswind conditions, this is not perfect. A workaround is, to shift the sim´s eyepoint left or right to one of the pilot´s. For the pilot flying it is quite good then, for the pilot monitoring ofcourse it is worth. Although on ground also the PF get´s a bit strange impression because the cockpit structure does not align runway and taxiways. However, it is a compromise and good enough for flying.

In my Sim this was not so easy to achieve.  P3D is setup with viewgroups while warping and blending is done by fly elise immersion display pro software. To shift the eyepoint, in P3D a different viewgroup has to be selected and after that, in IDP (Immersive display Pro) a different configuration.

Before, new viewgroup and IDP (.procalib) files have to be generated with immersive calibration pro. This is straight forward, as the eyepoint can easily be  shifted in the frustrums menu as needed (at the IDP server).
After that calculate first single, then multi frustrums and export the files including the new viewgroup file for P3D. From the newly generated viewgroup.xml´s copy the viewgroup section and paste these into the existing viewgroups.xml in P3D program data folder. So finally your P3D viewgroup.xml has 3 different viewgroups or as many as you like. In the xml you can edit the name of each viewgroup.

Immersive calibration server window

Although they can not be used one to one at your setup, you can download a viewgroup.xml and 3 procalib files as examples to give you an idea here.

Next I made 3 LUAs, one for each view . These make it possible by mouse move and other functions to switch the view by the press of a key. In IDP you can enable a keyshortcut for each configuration. This shortcut is finally "pressed" by the LUA. The LUA can also be downloaded here.

To make things easier I use the ipad app "air keypoard" which allows to configure an individual keyboard for the functions you need inside the sim and also has standart keyboards available. So no mouse or other keyboard is needed anymore inside the sim. A very useful app for me.

ipad app "Air Keyboard", my individual Sim keyboard

Finally, here you can see how it works:

If anyone has ideas, how to achieve switching views easier, please email me via the form at the bottom of the page.

Original B 737 NG Gear Lever installed

I was lucky to buy an OEM B737 NG gearlever. It is fully functional, switch and solenoid work. Installation at the FDS MIP was quite straight forward.

A great help was the excellent documentation on flaps2approach website, here is the link. I added one switch for the gear up position. Switches were connected to prosim FDS syscard. The solenoid via a Pokey output, which switches a relay for the needed 24 Volt.

Handling the gear lever now gives a really heavy aircraft feeling. Function is like in the real aircraft. Very nice!

painting the lever

Video how it works:

the new lever mounted at the MIP

backside mount

Lbracket and a bold holds the lever assembly firmly

Turbulence in the Buttkicker for AS16

We now managed to have turbulence feedback through the buttkickers.

Benny has made a C++  .dll that reads out the AS16 API (Actice sky weather software) and writes some numbers into user FSUIPC offsets. These then can be used inside a lua. This lua finally plays different, short sounds via the Prosim sound modul for the buttkickers. A random function in the lua makes the sounds play in different sequences, so no equal patterns can be heard anyhow.
(See also the post at flightX, in german language: http://flightx.net/index.php?thread/91863-as16-api-auslesen-as-btstrp-dll/)

The 5 sounds were made by Markus (https://737cockpit.info/). They have to be copied 3 times, so that you have 5 sounds each for the 4 different turbulence levels: Light, moderate, severe and heavy. Rename them, corresponding to the turbulence level. After having them assigned in Prosim, different soundlevels can be aplied to each sound, according to the turbulence level. The sounds are played via offsets, that are set by the lua.

Further, more detailed information  the LUA file and sounds can be downloaded here.

EDIT:
With the latest FSUIPC 4.971 / 5.11, Pete Dowson has integrated the readout of AS16 in FSUIPC. So things are easier now.

From FSUIPC changes:
"33. Additional offsets are provided for additional weather information provided by the recent
versions of Active Sky. These are:
8638 Ambient turbulence at aircraft (0-1000), 32-bit float
863C Exported ambient visibility (metres), 32-bit float (-ve if not supported)
8640 Exported precipitation type (0 none, 1 rain, 2 snow, 3 hail), 8-bit integer (Byte)
8641 Exported precipitation rate (0-4), 8-bit integer (Byte)
8642 In cloud flag (non-zero if aircraft is in cloud), Byte."

Aluminium side wall covers

For some reason, FDS didn´t deliver upper sidewall covers with there liner package. So i decided to make some, that are not to far away from the real ones. After having made a mask of cardboard I cut out a piece of 1.5mm aluminium, formed and finally painted it with RAL 7011. The other one was just done mirrored. This was easier than expected.

LED strobes and LED landing lights

For more,  I believe,  realistic strobe effects, I installed some simple LED, that are connected to an LED flasher (see link below). They flash onto the curved screen. To make them more dim, they are covered by some ND filter- and milkglass film. At the flasher, the trim Poti had to be changed for a 50 or 100kOhm one to achieve flashing intervalls of more than 1 sec.

The strobes are activated by the strobe switch when on ground. In air some more conditions have to be met. In reality ofcourse you see them only from the cockpit, if the plane is in heavy precipitation, cloud or low visibility and relative darkness. 

These datas come from the AS16 weather software. The Incloud status is not precise to date. According to Active Sky this depends mainly on the kind of cloud textures used. The incloud status is often supressed by AS16 to avoid other negative side effects (e.g. with cloud motion). I tried to work arround this problem by using visibility and precipitation. Not perfect, but so far ok for me.

