Welcome,

Here are the modest installation instructions for the panel-mounted Water Rudder Handle. If this is the first time that you gave manually installed a gauge, this probably is not enough information.

It's not possible to give the exact X, Y coordinates for locating the rudder lever on every panel available for a DC-3/XC-47. So this is generalized information, only.

There are three files in the zip file "rudder_md.zip"

a) This Readme file

b) DC3_Water_rudder-4.cab ... the gauge file

c) A JPG image, "rudder_lever_on_panel.jpg" showing the installed lever on my panel.

INSTALLATION:
============

1) Close Flight Simulator

2) Extract the file, 

	DC3_Water_rudder-4.cab

into your main FS2004 Gauges folder.

3) Backup the panel.cfg file of the panel that you will install this rudder-lever gauge to.	

4) Open panel.cfg with NOTEPAD.

5) Scroll down to the main panel window. (Note [window titles] at top of panel.cfg file to identify which window is the main window) This is usually [Window00] but not always.

6) Go to the end of the gauge listing for that window and add the following line:

gaugeZZ=DC3_Water_rudder-4!WaterRudder,  X,Y,70,80

Note the exclamation point ... that is needed.

7) ZZ will be the next higher number in the gauge list. If the last gauge line in that window started with:

gauge27=

then your ZZ will be 28.

8) The X near the end of the gauge line defines the horizontal distance (in pixels) from the left side of the panel to the left edge of the gauge. 

9) The Y defines the vertical distance (in pixels) down from the top of the panel to the top of the gauge.

10) The last two numbers, 70, 80 define the width and height of the rudder lever gauge. 

In my case, I placed the rudder lever in the lower left of the panel (see picture). So my gauge line read

gauge28=DC3_Water_rudder-4!WaterRudder, 15,678,70,80

11) Save your panel.cfg file, open FS2004 and check to see that your rudder lever is visible, and located on the panel where you want it.

If you run into problems, don't get overly concerned. Just post the details on the Forum and you will quickly receive help. It really is fairly simple.

12) In my case, there were four simicons (the panel icons that you click to bring up ATC or the map, etc.) where I wanted to place the rudder lever. I changed their X, Y position coordinates to locate them near the clock.

Charles Wood
February 2005



