Generally, the AI/gyro will show marks spaced out 10 degrees, but there are aircraft like the Asobo Top Rudder that don’t appear to follow this “rule”, using quite different spacing. Is there a value in SimConnect that can be used to figure out what that spacing is? I had a look at the various “roll”, “bank”, and “rotation” values by searching the simconnect variable index but couldn’t find anything relating to the attitude indicator angles.
You could just go low over a large body of water, take a protractor and measure the angle between the horizon and the bezel of your screen (as long as your view is locked flat) at each bank angle mark.
Attitude Bank and Pitch can be read from SImCOnnect using the variables ATTITUDE INDICATOR BANK DEGREES and ATTITUDE INDICATOR PITCH DEGREES in units DEGREES or RADIANS.
Unfortunately, those are only for getting the current values, rather than getting the values that tell you what the AI (or, if there is no in-plane AI, the MSFS third person HUD AI) considers “the safe zone”.
On most planes the safe zone has notches for 10, 20, and 30 degrees, but on something like the Top Rudder, if you look at the third person view AI, each notch visually corresponds to 6 degrees, but when you sample the actual values at each notch, more like 4 degrees instead, with a safe max bank corresponding visually to 18 degrees, but practically mapping to 12 degrees, and I’m trying to figure out how to let my SimConnect code know what that safe max bank is. MSFS itself must be getting that information from somewhere in order to show an AI with non-standard notches, so hopefully there’s a SimConnect way to get that information, too?
Can you show a screenshot of what do you mean? The top rudder doesn’t have an attitude indicator in the 3rd persone view (the HUD), and afak, no planes have that!
Are you talking about the angle of attack indicator?
the instruments in the HUD are configured via the cockpit section in the Aircraft, some limit (colors for the instruments can be set there, other are from the flight model)
Absolutely.
With the “instrument heads-up display - chase cam” assistance option on, third person view shows a combination of heading and the “rim” part of an AI/Gyro that shows the current bank angle in the upper left:
(The bank angle indicator between the compass and current heading value)
When checking the ATTITUDE_INDICATOR_BANK_DEGREES value at each notch, most airplanes report the standard 10, 20 and 30 (though getting the timing to query 30 right is a bit tricky because MSFS changes the pink line into an overshoot arrow to indicate a steep turn). For example, the value I got for the above screenshot was -0.3482167339966261, which converts to -19.95 degrees.
When using the Top Rudder, which doesn’t really have anything going for it in terms of instruments, we still get that same (part of the) AI in the third person HUD:
And querying MSFS for the bank angle in the second screenshot shows a very different value, returning -0.13993549688029197, or -8 degrees. Somehow, MSFS knows what to show “if this plane had an AI/Gyro”, and in order to show the same bank angle indicators remotely using simconnect, I’d like to know how I can (either directly or by deriving it from other values?) show that same kind of “this plane’s steep turn is at X degrees, the aircraft is currently banking at Y degrees” information. The second part is nice and easy, the first part not so much?
Well my friend, that gauge in the upper left is a stripped down version of the G1000 HSI, and in the top part there is a rate of turn indicator, it is not an attitude indicator
The marks indicates turn rate for standard turn (3 degrees per second , or a complete 360 degree turn in 1 minute)
Some info here:
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That certainly clears things up: thanks!
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