LOMAC - Happy Landings

[Haggart]

Hey guys,

today, I met a gread guy with a great project. Preface: I'm habitated in Frankurt, Germany, and a few month ago a simulation center opened their doors. Because they're nearly directly in front off my house door, I sent an application if they'ld need anyone. Today, I'd my job interview for an internship and the head welcomed me. Now to the problems/concrete ideas:

 

There're two F-16-cockpits built up with all switches etc, but not fully wired (he talked about getting them from an belgian complete-manufacture, but I didn't got the company name). They got working MFD's, so. The view is projected upon a 3 meters high 180°-projection surface by two beamers.

Until now, the whole thing is based on FSX.

I had the idea of integrating the whole package with LOMAC. What would be needed for that?

 

-How to display a only-flight-view without cockpit in LOMAC?

-How to project that optimal on a cylindrical surface?

-How to integrate the MFD's with true instruments? (I looked into Helios and GEAR for that, perhaps there would be a solution that way)

-The displays are steered via "Project Magenta", an FSX-interface. Does anyone know how to integrate this with LOMAC?

 

The first question is the most important problem. Anyone any idea how to switch off any cockpit display?

 

Best regards, and if it works, there could be the chance to get a LOMAC simulation center up and running here ;P

Edited February 23, 2012 by Haggart

[rocketeer]

Congrats. Sounds like a dream job. I won't have Monday blues on this one. :smilewink:

 

Helios would be great but I know it works for A10C and black shark, not sure about lomac. I think it can work for falcon 4 too since your simulator is an F-16. Best to check with Gadroc.

 

I think lomac gives limited control. It does not let you control most panels or switches. With a sim card you probably can wire some switches to it and use svmapper etc to set keystrokes. But still the controls will be limited and generic compared to the DCS series that allow control over 300 plus switches.

[Haggart]

Yeah, I'm hoping the next DCS will be an F/A-18, the pit would be ideal for that, but it would be allready nice to have LOMAC up and running with that screens and feeling. Thought about GEAR for the scopes, that could be working and surely fantastical if you could look down on a real radar display.

But, still searching for the pittless-view-solution... :/

[avlolga]

:thumbup: great Job, good luck, and share all you can with us !!!

[Lumper]

I think you first need to find out what software/hardware/interface you already have with the sim. You need to know just what the owner wants done with the pit, and sometimes even he will not be aware of either the limits or just what can be done. Taking a low fidelity pit to medimun or high is both time consuming and expensive. Going to Lomac from FSX will be a complete change in dynamics and cause less then wanted/better results. In a commerical setting, you must always remember that when the sim is down it is losing money and that is never a good thing in business. Also, look at viperpits.org as this is where the best knowledge on F-16 pits is at.

Good luck, you have a great time with hobby and work.

[Haggart]

Yeah, thanks! :)

The owner and our (they got me from hair to nails xD) technical stuff is really great and open to ideas.

Until now, our target is a reduced pit (so only basic controls - stick, thrust, pedals, gears and flaps) - this is realized 'till now with a built-in cougar and project magenta connecting to FSX. Because the magenta clients are running on windows 7 running on some MFD's, there could be perhaps a solution by that. The biggest problem which I see is running LOMAC in an only-view enviroment and the HUD display (does anyone know a good HUD-producing software which creates an HUD in an normal application window (no matter if it's Windows, Linux, java based, I'll get it running) coming from LOMAC?

[metalnwood]

If he is ever ging to take all those switches from just show to working why not go with something like BMS. It's been done many times there with the ability to export the mfd's etc to other monitors. Project magenta is not required and I am not sure it ever supported F16 style gauges. I thought it was all airliners and some GA.

 

They will have to weigh things up. FSX will give you the best looking environment projected on the screens but I am not sure you will get an f16 wired up the same way as you can with BMS.

 

Also, he may want to reevaluate using only two projectors for a 180 degree surrond display. I would image the compromises are too great and he should use three.

 

One more thing, a bit of advise. Be careful with this as a job. It sounds like he should have much more of an idea what he wants doing and how. I have seen a lot of this kind of thing go bad, not make money etc and this does sound like it was not thought through.

 

Take the job if you want but be careful about taking it over other possibly more stable opportunites.

