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No Taxi Lights in FSX Default Lear45

(Original thread started on 08-10-09 by Eric Tomlin)

Simulator: FSX

Issue Brief: No Taxi Lights

3rd Party Mods/Name?: Yes-Friendly Panels

Airfile or Model Mods?: Yes, various performance tweaks.

 

Issue: Taxi lights do not work with the Lear45 in FSX or P3D. Does anyone here know of a method to get separate Taxi and Landing lights showing up in FSX at all? It is frustrating to have the taxi lights working correctly in FS9 yet it is broken in FSX.

 

(Posted by Dave Ault on 08-10-09)

I think it's a problem with the switch logic but if you turn them on and off by writing to the FSUIPC offset then you can switch them independently. I don't have FSX installed at the moment and my FS PC is in bits as I'm upgrading it so can't verify this but will confirm this as soon as I can.

 

I played around with FSUIPC offsets and got the following results:

 

FSX Default Learjet 45 & Friendly Panels 45

Offset 0D0C

 

.......Decimal.....Defined in FSUIPC as.....Actual Function.........Switch Toggled

 

Bit 0 1 NAV NAV Nav/LOGO

Bit 1 2 BEACON BEACON BCN/STROBE

Bit 2 4 LANDING LANDING & TAXI LLDG

Bit 3 8 STROBES DOES NOTHING RLDG

Bit 4 16 INSTRUMENTS STROBE NONE

Bit 5 32 RECOGNITION CABIN LIGHTS PANEL LTS

Bit 6 64 WING NOTHING RECOG

Bit 7 128 LOGO NOTHING NONE

Bit 8 256 CABIN NOTHING NONE

Bit 9 512 Not Defined NOTHING CABIN LIGHT

 

FS2004 Default Learjet

Offset 0D0C

 

......Decimal....Defined in FSUIPC as....Actual Function.......Switch Toggled

 

Bit 0 1 NAV NAV Nav/LOGO & RECON

Bit 1 2 BEACON BEACON NONE

Bit 2 4 LANDING LANDING LLDG & RLDG

Bit 3 8 STROBES TAXI LIGHTS NONE

Bit 4 16 INSTRUMENTS STROBE BCN STROBE

Bit 5 32 RECOGNITION CABIN LIGHTS PANEL

Bit 6 64 WING NOTHING NONE

Bit 7 128 LOGO NOTHING NONE

Bit 8 256 CABIN NOTHING NONE

Bit 9 512 Not Defined NOTHING NONE

 

This confirms what you thought that in FSX there doesn't seem a way to toggle the TAXI lights independent of the Landing lights.

 

The Pilots manual says:

"That the control of taxi lights is via the same switch as the landing lights but positioned to the Taxi position. The Taxi lights also illuminate whenever the main landing gear is down and locked, the gear doors are up and locked and the landing light switches are in the LDG position."

 

I assume by this that the switches have 3 positions: Off, Taxi & Landing lights. Looks like FSX gets it right that the taxi lights are on when the landing lights are on but does not have the option of turning only the Taxi lights on as in FS2004.

 

(Posted by Eric Tomlin on 08-17-09)

The Landing lights on the LJ45 are located in the wing fairing so that they can be showing when ON even if the gear are up. The Taxi lights are located on the two main gear struts, and naturally will only show when the gear is extended.

 

Also, I found this over at Avsim:

http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=66297&hl=taxi+light

 

It would be good if we can confirm if this will fix our issue for FSX, however I'm not so sure it will or where it fits in.

 

(Posted by Shane Barnes on 09-12-09)

Done a little playing around to see if I could get separate taxi / landing lights . . to some degree I have been able to. Here is the situation: I have 3d Lights Redux installed to give you a point of reference where I started at.

 

Having 3d installed I went to the Lear aircraft.cfg file and I added 6=taxi at the top of the lights section under //types

 

then I changed light .6 BY DELETING AS SEEN BELOW and I changed lights .10 and .11 to 6

 

Here is a copy of the [Lights] section from my aircraft.cfg file CHANGES ARE IN BOLD

 

 

[LIGHTS]

