Fine Tuning the Airbus Gauges

 This part is for expert users only. If you don't know how to edit a panel or aircraft configuration file (.cfg files), do not look this section. No support is provided to help you tuning the gauges, do it at your own risks, and always backup your files before any modification.

This panel has been designed for some Airbus aircrafts that have their own specifity and model. If you want to use this panel with other aircrafts (you can use it for any twin-engine Airbus aircraft), you may experience some troubles because some parts of the gauges are related to the aircraft model. To prevent this, you have the ability to tune the gauges to make them work correctly with any aircraft.


Flap positions

The E/WD screen shows the flaps and slats position. The E/WD gauge is designed to work with the 6 flap position values. If your aircraft has a different number of flap positions, or if the flaps values are different, the flap display may look wrong. For example, the A330 from Project Opensky has different values for the intermediate flap positions (these values are visible in the "Flaps.0" and "Flaps.1" sections of the "aircraft.cfg" file).

The E/WD screen can only display 6 flap positions: 0 (retracted), 1 (slats), 1+F (slats + flaps), 2, 3, FULL (fully deployed). This gauge shows the flap position relatively to the flap position handled by FS2002. Some aircrafts have various flap values, and some don't even have 6 flaps positions.
To solve this problem, I give you the ability to tune the E/WD gauge so that it works with your aircraft, even if it has a different flap configuration. Follow the instructions:

  1. Open the aircraft.cfg file
  2. Find the [Flaps.0] section
    You should have something like this:

    [Flaps.0]
    type=1
    span-outboard=0.75
    extending-time=12.0
    flaps-position.0=0
    flaps-position.1=7
    flaps-position.2=15
    flaps-position.3=20
    flaps-position.4=35
    flaps-position.5=40
    damaging-speed=230
    blowout-speed=250
    lift_scalar=1.0
    drag_scalar=1.0
    pitch_scalar=1.0
    system_type=1

  3. Read carefully all the "flaps-position.x" values
  4. Open the A320 panel "panel.cfg" file
  5. Find the line where the E/WD gauge is defined, it should look like this:

    gauge19=A320!E/WD,  722,446,215,192

  6. At the end of this line, add all the flaps-position values that you have in the aircraft.cfg file, separated by a "-" (hyphen).
    For this example, it should look like this:

    gauge19=A320!E/WD,  722,446,215,192, 0-7-15-20-35-40

Next time you load the panel, the gauge will get this information, and will display the flaps properly.


Stall Warning

Depending of the flight dynamics of your aircraft, the stall warning message may be displayed when your flight condition is OK. This is because this warning is based on the angle of attack value, which may differ depending on your aircraft.

The stall warning system works by watching the Angle of Attack value handled by FS2002. In normal flight condition, the value is 32767, and it is going down to 0 as the aircraft gets closer to the stall. By default, a value of 25000 triggers a STALL WARNING alarm.

You can change this if you find that the STALL WARNING appears abusively, when the aircraft is still flying correctly, or inversely if you think that the warning comes too late.

  1. Open the panel.cfg file
  2. Find the line where the "Warnings" gauge is defined:

    gauge05=A320!Warnings,  198,306,31,64

  3. At the end of the line, add the AOA value which triggers the STALL WARNING alarm.
    For example, if you set it to 22000, the warning will come later:

    gauge05=A320!Warnings,  198,306,31,64, 22000

That's it !!


Radio Altitude

The Airbus aircrafts are equiped with a radio height probe. The radio height is displayed on the PFD when the aircraft is below 2500 feet AGL (above ground level). Normally, the display should be 0 when the aircraft is on the ground.
By default, FS2002 give the radio height of the center of gravity (CG) of the aircraft. Depending on the aircraft model, the CG radio height can be around 10 feet for an A320, so the radio height displayed is around 10 when then aircraft is on the ground. For this reason, it is important to substract the height to the current radio height, so that 0 is displayed on the ground.
This value can be adjusted in the "panel.cfg" file, on the line which defines the PFD gauge. In the Project Airbus panel file, this line looks like this:

gauge00=A320!PFD, 21,447,215,200, 10

The last number (10 in this exemple) is the radio height of the CG.
If the PFD doesn't display 0 on ground, you can adjust this value.


Autobrake

This feature will work only if your aircraft model has the autobrake enabled.