Updated File for Meridian

[Tom Goodrick]

I posted an updated file for the Meridian (after 5 years).

[Allen Peterson]

Hi Tom,
Once upon a time you had a revised flight logbook program on your web site. I see that it is not there anymore, can you send me a copy, I think you have my email address.
Thanks, Allen

[ben]

Tom, not much time at the moment, but I did a circuit around Seattle in the Meridian and it has to be one of the best balanced hand flying experiences (throttle, turn, descent, etc FD )

thanks
ben

[Tom Goodrick]

Allen, you must be thinking of the AircraftUsage program that lists the hours you have flown each aircraft in your hangar. That was never on my site. It is on Avsim. Do a search on Goodrick.

[Allen Peterson]

Thanks, Tom.
I got it from Avsim.
Allen

[Tom Goodrick]

Ben, from your photo, I see some gauges missing. I had forgotten to include them in the original gauges folder. I'll email them to you and then I will update the gauges folder in the updated Meridian file on my site. Sorry.

Those files are:
b24gear.gau for landing gear
bjgrh.gau for landing gear
thrpct1.gau for showing throttle setting in digital %.

Just stick them in your main gauges FS9 folder.

The Meridian.zip file posted on my site now contains an updated gauges folder. If you have already installed the aircraft, just find these three gauges and stick them in your main FS9 Gauges folder.

[Allen Peterson]

Hi Tom,
I downloaded the Meridian but couldn't find the JNBGPS500!gps_500 gauge. I used the fs9 GPS instead.
Allen

[Tom Goodrick]

Yes, sorry about that. I was just coming on to explain about that. You probably noticed that, in the panel.cfg file, there are two gauge04= lines for the GPS map. One identifies the special gauge designed by Jim Bertleson, who used to be active on this Forum. The other identifies the regular Garmin500. I was using Bertleson's gauge because it gives a bigger map. But just move the apostrophe to block his gauge and use the Garmin.

The Garmin looks more realistic because a) it a copy of a real gauge and b) it has a metal frame around the glass as all real MFD's do.

The only way to get Bertleson's gauge is to download his huge XML folder from some source. He had a place from which we could download it. But he suddenly vanished. I don't know where you can get his folder. It is way too big for my site.

Here is a photo of my panel using the Garmin gauge on final to KSEA:



(That was funny. My loggin was cancelled during the time it took to write the first part of this note with the big picture.) I kept getting the stern message; "You are not allowed to Edit this topic.")

Sorry about going so wide but I wanted to show everything in a readable form to point out several features. One thing you won't see is a PROP control for changing the RPM. The Meridian does not have one. Its prop setting is fixed at 2000 RPM. This is a design feature by Piper to make the aircraft easier for a single pilot to fly. It shows that constant RPM works pretty well for a turboprop.

On takeoff you get real busy protecting the engine. You must keep ITT below 800. To do this i move the throttle first to 80% and let it get some speed but then you must come back to keep ITT below the limit so you'll be at about 60% as the aircraft lifts off at 90 KIAS. That's about right for climbing at 1200-1500 fpm.

I always get on the autopilot soon after takeoff. I think the pitch control is way too sensitive but have not worked on it as much as would be needed for hand-flying because this is supposed to be flown on autopilot as are all turboprops and jets.

There is one of my TPower gauges on the right. In most turboprops this can be used as a substitute for the power-setting tables in the Pilots Operating Handbook (POH). But in the Meridian, the low KIAS limit (do not exceed 184 KIAS) means you'll never get close to any high power settings.

I was making a nice Real Weather flight from KCOE to KSEA this afternoon that illustrates the limits of the Meridian. I set up a cruise at 14,000 ft where the wind was 30 knots on the nose. My cruise speed was my standard 170 KIAS which gives a good margin below the upper limit. That required only 53% throttle.

I didn't finish because of a 180 degree direction shift suddenly at altitude as I moved closer to the coastal weather. I expected rough stuff near Seattle but that is ridiculous.

The Meridian will normally only do 200-250 knots in cruise at the lower altitudes you'd use on a short cruise while other turboprops are doing 250-300 knots higher up. Climbing the Meridian to 25,000 ft or better on all trips does not seem like a good idea.

[Tom Goodrick]

If you are missing the TPower gauge that shows turboprop instantaneous percent shaft horsepower, you can download it from my site where it has resided for many months.

The download includes both the individual TPower gauge as shown on my panel photo above and the TPowerPanel gauge that can be used for evaluating any turboprop. Both gauges are useable with any turboprop aircraft. Unlike the piston Power gauge that is tailored to the max power of each engine, the TPower gauge fits all engines. It calculates percent power from percent rpm and percent torque. It can be used to set reasonable power levels if you don't have the POH handy.

[Tom Goodrick]

Hans Petter has found that he does not have the gauge for the single-engine jet throttle that I show in the photo and call for in the panel.cfg file. I thought this was in the default FS9 Guages Folder in a group of "lear45.thrust_lever.n" gauge files where n is 1 to 4.

Do you other Meridian pilots have the same problem? Does the single lever appear as called in the panel.cfg file?

