Or is looking at the cockpit gauge the only option? When I say "HUD Style," I mean like in IL-2 1946 with a few little lines on the bottom left corner or something.

I think I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that if you press ALT-left click a current 'info window', and then right mouse button to bring up the menu, you can get to the 'Customize Info Window'. From there you can move things in and out of that window, i.e. engine info etc, plus play around with the size/color of the fonts and whatnot. You can also drag and resize the window about, i.e. put it in-front of your nose for a HUD like experience.

The bad news bit is that I think the airspeed, altitude and compass bearing are missing from this config so far.

Edit: I built one here: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3347984/Re_Is_it_possible_to_make_airs.html#Post3347984

Thanks FF, I've been playing with those windows and saw the bad news part of it last night. It's still a nice feature, though.

Yes I sure miss this from the old IL2 days

Open the cockpit , roll to the left a bit and look down across the wing, if the trees are moving from the front to the rear of the aircraft and there is no noticable shuddering the speed is ok.If the trees are moving from the rear to the front of the aircraft check first to see if you are sitting facing forward before panicking.If the trees are stationary and you could not roll the plane on any axis you are more than likely still stationary on the ground.In this case do not panic, either alight from the aircraft or takeoff and perform the checks as above.

The same basics goes for height , roll and look down over the wing,if the trees look like baby brocoli below, your height is ok.If you can count individual leaves and identify the different patterns in the bark you are too low or you may still be stationary,check the same roll axis step as mentioned above to to confirm if you are stationary.

The common element with both of the above is too remember, you can never have too much of either.If you think you have enough,you don't.The guy above and behind you will prove that

After trying your recommendations I can report that the cockpit of my Spitfire has a mixture of leaves, urine and feces in it.

lol

Printed and stuck to the screen for instant reference. I printed this on a transparent overhead projector sheet so I can still use my monitor, of course, I'm not a complete idiot!

All kidding aside, I can't count how frequently I've lost sight of an enemy aircraft by glancing down all-so-briefly to check temps, rpm, boost, etc. before diving down and closing. Look back up.......and they're gone!!!! (No doubt this happened to actual pilots, too).

Hence the reason the HUD was introduced, and now is being supplanted by HMDs.



The Jedi Master

I know by experimentation that you can get a window with percentage of throttle and mixture but it still has a visible box around it even when you make the borders invisible stil don't see a way to put the compass heading on it and once I made the engine controls icons disappear I can't figure out how to restore them, I'm sure someone will have it all figured out and make instructions or something we can copy and past into the config

Great!

Ahh the physical representation is Analog and the text is Digital, duh!

It's a funny one that there isn't a speed/altitude bar.

As Mrs Frog is watching TV and I'm back from work (those tadpoles don't feed themselves you know - wow, I regret this metaphor already, as I think that's wrong about tadpoles and I'm only in the second sentence - right, carry on, I don't think they noticed).

This bit of script is a start. I present a really bad speedbar!



Here's the wee script

using System;
using maddox.game;
using maddox.game.world;
using maddox.GP;
using System.Collections.Generic;


public class Mission : AMission
{
    private double nextMsgTime = 0;

    public override void OnTickGame()
    {
        {
            base.OnTickGame();
            
            if (Time.current() > nextMsgTime)
            {
                nextMsgTime = Time.current() + 10.0; // 10 seconds to next message
                
                // Leave this in if you want to test a timer
                //GamePlay.gpHUDLogCenter("Time elapsed (in seconds) = " + Time.current() + 
                //    ", next message will be at " + nextMsgTime);

                if (GamePlay.gpPlayer() != null) // check if we have a player.
                {
                    if (GamePlay.gpPlayer().Place() != null)
                    {
                        Player me = GamePlay.gpPlayer();
                        AiActor where = me.Place();
                        Point3d pos = me.Place().Pos();
                        GamePlay.gpHUDLogCenter("Where? x:" +
                                ((int)pos.x).ToString() + 
                                "  y: " + 
                                ((int)pos.y).ToString() + 
                                "  z: " + 
                                ((int)pos.z).ToString()
                            );
                    }
                }
            }           
            
        }     
    }

}

Next step will be to convert the virtual units into a real altitude and then perhaps remember coordinates to calculate speed. I've no idea if that'll work, but hey, it's all free so far right?

