How to upgrade the Virtavia-Dawson Designs Boeing C-17A

Globemaster III to work in X-Plane 11

This document is a guide to help owners of the X-Plane 10 Virtavia-Dawson Designs Boeing C-17A Globemaster III to
get it to work in X-Plane 11. We will do this using XP11’s Planemaker, found in the root of where XP11 is installed.
This document presumes that you know how to install X-Plane and it’s addon models.

On startup in XP11, and loading this model, one will be presented with the following error

This is a XP10 compatible FMS/GPS that is no longer supported in XP11. It looks like this, below left, you’ll notice the
military style design and only 5 function buttons per side. It is also designed with a green background in the display
part, in the original XP10 version of the aircraft. This will be lost in this update.

The replacement that is on offer in XP11, is the CDU 739, on the right above, as a faceplate, and as a black screen. This
latter is what we are going to use as a replacement, for the older FMS above. The popup will use the faceplate.

So, now that the introductions have been made, let’s now proceed to actually do the changes on the model with
Planemaker.

1. Firstly locate Planemaker in the XP11 root folder, and double click on it to start it up. It will start up after a few
minutes of working in memory as follows.
2. Next, in the menu bar, click on ‘File’ then ‘Open’. You will be presented with this screen

3. Click on ‘Aircraft’ and go down the list until you find the Virtavia model then keep clicking through the subfolders,
until you see the ‘aircraftname.acf’.See author’s example below. Click on the radio button bottom right middle ‘Open
Aircraft’. The very first screenshot first paragraph showing the error will pop up in Planemaker as well, just click on
‘Understood’ until it clears.
4. The aircraft will then be loaded into Planemaker, and look as follows. Click on menu bar ‘Standard’, and then on
‘Panel: 3D’

5. The 3D cockpit will display as follows. Use your mouse wheel to zoom in and out until you match the screenshot for
visibility of the whole cockpit. You will notice the author has highlighted a red square below, bottom left with green
screen, not the one top right. This is where the old FMS resides and the one causing the problems. Note this screenshot
is taken with the editing already completed. Also note the author has selected the following buttons in Planemaker to
show what is seen in the screen shots, see second screenshot, near top right of Planemaker window. Select them

6. Now comes the harder part, you will need to click on the objects in the lower left red square, until you see the name
of the instrument object in the right column labelled ‘Hierarchy’. It will be labelled ‘FMS.png’, this is the one that
needs to be removed. Make sure your mouse click is highlighting this instrument object correctly, then click on the no-
entry icon on the top bar, next to the ‘PNG’ icon. If you hover your mouse over it, it will indicate ‘Delete selected
instruments’, see screenshot below. You can also use the ‘Backspace’ key. In the example below, you will see the
authors XP11 already replaced FMS labelled ‘CDU739_screen.png in the ‘Hierarchy’ column.

If you have selected everything correctly, your Planemaker will look like this screenshot below. It will have a yellow
frame around the instrument, labelling it as the author mentioned in the Hierarchy column. Also on the left in the lower
box ‘Properties’ one will see the information of the instrument selected and what bus/ses it’s attached to. Note this info
as you will need to apply the same when you set the new FMS in place. Another thing to take note of, is the bottom bar,
it show the x and y co-ordinate placement of the instrument and it’s size. Note this too as you will need to duplicate
these settings to get this instrument placed correctly and to size. Make sure the Copilot box IS NOT ticked. You can
actually click in all of these boxes and add the dimensions manually. This will be covered shortly. Also the frame
around the instrument will turn yellow, as per screenshot below.

If you have followed everything in the document correctly, you should be left with just a green frame with some text in
it. This is the state you want to be in. If you mess up, don’t panic, simply get out of this mode by clicking the top left
white ‘Left’ arrow and reload the model from ‘File’. DO NOT choose to save anything when asked/challenged.

7. Now in the screenshot below, the upper left column, the author shows how to go down the list until ‘Radios’ shows,
then click through the choices, until you see the GPS FMS and open it. You will see two choices, the first
CDU739_2D.png is the main template that is the popup, described in the first paragraph, the next CDU739_screen.png
is the one we want to use.
When you click on the CDU739_screen.png it will show up in the preview windows as per the screenshot below, just an
olive green window. Don’t worry this is normal and what we want. Click in this preview windows and drag the frame
into the cockpit window, second screenshot. The next thing is to copy the authors dimensions, covered previously and
found at the bottom of the Planemaker frame, to place it and size it. These being x = 126.0 y = -113.0 and size = 0.85.
VERY IMPORTANT – remember to click the tick box bottom left column ‘Bus 1’. It is not checked by default.

8. Ok, we are nearly done, again if you have followed this document’s content correctly, you should have a system
looking like the screenshot just above this one above, with a yellow frame around the instrument, it showing in the
upper left column with a yellow bar, and in the right hand Hierarchy column with a yellow bar. If this is the case, click
on the left white arrow top left, to return to the main window that shows the entire aircraft. Again click on ‘File’ in the
top bar, then ‘Save’. If all is correct the aircraft will save with no error messages. If any error messages pop up, or the
very first screenshot error message in this document, then you have missed something. Simply reload the model,
ignoring any pop up to save and start again.

CONCLUSION

The author has tried to make this as simple as possible with this document, but it is not an easy process, until one
becomes proficient with Planemaker. So hopefully this document at least helps a number of you to get this model
working in XP11. The author has also assigned an unused key sequence in X-Plane 11 for the CDU popup - Alt C which
will produce the finished result like this below. This screenshot was shot vertically looking down on the middle
pedestal, and the 2D popup moved to the left. You will notice that the screen is aligned to the ten existing buttons of the
template, five a side, with the last two buttons not visible, but showing the content. This is another project the author
will see if it can be fixed in the actual livery, along with other things found with this model running in XP11. All buttons
work both on the popup and the middle pedestal.

Addendum to this document

To cover how to hide the extra visible pylons of the model in XP11. The author forgot about this slight modification, as
was reminded by a user of this document.

9. Again open Planemaker, then goto the ‘Expert’ menu bar selection, then down to ‘Invisible Parts’
This is the default settings with the model in XP10 and viewed in XP11 Planemaker. You need to select four pylons to
hide as can be seen in the above screenshot. There are two just visible behind the cockpit and forward of the main wing
root in the fuselage, then two on the outside of the outer engines.

So from the above screenshot which is the default you will find, and using the one below, selected in the red frames,
these need to be checked to hide the four that are visible. You will notice the changes to the model in the right window,
and when you return to the home window of Planemaker.
This is what the model will now look like once you have followed the instructions above. Don’t forget to ‘Save’ the
model.

Now go and fly this beauty, and enjoy yourself. As a matter of interest, this guide can be used to ‘fix’ other aircraft
being used in XP11 with this error.

Cheers