Moving Maps as gauges, windows, or pop-ups

[macca22au]

I hate having to bring my flight to a stop in order to access the map.  Unfortunately the Garmin in the default, and the navigation displays in add-ons don't give enough information like names of features, towns and navaids or road etc information.

There seem to be many navigation add-ons, but I have one specific requirement.  I fly in full screen using a fourth screen for pop-ups which I move from the main (three screens with matrox).

Therefore I am looking for a moving map, planner etc that can operate in full screen mode, and be moved using the mouse on to another screen.

I get a bit defeated by the many available, and it is hard to find clear information that states speciifically whether the product can be used as a pop-up and moved freely.  

I would be grateful for any help.

[reider]

Talal Map View Version 3:

Free, on Avsim, don`t get version 2 though.  Search for Talal.

Moving map, in the cockpit, up to 320 NM, shows airports, NDB`s, terrain, approach feathers and lots lots more besides.  Key in the airport code and it gives you the ILS frequencies for every runway. It will show you all the radio/comms frequencies you need too. It does a lot lot more than this.  The window is a popup and can be resized easily, it can be dragged to any monitor.

Reider

[Mr.Mike]

This would be a useful feature indeed.  I did a search but only found version 2.0, has version 3 been removed for some reasion?

[Brett_Henderson]

I always found that the most fun, educational and realistic thing about MSFS is the navigation. It's the one skill that you can translate to real flying, absolutely. If you can find your way by VOR/NDB in the sim; you could do it in a real plane, tomorrow. Moving maps defeat that. There's no challange in watching an airplane icon move across a map. But that's just me...

[reider]

I always found that the most fun, educational and realistic thing about MSFS is the navigation. It's the one skill that you can translate to real flying, absolutely. If you can find your way by VOR/NDB in the sim; you could do it in a real plane, tomorrow. Moving maps defeat that. There's no challange in watching an airplane icon move across a map. But that's just me...

Once again you post on a subject you could have ignored.  The guy who started the thread asked for certain information on a subject, he was given that information.  Then along you come and try and change what he`s trying to achieve.  You could either start a thread of your own extolling the virtues of the way you do things or join in one where someone specifically asks for that information.  To continually jump in on a thread like this is getting very droll now.  Yes, we know you did it the hard way (yawn), perhaps you could share it with those who really wish to know.

Reider

[reider]

This would be a useful feature indeed.  I did a search but only found version 2.0, has version 3 been removed for some reasion?

Go to Avsim, file section or whatever, search field = talal  The first page lists ver 2 then ver 3 for MS2004.  Get the ver 3, it works in FSX and on Vista too.

Reider

[Brett_Henderson]

Just offering insight.. Never with a malicious tone (like you). If I have a real student (and I have) who shows interest and aptitude, I'll offer the same opinion..

Sorry if you're offended..

[reider]

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, you may find that you need to start the map view when in 2D mode.  Move it to another screen if you need to and then revert back to virtual.  Unless you adjust it to suit that is.

Reider

[macca22au]

Many thanks indeed Reider for that information.   I don't mind Brett's comment, but let me say this.

Before health problems - I had a total of 1500 hrs real world flying
A multi-engined instrument rating
My last plane that I ran up a few hundrd hours on was a Piper Navajo - I absolutely loved it.

I always carried a 'brain bag' - a flight bag stuffed full of maps and charts - and the vital flightplan.

I always had a map open on my knee - and that's the difference now.

I don't have World Aeronautical Charts for the whole world - nor airways maps for IFR over the whole world.

It is easy enough to get approach plates off the web, but the  other maps are clumsy: and expensive to print.

So I need a substitute for the map on my knee - not a soft or unrealistic way to fly.

I've been there, I wish that I had never left, but here is where I am, so I want to make the most of it.

[macca22au]

Oh and the map on my knee had the course line drawn in pencil

And my finger became the aircraft icon as it moved along the line.

I like to identify features, towns, riverbends, roads, bridges, hills so that I am always aware of where I am in space - as in IFR you use the bearing info from the VOR or NDB, and the DME distance to maintain spatial awareness.

That's what makes real world and simulated flying so challenging - there are so many variables.

[Brett_Henderson]

Gosh yes .. so many variables and so many of them replicated pretty darn well in the sim. I'm near-about 1300 hours real flying.. and will admit that a moving map GPS comes in handy when you're skirting airspace (but I'm prepared to slice-n-dice by VOR/NDB), but I still find my way x-country by radio nav-aid.

The thing about these forums, is that the poster and responders are just the tip of the iceberg. This thread will be read several times, by several people and most likely searched out for a year or more. If just one of those readers pauses and goes "hmmmmm" and ends up learning from and getting the most out of simming (and takes that knowledge into his real flying), it's worth it to me to mention the things that I mention. If people get impatient with me, I can take it.

