Anchor in Amphibious Caravan

slipperfruit

Is it possible to get an anchor or a rope or some way to simulate tying the caravan to a dock? Currently the only option is active pause which totally pauses the movement of the plane. It would be nice to have a anchor that freezes the aircraft's movement on the horizontal plane but still lets it bob up and down and rotate.

V1-Vr-V2

In MSFS2024, you can use the option for "Toggle Freeze LAT/LONG" and assign it to a key/button, and it'll work like being anchored/moored.

Edit to say that in my experience so far, your plane will still weathervane... Also, just for fun, run up the engines while freeze is active and watch the ensuing bending of space/time on the water's surface (I'll leave it at that).

Melon

An anchor option would be nice though, the Beaver developed by... Milviz IIRC, had an anchor which was really nice when you wanted to do but when it was moved to 2024 and the tablet they had was converted to the default 2024 one, it lost the ability to do it.

slipperfruit

@Melon Yeah, the Got Friends Wilga also has an anchor. They also have a paddle system so you can paddle your plane which is excellent. It would be nice if Black Square added something similar to this.

RPGamerous

A couple others with anchors include the HU-16/G-111 Albatross and the Nardi FN-333 Riviera. Before the anchor was added to the Albatross, I tried using the lat/long freeze for for some reason couldn't get it to work reliably, so I gave up on it.

I would love an anchor in the Caravan

Chrjs

Another vote for an anchor, this is really important IMO! Also for the paddle, I remember the awesome A2A Piper Cub back in the FSX days that had this feature as well and it was very useful!
Kind regards
chris

slipperfruit

@V1-Vr-V2 Also for now do you use TOGGLE FREESE LAT/LONG or SET FREEZE LAT/LONG? I don't know what the differences are lol.

kityatyi

The CAS Cub also has an anchor and it's awesome. I'd love an anchor in the Caravan.

Sucktion

Since MSFS doesn't give us the ability to dock aircraft, an anchor would be wonderful. I love this feature on the Albatross.

Deadmode

Spawned in for my first flights in the Amphibian today in '24 and it's unusable almost as the wind immediately blows me onto landmasses or awkwardly on/off seaplane dock pontoons. Freeze lat/long is not responding, either.

Shame, as I was REALLY looking forward to flying the floats. The package as a whole is incredible, though, but this is definitely a bit of a disappointment with the sim and addon both not allowing for holding the plane in position.

EDIT: Ok, Freeze lat/long does work but it does not prevent the wind rotating you...

V1-Vr-V2

@slipperfruit
I'm using toggle and have it set to CTRL+SHIFT+A ("A" for anchor). If you want to confirm it's working, switch into slew mode and see if you can move.

C525B

In FS2020 I would not recommend using this method. I was excited to try this as the binding exists in 2020, but it has some after-effects that seem to break the flight dynamics of the Caravan (haven't tested other aircraft). The airplane gets "stuck in the mud" so to speak and it's impossible to take off again after you've taxiied to the dock and frozen-then-unfrozen your position.

kityatyi

Freeze lat/long retains the geo location, but not the direction. You're better off pressing pause. But a proper anchor/mooring would be the best solution, like in the CAS Cub.

slipperfruit

@V1-Vr-V2 Thank you haha, I might've had a bit too much fun doing vertical takeoffs in the caravan

Anyway, this seems to work for me, but yeah a proper anchor / mooring implementation in the caravan would be very nice.

Galf

Wait, it doesn't have an anchor? What the hell even default MSFS24 planes have it!!! It's fundamental.

SadBucket

the anchor is essentially just the lat and long hold with a visual element. Unfortunately you'll have to imagine it unless it gets added with an update...

SkeeterJawn

@slipperfruit I have used Pushback and select HOLD which keeps the aircraft in place at a dock for engine start. I have also used Pushback to position the aircraft at a dock. Pushback ops per se aren't realistic for floaters, but in real life as a passenger, I jumped down to the float to catch a rope thrown from the dock - so it was the same as ground crew aiding parking as the pilot worked to hold the aircraft in the wind.

Black Square

I researched how these work today, and it seems like the most accepted method is just TOGGLE FREESE LAT/LONG. I would also like an option that freezes the heading of the aircraft, while still allowing it to bob and roll, which can be used for docking. I can think of some possible solutions, but since this is new to me, I will have to make sure that whatever I do doesn't have any expected results (like the aircraft flying into space at 0.7c), so I apologize if it doesn't happen for v1.1. We want to roll out a lot of fixes and get the aircraft to our 3rd party store partners as quickly as possible.

I also need to decide the best way to implement this. Suggestions welcome!!

The easiest would be swapping the tablet option for deploying chocks when the aircraft is on water, but I don't know how to accommodate the two different modes for anchoring and mooring.
Modeling an anchor and a coil of mooring line in the aft cabin would allow for both modes.
My only other requirement is that the interaction is inside the cabin, so I can still offer the best experience possible to MSFS 2020 users.

plicpriest1

@Black-Square
Here are a few options I can suggest:

Put the anchor on the passenger door
Do the good ol "click on a magic screw"
The old fashioned square button on the panel reminiscent of FSX (i joke i joke)

Have the plane load in "if gear up", anchor auto deployed option in the tablet.

Also you could put a rope that sits somewhere visible on the pontoon when the door is open. Click and drag the rope to "slew" the aircraft.

Just my $.02 but even though my suggestions would be more work, the concept may pay off long term with other aircraft you may be thinking about for the future.