It could be a set of files I brought over from FS2002 a long time ago and forgot about. I no longer have FS2002 on the hard drive.

But I can easily send you this file and include it with the download.

[Allen Peterson]

Tom, those Lear45 files are in my gauges folder with a date of 4/17/2001, so I think they have always been there and are not from something that I downloaded from you.
Allen

[hanspetter]

Well, I've got the # 1 version that I need now but I haven't got the three others. The stock FS9 Lear 45 doesn't use these. Could these gauges be leftover gauges that MS included even though no stock aircraft used them?

If they have come with the sim without being assigned to anything this is probably what happened: A gauge cleaner deleted them. Every now and then I delete unused gauges that are left after I delete a downloaded aircraft that I won't keep. The gauge cleaner looks for unreferenced gauges and deletes them.

[Tom Goodrick]

The date on the files clearly shows they predate FS9. I do not know when my files got into my FS9 Gauges Folder. I vaguely remember doing something with an old "FSFSCONV" folder which was where Microsoft put in variations of the default gauges that could be used by aircraft designers to enhance the panels of their aircraft. For example no default FS aircraft has ever had 3 jet engines. I use the .3 gauge file in this set to provide throttles for the three engines in my Falcon 50 and Falcon 900 jets.

I asked you in our email exchange if you had changed your default Gagues Folder. Your reply said "No." But running a gauge cleaner does indeed change your Gauges Folder by "cleaning out" all these gauges that happen to be unused at the moment you do it.

Why clean out unconnected gauges? There is no valid reason. They are all small files - nothing so large it robs your system of memory space. There is scuttlebutt about how too many gauges slows down your system but that is known by most of use in the business to be clearly not true. Unused gauges do no harm. If there is a virus on a gauge (as there could be), your AV software should detect it.

There is a very grave potential problem with gauge files from "new" panels that has burned many of us. That is when a simple-minded gauge designer has modified a default gauge and slips it into a new plane. You install the plane and suddenly all your panels with that gaueg show a strange new gauge that doesn't work right. Getting rid of that is a problem. I always put downloads into a big folder called "Junk" where they reside until I have examined them. I seldom install any new panels because I have panels I like for all types of aircraft. But if you do like to try new panels, you can put those gauges in a folder within the folder for that specific aircraft. Then deleting the folder gives a clean sweep.

The way gauges are used in FS9 is that, when you select an aircraft to be flown, the panel.cfg for that aircraft is examined and all gauges named in that file are located, first looking in the same folder as the aircraft, and from within the FS9 Gauges Folder and then copied into a temporary file where they are then made ready for use. This means any additional files called by a gauge file are located and copied into the temp file. Any .XML gauge files are compiled and their executable forms are placed in the temp file so they operate as fast as any other executable gauge file.

Hence the number of files listed in your Gauges Folder has very little effect on the time it takes to make up this temp file. But the temp file is formed before you have access to fly the airplane. When you begin flying, only the temp file with its executables is used by the sim. The sim execution time has no relation at all to the number of files residing in your Gauge Folder. That folder is unused by the sim during flight.

My attitude has been to provide people with as much info about how FS9 operates as possible and to make available the gauges that are needed to fly a plane on which I have made changes. When people let me know that they are missing gauges, I send them the missing gauges and, often, check my uploads to see that the proper gauges are included. (Sometimes I don't get that done as thoroughly as I should. It can be a large "housecleaning" chore and I'd rather be flying or doing something else.) But I begin to lose patience with people who throw away good gauges using "gauge cleaners" or who use my files inappropriately in FSX. I do not and will not support FSX.

Nevertheless, if you find you are missing a gauge from a panel I have supplied, please let me know. The fix is usually simple.

[hanspetter]

I've always used gauge cleaners for FS in the same fashion as I use registry cleaners to avoid leftover clutter in that department. However, your point is valid, most gauges are small files and they don't tax the sim unless you launch a panel.cfg that refers to the gauges in question. I did consider my gauge folder to be complete since I knew that all of the stock aircraft had all their corresponding stock gauges.

I just checked my "Golden Wings" stand-alone version of FS9. This one had all four of the missing gauges. I copied them over and I'll check there if I run into this problem again. As an aside, why do I have a separate instance of FS9 for vintage aircraft? Because everything from aircraft, AI aircraft to airports are old in this case. Those of you who would want a 1950s take on a famous airport or anything that has been changed recently (for instance Hong Kong) can't get both versions into one sim. I consistently put every vintage addon into this second instance of FS9 and keep my main FS9 installation modern.

[ben]

Aug 29, 2009 9:16:45 GMT -5 Tom Goodrick said:

Hans Petter has found that he does not have the gauge for the single-engine jet throttle that I show in the photo and call for in the panel.cfg file. I thought this was in the default FS9 Guages Folder in a group of "lear45.thrust_lever.n" gauge files where n is 1 to 4.

Do you other Meridian pilots have the same problem? Does the single lever appear as called in the panel.cfg file?

Tom
I have the throttle; but, I don't have
b24gear or bjgrh.
I updated fs 9 to fs9.1 a few months ago-
it was difficult to do with upgrades, so I started from scratch-
which means I have a lot less gauges than I used to have.

ben