Microsoft Flight Simulator and Garmin aviation handheld GPS

[John Bell]

I have always thought that it would be a nice training tool to be able to
get a handheld GPS to work with Microsoft Flight Simulator. I had success
with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, Garmin 196, and Garmin GPS III Pilot.
I would imagine that a Garmin 295 would also work.

Peter Dowson has some Flight Simulator utilities at
http://www.schiratti.com/dowson.html. One of them is a program called
GPSout that sends output from Microsoft Flight Simulator to external devices
through the computer's serial port.

I set the gpsout.ini file to "sentences=AV400", the .ini comments had it as
the singular "sentence" for AV400. To get the GPS to use the GPSout data,
I set the protocol to "Aviation In" and put the GPS into the simulator mode.

After getting the combination of Flight Simulator and either the GPS 196 or
III Pilot to work, I did some quick flying, but I did not spend much time
with it. There seems to be a slight lag in things like heading changes
compared to the real GPS. However, this is just a quick unsubstantiated
observation. Overall, it worked great!

I did a couple of very quick tests. I changed the weather in Flight
Simulator to a 36 knot crosswind and the GPS correctly showed TRACK rather
than heading. The vertical speed and VNAV functions also appeared to work
correctly.

I tried a couple of the other protocols offered by GPSout hoping that GPSout
could be used with a non-aviation GPS. Obviously, I changed the protocol on
the GPS, changed the gpsout.ini, and restarted FS. I had no success getting
a non-aviation Garmin 76 to work. Likewise, I had no success with the
Garmin 196 or III Pilot using other protocols other than "Aviation In."

I just thought that I would pass this along for anyone interested.

John Bell
www.cockpitgps.com

[Doug Adomatis]

"John Bell" wrote
> I have always thought that it would be a nice training tool to be able to
> get a handheld GPS to work with Microsoft Flight Simulator.

John,
Thanks posting this. You reminded me to work on a project I have converting
GPS track logs to MS Flight Simulator Flight Videos. Do you have any
experience with this?
- Doug

[John Bell]

Doug,

Unfortunately, I do not know of anyway of doing what you ask. However, I am
not an active simmer and it may very well be possible.

John


"Doug Adomatis" > wrote in message
nk.net...
> "John Bell" wrote
> > I have always thought that it would be a nice training tool to be able
to
> > get a handheld GPS to work with Microsoft Flight Simulator.
>
> John,
> Thanks posting this. You reminded me to work on a project I have
converting
> GPS track logs to MS Flight Simulator Flight Videos. Do you have any
> experience with this?
> - Doug
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

[SeeAndAvoid]

I have the latest MS FS2004 and I hook up with AnywhereMap on my Ipaq and
it's great practice. The Ipaq (HP 5555) sits in it's cradle next to my PC,
I fire up FS and it's pretty close to the real thing on AnywhereMap.
Since AWM has a PC flight planner, I can make up a flight plan, send it to
the Ipaq, start AWM on the Ipaq, select the flightplan and it'll display on
the Ipaq as I fly it on FS. FS sends altitude info so my 'cones of safety'
are displayed on AWM, get an idea of where I could glide to, maybe simulate
an emergency to see if my glide data is correct (pulled from the flight
manual).

There's lots of plusses to doing this: get even more proficient at using
AWM - there are a few menus and lots of choices, airport recognition based
on FS's graphics, AWM's terrain and obstruction alerts - FS usually has
those same towers and things like nuke reactors where AWM says they'll be,
flying around Class B's, seeing if the route I made up is really feasible,
on and on.
One of AWM's newer features is you can make up a virtual ILS for any runway,
so that's been fun to practice playing with that feature, I can set it up
pretty quickly now. Anyway, it's cool.
Chris

[Doug Adomatis]

"John Bell" wrote:
> I have always thought that it would be a nice training tool to be able
get a handheld GPS to work with Microsoft Flight Simulator.

I'm interested is in creating a fly-over presentations from some of my more
interesting trail data. I'm using a little known utility from
lostoutdoors.com to convert the gps data into a Flight Video (.fsr) file.
Although Microsoft Flight Simulator terrian realism is good right out of the
box, I have learned that it is possible to enhance the terrain model with
products from 3rd parties such as FSgenesis.com. There is probably an
easier way to do visual fly-over presentations without using Microsoft
Flight simulator - and I like to hear suggestions on this from others, but
that would be a different topic.
- Doug
www.travelbygps.com