Hello,
I’d like to ask, how do I get the boolean telling me if Selected Altitude Capture Mode is armed? I don’t see that in the documentation of SimConnect (I get other vars as SimConnect variables).
Any ideas?
If I was at home I could tell you, but I’ll have a dig through some profiles I may have on disk here at work in case I have one with this configured.
I used this to make the ALT light flash on my Logitech multi-panel, which then turns solid when the selected altitude is reached.
Digging through the SDK, have you tried this:
AUTOPILOT ALTITUDE ARM
I’ve tried AUTOPILOT ALTITUDE ARM, but for some unknown reason, it returns 0/false all the time
The only other one I can see is AUTOPILOT ALTITUDE LOCK, but that one is once the altitude has been captured, as far as I know.
I did find some configs in the cloud, and it looks like where I had made use of the flashing APR button, when GS capture was enabled. But I’m sure I’ve done a similar thing for the ALT button. I’ll check when I get home tonight, and if I have a plane where that is not enabled, I’ll get it to work somehow, then get back to you.
Still no solution… Any ideas?
I had it working last night, though oddly intermittently.
I was in a plane with the KAP140. When I adjusted my preselect altitude, the altitude arm appeared on the unit. When I checked in SPAD for AUTOPILOT ALTITUDE ARM it was set to 1. I then had an event that made the ALT light on my panel flash until it was locked, and at which point it was steady.
I think my issue is not necessarily with the simvar, but the order of the events in SPAD, and it may be being overridden by other events that dictate when it should be on or off.
Just guessing it can differ from plane to plane. Will check that later, when I have more time. If so, I will have a problem in my solution…
1 Like
Checked on 3 planes, two of them were bundled with MSFS and one was bought from 3rd party. The variable was not working in any of these.
Tried to return it as INT32 with passing as boolean or number. Always returns 0.
That’s really odd. I’m not sure why that is in that case.
What are you using to read the simvar?
What do you mean by “what”?
Which program? I use SPAD, and that simvar definitely changes to 1 when altitude capture is armed.
I’m calling the sim from SimConnect.dll without anything between
I’m not sure what to suggest, but as far as I can see the simvar works as intended, for me at least. I was using the 182RG as a reference this time, but I’m sure it would be the same in the 172.
A quick update: I’m not sure if I take the right variable.
I checked that variable in cessna T207A and it works as intended, but the thing I seek is a variable that controls the display of ALTS information on G1000 and in planes using G1000 the mentioned variable does not work that way.
Should be there any other variable to read if the ALTS mark is displayed?
Ah, you mean the preselected altitude itself, not that you have that altitude armed? If not then I am assuming that ALTS on a G1000 is the same as ALT ARM n a KAP140, though they may be using different simvars to store that flag.
If so, then the question is: what simvar should I use?
The boolean name mentioned in the post title was taken from G1000 guide, so I tried to search the simvars for something similar…
So I got this working.
AUTOPILOT VERTICAL LOCK is when the AP is holding the current altitude, or has just reached it.
AUTOPILOT VERTICAL HOLD is when ALTS is shown on the G1000 PFD. It doesn’t mean the AP is actively seeking it as you could have VS set to 0. In the config above this causes the ALT light to flash.
So that would mean the VS light is solid as VS mode is on, but ALT is flashing as ALTS is shown. Now I adjust VS speed.
When both AUTOPILOT VERTICAL HOLD & AUTOPILOT VERTICAL LOCK are set to 0, then the ALT light is turned off.