Gear Stuck

[Nodd]

New to this stuff so please bare with my ignorance...

I'm working on a test FSX aircraft as a learning experience. Having no clue how to start an aircraft project from scratch, I copied the FSX Cessna's folder, renamed it & have been modifying things here & there.

I replaced the Cessna's MDL file with one I created in 3DS MAX. Everything was going fine until I came to animating the gear. As the Cessna has fixed gear, my new animated gear will not retract. I know I have the MDL set up more or less correct. My MDL's gear retracts fine when I use it with a default FSX aircraft that has retractable gear. But pressing "G" does nothing when I run it with the Cessna's files.

I've looked through the CFG files, looked at the AIR file, where is this sort of thing set?

[Elias]

You have to set extension-retraction times to make the gears work. If the times are 0 as it happens with fixed gear aircraft, the gears don't move.

Here is the cfg file from the default C172, contact points section:

[contact_points]
point.0 = 1, 0.90, 0.00, -4.09, 1500, 0, 0.5, 22.0, 0.25,2.5, 0.7, 0.0, 0.0, 0 (nose gear)
point.1 = 1, -4.70, -4.50, -4.01, 3500, 1, 0.5, 0.0, 0.3, 2.5, 0.7, 0.0, 0.0, 2 (left main gear)
point.2 = 1, -4.70, 4.50, -4.01, 3500, 2, 0.5, 0.0, 0.3, 2.5, 0.7, 0.0, 0.0, 3 (right main gear)

in red are the extension/retraction times, you have to set a number like 5.0 (sec) to make the gears of your model work.


Elias

[Nodd]

Thanks Elias! OK now this makes sense. My gear is no longer stuck, woohoo!

Thank you for taking the time to explain that so clearly. Much appreciated.