Question about the KEA 130 altimeter

JetCat

Greetings friends,

your Steam Gauge series did something I never thought to be possible (because I was always a strict airline flyer, Fenix Airbus only until now), you fully sparked my interest in GA flying and old-style VOR navigation and old style private pilot flying.

While binge-consuming YouTube videos about the Black Square Bonanza Baron and TBM and learning old style radios and navigation from the golden seventies and eighties era I have noticed one detail:
There is an altimeter that is in use in all Black Square airplanes, even the oncoming Piston Duke and Turbine Duke I am looking so forward to and plan to buy as christmas gift this year (if it get´s released till 24th) which seam to be a Bendix King 130a encoding altimeter.
This altimeter is more or less in all the steam overhaul cockpit, also the Caravan and the Baron and the TBM850 on the co-pilot side.

As perfectionist and avionics enthusiast I have noticed that the real KEA 130 encoding altimeter has a crosshatch flag, this detail is missing in the absolute awesome retro Steam Gauge Overhauls.
Is it planned in the future to enhance the KEA 130 a little bit to add this detail and also the yellow triangles?

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Have a wonderful christmas time and never give up doing your impressive and lovely work for the flight sim!
Kind regards,
JetCat

P.S.
Is there a chance the Piston Duke will get released in December? ;)

Black Square

Hi JetCat,

Thanks for posting this here. I saw you mentioning it on the forums, but I don't reply there. That altimeter has followed me from my first airplane, the Velocity XL, so it's about time for an overhaul. I don't know why I didn't add the yellow encoding transition marks, but the crosshatching was an attempt to save resources after seeing how it was implemented on the default aircraft, adding many hundreds of polygons. I now see that there are many variants of that altimeter that just use one window for the crosshatching, and I also know the limitations of MSFS much better now. It hardly seems to mind how many polygons you throw at it, which is real change from previous versions of flight simulator to me. I'll see about adding that feature soon, which probably means later today, because I am also a perfectionist, haha.

I'm glad you've been enjoying the world of GA flying so much! MSFS does make it a joy when compared to the middy visuals of yesteryear. Oh, and sorry to disappoint, but the Duke will be released in Q1 of next year. I had wanted it to be in this year, but we decided to release the TBM first instead. That was absolutely the correct decision, though, because I add more exciting features with every aircraft, and the Duke will have the most yet. I think you will be very excited to see what I've cooked up in a press release soon.

Thank you!
Nick C.

JetCat

Wow you are absolute legendary! The altimeter and it´s not rotating inner disk with the missing crosshatch was the last missing detail to make this brandnew and exciting gorgeous GA fleet 100% PERFECT. Awesome.
And it was a good decision to bring the TBM to the next level.
The Black Squares are the most precious and interesting airplanes currently in the sim, please never stop making them because GA flying is finally so awesome because of this new quality level.
A plane that looks so good and has such a huge array of fascinating failures and fully simulated electric circuits boosts flight simming realism unlike never before.
And every flight is a challenge and a thrill because of the huge amount of possible small and big failures.

So the Duke will get clogged fuel filters and compressor surging and other fine and fascinating failures - is it planned to add a few of these also to the Baron and the TBM? :)

Black Square

Hi JetCat,

I just saw your post on AVSIM, so I wanted to let you know that I did make these changes on the same day as our conversation. I meant to send you a screenshot from the new Duke so you could see it, but I was rushed before leaving for a trip. As an amusing anecdote about the amount of work required to develop these aircraft, but also about why it's always better to do things right the first time and not take shortcuts, it took me six hours to make that change to all my aircraft. It might seem like a small thing, but when you have to edit 14 3D models without messing up UV's or adding materials, it really adds up. Granted, at least two hours went to locating the source of an export error in one of the models, but that's all part of the show, haha.

Thanks for the suggestion, and I hope you enjoy the change. I'm always happy when someone's suggestion convinces me to fix a previous shortcut or abstraction, because I know that always improves my aircraft.

Nick C.