For this and other purpose, Benny has made a C++  .dll that reads out the AS16 API (Actice sky weather software) and writes some numbers into user FSUIPC offsets. These then can be used inside a lua. This lua finally plays different, short sounds via the Prosim sound modul for the buttkickers. A random function in the lua makes the sounds play in different sequences, so no equal patterns can be heard anyhow.
(See also the post at flightX, in german language: http://flightx.net/index.php?thread/91863-as16-api-auslesen-as-btstrp-dll/). The .dll and further information can be downloaded here.

To give you an idea and something to play with, if you like, 2 versions of LUA can be downloaded here, one includes also the daytime and shuts strobes off over the day. The latter was made by Markus (https://737cockpit.info/2017/02/03/strobe-lights-working/)

This flasher is used, Klick to follow link

Video: Farewell Bobby - A Lufthansa Boeing 737 tribute

This emotional video was made by Sebastian (see last post):

Video: Oslo to Bergen - pilot and air traffic controller

Sebastian, air traffic controller and Raphael, one of the last "Bobby" Lufthansa pilots having a good time in my sim. It was a lot of fun to fly with these professionals !

Video: Cabin depress followed by a rapid descent

On a flight from Oslo to Evenes we experienced a major cabin depressurization at FL300. The cabin pressure was not controllable, so we made an emergency descent to FL100. Then we diverted to Trondhjem. We, young sim-captain Tobias and me, did our best, but the procedures are not 100% professional. Hope you enjoy.

The oxygen mask get there pressurized air from a 300 bar diving-fillup bottle:

takeoff sounds reworked

Groundroll and takeoff sounds have been reworked in my Sim. The goal was to get more realistic sounds and better immersion. 

Engines: The engine noise degrades when the speed increases. When applying takeoff power at zero speed you hear them loudest. Also you feel thrustvibrations through the buttkickers. The engine sound gradually decreases when the plane is accelerating. The little tool “fs-set-volume” makes this possible (http://forum.simflight.com/topic/81553-fs-set-volume/). This tiny software adjusts the volume of your default sound device, depending on N1 and Machno and can run on any computer in the network with wideclient. From the the rear speaker output of the main FS computer I took the sound via a Y-cable to the line in of another external pc. There it goes to the default output of the external pc (the one regulated by fs-set volume) and then to 2 additional rear speakers. This way I avoided that FS-volume regulates all 3 channels of the main FS-Audio output, they work independently as before. Sounds a bit complicated, but it´s not, and costs not much despite the cable and the 2 speakers.

When speed rises, a nosewheel sound kicks in, also additional groundroll sounds. The vibration increases with the speed – you might see the cam shaking a bit. When the nosewheel leaves the ground, the nosewheel groundroll sound disappears and a nosewheel spinning sound comes up. Then you here the gear up sounds and also a geardoor lock knock comes through the buttkicker.
After landing there is an additional reverser vibration sound going through the buttkickers and the nosewheel rolling sound can be heard again.
The sounds are all triggered by several lua scripts and distributed via Prosim audio moduls. Some of the sounds are captured from real flight youtube videos. 

The LUA scripts can be downloaded here. They work in my sim, but there is no guarantee that they do in others. I had some conflicts with ProsimUtils. By moving the Luas to another computer, this was solved. Some write offsets probably have to be changed in your setup. I am not an experienced programmer, so there might be better ways for programming these scripts.

Low cost, fully functional ISFD

I have made a fully working low cost simple ISFD without backlight. The screen is still used for Upper Eicas, RMI and ISFD together. As there is not much space between the FDS MIP and the screen, I used small micro switches. The frame and buttons where designed with sketchup and 3D printed at a company. Overall costs 50-60.- €. Sketchup 3D files can be downloaded here (please have also a look into the readme.pdf):

Mike and clock switch at the bumpers

Although it´s a bit luxury as not many real planes have this: Pete Cos from FDS made these combined clock/mic bumper panels for me. Great work. I also like the function. No interference with the PF yoke inputs when using the PTT button on the bumpers. Also nice to have the clock switch there, especially for traffic patterns.

New FDS rudder pedals

I bought and installed a pair of rudder pedals from FDS (Flightdecksolutions) Canada. They are interlinked and can be adjusted like the real ones. The quality is superb and I can hardly imagine, that it is possible to damage them with any forces coming from the pilot´s legs. Expensive, but in long term maybe not.

Before I was using pedals from Flybycockpit. They are also nice, but are built differently. Structure is made of fiberglass and some parts are made of 3d print plastics. Ofcourse the price is one third of the FDS ones and taking this in account, they are also definetely ok. They have to be used with a little more care to avoid the pedals bending outwards.

New video channel is up

Wipers and sidewindow sliderails installed

The wipers are selfmade, mainly from aluminium sheets. They are not functional, but in my mind add some realism because they are in pilots field of view. The wipers are built to scale with attention to detail. However, I would like to have them made a bit mor slim.

These are the rails for the front sidewindows. Ofcourse they are not functional. Made of MDF and an aluminium rod.

Screen without warping and blending

This shows, which hard work fly elise immersion display pro has to do, to get the projected picture warped and blended. The flat projection angle of the side projectors makes it possible to avoid any shadows from the shell with the screen radius of 1,90 m. The disadvantage is, that the picture is less sharp. The pixels are stretched, and many pixels are cut away, so the actual resolution is much less then HD. So it is a compromise. The good side of this radius is, that I see absolute no screen edges  from the cockpit, even when moving the head a bit out of the standart position.

First Video in Sim with Shell: Takeoff and Landing at Paro, Bhutan