[macca22au]

I must say that my real-world flying began in the pre-GPS days, with NDB the most common navaid in Australia.   But during my time, the VOR was installed widely, and then came GPS.
I never said no to the GPS  -  finding a remote airstrip in the Australian desert outback, on the limits or outside the range of navaids was made so much easier and safer.  Believe me using old-fashioned pilotage over country with few and confusingly similar features made me wish there was a box I could check for unlimited fuel.
I flew from a country town that still only has an NDB, but now has published GPS approaches that make procedures more accurate, and safer.
I am glad I had the basic skills drummed into me, including the use of the handheld circular "prayer wheel" but my passengers were much more secure when I had a GPS working - although by habit I endlessly cross-checked navaids and the ground.
I navigated my first Sydney-Hobart yacht race using a sextant, DR, careful estimations of apparent wind, and the effects of currents.  The second was with a satnav.  Believe me I only carried the sextant after that for backup.....and show!
So let me have my electronic version of a map on my knee - simming in Australia around a dozen different places in the UK, Europe, and North America makes paper maps impossible, and pilotage pointless.

[macca22au]

Oh and just to finish off - I have the great VFR Generation X photographic scenery for England and Wales from Horizon Simulations.

In faraway Australia I can afford, but can't really be bothered to order the 1:100000 paper charts from the UK.  Instead I have some road atlases bought from the local map shop, that are good on roads, and lousy on airports.  But its fun - after all the scenery is completely accurate to the day the photo was taken!

I've run FSX in windowed mode and had Google Earth run beside it - a great way to check where I am, because of course Google has names of towns and streets, not like FS which sticks to airports and navaids!

So far this is three posts in a row.  Mr Moderator it is the last.

[reider]

Yes, I don`t talk about it and will not harp on about it now or afterward but something came up in a conversation today whilst on an interview for a voluntary job, with disabled people.  I am dying, self induced smoking related, I have a generic disease and will steadily worsen.  My steroid treatment kills my immune system, so what I gain in one hand I lose in another later.  But, flight sims have learnt me about a subject I never was any good at, Geography.  Computers over the years have taught me the appreciation of another one, maths.  I am currently doing an ECDL at Chester University, basically covering the paperwork I should have tried to get years ago.  After this I study for GCSE level maths and English.  I don`t have the time to go in depth with every subject under the sun but can at least learn the ones I have an interest in or some affiliation with, as in Geography and Flight Sims.  This is one area where I find the maps useful.  Relative distance between places is amazing me too.

Its 100 miles to my parents house, from me on the West coast to them on the East coast, FSX shows each of the 5 motorways for this trip quite closely, even down to where the M62 splits in the right place in the Pennines!  Its, in contrast only sub 1000 miles to Palma, which seems a ridiculously short distance to be in Spain, so far from them or myself (there and back 5 times to my Mums, but by air).  New York, 4000 miles away, bad example but I now know roughly which way the aircraft travels and where it passes through on the way.  Amsterdam, almost on the doorstep, Rotterdam-I sailed from there once, both such a close proximity to Humberside Airport, near my Mums-yes-my Geography was really that bad!  These are but a few examples.

Enjoy the best way you can people and derive all the fun you can from this world, Brett, just ignore me  ;)  We all do what we do, as long as we enjoy it and don`t harm anyone else in the process, then thats the way it should be.

Reider

[macca22au]

Really sorry to hear that Reider.  Fortunately you are required to stick around so that you can contribute to this forum.

I started off as a university lecturer in Geography a long time ago, and although I have done related work for a long time, I remain hooked on maps, and trying to figure out in my mind why things are as they are.  What are the explanations for the patterns in the landscape and the distribution of urban centres.  So great, and good luck in your studies and the development of your ideas. Its not just the learning of facts but what they mean when you put them together that is the intriquing aspect of it all.  And you can see my beginnings in Geography moved over into aviation, and off-shore yacht racing.   I am still working, but like you an old disease is getting to me - and that's why I find the simulator such a fantastic way to keep on travelling.

I have the Horizon Generation X photographic scenery for England and Wales, do you?  It really is very good, and like Google Earth you can find your house and your parent's house, and fly your way VFR between them.  Also Gary Summers on UK2000 has a great collection of UK airports for FSX, getting bigger all the time, and a set of AFDs (the FSX version of AFCAD) that fix most of the main default airfields.  Like many of my generation on the other side of the world from you, we have a fixation on England and I get there as often as I can.  The older I get the more comfortable I am with my own language.

I am sure Brett will respond, but you have my admiration for the way that you are facing the world.