//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing, 6=taxi

light.0 = 3, -39.00, -23.6, -0.25, fx_shockwave_navred ,

light.1 = 3, -39.00, 23.6, -0.25, fx_shockwave_navgre ,

light.2 = 3, -63.93, 0.00, 9.20, fx_shockwave_navwhi_l ,

light.3 = 1, -37.00, 0.00, -2.59, fx_shockwave_beaconb_nl ,

light.4 = 2, -36.97, 0.00, -2.62, fx_shockwave_strobe_lowl ,

light.5 = 1, -63.05, 0.00, 9.75, fx_shockwave_beaconh ,

light.6 = , -16.00, 0.00, -24, fx_shockwave_landing_light_light,

light.7 = 4, -14.00, 0.00, 1.90, fx_shockwave_vclight,

light.8 = 5, -28.7, -1.3, -1.71, fx_Shockwave_landing_light_short // Shockwave light

light.9 = 5, -28.7, 1.3, -1.71, fx_Shockwave_landing_light_short // Shockwave light

light.10 = 6, -34.0, -4.45, -2.3, fx_Shockwave_landing_light_narrow // Shockwave light

light.11 = 6, -34.0, 4.45, -2.3, fx_Shockwave_landing_light_narrow // Shockwav

 

After completing this mod this is the results I get when i flip the switch assigned to taxi lights I get lights showing on the gear struts and two dim lights showing near the fairing.  When I flip the assigned switch for landing lights I get lights showing in the wing fairing only.

 

If you have 3D Redux play around with this and maybe we can get it working 100% , a side note . .when you make changes to the .cfg file make sure you have exited from FSX as you get strange results if you do not.

 

Also if you have not done so, on your #1 FSX disc is FSX SDK file you should open this file and install it as it gives you some info on how to modify different elements of FSX.  That is where I discovered how to get the lights on separate switches. Oh one other issue, when the landing gear is up and you switch lights on, they unfortunately still show.

 

UPDATE:

I have not been able to get the taxi lights to illuminate the ground, only the landing lights. So this is still an issue. The only thing that this quick fix resolved in FSX is that you can control the taxi and landing lights separately as you could not before.

 

(Posted by Hurl2space on 03-28-10)

Okay, I used your method here. And yeah, it works. The only problem now, is that with just the Taxi lights on, the ground itself is not illuminated. Not much help when you can't see where your taxiing too. Can you help me fix this minor problem? I've been struggling with this for a while.

 

(Posted by Dave Ault on 04-02-10)

Found this in another forum:

"All landing/taxi lights (ground splashes) in "true FSX models" are generated by special polygons in the Model (.mdl) file."

 

If this is the case then it looks like the polygons for the Taxi lights are not included in the model. Anyone found a FSX .mdl file editor / viewer?

 

UPDATE:

Okay, I think I have a solution. First I changed my aircraft.cfg file in the SimObjects\Airplanes\lear45 directory so that the light section was as follows ( note: I am using Shockwave 3D lights package )

 

[LIGHTS]

//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing, 6=taxi

light.0 = 3, -39.00, -23.6, -0.25, fx_shockwave_navred ,

light.1 = 3, -39.00, 23.6, -0.25, fx_shockwave_navgre ,

light.2 = 3, -63.93, 0.00, 9.20, fx_shockwave_navwhi_l ,

light.3 = 1, -37.00, 0.00, -2.59, fx_shockwave_beaconb_nl ,

light.4 = 2, -36.97, 0.00, -2.62, fx_shockwave_strobe_lowl ,

light.5 = 1, -63.05, 0.00, 9.75, fx_shockwave_beaconh ,

light.6 = 5, -16.00, 0.00, -24, fx_shockwave_landing_light_light ,

light.7 = 4, -14.00, 0.00, 1.90, fx_shockwave_vclight ,

light.8 = 5, -28.7, -1.3, -1.71, fx_Shockwave_landing_light_short ,

light.9 = 5, -28.7, 1.3, -1.71, fx_Shockwave_landing_light_short ,

light.10 = 6, -34.0, -4.45, -2.3, fx_Shockwave_landing_light_narrow ,

light.11 = 6, -34.0, 4.45, -2.3, fx_Shockwave_landing_light_narrow

 

In a previous post I mentioned that the light beam is a special polygon in the model (.mdl) file.  The lear45.mdl file does not have this polygon for taxi lights so there is no way to do it with this model so I had a look around for a model that did have taxi light polygons and found that the Flight1 Cessna Citation Mustang does so I replaced the lear45.mdl file with the Cessna_mustang_ext.mdl file that I renamed to lear45.mdl and you now get separate taxi and landing lights that both illuminate the runway.

 

External views of the aircraft show a Cessna mustang shaped black blob but that doesn't matter as you will be looking out of the window in your sims.

