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Animating your Airport in 15 minutes

December 7, 2015 | 0 comments

Belga_GroundTrafficOn behalf of Marc Leydecker, I would to inform you about his mini tutorial of how to create animating airport objects based on GroundTraffic. X-Plane has come a long way in scenery development but that being said, most of our airports are static. Those airports should be buzzing with luggage carts, tow tractors, vehicles and equipment. A while-while ago, Marginal released a plugin called GroundTraffic.

Honestly, within 15 minutes, you can create your first animation. So what can be animated …. ANY OBJ file (object), thus: cars, trucks, luggage carts, ships, equipment, trees (that would make no sense), etc. Curious how Marc did it? Then check out his mini-tutorial.

Realistic AP Trim Indicator Panel

November 12, 2015 | 0 comments

marc_leydecker_ap_trim_indicator_panelMarc Leydecker, well known of his awesome US airports, needs an extraordinary break. Oops, what does this mean? No, he’s not going on a holiday. Instead, he’s trying to link real aviation hardware to X-Plane. You can buy tons of dedicated hardware suitable to work with FSX, P3D and X-Plane, but isn’t it more fun when you do it yourself?

Today the second tutorial from Marc “how to connect an Auto Pilot trim indicator panel to X-Plane“. According to Marc “My Trim indicator panel was installed in a SAS DC8 in 1963. Then it was sold to AeroPeru in 1991 and sold again to AeroMexico on 1993. Finally, the airplane was scrapped this year.”

“The attached code is to interface with X-Plane, but again the principal is the same to interface with Microsoft Flight Simulators, for those who are familiar with that. It was kinda sorta, a challenge as we needed to generate negative voltages. Arduino printed circuit boards or micro controllers can not generate negative voltages as they are powered by USB (+5V). So we had to come up with an unorthodox way to make it work. The tutorial also covers PWM signals.”

You want to know all about it? Then you should download Marc’s AP trim indicator panel tutorial via this link.

Realistic Cessna Flap Gauge linked to X-Plane

October 26, 2015 | 0 comments

belga_flap_gauge_xpMarc Leydecker, well known of his awesome US airports, needs an extraordinary break. Oops, what does this mean? No, he’s not going on a holiday. Instead, he’s trying to link real aviation hardware to X-Plane. You can buy tons of dedicated hardware suitable to work with FSX, P3D and X-Plane, but isn’t it more fun when you do it yourself?

Today the first tutorial from Marc “how to connect a Cessna flap gauge to X-Plane“. According to Marc “Besides the coding, the principal is the same for X-Plane as for Microsoft Flight simulator.” Want to know all about it? Then you should have a look to this Acrobat tutorial. Many thanks Marc that you offer this to the community.

By the way … it all started, but that will take much more time, a couple of weeks ago with Honeywell/Sperry SP-50 Autopilot spare part. These AP’s were popular on 727’s , DC9’s, MD11’s and the SP-50G was used in the Gulfstream. The SP-30, and SP-150 are similar models. Nice thing is … All parts came with airworthy certificates and they almost look brand new. Paid $24 for the FMS, $29 for NAV/COM radios, $49 for autopilot, $49 for HSI, etc. Perhaps later more tutorials about how to deal with this.

Avare Moving map and Flight planner

October 22, 2015 | 0 comments

Avare-Flight-Planner-for-AndroidReceived this incoming article/tutorial from our SketchUp guru Marc Leydecker. It deals with the Avare moving map and flight planner.

According to Marc “You can turn any GSM (cell phone/mobile phone) into a moving map and flight planner. It will even show meteo, taxiways, charts, etc. and CONNECTS to X-Plane. Unfortunately this feature is only avalable for North America.” When you have found or know an option for Europa and/or for Apple iOS equipment, then please let us know. You can grab for free a copy of Marc’s Android tutorial to turn your Android mobile into a moving map and flight planner and much more. Some last words from Marc”Quite amazing as you can even draw notes on the Android screen while using it as a moving map.”

What’s possible with SketchUp?

June 3, 2015 | 0 comments

belga_peterbilt_red1What’s possible with SketchUp by Marc C. Leydecker a.k.a. Belga12345.

The reason of this article is not only showing his amazing work, but also to trigger my mind after I did some investigation of a payer American airport. Although Angelique likes writing reviews, I’m not a skilled SketchUp user at all. Perhaps that will come, but for the moment, I’ve got other priorities. But Marc Leydecker woulds like to share with you a couple of things regarding modelling with SketchUp Make.

Check it out at his dedicated SketchUp article.

X-Plane Normal Maps a.k.a. “_NML”

March 21, 2015 | 0 comments

article_marc_wing_texture_nmlAn article about the X-Plane Normal Maps a.k.a. “_NML” by Marc C. Leydecker a.k.a. Belga12345.

Besides that Marc is a highly skilled airport developer and SketchUp guru, he’s also a skilled livery painter and since I know Marc now for a while, I asked him, after he released another Italian SAR Albatross painting, if it was possible to paint for me this awesome N98TP livery.

During the painting process, Marc inform me about Normal Maps or NML files and on behalf of Marc, I would like to share this information with you. This article is intended for those who start from scratch with NML file and perhaps, after you’ve read it, you would like to add something to it via a comment.

As long as comments are “structured”, I’m quite sure Marc appreciates this. Curious, check out these exclusive Albatross N98TP screenshots!