Plugins
Taildragger calculates the difference in pitch of a taildragger when sitting on the runway from a straight and level attitude due to the tail draggers gear configuration. In flight, as the aircraft assumes a straight and level attitude, TailDragger changes the pilots angle of view over the engine cowling to a more natural perspective. This effect is not modeled in X-Plane. The change in pilots viewpoint will be seen in both 2D and 3D mode.
Taildragger was designed for use with my FP404 and is only functional with the FP404 and a few other taildragger aircraft that have proven to fly well with the plugin, short listed below. It is disabled for all other aircraft. Contact me if you would like to test drive Taildragger with your aircraft.
FP404, select ShadeTreeMicro taildraggers, Myron Freeman’s KR-2, Heinz’s P-51, Lockheed Air Express
TailDragger V8.xpl (mac, win only)
Below are Mac, Win and Lin builds of my plugins. They are free downloads!
My sincere thanks to Ben Supnik and Sandy Barbour for providing the X-Plane SDK.
GForce3D
HangarOps combines remote control opening and closing of 100 KeyCoded hangar doors, with Pushback and TurnAround features. HangarOps can be controlled from Shade Tree Micro Aviation’s remote control, X-Plane’s pull down Plugins menu, or keyboard and joystick buttons. The HangarOps download comes complete with 3 animated hangars and instructions for customizing and installing the hangars at the airport of your choice.
On installation, HangarOps creates a custom DataRef:
STMA/Scenery/HangarDoorPosition[0/99]
Use this DataRef for animating your own custom AC3D or Blender hangar creations.
NOTE: All Shade Tree Micro Aviation V9 aircraft will include a custom hangar door remote control on the aircraft panel.
This is a fun plugin for demonstrating G-Force effects. The pilots head is moved a logarithmic scaled amount proportional to the G forces it is experiencing in each direction. Great for coordinating your turns!
I set the G-Forces for what I thought were optimum. Feedback from users tells me everyone has a different idea of what optimum should be! Sometime in the future I will make pull down menus to set the G force sensitivity in each of the X, Y and Z directions. For now all I can say to those who want my preset effect increased, is you will very quickly tire from having too much effect. Feedback from several other users disliked that the plugin starts up in 3D mode. I will make this an option
Linux build thanks to Tony Pelton.
Taildragger V9 is a very much improved “FAT version which is installed in the target aircraft folder. Works with all aircraft, even tri gear. This version of Taildragger does not change the viewpoint controls set up by X-Plane in anyway. Be sure to read the ReadMe for installation procedure!
My favourite! Are you a 3D fan? PointOfView3D easily lets you change your position in the 3D cockpit. Line up your panels lower edge with the bottom of your screen using the S key or the keyboard 2 key. Adjust your seat up, down, left, right, forward or backward using the arrow keys and page up, page down keys. Turn or tilt your head upwards, downwards, left, or right using the Q, E, S or 2 keys surrounding the W.
Pressing the Space bar will return you to the default center. Or you can program one of your joystick buttons to View: center.
Best of all, with your joystick's thumb switch set to toggle 3D, you can alternate your POV between two easily set positions. Instantly alternate between cockpit view and hanging your head over the side in Paulo's Stearman. Alternate between the front and rear seats. Alternate between left and right seats. Alternate between being a pilot and passenger in the back cabin. Alternate between copilot facing forward and flight engineer facing sideways at his panel. It's easy to do; clicking the joystick thumb switch saves your last position!