 

(Posted by Jaap on 02-02-11)

Here is a possible solution: I completely removed the FSX Lear45 and replaced it with the FS2004 one and now I have separate working Taxi Lights. Now I really expected that the APU would no longer work after this action, but it still does.

 

In fact, everything in my pit seems to work normally. The plane also looks good from the outside. So far testing and viewing has only been done parked but tomorrow I will see if there are any adverse effects to this. I'll keep you posted.

 

UPDATE:

I did the test flight with the FS2004 LJ45 and it went OK. Although I must say it feels "different" from the FSX LJ45. I 'm not entirely satisfied with it now. Maybe I can get it better by upgrading the Flight dynamics a bit. But anyway, the plane did work.

 

Backup your original FSX Lear45 folder and remove the FSX Lear45 folder from your FSX\ airplane directory. "Implant" the FS2004 Lear45 folder and restart FSX. Try and see. It could be that only the .mdl file is enough to have taxi lights in FSX, haven't tried that.

 

I still don't get why the APU is still working with this. And it would be nice to find a .mdl editor somewhere so we can adapt the FSX to have taxi lights.

 

(Posted by Eric Tomlin on 02-07-11)

In reference to why the APU is still working? I believe it has to do with the fact that the APU logic is in the panel, not the aircraft. I may be wrong, but as far as I know, that's where that system is emulated. It's kind of the same how some folks like the PMDG flight dynamics, but have an issue with all the systems modeled and placing it in their sim for full interfacing. They simply remove the panel and replace it with a default 737 panel and then they have the flight dynamics (which is the .air file) but not the systems modeled (embedded in the panel(s). Therefore, if you move the entire folder over to FSX but leave the original panel, then that system still remains. That's my guess anyhow.

 

UPDATE:

Sorry- Just went back and re-read your info and see that you actually removed the FSX version, correct? Then if that's so, I'm just as confused but I wanted to leave my reply so that folks could have a better understanding of how some functionality can be achieved by "kitbashing" aircraf files. However, it seems, as you pointed out already, that this is definitely a little strange. Maybe there was an APU modeled within FSX and...oh...forget it. I'd have to do some digging in FSX to see.

 

Jaap- are you able to expand on how you did this? Also, since you removed the entire FSX LJ45, how did you access the APU if the panel was removed? Thanks, I'm hoping your remove/replace instructions will lead to other improvements as well if I can follow along better on how you accomplished this.

 

(Posted by Jaap on 02-09-11)

Correct Eric, completely removed the FSX Lear, and replaced it with the FS2004 version (with Per Alm's Airfile, and a couple of other small tweaks).

 

Just flew from Nice (LFMN) to Faro (LPFR), and it went absolutely Perfect! Even had a Windshear, which we could barely escape from!  I've been thinking that maybe the FS2004 version LJ45 already contained the logic for the APU, but FS2004 itself did not support it yet.....Anyway, Taxi lights working like a charm now!

 

Here is a little instruction on what I did: I have completely removed the FSX Lear and copied the original FS9 Lear45 to FSX. That's it. This is my Panel.cfg:

 

// Copyright (c) 1999-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

 

[Window Titles]

Window00=Main Panel

Window01=VoxATC

Window02=VoxATC Recent Comms

VIEW_FORWARD_DIR=-1.000, 0.000, 0.000

//--------------------------------------------------------

[Window00]

file=Forward_1024.bmp

file_1024_night=Forward_1024_night.bmp

no_luminous=1

size_mm=1024

position=7

visible=0

ident=MAIN_PANEL

//--------------------------------------------------------

[Window01]

visible=1

position=4

size_mm=400,200

pixel_size = 400, 200

background_color=0,0,0

ident=14077

zorder=5

alpha_blend=0.65

gauge00=VAGauge!VoxATCPrompt,0,0

//--------------------------------------------------------

[Window02]

visible=0

position=5

size_mm=400,600

pixel_size = 400, 600

background_color=255,255,255

ident=14078

zorder=5

gauge00=VAInfo!VoxATCInfo,0,0,400,600

//--------------------------------------------------------

[Color]

Day=255,255,255

Night=223,255,255

Luminous=246,115,119

[Default View]

X=0

Y=0

SIZE_X=8192

SIZE_Y=3200

 

The APU is activated by a hardware switch, so no visible screen panel. In FS9 the APU did make sound (probably because of PMSounds), but never powered the airplane. In FSX however when I use battery power and it has drained to say below 20v, it goes to 28v as soon as I power up the APU and APU generator....... When I turn it off again the Battery voltage is 24v (and slowly draining)

 

(Posted by Shane Barnes on 05-31-11)

I'm trying to think if there would be any downside to removing the FSX Lear and replacing with the FS9 Lear. I can't think of any right off. If the APU is working and the start switches will work correctly this is good. Is there anything modeled in FSX Lear that we will lose by removing and replacing with FS9 Lear?

