Basic Usage

This chapter describes the basic usage of Sky Dolly, specifically recording and replaying a flight.

Connection With The Flight Simulator

Sky Dolly communicates with the flight simulator via the SimConnect API, an application programming interface which allows external applications such as Sky Dolly (the client application) to communicate with the flight simulator (the server application).

While certain functionality like managing the logbook or exporting a flight does not require an active connection recording and replaying a flight certainly does. The good news: Sky Dolly automatically handles the connection with the flight simulator, as soon and when such a connection is required, for instance when pressing the record button. However the requirement is that the flight simulator is already running at that point and accepting such connection requests.

For all practical matters it also means that an active flight must be in progress. For MSFS 2020 this means that you have selected a departure on the world map, clicked the yellow “READY TO FLY” button and are essentially sitting in the cockpit, ready to start your engines or ready for take-off.

Recording a Flight

The following steps will guide you through the process of recording a flight and monitoring its progress in Sky Dolly.

At any time an active flight is in progress in the flight simulator, switch to the Sky Dolly windows and:

Click the Record button (or press key R)
Switch back to the flight simulator windows and perform your flight
Once done with the flight switch again to the Sky Dolly window and stop the recording by pressing on the Stop button (or press the ESC key)

Alternatively in order to stop the recording you may also press the Record button again (or key R).

That is it! You have successfully recorded a flight with Sky Dolly. Note that at the point the recording is stopped the flight (including the recorded aircraft) is automatically stored in the logbook, which will be described shorty.

So what did we record after all? Sky Dolly does neither record a video stream, nor does it record audio from the flight simulator. Instead the most important aircraft state variables - the so-called simulation variables - such as position, velocity and engine state (e.g. the thrust lever position) are recorded. During replay those state variables are then sent back to the flight simulator, which then reconstructs the flight.

The Logbook

If you have just recorded a flight then it is already in memory and ready for replay. But if you just have launched Sky Dolly then no flight is loaded at this point.

In order to load a flight:

Make sure you have activated the logbook module, by clicking on the Logbook button (or press key F1)
Alternatively activate the logbook module via the Module menu, by selecting the Logbook menu entry
Select a flight in the logbook table
Click the Load button
Alternatively you may double-click a row in the table to load it

If you double-click on a table cell in the Title column you will go into edit mode and you can change the title (e.g. “My first flight”). Double-clicking any other cell will load the corresponding flight into memory, for replay (or export, also refer to chapter Import and Export).

Replaying a Flight

Once a flight is loaded into memory it is ready for replay.

It may be less obvious than in the case of recording a flight, but also for replay an active flight must be present in the flight simulator. For MSFS 2020 that means that an aircraft has been selected, a location on the worldmap has been selected and the READY TO FLY button has been pressed, that is we are again sitting in the cockpit and either ready to start the enginess, for take-off or we are already airborne.

Note: the actual start location of the flight in the flight simulator is not important: upon replay start the aircraft will be “teleported” to the correct location, according to the recorded position data (latitude, longitude and altitude).

To replay the flight:

Press the Play button (or press space key)
To pause the replay press the Pause button (or press the key P)
To resume the paused replay press the Play button again (or press the space key)
Alternatively click the Pause button again (key P)
You can rewind or fost-forward at any time during replay, by clicking the Rewind or Fast-Forward button (or pressing the left arrow or right arrow key)
To stop the replay press the Stop button (or press the ESC key)
You can also change the replay position by selecting the desired position on the timeline slider, both when then replay is started or stopped

Make sure that crash detection is disabled in the flight simulator. Also refer to chapter Tips and Tricks.

Monitoring Recording and Replay

There are two dialogs which provide information about what and how much is being recorded and replayed.

Simulation Variables

The Simulation Variables dialog can be opened via the Window | Simulation Variables… menu entry or by pressing the V key. The dialog shows the simulation variables being recorded respectively replayed. The simulation variables are logically grouped, which is represented by the various tabs in this dialog (Aircraft, Engine, *Primary Controls, …).

Some value fields are rendered as disabled user interface elements. This indicates that the corresponding simulation variable is inactive, which means that it has not changed its value within a certain time window.

Sky Dolly records only those simulation variable groups if at least one simulation variable in that group has changed its value. This not only allows for a memory-efficient storage, but also for the least possible CPU usage during replay, because - by implication - only those simulation variable groups are sent back to the flight simulator where an actual value change has occured.

All values are read-only and hence for information purposes only.

You can also close the dialog by pressing the same key V again.

Statistics

The Statistics dialog can be opened via the Window | Statistics… menu entry or by pressing the S key. The dialog shows basic statistis:

The selected recording sample rate (in Hertz)
The actual recording sample rate (in Hertz)
The number of sampled data points
The total duration of the flight (in hours, minutes, seconds)
The size of the sampled data (in MiB, KiB, Bytes)

You can also close the dialog by pressing the same key S again.

Index | Basic Usage