Edited February 23, 2012 by metalnwood

[Haggart]

Yeah, I see the risks and because of that, this is just a part-time thing while waiting for other things I've in planning... but it's really fun! Thanks for caring, though. :)

 

Three projectors are a no-go at the moment (because - as you say - money).

 

Wiring up every button would be really cool, but too complex for our customers at the moment I suppose :/ because of that - my target is a demonstration with working mfd's, hud and LOMAC on the screen with two projectors... BMS is really cool, but it looks too ugly (I demonstrated it allready), so LOMAC would be the optimum - nice engine, advanced combat capabilitys, and not single-switch-simulation-depth (as much as I would love it). So thats my plan. No one any idea, at least for the projection? :/

[Duckling]

Hi Haggart. If you realy in for using LOMAC to control your viperpits (i'd recommend you to to viperpits.org instead for Falcon SW and add-ons)..

 

Check "LoSioc" by Lecreole (sorry if the nick mispelled here).

http://losioc.free.fr/ and http://losioc.free.fr/forum/ as a start. It integrate LOMAC, Opencockpits IOCard and SIOC to control your cockpit integration. Via SIOC there are some additional paths that might be very interesting for you. It might be the path you looking for.

 

There is an English version of LoSioc avalible also

 

Cheers

Gus

Edited February 24, 2012 by Duckling

[Haggart]

Hey,

sorry, last days were stressful (many events). I looked e bit into LOSIOC and I think, that (in combination with Helios/or else) would be a good solution. Also, we decided that in the moment, a full-usable cockpit would be nice, but too much for most people who just want the flying-thing. So, there's still one main problem:

how to display LOMAC without a cockpit? Perhaps someone with knowledge in 3d-cockpitworks could produce a simple full-transparent pit for the F15? Anyone who could assist with that or has other ideas? Perhaps we could get a concept working from this for LOMAC-pit-builders.

[HitchHikingFlatlander]

Yeah the common customer in those Sim centers are usually regular folks who want to think they're getting the sim experience but actually just want a step above arcade flight shooters IMO.

 

Congrats on your job and good luck with your project.

[metalnwood]

Hey,

sorry, last days were stressful (many events). I looked e bit into LOSIOC and I think, that (in combination with Helios/or else) would be a good solution. Also, we decided that in the moment, a full-usable cockpit would be nice, but too much for most people who just want the flying-thing. So, there's still one main problem:

how to display LOMAC without a cockpit? Perhaps someone with knowledge in 3d-cockpitworks could produce a simple full-transparent pit for the F15? Anyone who could assist with that or has other ideas? Perhaps we could get a concept working from this for LOMAC-pit-builders.

 

Make sure he uses that donate button on the helios website if he is going to make money off it :)

[Gadroc]

Actually you need to contact me if you're going to use it in a commercial scenario. If you read the Helios license it's only for personal use.

[Haggart]

At the moment, I'll have to evaluate first how to get LOMAC without a cockpit working (as no one seems to know anything about that, it seems like a difficult task?) - if I'm over that step, I'll contact you about helios. But a second question to helios - is interfacing with FSX possible? I don't find any information over in the helios forums about that... And I'ld like to get away from Magenta, no matter if it's LOMAC or FSX.

[Gadroc]

It's not out of the box that it works, but it has a full plugin mechanism that someone could use simconnect of fsuipc and turn them into Helios triggers / actions. It would require some C# programming. Contact me and I can work with you on the API.

[metalnwood]

If you guys do go down that track I would urge you to do it with fsuipc. If you want anything near the ability you have with dcs then you need fsuipc. Simconnect has too many things missing.

 

I went down that track with simconnect only to have to change it all after finding out all the information that I could not get access to with it but was supplied with fsuipc.

 

Also, if you do it with fsuipc then it will work with Prepar3d and xplane through an xplane compatible fsuipc plugin.

[Haggart]

Hey Gadroc,

nice, but I don't know any C#-programming and I don't think my boss would like to invest money in something he don't know if he wanna use it later on :/ but as you (and metalnwood) say - FSUIPC would be a standard, I think, so we can get it working for everything supporting that standard (like XPUIPC and LOIPC)?