Hello to all!

Here are the promised gauges for the F7F fire tanker. For installation,
unzip attachment in the PANEL directory of your F7F fire tanker. The
PANEL.CFG is a modified file from the A26 (you may need to copy the
A26 panel files and gauges into the F7F PANEL directory first).

The PANEL.CFG suits for both sims, FS9 and FSX. However, the DLL is
only needed with FSX, but it should not harm if it is called in the
FS9 PANEL.CFG, too (if SimConnect cannot be docked, the DLL simply
remains inactive).

There is a new popup subpanel ("Dump" in the FS views menu). It shows
some fuel and payload weights and allows to dump the water tanks:

FS9:

-Click "Drop 1" to dump "external1" fuel tank (or hit <Shift>E2)
-Click "Drop 2" to dump "external2" fuel tank (or hit <Shift>E3)

After dropping the external tanks, please do not refill them in
the FS fuel menu as they can only be dropped one time. To get that
tanks back, you must load another flight situation (with that tanks)
or reload the aircraft/panel.

FSX:

-Click into payload station name (5) to dump the water tank 1
 (or hit <Shift>E2)
-Click into payload station name (6) to dump the water tank 2
 (or hit <Shift>E3)
-Click into payload station name (7) to dump the water tank 3
 (or hit <Shift>E4)
-Click into payload station name (8) to dump the water tank 4
 (or toggle water rudder (needs keyboard key))

Dump rate is currently set to 50gals/sec.
Milton, I currently set 1 gal to 8.3554 lbs (~ weight of water).

Refilling of the water tanks:

Left/right-clicking the current amount of water (shown in gallons)
will decrease/increase the tank quantity by 25 gallons. Mouse-wheel
down/up decreases/increases quantity by 1 gallon.

This will work in flight, too, so that the tanks can be refilled anytime
and anywhere. However, there is another possibility to refill the
tanks in a more realistic way, therefore that only works if the aircraft
is on ground: Middle-clicking into the tank gallons number will
automatically fill that tank with approx 1gal/second. While filling, the
font color turns to blue (green: tank full, red: dump valve open).

Please do not forget to add to the AIRCRAFT.CFG:

FS9:

add external tanks to [fuel]-section:

External1 = -2, -4.3, -1.4, 400, 0
External2 = -2,  4.3, -1.4, 400, 0

[exits]
number_of_exits=4
exit_rate.0=0.5  ;Percent per second
exit_rate.1=0.5
exit_rate.2=0.5
exit_rate.3=0.5

The exit-rate is responsible for the delay until the dumping starts.
Perhaps the exits should open a bit more faster than now.

[smokesystem]
smoke.0 = 00.00, -0.70, -7.5, fx_fire_retardant

FSX:

[exits]
number_of_exits=4
exit_rate.0=0.5  ;Percent per second
exit_rate.1=0.5
exit_rate.2=0.5
exit_rate.3=0.5

@Roland:

Smokesystem for FSX must be as follows:

smoke.1 // effect for tank 1
smoke.2 // effect for tank 2
smoke.3 // effect for tank 3
smoke.4 // effect for tank 4

Do not use smoke index 0 (smoke.0)
Note: Effects may not show up with both engines turned off.
And: Individual smoke effect toggling only works with FSX/SP2 or Accel,
not with SP1.

Let me know if you have questions and any comments are welcome :-)!

Greetings,

-- 
Hansi