Microsoft Flight Simulator X

[Cent~SPARTA~]

so tempted but i need a good stick first - payday in 2 weeks

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Next up, Freeware F14 Tomcat

 

 

 

[Zathrus~SPARTA~]

The Tomcat should be a lot of fun. While it is huge... it had excellent power to weight ratio and the variable swept wing made it very agile for such a large fighter.

From what I have read, a failure of one engine under high power conditions can be catastrophic as was shown in Top Gun. The sudden yaw can be uncontrollable in certain conditions.

 

But overall it should be an absolute blast to fly... I have not done carrier landings in many years... I was pretty good at them in a simulator at one time.... but that was years ago.

You do have the option to fly it carrier based I hope? it is fun to manage the takeoff and landing on a carrier.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

[Zathrus~SPARTA~]

when I was a boy living in San Diego, Navy pilots would come stay at our house periodically during holidays. These were Navy pilots who did not have enough leave to go home, but they did have shore leave, so my father would invite them to our home.

My father was always questioning these guys extensively since he was an aeronautical engineer for Convair. They always said the same thing regarding carrier landings; "when flying approach for a carrier landing, the stick and throttle are only grasped with thumb and forefinger... never with your entire hand since it would provide far too much input. They always said that a carrier landing required very very small inputs so they used their thumb and forefinger to grasp the throttle and stick during landings. It helped them keep the inputs much lighter.

 

interesting the video above basically says the same thing, careful of big inputs.

 

So Zeno, I saw this guy make his carrier landing.... now I want to see yours

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

I could barely take off from a carrier in IL2 let alone land, so I dont see it happening in a heavier, faster jet.

 

I just finished a 5 hour 52 minute VOR flight from Burbank (KBUR) to Newark Heath (KVTA) Ohio in my A2A Constellation. Due to a bit of meandering I covered over 2000 miles. I was trying to replicate Howard Hughes flight to the Wright field where they picked up Orville Wright and flew on to Washington DC to set a record. He did it in a Lockheed C69 which was the designation for the Lockheed 049 the Air force swiped from TWA at the outset of the second world war. I didnt check the destination until near the end of the flight, when I found out it was a grass 1800 ft airfield. Since I tend to land long I diverted to KVTA, (involving very little course correction). which has a 4642 ft asphalt runway. It was the longest simulated flight, both in time and distance I have ever done.

[Zathrus~SPARTA~]

long flight...

 

yes carrier landings are very difficult to master... I think the guy in the video said when he started he was successful in about 1 in 30 attempts, but after practicing he is now about 50-50 chance of a successful landing.

 

Takeoffs can also be hair raising in some aircraft. I remember once in IL2 taking off in some WWII torpedo bomber, I was at the front of the pack, no catapult very short runway cause front of the group... I remember the intense feeling of wanting to pull up as it dropped off the end of the deck but knew if I did I would hit the water as it slowly settled downward... I could not have been more than 5 or 10 feet above the waves... but it was trying to fly......... I barely made it up and it seemed like forever before I could actually gain altitude.

 

In jets, your decision time is even less. So yeah very hard.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

A beautiful freeware Hawker Hunter

 

 

[custard~SPARTA~]

Pretty plane what's it like to use?

 

If I wasn't enjoying the editor in Arma 3 so much I think I would have reinstalled IL2 to see if having a half decent joystick would help, watching vids of ppl like Floyd flying under bridges in a WWII era plane filled me with envy.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Xplane works based on the actual flow of air over its surfaces, it is apparently particularly good at modelling stall characteristics. FSX is a pretty good simulator but each aircraft is given flight characterics built into the code. All the planes I fly are enjoyable and I pick them for their looks, if they dont live up to their looks I dump them.

 

Here though is the exception, the aeronautic icon of my generation, Concorde. I was at school during its first supersonic test. I got to fly in it twice before it was retired. With the possible exception of the SR71 (whose performance was kept secret), Concorde was the only plane that could supercruise

 

This is a freeware version of the plane by Libardo Guzman, parked at JFK.

 

 

Here she is climbing to 60,000 feet

 

 

Here's the virtual cockpit, the instruments function, but not the switches, for that you have to use the 2d cockpit. Here we are at 54,340 feet, still climbing slowly at 400 feet per minute. At this level we can already begin to see the curvature of the earth. In this picture we are at Mach 2.03 (a ground speed of over 1300 mph).

 

 

Guzman modelled the baffles that slow the air flow to the engine intakes which I think all supersonic aircraft have.

 

 

This is not an easy plane to manage, I have run out of fuel by climbing too fast and gone into an uncontrollable supersonic spin. Since this is a sim I can cheat and add fuel whenever I want, but the spin was terminal.

 

I have IL2 installed but need to reinstall the fantastic mods that include my favourite planes before I would play it again.

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

From the sublime to the ridiculous, the De Havilland Chipmunk, for many years an RAF basic trainer and the very first airplane I had control of when I was 14. I was in the Air Training Corps (338 squadron) on a week long outing to Transport Command RAF Odiham. In those days the Chipmunk was started with a shotgun shell, but later ones had electric starters.

 

This freeware version is adequate overall, The exterior is good, the interior much less so as is often the case, but still nostalgia overcomes this little planes inadequacies.

 

 

 

BTW you can definitely fly under bridges in FSX as cn be seen here at tower bridge. Unfortunately the opening is not as big as it appears since there appears to be invisible walls that surround the visible structure.

 

[Cent~SPARTA~]

Oh dear god i want!

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Remember the interior is not modelled very well in the freeware Concorde. Everything you need to fly the plane is there, but its not very pretty.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

One of my favourites for its unusual design is the Piaggio P180 Avanti, This is a very fast turbo prop, Nearly the same operational envelope as a jet but more economical, the freeware FSX version here is the first with steam gauges. It was followed by Avanti II and the EVO with a scimitar propellor, which is faster, more economical and significantly quieter.

