• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

Floatplane docking utility?

Rallymodeller

Charter Member
I just about have spinnywing flying out of my system over at Misty Moorings, and was wondering something for when I get back into fixed-wing bush flying. IMO water handling is just about the worst area of MSFS, and low-speed control is basically nonexistent. This makes docking a true pain in the pontoon.

The Gotfriends Wilga has a neat feature where on the water, if you drop the "anchor" the plane acts like the parking brake is on, and when it's free-floating you can use an oar that's attached to the float to wiggle-maneuver the plane around.

What I'm wondering is this: is there some way to add this functionality to any floatplane/amphibian? Not necessarily the oar (though that'd be aces) but definitely the "mooring" feature. A hotkey combo that'd allow you to start and run-up the engine without drifting into the dock/other aircraft/out into the bay?

Thought I'd ask the knowledgeable people here before starting to dig around under MSFS's hood.

Thanks in advance!
 
AFAIK the 'anchor' feature is part of the model itself and can't be added to a config file, for example. Mario Noriega's amphibious (and addictive) Nardi FN-333 Riviera has a built-in anchor which sits on the co-pilot's seat where it can be easily clicked down or up. When starting on a water parking spot or runway, the wing floats will extend automatically.
 
Last edited:
With float planes that don't have an anchor feature, you can use the "Toolbar Pushback" utility: https://flightsim.to/file/15033/toolbar-pushback
When installed, the utility is available from the in-sim handle bar options, so it's very easy to access and use. Simply set the tug speed to 0, assign a pushback key to your setup, and then you can hold your position in the water/at a dock to simulate being anchored or tied down.
 
Last edited:
With float planes that don't have an anchor feature, you can use the "Toolbar Pushback" utility: https://flightsim.to/file/15033/toolbar-pushback
When installed, the utility is available from the in-sim handle bar options, so it's very easy to access and use. Simply set the tug speed to 0, assign a pushback key to your setup, and then you can hold your position in the water/at a dock to simulate being anchored or tied down.
Neat! That'd also probably work for the "rowing out" part. Downloading now.

I really need to learn how to make stuff like that. A dedicated addon for floatplanes would still be better, methinks.
 
Sorry to disagree but if you know how to modify a xml file you can add theses lines to the interior XML file.
If the aircraft has a Parking Brake, theses lines add the new function to it, if not using a keyboard shorkcut you can activate this "factice anchor".

<!-- ANCHOR SIMULATION ######################################## -->
<Component ID="Anchor_Simulation">
<Update Frequency="1">
(A:CONTACT POINT WATER DEPTH:4, Feet) 0 &gt; (A:BRAKE PARKING POSITION, Percent) 100 == and
if{
(A:IS LATITUDE LONGITUDE FREEZE ON, Bool) !
if{
1 (&gt;K:FREEZE_LATITUDE_LONGITUDE_SET)
}
} els{
(A:IS LATITUDE LONGITUDE FREEZE ON, Bool) if{
0 (&gt;K:FREEZE_LATITUDE_LONGITUDE_SET)
}
}
</Update>
 
Back
Top