 

I'm thinking the sound files from the FSX Lear will work with the FS9 version so we do not lose stereo sound and if there are any differences in textures it really won't matter as all of our members our building a full or half size cockpit and using other software programs to display gauges.

 

I'm thinking the only thing FSX Lear had over the FS9 version was the APU working? Anyone think of any other?

 

(Posted by Dave Ault on 06-01-11)

Great stuff guy's but you can have working taxi lights and a working APU using FSX by changing the Lear45.mdl file for one that does have the polygons for Taxi lights i.e. I use the mdl file from the Flight1's Cessna Citation Mustang renamed to Lear45.mdl. As it is only the MDL that you change and not the cfg or air file then it still fly's the same .

 

From the outside it looks like a black blob but from the inside in Virtual Cockpit it looks great.  I am also using Shockwave 3D lights which needs a bit of configuring too.

 

(Posted by Jaap on 10-01-11)

Have still been trying to get the Taxi lights for the FSX Lear working and I came up with a stupid idea. I used an effect file I found in one of my scenery's and placed that far in front of the aircraft. The FX file is called Light pole and it projects a circular light beam on the ground.

 

Here is the Lights part from the Aircraft.cfg, it´s a bit messy because of all the fiddling:

 

[LIGHTS]

//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing, 6=taxi

light.0 = 3, -39.00, -23.6, -0.25, fx_shockwave_navred ,

light.1 = 3, -39.00, 23.6, -0.25, fx_shockwave_navgre ,

light.2 = 4, -30.00, 0.00, 2.10, fx_shockwave_vclight_l.fx ,

light.3 = 1, -37.00, 0.00, -2.59, fx_shockwave_beaconb_nl ,

light.4 = 2, -36.97, 0.00, -2.62, fx_shockwave_strobe_lowl ,

light.5 = 1, -63.05, 0.00, 9.75, Fx_shockwave_beacon_rotating_red ,

light.6 = 5, -16.00, 0.00, -24, fx_shockwave_landing_light_light,

light.7 = 4, -14.00, 0.00, 1.90, fx_shockwave_vclight,

light.8 = 5, -28.7, -1.3, -1.71, fx_shockwave_landing_light.fx

light.9 = 5, -28.7, 1.3, -1.71, fx_shockwave_landing_light.fx

light.10 = 6, -34.0, -4.45, -2.3, fx_shockwave_landing_light_tail_old.fx

light.11 = 6, -34.0, 4.45, -2.3, fx_shockwave_landing_light_tail_old.fx

light.12 = 4, -20.00, 0.00, 2.10, fx_shockwave_vclight_l.fx

light.13 = 6, 34.0, -9.45, -2.3, Aerosoft_Madeira_Lightpole0.fx

light.14 = 6, 34.0, 9.45, -2.3, Aerosoft_Madeira_Lightpole0.fx

 

The last two entry´s are the Light poles. At night, the effect is reasonable, however to concentrated and rounded. If I can Find an .fx file that projects more of a coned beam, it would be more realistic.

 

At day this solution is just too bright. Forgot to make screenshots of this.  For now I'm back to the FS2004 Lear in FSX, that still works great.  Did anyone notice that at night with the cockpit lights on, the Passengers cabin stays dark? Not nice.

 

I came up with a solution for that: Placed two VClights in the passengers cabin (Lights no.2 and 12 in above config) and that works out beautiful! 

 

(Posted by Marco Lamanna on 09-19-13)

I know this is an old thread but I was able to get taxi lights work on my FSX default Learjet45.  Just for anyone who will find this thread for taxi lights problem, I put a link about how I did it below.  I hope this will help someone!

 

http://en.mylearjet45.net/2013/09/little-summer-update-lights.html

 

(Posted by Eric Williams on 09-29-13)

I now have taxi lights! For some reason the link took me to the wrong version of the yacht files. Once I did a search on the site- the first version it pulls up (apparently number 4 I tried) had the files.