A really (really) quick way to use a script like this:

1. Read my point (5) as it's important, but then come back here.

2. Make test mission, called it 'whatever-you-like.mis'.

3. Make a text file and copy this text into it, but call it 'whatever-you-like.cs', i.e. the c and s bit stand for c ('see) sharp (or sometimes googled as c#). Save that file next to where the mission file loads from.

4. Play the mission and this text will appear both annoying centered and largely inaccurate. It updates every 10 seconds.

5. Scripts in CoD can do *anything*, so if you download them from places you don't trust then it's worth being careful - think of it like a program you download from the internet. It's up to you, but I thought it worth mentioning.

Also, anyone is very welcome to take this ball and run with it, as I'm off out soon but I thought I could kick things off.

Nice start Frog not bad for a polliwog aficionado.

I even did a jpg just for you Ajay

Right, this is where it gets even less fun - negative fun, so to speak.

I need to convert the z coordinate in 3d space to something like meters or feet. With pencil firmly clipped behind ear I make a quick flight with the 'Frog-o-bar' showing and note some Z values at known heights, i.e.

1000 ft, 240 z (ish, this Spitfire is bouncy)
2000 ft, 560 z
3000 ft, 850 z
4000 ft, 1165 z

Hmm, that slope of line looks a bit odd. A quick foray into linear regression shows that if you plot those values on a graph you end up with:

y = 306.5x - 62.5

so, a quick fiddle to the script to add the line (they'll be an algebra test at the end, wake up at the back!):

double height = ((pos.z + 62.5) / 306.5) * 1000;

..

    ((int)pos.z).ToString() +
     "  ft: " +
     height.ToString("0.0")

Means we get an altitude bar, even without a cockpit and in external view.



Next up Indicated Air Speed and the x,y velocities, plus a way to add a proper 'bar' at the bottom but it depends on when the TV show ends..

Wow, and all this on a Sinclair ZX81.

I know letterboy, so much stuff you can do with 1024 numbers in the right order on a ZX81!

Ok, getting shouted out now by Mrs Frog. 'Criminal Home Improvement Has Got Talent' has now finished so have to rush the last bit before heading out.

I've been calculating the height, which shows I'm an idiot. A quick poke around shows it's quite easy to grab what you see in the instruments programmatically (I bet that would be useful for all sorts of external projects in the future).

A quick 'tell me my aircraft' call and we're in, i.e:

AiAircraft aircraft = (GamePlay.gpPlayer().Place() as AiAircraft);

// A smörgåsbord of parts you can pilfer from.
double ias = aircraft.getParameter(part.ParameterTypes.I_VelocityIAS, 0);                        
double altitude = aircraft.getParameter(part.ParameterTypes.I_Altitude, 0);
double mag_compass = aircraft.getParameter(part.ParameterTypes.I_MagneticCompass, 0);
double rep_compass = aircraft.getParameter(part.ParameterTypes.I_RepeaterCompass, 0);

double z_altitude = aircraft.getParameter(part.ParameterTypes.Z_AltitudeMSL, 0);
double z_ias = aircraft.getParameter(part.ParameterTypes.Z_VelocityTAS, 0);
double z_orientation = aircraft.getParameter(part.ParameterTypes.Z_Coordinates, 0);

..with the new output looking like this:

    GamePlay.gpHUDLogCenter("Frogbar v0.1: Bearing: " +
                                    mag_compass.ToString("0") +
                                    "  Calc'd ft: " +
                                    height.ToString("0.0") +
                                    "  Instr IAS: " +
                                    ias.ToString("0.0")
                                );

Voila, a speed bar.



It's also easy to disable instruments and break off bits of my own plane, but that's getting more complicated and self-harm like.

Tomorrow I'll have a quick peek to make it into a wee window/instrument of its own and styled like the IL2 one rather than slap-bang in your face all the time.

Champion effort Frog.

Yeah, I thought it would be better to capture data from the instruments than calculating 3D spatial movement...

Well done!

Nonetheless very interesting: would be great to include in missions...

Do you think such events can be triggered by others? - Like: passing through 1000 altitude, coolant temp indicator drops out.