Accusim - bring life to your sim

Forever, Britain's most cherished Crown Jewel
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TMUCH
Airman Basic
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Joined: 26 May 2020, 12:04

Accusim - bring life to your sim

Post by TMUCH »

Hi guys,
I have totally fallen for the Spitfire Sim A2A managed to put together. Congratulation to the A2A Team.
Accusim really add great value, the experience -no doubt- become more immersive. What a great idea!

The concept could actually be easily taken to another level and please customers further: why would you not want to make every Sim unique by giving it a virtual life? You crash you bird you loose it and have no alternative but to start with a new frame and engine etc… - a new plane with a new registration number. You damage your Spit, you pay for it. The fun would be to keep your bird "alive" and keep the maintenance cost as low as possible. Virtual pilots would compare there score in hours and (imperial) £/hours. I am sure every flight with your bird would then reach an even higher immersive dimension.

I would love to have this addon developed. For the time being, if anybody can help me to access the (unfortunately long) Accusim repair log for my Spit (and tell me how much is a radiator) I would copy paste its history in an excel and start giving life to my Spit. Just for fun.

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Skycat
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Joined: 11 Nov 2006, 16:15
Location: Great Falls Army Air Base, Montana

Re: Accusim - bring life to your sim

Post by Skycat »

You can already somewhat do this on your own with a little creativity and a DIY attitude. The aircraft manager utility "Where Are My Aircraft?" would be perfect for this.

The Accusim B-17G is an easy example because the package is a single 3D model (with no cockpit variations) and four stock liveries. Each livery has its own unique identity for the sim's air traffic control, and you can add more liveries to your library as you wish. However, all the skins share a common .dat file that records airframe hours, wear and systems damage, essentially giving you only a single B-17 in your fleet that you repaint at will. You can reset the core model's hours to zero and a factory new condition any time you want.

This is where WAMA fits nicely into your idea. WAMA remembers aircraft locations and logs your operating hours based on specific skins (ie, the civil registrations). So let's say you have your B-17 painted as the Memphis Belle and you take off from Boeing Field, Washington with zero hours on the airframe and you land in Las Vegas, Nevada with three hours logged. Save the aircraft's location in WAMA and exit the sim. The next night you resume with WAMA and take off from Las Vegas, land in Houston, Texas; Accusim's persistent state resumes recording fuel and oil consumption, systems wear, etc. You continue this flying routine each night for a week, landing at a different city each night and logging perhaps 25 hours total, but on Day 8 you have to ditch in Lake Erie after taking off from Detroit, Michigan. Your honor code determines the Memphis Belle was lost and it is time to 'buy' a replacement...

Load up a different A2A B-17G skin, 'Sentimental Journey' for example, at Boeing Field in the sim. Do a complete overhaul to reset all your hours to zero and make your aircraft factory fresh. Save Sentimental Journey's location in WAMA. 'Memphis Belle' will technically still be recorded in WAMA as parked at Detroit independent of Sentimental Journey. You could even resume flying Memphis Belle but it will assume Sentimental Journey's Accusim hours. WAMA's in-app flight logs will be unique for Sentimental Journey and Memphis Belle however.

You could even have multiple B-17 careers in progress simultaneously if you want. To do so, make a copy of your B-17's .dat file after a flight and set it aside in a folder specific to the B-17 you just flew. For example, create a folder on your desktop for the Memphis Belle .dat and put a copy there to capture Memphis Belle's state at 25 hours. Generate your brand new B-17 Sentimental Journey in the example above, and save the new .dat file to your desktop in its own folder named Sentimental Journey. Let's say you fly Sentimental Journey for 100 hours and then decide to return to Memphis Belle. Simply save S.J.'s most current .dat to its desktop folder and then paste M.B.'s .dat back to the B-17's folder in the sim, and you should have a maintenance state reflecting 25 hours.
Pax Orbis Per Arma Aeria

TMUCH
Airman Basic
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Joined: 26 May 2020, 12:04

Re: Accusim - bring life to your sim

Post by TMUCH »

Hi,
Thanks for the tip.
Will hire a virtual accountant (xls file) to bill my Company (or Supermarine) the repair costs (I have no idea what the costs of spare parts and fix would be - I guess it is steep though), maintain different .dat files per Sim as suggested and use the pilot logbook as well. WAMA on the way, need to fix a few things and understand better the functionalities.
I have the Supermarine 5054 prototype based in South England in Sept 1937 performing flight tests mission with protocols I established to determinate the different reference speeds and fuel consumption figures using paper, pen, the gauge and my watch (no cheating with A2A tools- just remember the fuel gauge in the cockpit is in imperial gallon whereas Plan-G works with US gallons)...and the other Spit in present time to perform airshow (formation flight with FSX Recorder) and sight seeing.
Being lazy by nature, I still believe that an Addon performing all that for you would be a great help but hey thanks a million for the workaround and having made it possible.
Cheers T

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Skycat
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Joined: 11 Nov 2006, 16:15
Location: Great Falls Army Air Base, Montana

Re: Accusim - bring life to your sim

Post by Skycat »

I think the phrase "If you have to ask the cost, you can't afford it" applies here. :)
https://www.quora.com/How-much-would-it ... y-spitfire

Best of luck.
Pax Orbis Per Arma Aeria

TMUCH
Airman Basic
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Joined: 26 May 2020, 12:04

Re: Accusim - bring life to your sim

Post by TMUCH »

Hi there,

Here is a short account of my experience after a few month of flying the "bring life to your sim set up* for the FSX A2A Spitfire Mk1 prototype K5054 in Virtual Reality.