 

I even let it install completely on my SIM rig (was funny to see a huge yacht sitting at the gate- just had to fire it up at my local airport)

 

Pros:

I have taxi lights for the first time in many years of FSX

These things are CRAZY bright

The SIM works as intended

FSUIPC offset works (surprisingly)

 

Cons:

On my rig they show an odd "layered" light pattern

A bit of "bloom" around the aircraft even in clean air conditions

 

All in all this is the best mod I have been able to do to my Lear in a long time. This has driven me nuts for several years as taxiing with the blaring landing lights is simply not fun at an unfamiliar airport. I may try some other effects files now that the groundwork for positioning etc has been laid. Thanks very much!

 

(Posted by Art Schwartz on 09-03-14)

There is a much better mod than the three or four listed previously!

 

Using a hex editor, the lights can be fixed in the .mdl file. I have done it for the default LJ45 for FSX. I have all lights as they are supposed to be.

 

I would be happy to share it. I can't take all the credit. I read a post on another forum on how to modify the default 737 and decided that I would try it with the LJ45 and it worked. It was actually really easy to accomplish and it is a true fix, not a gimmick. I could send it to you by email however.

 

(Posted by Ron Rollo on 09-03-14)

Hi Art, thanks for pointing us to this new solution! You can email it to me at "ronjonrollo AT Yahoo DOT com" and I will give it a try and share it with the others on request. Thanks Art!

 

UPDATE:

I had a free moment to add the file and it works perfectly! I forgot that I had already programmed the center position on the left lights toggle switch (the right side is a dummy) and when I got into the sim to make sure I did not screw anything up, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the taxi lights work in conjunction with the landing lights. Such a small detail but man it was missed! Thank you Art for finding/creating this fix!

 

NOTE:  If anyone would like to try this Taxi Light Fix, go to the bottom of this thread and download the Lear45.mdl and the Readme.txt files.  Very easy fix!

 

(Posted by Shane Barnes on 09-05-14)

Hi Art, thanks for sharing this file. I added the file to the default Lear 45 that I added to Prepar3d and finally have taxi lights. As a side note to my project, I have been able to add the default 45 to P3D and install Friendly Panels. Art's mod works with both versions of the Lear45, you just need to add his file to the default 45 and the Friendly Panels version. Thanks again Art for helping bring a little more realism to our projects!

 

(Posted by Art Schwartz on 09-06-14)

You are welcome. How did you program the switch to toggle the center position?

 

(Posted by Ron Rollo on 09-06-14)

Hey Art, that's a good question.  I will explain this information and share the code in a way so that everyone can understand this. First, you have to be using FSUIPC. As you are aware, the Landing Lights and Taxi Lights are on a three way toggle switch. There are actually two toggle switches, one for the left side and one for the right. The right side toggle is nothing but a dummy because it is not modeled in FSX. The left three way toggle is what we will be using.

 

There are three terminals on the toggle. The center is the ground and the top and bottom are the signal terminals. So the question is how do you make the bottom terminal the off position, the center position the Taxi lights and the top position both Taxi and Landing lights? It's the magic of FSUIPC!

 

You are going to assign offsets and actions in FSUIPC to the bottom position of the switch and the top position of the switch. Those actions are as follows:

 

The top position which is the Landing/Taxi Lights:

Action 1 Up/Off-FSUIPC

Offset: 0D0C

Type: Smalllnt

Operation: Clear Bit

Bit: 2

 

Action 2 Up/Off-FSUIPC

Offset: 0D0C

Type: Smalllnt

Operation: Clear Bit

Bit: 2

 

Action 3 Down/On-FSUIPC

Offset: 0D0C

Type: Smalllnt

Operation: Set Bit

Bit: 2

 

The bottom position which is OFF:

Action 1 Down/On-FSUIPC

Offset: 0D0C

Type: Smalllnt

Operation: Clear Bit

Bit: 3

 

Action 2 Up/Off-FSUIPC

Offset: 0D0C

Type: Smalllnt

Operation: Set Bit

Bit: 3

 

Action 3 Up/Off-FSUIPC

Offset: 0D0C

Type: Smalllnt

Operation: Set Bit

Bit: 3

 

Now the funny thing is in both cases, two of the actions repeat themselves. Common sense is that I could remove action 2 in the first set and action 3 in the second set and everything would be fine. But experience has taught me that if I did that, it would somehow screw up the encoders on my FGC? So in other words, if it is not broke do not fix it.

 

But with that said, for you guys programming your Landing Lights and Taxi Lights for the first time in FSUIPC, try leaving the duplicate actions out. It should work just fine.

 

NOTE:  If anyone would like to try this Taxi Light Fix, go to the bottom of this thread and download the Lear45.mdl and the Readme.txt files.  Very easy fix!

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