The absolute mystery of the afterburner effects...

[Daube]

Hi all,

There's something I just can't understand about the afterburner effects of some addon planes in FS (both FS9 or FSX). Let's take two examples: the Alphasim F-107 and the F-5A from Tim Conrad.

- The F-107 works perfectly, when you push the throttle high enough, you will get the afterburner appearing behind the engine, as it should.

- The F-5A will not trigger the afterburner with the throttle, even at 100%. You'll have to use the Afterburner command SHIFT+F4 to trigger it. However the afterburner flames will NOT appear. They are instead linked to the lights. Press L and they appear, even if the engines are shut down...

Now, thinking that the problem was perhaps linked to the effect file itself, I modified the aircraft.cfg of the F-5A to make it use the effect of the F-107. It's easy, look at the lights definitions, type 9, modifiy the effect name and that's all...

And now I get the F-107 afterburner on the F-5.... but still only when I hit the lights ON... Why ? Why doesn't this effect react to the throttle or the reheat command ? Why is it linked to the lights ? I thought that the light type (first number in the definition) would prevent it to react to the lights commands, so what's going on here ?

[garymbuska]

I am not trying to be funny but that is the way the designer made it. I do not have either aircraft as I am not big on military aircraft but if I had to guess I would suspect that the effect in the F-107 is more than likely tied to the throttle gauge so maybe if you moved the throttle from the F-107 to the F-5A it might work correctly. Mind you like I said this is only a guess and not fact. 8-)

[Daube]

I got the same tip about the gauge from another forum.
I think this is the way to investigate, definitely.
Tim Conrad is amongst the best freeware developpers out there, and I do not think he could do such a weird thing to make a non-controllable light-linked afterburner, so I'm sure it's linked to a gauge problem.

[gtirob01]

Heres something Ive done with the F-14, and F-16's...

Manually turn on the lights (ie: landing, taxi, etc...from the cockpit view). When this is done, the afterburner should come on at full throttle, and off again when pulled back. It has worked for me on these two, may or may not work on others.

[Daube]

It never worked for me on the F-14.
The afterburner was showing at any throttle when the lights were turned on, and even after pulling the throttle down to idle, it would not dissappear until I turn of the lights...

[gtirob01]

You may still have to do the shift f4 command to light the burners, then from there, they will work as they should. But try manually turning the lights on again (not by pressing "L")

[Daube]

You may still have to do the shift f4 command to light the burners, then from there, they will work as they should. But try manually turning the lights on again (not by pressing "L")

Tried that as well, with no success

[Daube]

OK, problem solved. Two solutions:

- It was linked to a missing or incompatible gauge. I inserted some "invisible" gauges from the 107 in the F-5 panel, and the burners started working correctly with the throttle

- I was using an old version of the F-5, for FS2004. I have installed the FSX version, which worked immediately like a charm