FS2004 Gippsland GA 8 AirVan Panel

There are only a few dials that need a special explanation, first, there is the red light (9) over the tank dials, this only starts if the sink tank that collects fuel from both tanks before sending them to the injectors does not receive any more fuel. In this case the engine will fail within three to five minutes.

The next unusual dial is the Volt / Ampere measuring unit (12) and the Bus Switch (13) . The GA 8 has two electric mains, one 24 Volt for engine and lights and one 12 Volt for Avionics, FS 2004 cannot emulate this, so when you switch the bus the Voltmeter the value you will see is Bus 1 / 2 . The switch on the dial itself is to switch from Volts (Bus 1 or 2) to Ampere (Bus 4 or Generator Bus).

Dial 17 is a Fuel Management Dial, it shows fuel consumed, fuel remaining, flight time remaining, flight time remaining incl. IFR reserve and miles per gallon. To switch these functions click on button 18. The LED row shows the selected function. Button 19 resets the fuel consumed function. This dial has been altered by me, the original includes a scan that steps all functions every 10 seconds (difficult to make with FS2004) and the fuel consumed function resets with every engine start.

The fuel shutoff Valve has a little button on the top right side, that is the engine primer. FS2004 supports it but it makes no difference if you use it or not. (In real life, failing to do so would most likely kill your battery before the engine starts, especially in cold weather)

Installation

Simply unzip the folder called panel.2 to your Gippsland GA8 folder, now open your aircraft.cfg file with wordpad or an editor and change one of the lines that say Panel= to Panel=2 :

[fltsim.1]
​title=Gippsland GA8 Airvan MYD
sim=airvan
model=
panel=2
sound=
texture=MYD
kb_checklists=
kb_reference=
atc_id=
ui_manufacturer=Gippsland
ui_type=GA8 Airvan
ui_variation= Maya Island Air
description=
atc_heavy=0
atc_airline=MYLAND
atc_flight_number=
atc_parking_codes=MYD
atc_parking_types=RAMP,GATE

Now you will notice some little quirks, first the fuel management will show a maximum consumption of about 6 Gph, which is totally unrealistic. This is mostly due to the fact that all the engine models for FS2004 is based on the 150 Hp Lycoming. To get a realistic fuel consumption scroll down aircraft.cfg and change

[GeneralEngineData]
engine_type = 0
Engine.0 = 9.000, 0.000, 0.000
fuel_flow_scalar= 3.500
min_throttle_limit=0.000000

This will give you a normal cruise consumption of about 17 -18 GpH.

Next you will notice that the alternate Air (which the original has) does not work. That is because foir some reason the Microsoft programmers are not aware of the fact that fuel injector manifolds also freeze with cold wet weather. You have two options, ignore the Alternate Air function or change the following:

[piston_engine]
power_scalar =1.000
cylinder_displacement= 120.000
compression_ratio= 8.500
number_of_cylinders= 6
max_rated_rpm= 2400.000
max_rated_hp= 300.000
fuel_metering_type= 1
cooling_type= 0

This way your engine will act like a carburator engine and the Carb Heat function will act as alternate air.

The last change is not very important but... the original GA 8 has an electric auxiliary vacuum pump in case the engine suction fails. to include it change:

[electrical]
;BusType, MaxAmpLoad, MinVoltage BusTypes:0=MainBus,1=AvionicsBus,2=BatteryBus,3=HotBatteryBus,4-7=Generator/AlternatorBus(1-4)
flap_motor = 0, 5 , 17.0
gear_motor = 0, 5 , 17.0
autopilot = 0, 5 , 17.0
avionics_bus = 0, 10, 17.0
avionics = 1, 5 , 12.0
pitot_heat = 0, 2 , 17.0
additional_system = 0, 20, 17.0
marker_beacon = 1, 2 , 17.0
starter1 = 3, 20, 17.0
light_nav = 0, 5 , 17.0
light_beacon = 0, 5 , 17.0
light_landing = 0, 10, 17.0
light_taxi = 0, 5 , 17.0
light_strobe = 0, 5 , 17.0
light_panel = 0, 5 , 17.0
standby_vacuum = 0, 15 , 17.0

if you compare this section you will notice that I have also changed the starter1 bus to 3, just a little nitty gritty because that how it also is in real life.

Now, speaking of Nitty Gritty, most GA8s don't use King Avionics but Becker. As the functions are equal, only the design is a little different I opted the easy way. Because the trick with the side panels does not work anymore in FS2004 I could not make side, back or up / down views. Here I would like to request cockpit textures from the model makers even if they don't plan to make a panel for their planes.

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