Magnetic compass
The whiskey compass: a card floating in fluid behind a domed window, read backwards against the lubber wire. It swings past a new heading and settles, tilts with the bank, and shows the simulator's own compass errors when the simulator provides them.
- Modeled on
- Panel-mounted wet (whiskey) compass of a light aircraft
- Category
- Flight instruments
- Size
- 1 cell
- Version
- 1.0 · 2026-10-19
- Plan
- Pro
- Simulators
- MSFS 2020 · MSFS 2024 · X-Plane 11 · X-Plane 12
Features
- Card read from behind, as on the real one (higher numbers left of the lubber line), its edges curving away
- Spring-and-damping card: about a 1.7 s swing with a small overshoot
- Card tilts against the bank (up to 14 degrees)
- Turning and acceleration errors when the simulator gives the compass reading; otherwise follows the heading
- Compensator screws (N-S, E-W) and a deviation card (FOR / STEER) under the window
- With realistic needles: the card jiggles with engine vibration
- Night lighting: the face takes the panel's red flood light, the glareshield's warm light from above (stronger for instruments higher on the page) and its own light, a lamp hidden at the top of the case lighting the dial downward (Settings > Dimmers: Red flood light, Glareshield, Instruments (analog))
On the iPad
- Tap the face to change the instrument
Settings
- Realistic needles: Off / Light / Normal / Strong
Simulator data
What the Hub reads from the simulator for this instrument, and what the instrument sends back. Names are the simulators' own: MSFS SimVars and events, X-Plane datarefs and commands.
Reads
| Value | MSFS | X-Plane |
|---|---|---|
| Magnetic (whiskey) compass, with its errors (deg) | WISKEY COMPASS INDICATION DEGREES (degrees) | sim/cockpit2/gauges/indicators/compass_heading_deg_mag |
| Heading (glass AHRS heading, else magnetic heading) (deg magnetic) | HEADING INDICATOR (degrees) | sim/cockpit2/gauges/indicators/heading_AHARS_deg_mag_pilotsim/flightmodel/position/mag_psi |
| Bank angle, + right wing down (deg) | ATTITUDE INDICATOR BANK DEGREES (degrees) | sim/flightmodel/position/phi |
| Engine RPM, engine 1 (rpm) | GENERAL ENG RPM:1 (rpm) | sim/cockpit2/engine/indicators/engine_speed_rpm[0] |
| On the ground (1/0) (bool) | SIM ON GROUND (bool) | sim/flightmodel/failures/onground_any |
Add-on aircraft with their own systems may use other variables; the Hub reads the standard ones.
Changes
The instrument's version counts what its faces share (the case, the mechanism, the data, the sounds); a face's own version counts that face alone.
- 1.0 2026-10-19
- First numbered version.