 

 

The cockpit isnt bad for freeware, with a lot of functioning buttons and switches.

 

 

Here she is getting ready for departure from innsbruck.

 

 

Pusher planes like this can look very futuristic, but as much as I like the Avanti, I really like the Beechcraft Starship, It is a beauty, sadly although there is a model availaible inn FSX it doesnt have a virtual cockpit (just a 2d) and its not up to the visual standard of newer stuff made for FSX. In 1989 this cost $3.9 million, it had a composite shell (a first), which made it expensive, a jet was quieter and cheaper. It was a failure and very few exist today.

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Today I flew a few of the Flying boats from a glorious era of Luxury air travel, long gone, and seaplanes that perform vital duties to this day.

 

This is a DeHavilland Dash 6 floatplane. The Dash 6 can be had with floats skis or wheels and can be found at sea level or at the Everest Base camp in Lukla, Nepal.

 

 

Here is the famous and successful Boeing 314 Clipper, here taking off from Goddard Seadrome, Frostproof Fl.

 

 

This is a Qantas Short Empire flying from Brisbane to Sydney on a stormy evening

 

 

And finally the Saunders Roe SR45 Princess, flying from Puerto Rico to Florida, around 1000 Nautical miles and about 1/5th of her range. She has ten engines, eight are paired turning counter rotating props and the two outers are singletons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

This is my freeware Hunter parked at my freeware scenery addon for Duxford Imperial war museum.

 

 

I have been saving every flight as a persistent file, so wherever the plane is and whatever its fuel state, that is how it will be when I go back to it. All my vintage planes are being flown to Duxford, but they have to be flown from wherever they landed last, which is often Nice, Innsbruck or Zurich. My European point of arrival for new planes is Zurich, for example the new Just Flight DH Mosquito had to flown from Zurich to Duxford, its a long flight that gives me time to acquaint myself with the plane.

 

Other planes will be parked at their last airport or flown to a route they would normally fly. So my small regional planes will fly regional routes as they do now or would have done, same for the big airliners. Less vintage military planes will be parked at mission specific bases, I have an F111 at Mildenhall, waiting for me to figure out how to fly it a long distance without my hand on the stick the whole way.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

My First FSX carrier landing using the excellent freeware Boeing T45 landing on a very nice freeware CVN69 USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.This ship has arrestor cables and 2 catapults and this plane is equipped with a hook and launch bar. I saved an approach about a minute away from the ship and not properly lined up. it took a few goes to figure out the deck is 80ft off the water, I wish I could understand the lights, I will have to look it up.

 

I cant upload video because my internet speed is not good enough, so a photo will have to do.

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

I managed to find a 60s era Ark Royal, I tried a bunch of british aircraft, Wyvern and Sea Vampire, then a few americans. Finally had luck with the Lockheed S3b Viking. I have downloaded an ASW Gannet and am looking for an A6 intruder.

 

 

 

I have a few plane equipped for carrier operations

 

F18

F14

T45

F4

Gruman S2t

 

Gannet

Scimitar

Sea Vampire

Wyvern

 

 

I will find some more.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Here is a Sea Vampire landed on the Ark Royal with Gibraltar in the background.

 

 

I have been making a critical error when attempting to land on a carrier. I have been landing with full fuel and payload, few aircraft can withstand this aggressive landing at max take off weight, so now I lose the payload and reduce fuel to around 10%.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

I made a video of a carrier landing, it is 30 seconds long and 2.09gb. In 3.5 hours it is only 43% uploaded, so basically I will have to scrap it and try again overnight.

 

The plane was a Fairey Gannet and I landed it on the Ark Royal

 

 

Here it is ready to be catapulted.

 

 

And here is the Ark Royal

 

 

 

 

Fairey Gannet AS-6 - http://robertjamesrichardson.co.uk/index.html

Ark Royal - http://www.flyingstations.com/ark-royal.html

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

8 hours to upload my first ever youtube video. Anyway here is my carrier landing attempt, nothing to write home about.

 

[Zathrus~SPARTA~]

Not too bad Zeno.

 

Yes you need to understand the lights. They will keep you on the proper glide path so you don't harpoon yourself on the end of the runway

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

This is a brand new freeware aircraft The Bell Boeing Mv22 Osprey. Some guy (Kalong) in indonesia did not like the payware versions available for FSX, particularly for their lack of realism, for example when you start one engine one the Osprey both the rotors start turning, this is because there is a transfer box so that it can operate on one engine. The Payware versions do not show this, Another amazing piece of freeware.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Available for download here

 

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/mv-22b-osprey-release-1-0.439626/

[Zathrus~SPARTA~]

wow... that has to be badass to fly

 

Is the landing and takeoff sequence super difficult to master as in real life? Ospreys have been associated with some horrific training accidents.

One here in Tucson killed 28 service men during a failed landing. That is only one incident of many.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

This will interest you Zath. One of the unique dangers for an Osprey is a steep vertical descent with little forward speed, its called Vortex Ring State.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_ring_state

 

The payware does not have this but this freeware does. He included an indicator in the PFDs VSI that has goes red when the descent is too fast and the forward speed is slow. He also included engine damage from over revving for too long (he used 60 secs after which the engine shuts down)

 

The crash I think you are referring to was caused by one rotor stalling as a result of the Vortex Ring State.I wondered into the red during my test flight but I was high enough that there was little effect. I did a vertical ascent with a rolling landing, its easier to rollout on landing than lose speed in the air, although it can be done. Its still not as difficult as Concorde was to get into a stable high altitude cruise.