FSEconomy and PE - aircraft without GPS

[kullery]

Based on some very limited testing (and perhaps an issue Helipilot7 had on a twitch stream) there appears to be an issue if you fly a FSEconomy aircraft which does not have a GPS on Pilotedge.

Once you sign into FSE, COM frequency changes are no longer detected on PE. I am guessing this is related to the FSE plugin code which disables the GPS.

My test was with the X-plane default King Air C90B and FSEconomy registration N-571UL (it has no GPS) while observing the PE map. Prior to logging into FSE, COM frequency changes appear on the PE map however after staring FSE subsequent frequency changes are not showing on the map. As soon as I cancel the FSE flight, normal COMS are restored.


EDIT - The problem seems to be specific to the King Air C90B, a similar test with the default C172 had no COM issues when PE and FSE were used.

[Keith Smith]

Not sure what's going on with the GPS, but FSE has the notion of IFR vs non-IFR aircraft. If the aircraft is non-IFR, it will fail the NAV radio. Unfortunately, in xplane, the nav/com radio is treated as a single failure (you can't fail nav without also failing the com). So, PE sees the failed com radio and kills the audio.

So, make sure the plane is "IFR" equipped on FSE if you want to fly on PE and talk to ATC. Not sure about the GPS part, though, I'd have to look through their source code and the source for the King Air. It might be worth checking the xplane failure screen after you login to FSE to see exactly what FSE and the King Air's custom code are failing.

[kullery]

Thanks Keith,

That explains why the C172 had no problems. The FSE 172 that I tested listed equipment as VFR-IFR-Autopilot. The King Air C90B is listed as VFR-Autopilot.

So it's not a GPS issue, it's the non-IFR that shuts down the COMS. Like you said, be sure the FSE aircraft is IFR equipped!!!

GPS failure screen for both aircraft looks like this:

failures N-571UL.jpg (34.28 KiB) Viewed 3070 times

Additional failures on the non-IFR C90B look like this:

failures N-571UL-2.jpg (112.65 KiB) Viewed 3070 times

[Keith Smith]

Yep, notice the nav1/com1 and nav2/com2 failures. See how there's no way to separate the nav failure from com? Frustrating, isn't it?

So, you have the right idea, make sure the plane is "IFR equipped" on FSE.