MSFS24 Pietenpol Air Camper v1.1.0 Now Available!

One of the biggest changes in this update by far was the addition of a wind volume control slider to the Blueprint options.

This slider, as it says, allows you to adjust the open cockpit wind intensity to your liking. This setting is persistent and defaults to a value that is close to the levels currently in v1.0.0.

During our initial release of the 1500R Sport, we had louder open cockpit wind noise, however we got a handful of users telling us that they had more sensitive hearing and the wind made for a less than ideal experience for them. At the same time, we also had the other side telling us that they wanted it louder for a more authentic experience!

At the time we opted to meet a bit in the middle and just lower the wind sounds to a more comfortable level – and that is how we proceeded with the initial release of the Pietenpol.

However, seeing some requests for louder open cockpit wind once again, it got us thinking that the best solution would be to just let you have control and tune it to your own liking!

While checking out a lot of the Youtube and Twitch release coverage of the Piet, we realized just how many of you were still using the legacy interactions mode to get rid of the blue highlights in the sim.

This did pose an issue, as the “Lock” and “Legacy” interaction systems behave differently in many cases. It not just that it removes blue highlights, but how you interact with some things changes completely, including how mouse and scroll wheel velocities are calculated.

This lead to a few issues on the Piet, such as the hand start option being very hard to use on some screen resolutions. The radio was also pretty much unusable as it relied on a lot of right mouse click and right mouse click and hold to do things like swapping frequencies and turning the transponder on.

This has all been improved now in v1.1.0. For the radio, we added left click support in addition to retaining the right click support for “Lock” users. This simple change allows the radio to be fully functional in “Legacy” interactions mode. While we were at it, we also did a heavy cleanup pass on the code and fixed some additional issues with tooltips, as well as fixed animations and sound triggers for the 1-4 soft-key buttons. This gives everything a much better feel and audible feedback.

Alongside the “Legacy” improvements for the radio, we also worked on getting the prop hand start to be a bit easier to use. To overcome the limitations we had to increase the velocity passed onto the prop during a mouse interaction. This overcame the limitations while using the legacy interaction mode, however it did come with a bit of an unavoidable trade off for “Lock” users – and that is the loss of a bit of the compression feel.

While the trade-off it a bit disappointing, the team agreed that we would rather have everyone be able to use the function.

Ultimately, we really hope Asobo considers adding an option to remove the blue highlights in the future. This has been a request for quite some time and is needed even more now with Legacy not functioning the same for those of us who have moved on to using the modern 2024 EX1 templates.

Overall, we addressed over two-dozen items in v1.1.0. Many of which we are also actively working on back-porting to the 1500R.

While not all of these fixes and improvements are large enough to warrant dedicating an entire section to, they all come together to make for a much more polished Piet that we hope you all will continue to enjoy!

• Added click spot to show EFB Tablet.
• Added keybind support for: SMOKE OFF, SMOKE ON, SMOKE SET, SMOKE TOGGLE, ENGINE PRIMER, TOGGLE PRIMERS, TOGGLE PRIMER 1, FUEL VALVE OFF, FUEL VALVE ON, SET FUEL VALVE, SET ENGINE 1 FUEL VALVE, TOGGLE ALL FUEL VALVES, TOGGLE ENGINE 1 FUEL VALVE, TOGGLE FUEL VALVE, ANTI_ICE_OFF, ANTI_ICE_ON, ANTI_ICE_SET, ANTI_ICE_SET_ENG1, ANTI_ICE_TOGGLE, ANTI_ICE_TOGGLE_ENG1, PANEL LIGHTS OFF, & PANEL LIGHTS ON.
• Added stall buffet sound.
• Added wind volume control to blueprint (persistent).
• Adjusted mix of wind sounds and increased max volume.
• Carb Heat is now mapped to the Spoiler Axis (L:CarbHeat is still usable for external mapping).
• Carb Heat tooltip value now displays a percentage vs. Off/On.
• Carb icing will now reset when on the ground with the engine off, when using slew, or when Engine Realism is toggled off.
• Fixed broken tooltip on radio focus button.
• Fixed control sticks not animating in multiplayer.
• Fixed Magneto mouse drag interaction inverted (dragging left turned switch right).
• Fixed mail bags not displaying when cargo weight exceeds 34 lbs.
• Fixed primer tooltip value sometimes not showing “Ready” with Engine Realism turned off.
• Fixed pulled UVs causing AO issues on LOD1 of pilot’s panel.
• Fixed radio select interactions in Legacy interaction mode (added ability to left click to select).
• Fixed sounds and improved interaction feedback for radio buttons 1-4.
• Fixed tooltip description for blueprint Remove Covers option not displaying when engine is running.
• Fixed VR hand controller support not working.
• Improved hand-prop click and drag while in legacy interactions mode.
• Improved “Lock” tooltips for Doors, Wing Hatch, Fuel Cap, Oil Cap, Cowling Doors, Cowling Pins, EFB Toggles, & Hand Prop interaction.
• Improved low speed crosswind handling.
• Improved panel light switch interactions: Increased surface area & added mouse wheel support.
• Radio screen now integrated with EFB brightness settings.
• Updated ELEVATOR TRIM PCT simvar to ELEVATOR TRIM PCT EX1, as it was depreciated.

The Pietenpol Air Camper v1.1.0 update is now available from Emerald Scenery Design website (you must be logged in to visit the download section), and has been sent to ORBX and Marketplace for release. As it is the end of the week, the latter two may take a few days to become available!

Update on PS5 Ingestion: v1.0.0 for PS5 has been signed off for some time, but has not yet been released. v1.1.0 has been submitted for testing, but will likely not come out until after v1.0.0 arrives.