brydling

Bring yourself to a higher level please.

Of course the Americans can restrict the sale of software as well, but this is not their software, so no I don't think so. Edit: Anyway, it hardly matters since there is American hardware in the A/C as well. I was just responding to you saying that a large part of the aircraft's software is American. That is wrong. Of course, it depends on what you mean by "considerable". Also, the view I've got of this is that the Americans mostly helped with the large problems after the first crash, making it possible to continue flight testing again in 1990. The problem was not solved however, since it crashed again in Stockholm in -93 (or -94?). Saab has a patent on the final fix that solved the root of the problem, not just made it smaller.

Words ripped from their context. I am not claiming to have any proof, hence the words "what I've heard". But if you have proof I am interested in knowing.

They weren't, sorry. Anyway, it doesn't change the fact that what I've heard is there was a cooperation that both parties were interested in. Maybe initiated by Saab because they had problems, but I don't know anything about that. No, it's not. Larger hydraulics systems gives faster control surfaces.

Do you have any proof for what you are saying? What I've heard is that there was a cooperation because the Americans was also developing their first fly-by-wire aircraft at the time. However they never got any problems because of the F-16's larger size. Edit: Google translate: Actually, yes you can. You are talking about export restrictions. America can't restrict the software from being exported in any way.

I saw that after searching some more. But still, the software is not American. That would be a lie. So maybe they got support from a company with a new state-of-the-art simulator to sort out some problems, but they still own the code. From what I've heard, there was a cooperation with the Americans, who were also very interested in fly-by-wire at the time but had not experienced this issue because of their larger aircraft. Saab fixed the problem and Saab has the patent regarding the solution to the issue. They have also written the code. What is remarkable that the other manufacturers have not done is to build a small aircraft with the same maneuvering performance as a large one. Contrary to what you might believe it is easier to make a larger aircraft perform well.

From what I can see, Calspan is a simulator that was used. The software is not American.

Please explain which American software in the Gripen has anything to do with preventing crashes.

If NATO-compatibility is such a bad thing, how is any other western fighter better? :) The Gripen had it's own tactical link that was superior to Link16, but if you want to play with the big boys you have to downgrade to the same old standards that they use. As a side note, the Draken had the first operational airborne data link ever and the JA 37 had the first fighter-to-fighter data link :)

Actually, I don't think the F/A-18 C/D will be superior to the Gripen E at all. That is even without counting the fact that you will get more fighters and more flight hours per fighter with the Gripen.

Probably, but as you say they will get old quickly. It will also leave little room for pilot training. Does anyone know the maintenance hours per flight hour for the F/A-18? 5-10 hours? Edit: http://yarchive.net/mil/fa18_vs_a6.html says 19,1 maintenance man-hours are needed for every flight hour, but it says nothing about the real wall-clock time. That should be shorter due to several technicians working in parallell.

Hi John, I don't know when this board will handle encoders. Probably pretty soon now, but this is the third time I say that encoders will soon be supported and the first time was years ago.. :-) However there are bigger plans for this board now. There is a new version in development and that will probably benefit the old version as well. More info will follow. Best regards, Niclas

Thank you John! Feel free to ask me any questions you may have. Good luck! /Niclas

Nice to hear! Thank you and good luck with your project :)

Hi John! I have received your payment and will send the board on Monday. No rotary encoder support yet unfortunately. I haven't had the motivation to program at home lately.

Thank you for the info! :) I hope you will enjoy it!

It is a pretty common misconception, yes. I've seen it in several places too, but it's not true. DirectX recognizes more than 32 buttons, but FSX does not. I use all my 124 buttons per device directly in DCS, and all my customers can confirm that :) Edit: Just to clarify where it comes from. In DirectX you can specify exactly how many buttons and axes you are interested in from a device. Instead of specifying it manually, there are some pre-defined options. One of these options are for 128 buttons, 8 axes and 4 POV hats. This option is called c_dfDIJoystick2 and is likely what DCS is using. Earlier versions of DirectX (before DirectInput5) did only have c_dfDIJoystick, which has 32 buttons, 8 axes and 4 POV hats. There were newer versions of DirectX around when FSX was created, they just didn't care enough about this :)

DirectX is not limiting either. I have written DirectX applications that can use all the buttons on my joystick controller. The applications that are only able to use 32 buttons have this limit in the application itself. FSX is a good example of a poorly designed simulator that can only handle 32 buttons per device. The Windows "Game Devices" on the Control Panel are another example that can only show 32 buttons, but the extra buttons work just fine with applications that support them.

That is incorrect. My joystick board has 248 switches, 13 axes and two coolie hats. I have split it across two HID's, but that's just because DCS can't handle more than 128 buttons per device. HID itself can handle a lot more.

Yes it does. It is implemented by the user with diodes.

Great! It is settled then. A new batch will be ordered :) Thank you!

Ok, I'll send you a new chip then :) I have thought about making a general output board too, but haven't figured out the requirements. That will maybe be a future project. A very distant future project as it looks now.. I think the phidget-boards are good, but they are more advanced than they need to be, and therefore more expensive. Cockpit LED's doesn't need individual brightness control. I think it would be sufficient if you could set the brightness for a whole panel, or even less fine grained control than that. You can't adjust the brightness of a single panel in an aircraft anyway :)

Thank you too Hans :)

Do you have some kind of IM account? That way we can do some simple debugging. Otherwise it is possible to buy a replacement chip. You can even get it with the same serial number if you don't want the software to notice any difference. They can die from ESD, even several months after being subjected to it. Since you ordered the board as a DIY-kit, I can't offer you any guarantee I'm afraid. But a replacement chip is only 60 SEK + shipping (40 SEK to Germany).

Thank you for your support Deadman :)