The A2A Simulations Community

Hi.

Is there any way to view an in game clock in the Piper Cub please?

Hello, no clock in a J-3 so you will just have to use a wristwatch or phone

thanks,
Lewis

Or you could use engine hours, if you just need a rough estimate of time spent flying....as part of the tachometer gauge, I think.

Wristwatch or phone is no use as it won't take account of pausing or time acceleration.

The Cub's low tech equipment makes it perfect for practicing manual cross country navigation, and it even comes with a map, but without any way of tracking in game time, tis all for nought

Would you consider adding one?

Is it possible to add a third-party one to the virtual cockpit display?

Neutrino the cub did not have a battery and was flown by line of sight and feel.

If you insist on time compression then you have no chance of using a watch.I suggest you use real time,as you would have to in REAL life.

Use your watch and do the job properly.

Cheers chris

Yes Speedy I know the Cub did not have a built in clock. But obviously no pilot would be stupid enough to take to the air without at least having a decent watch instead. Equally obviously a real life watch isn't much use for navigating in game since it won't sync with pausing the game or time compression, so that's not a particularly helpful suggestion.

Since no one else here seems to know how to do this, here is how you do it.

Download a third-party FSX clock gauge. The one I'm using is here.
http://simviation.com/1/download-file?f ... leId=42772

Unzip the download and drop the CAB file into your "...\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Gauges" directory.

Open "...\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Airplanes\A2A_PiperJ3\panel\panel.cfg" in a text editor. You now need to add a new panel definition, or replace an existing one. In my stock panel.cfg the panel called Window01 wasn't used for anything so I replaced that.

In the 'Window Titles' section I commented out the none1 entry and replaced it with one called 'Clock'.

//Window01=none1
Window01=Clock


I then commented out the corresponding panel definition and replaced it with one that loads the third-party clock gauge.

//[Window01]
//Background_color=0,0,0
//size_mm=1,1
//position=0
//nomenu=1
//visible=0
//ident=20
//sizable=0

[Window01]
BACKGROUND_COLOR=0,0,0
size_mm=75,100
position=8
visible=1
ident=MISC_POPUP_1
gauge00=FP9_Clock_analog!Breitling_B, 0, 0, 75, 100


https://www.dropbox.com/s/cfrh82w7borip ... k.png?dl=0

Details of the panel definition files can be found here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc526956.aspx

Check the readme file that comes with the gauge you install for specific details.

Happy navigating.

Necessity is the mother of....research? ! Happy to see you got it sorted, Neutrino!

Neutrino wrote:Yes Speedy I know the Cub did not have a built in clock. But obviously no pilot would be stupid enough to take to the air without at least having a decent watch instead. Equally obviously a real life watch isn't much use for navigating in game since it won't sync with pausing the game or time compression, so that's not a particularly helpful suggestion.

Since no one else here seems to know how to do this, here is how you do it.

Download a third-party FSX clock gauge. The one I'm using is here.
http://simviation.com/1/download-file?f ... leId=42772

Unzip the download and drop the CAB file into your "...\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Gauges" directory.

Open "...\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Airplanes\A2A_PiperJ3\panel\panel.cfg" in a text editor. You now need to add a new panel definition, or replace an existing one. In my stock panel.cfg the panel called Window01 wasn't used for anything so I replaced that.

In the 'Window Titles' section I commented out the none1 entry and replaced it with one called 'Clock'.

//Window01=none1
Window01=Clock


I then commented out the corresponding panel definition and replaced it with one that loads the third-party clock gauge.

//[Window01]
//Background_color=0,0,0
//size_mm=1,1
//position=0
//nomenu=1
//visible=0
//ident=20
//sizable=0

[Window01]
BACKGROUND_COLOR=0,0,0
size_mm=75,100
position=8
visible=1
ident=MISC_POPUP_1
gauge00=FP9_Clock_analog!Breitling_B, 0, 0, 75, 100


https://www.dropbox.com/s/cfrh82w7borip ... k.png?dl=0

Details of the panel definition files can be found here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc526956.aspx

Check the readme file that comes with the gauge you install for specific details.

Happy navigating.

Fantastic thank you for this.

It isn't that we don't know how to do it. -- it is we don't want to do it --- I like the j3 as is, but great for you that you have found a solution and thanks for sharing for others that might.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I certainly want to put the clock on.

OK, I know this is an old topic, but someone else might be looking for the same information.

The stock FSX (and P3D) Piper Cub has a "pocketwatch" that's perfectly acceptable for use in the Cub.

In panel.cfg you can replace the unused "dbg" panel entry with the following:
... and near the top of the file replace:
Window08=dbg
with
Window08=Clock

Be sure to save a copy of the original panel.cfg file in case you mess something up or need to revert.

Hook

So is anyone still flying the Cub, or has everyone moved on to more recent aircraft?

I added the FS9 pocketwatch 2D gauge to the Cub when I first bought it many years ago. Since then I've added it to other aircraft that did not have a clock. I do a lot of manual navigation using dead reckoning and need an accurate in-game time. I generally use a real world stopwatch (actually a kitchen timer) to time legs of my flight plan, but this is not always a good solution and some people prefer to go by clock time.

Here are a few reasons why you might want a clock that is synchronized with the sim clock:

1. If you have to pause the sim for any reason, for example to take a phone call or deal with other real life issues, when you come back your clock is still correct.

2. Related to the above, if you have to save the flight and continue later then the clock still shows the correct sim time.

3. If the real world time is going to have the sun go down and you would have to fly at night, then you can set the flight sim time to earlier in the day and make your flight in daylight. Normally if I want to fly and it is night outside my window, I'll set the sim time 12 hours off, but this won't help if part of the flight would still be at night. On other aircraft capable of night flight I might still set the sim clock to have the entire flight during the day for sightseeing purposes.

4. If you need to use time compression this keeps the clock synced, but no one here does that, right?

5. If nothing else, you can verify that the time in the sim is what you think it is. This one has bitten me a couple of times. This could also be done with the in-game menu time function, but that pauses the sim and will desynchronize your clock if you have already set it.

Note that the sim clock will adjust automatically for time zones. This may be considered a down side for some.

Once upon a time I had an in-game stopwatch but that didn't work as well as a real one.

Happy VFRing.

Hook