FSXA To animate a propeller blade

[FBVLV]

I am unable to find the code to animate the pitch of the propeller blades?

I found one for the lever, but not for the blade

Could you help me.

Thank You

 

[lionheart]

Hello,

I use the lever animation on each prop blade. Works brilliant.

 

[SkippyBing]

Although Bill's method will work technically it'd be incorrect as for a constant speed unit the lever doesn't directly control the prop pitch.

I don't think there's a default animation in FSX but I wrote this one:

<PartInfo>
<Name>prop_beta</Name>
<AnimLength>100</AnimLength>
<Animation>
<Parameter>
<Code>
(AROP BETA:1, degrees) 25 - 2.858 *
</Code>
</Parameter>
</Animation>
</PartInfo>

Change the 1 to whichever engine you're animating for, looking at the code it appears to be scaled for a prop with 35 degrees between max and min pitch, a min pitch of 25 degrees and animated between 0 and 100. Note I'm not 100% sure if this works as I used it on a single engine aircraft and FSX kept inhibiting the prop feathering so you never really see the animation.

Add that bit to modeldef.xml and the following bit at the start for the guid:

<Animation name="prop_beta" guid="1A805F4D-BF99-48ec-AB50-8D8BB8D6CD99" length="100" type="Sim" typeParam2="prop_beta_fury" typeParam="AutoPlay" />

 

[n4gix]

True enough, but then what's the point of animating to begin with if it will never be seen?

While "unrealistic," simmers expect to see the props change pitch when the blades are still... Just sayin...

 

[Willem]

True enough, but then what's the point of animating to begin with if it will never be seen?

Yep, with the engine running the single blades are normally invisible. So for that purpose it would be of no use to implement the pitch animation.

What has been done before is to animate the thickness of the blurred prop disc, now that is way more realistic .
In real life the changing pitch of the blades on a running engine is also visible as changing thickness of the "prop disc".

Not sure on the "how-to" though...
Does FS support scaling animation?

grt

Willem

 

[tgibson]

No, not per se. But you can have two disks, and move one of them in/out to vary the thickness.