Gerard,
Attached is a fully functional FS9 XML gauge that will write Flight Plan Waypoint Latitudes and Longitudes as well as flight progress information (Aircraft Latitude, Longitude, Altitude, VSI, Airspeed, Heading, Absolute Time) to an output file. It uses the LOGGER module for FS9. LOGGER can be freely downloaded from the Blackbox website indicated in a previous post in this thread.
The gauge is designed to be displayed in its own window. From my panel.cfg file:
[Window Titles]
Window28=FLIGHT DATA RECORDER
[Window28]
position=4
size_mm=150,75
visible=1
gauge00=FDR!FLIGHT DATA RECORDER, 0, 0, 150, 75
and the xml gauge, FLIGHT DATA RECORDER.xml, is located in folder FDR in the Panel folder of the aircraft.
Line 5 of the gauge xml file must be edited one time only to assign the desired file name path for the output file. In the example, it is
C:\Users\Username\Desktop\Flight Data Recorder\
When the FS9 aircraft is loaded, the following appears in the center of the screen:
Clicking the gray button turns the flight data recorder On and the following occurs:
1. Button turns lime green color indicating that the recorder is On.
2. An output data file with the file name Ident1-Ident2_X.csv is automatically created. Ident1 is the departure airport ident in your loaded flight plan, Ident2 is the destination airport ident, and X is the number of waypoints in the flight plan. Note that the file can be .csv or .txt file format. Refer to LOGGER documentation.
3. The first line of the output file is the flight plan title.
4. The second line is the number of waypoints.
5. The lines following that are the Latitude, Longitude and Ident of the waypoints.
6. 9999 is added to signify end of the waypoints.
7. Subsequent lines of Latitude, Longitude, Altitude, VSI, Airspeed, Heading, and Absolute Time are written in flight data recorder mode as the aircraft flies. Records are written at regular time intervals by editing line 101 of the xml file. As shown, flight data are recorded every three seconds. Beware that a large file can be created very quickly if (L:RecorderSkipCycles, enum) is not set high enough. The number of flight records written to file is updated in the gauge readout as the flight progresses.
8. When the lime green button is clicked it turns gray signifying that the flight data recorder is turned Off. The last line written is the number of records of the flight data.
9. The output .csv file is then automatically closed and is available for analysis outside of Flight Simulator.
Of course, the window can be undocked by right clicking it and moved to a suitable position on the screen.
The following pic is an example of a .csv file opened in excel. The file name is KJFK-KDAL_13.csv
Hope this helps.
Bob