Top 5 Highlights? One Thing is to Read About It, Another Is To "Live" It
1) Learning the Basics the hard way: when an airfield is IFR and you are VRF, trouble is not far. Indeed I crashed dead into the sea somewhere South West of UK after a 2 hour flight maneuvering in a thick fog with an empty tank, a hot engine, at low speed and very low altitude looking for EGHC Saint Just. - This is the first time I breached the rule as I could not resolve myself to have K5054 lost forever like this. Never again - cross my heart stick a needle in my eyes.
2) Successful emergency Landing saving K5054. With a mad throttle, after a totally unwanted touch down I had to go around and finally I remembered of the iddle cut off ring and could shut the engine down and glide the kite gently down. I managed to keep the airframe and the engine undamaged. Or after getting lost over Scotland and having 5 gallons left in the tank and finally finding a short strip to land and refuel. Or an other time reaching Hamble North by the skin of my teeth having blown the main bearing and heard the nasty engine noise after a dive with the propeller put on fine pitch by mistake.
3) After months of using the fixed-pitch wooden propeller a performing tests, The de Havillands 2 pitch propeller got delivered and was available in the Hangar in Hamble North. What a game changer! Fantastic! Having extensively used the first propeller and then moving to the 3 blade 2 pitch prop was simply a wonderful experience - it unleashes the Merlin engine and a whole world of new RPM / boost / pitch set up testing
4) Unleashing the Merlin I could reach 25000 feet in 11 minutes in a power 3000 RPM climb. It feels so good up there. I realized that not only you need to fit your oxygen mask and open the main valve but also need to set the right debit of oxygen on your top left panel. All went black, using the external view I could see a the unconscious pilot flying a perfectly level and well trimmed Cruising Spitfire (2nd time I breached the rule).
5) Unleashing the Merlin and flying high, I could taste the thrill of speed and its undesirable aerodynamics effects on the elevators getting totally ineffective. I used the trim to late and could not get out of the dive before the airframe found its structural limits. (3nd time I breached the rule - sorry for being such a cheat, thank you A2A for having made this possible!)

What about VR? Expensively Unstable And Totally Worth It.
Although reducing drastically the target frame rate to 40 and slashing down the graphics and setting the AI and auto gen to near nil - which is actually not bad because 1) the flights are taking place in 1936 - 1944 when urbanization calls for zero autogen and 2) I am left with IA WW2 traffic designed with the RAF scenery installed so I do not have to many Airbus around spoiling it. I unfortunately could not get a 100% fully stable VR plateform. I managed to get just enough stability to avoid pulling my hair too often. The A2A Accusim Spitfire can be flown in VR with enough care and sacrifices. IMHO it is worth the pain (some area of the ORBIX mesh or a speed dive may take too much of my overclocked laptop). Have you ever seen the A2A Spitfire cockpit in VR? It is simply beautiful.

What about FSX Scenery for 1936 - 1944? Could Do Better A Themed Approach is Required
Perfect period for FlyInside. Thanks to the community a lot of freeware is available. It is a pity I do not know how to fiddle with the scenery features installed in native FSX, I would gladly get rid of the anachronic London skyscapers. Soon you feel you would like to have several different set up (modern for my 182 skylane versus 1940' for my Spitfire). Here the concept of loading a complete setup (scenery, VR settings etc) fully customized for the flight experience you want takes all its power. I might consider to purchase some payware that might do exactly that.

What about FSX Mission? Sadly Inexistent (see below reg. Good Soul Needed)
I did not find much out there about the spitfire and/or the spitfire Test flying themes. I created my own scenario with the help of excellent books (see below), I wish I knew how to build missions for there is a ton of great stories that could be developed into mission for the A2A Spitfire that deserve more of this stuff. I sadly feel I am not using this FSX feature with great immersive potential. and wish I could.

What about WAMA? Indispensable
Great stuff, definitely a affordable addon that bring life to your sim. K5054 is currently in Humble North testing the new de Havilland propeller. Remember, it takes more runway to take off than to land, I nearly got stuck in a short field full of trees in Martlesham with my K5054 fitted with the fixed-pitch wooden propeller.

What about Persistent Aircraft? A Good Soul to Develop an Addon Needed
Maintaining the archive manually is feasible but hey this could be easily done with simple programming. I pray for a good soul out there to come up with a great addon. I would pay for its development, this could blend very well into an Accusim missions module built around the spitfire theme. What a great Chistmas Gift from A2A this could be.

Cheers
T

(*MacLean skin for the fantastic A2A Accusim Spitfire Mk1 + FSX Active Sky Next Configuration Tool + WAMA + www.ianpsdarkcorner.co.uk RAF scenery + copy/pate archive method to keep individually assigned persistent airplane DAT file + keeping a log of material repairs having gathered prices on the WEB + Plan-G v3.2.2 + J Quill A Test Pilot Story + D Sarkar Spitfire Manual + A Henshaw Sigh for a Merlin Testing the Spitfire ) + Occulus Rift S + VR Flyinside, Predator Helios 300 laptop)

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Paughco
Senior Master Sergeant
Posts: 2095
Joined: 30 Nov 2014, 12:27

Re: Accusim - bring life to your sim

Post by Paughco »

Hey, TMUCH: Glad you're enjoying that Spitfire!

Think about flying with the A2A Misfit Squadron. Every once in a while we take our A2A Spitfires out on a multiplayer sortie. Here is a link to our most recent Spitfire flight: viewtopic.php?f=79&t=71355. Then, we flew again (us retired folks, anyway) on a simulated interception mission on the actual pivotal date of the Battle of Britain: viewtopic.php?f=79&t=71391.

Seeya
ATB
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Jacques
Senior Master Sergeant
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Joined: 26 Jun 2011, 17:54
Location: West Coast, USA

Re: Accusim - bring life to your sim

Post by Jacques »

Good you found Ian P’s site. The best period RAF airfields out there! :D

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