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Questions About Grumman G-73 Mallard by LDR Development

Badger85

Badger85

Members +
Hi all,

I love the work that LDR Development did designing the freeware model of the Grumman G-73 Mallard. What a gorgeous interior! I do have a few questions about it though:

1). Are the G-73 by Milton Shupe and the G-73 by LDR related somehow? They look similar but distinctly different at the same time.

2). In the FSX fuel and payload configuration tool, no matter what fuel and payload I put into the G-73 by LDR, it says the aircraft is overweight. I even get an overweight balance warning pop-up in the VC itself. Why is this so, and is there any way to fix this?

3). For some reason, I noticed that the fuel quantity keeps climbing upward (!) once the aircraft is loaded. I'm not sure if it happens after engine start or under which conditions. I wasn't parked next to a fuel pump when I noticed this. Since I fly mostly on FSEconomy, this bug (?) would disqualify all of my flights. Has anyone else experienced this, and how does one fix this?

Thank you!! I'd love to use this beautiful add-on soon.
 
Badger85 said:
Hi all,

I love the work that LDR Development did designing the freeware model of the Grumman G-73 Mallard. What a gorgeous interior! I do have a few questions about it though:

1). Are the G-73 by Milton Shupe and the G-73 by LDR related somehow? They look similar but distinctly different at the same time.
Click to expand...
Milton's aircraft are basically FS9 aircraft that are also "compatible" with FSX generally speaking. The LDR aircraft are entirely new models built to "Native" FSX specs and contain more detail.

Badger85 said:
2). In the FSX fuel and payload configuration tool, no matter what fuel and payload I put into the G-73 by LDR, it says the aircraft is overweight. I even get an overweight balance warning pop-up in the VC itself. Why is this so, and is there any way to fix this?
Click to expand...
This is explained in the manual, but it has to do with the "working Bilge tank" system. It is a one time warning and if you simply reload the aircraft it should go away.

Badger85 said:
3). For some reason, I noticed that the fuel quantity keeps climbing upward (!) once the aircraft is loaded. I'm not sure if it happens after engine start or under which conditions. I wasn't parked next to a fuel pump when I noticed this. Since I fly mostly on FSEconomy, this bug (?) would disqualify all of my flights. Has anyone else experienced this, and how does one fix this?
Click to expand...
This may also be related to the Bilge tanks as they are "Fuel Tanks" in the cfg file. I can't say for sure because I haven't flown it in a very long time, but reading the manual may explain it in more detail or at least provide some clue as to why you see this.
 
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In addition to Ed's very good info Milton Shupe offered us the source models for the FS9 Mallard with the intention that we would make it FSX native instead of just FSX compatible and re-work the VC to bring it up to the standards expected in today's FSX aircraft so the two versions are very much related and the cabin interiors are identical even down to the texture mapping.

Regarding the overweight warning this is because of two important factors:

1) Special custom code was created to enable the use of working bilge tanks and pump systems. The bilge tanks had to be configured as extra fuel tanks in order to make the system work. After a few seconds from initial aircraft load the bilge tanks will reset to zero if you are on dry land. It takes a few seconds for the code to do it's thing and then reset the values to zero.

2) At load the aircraft is configured with full ferry tanks. The wing floats were used as ferry tanks for long distances BUT (as in the real world example) you CANNOT have full ferry tanks AND a full complement of passengers. One or the other has to go!

You have two choices to reduce the weight to a safe take-off level:

1) Use the fuel and payload manager to remove either the extra fuel in the ferry/aux tanks or remove the self-loading freight (passengers).

or

2) Edit the aircraft.cfg file so that those weights never appear at start up,

i.e.

LeftAux= -1.00, -22.50, -2.90, 50.0, 1.0
RightAux= -1.00, 22.50, -2.90, 50.0, 1.0

Change the 50.0 to 0.00 and the ferry tanks will always be empty until you decide to fill them either by re-editing the aircraft.cfg file or by using the fuel and payload manager.

Lastly, if you were on the water when you noticed the weight increasing it is because the aircraft is actually taking on water and getting heavier (i.e. you are sinking!). Turn on the bilge pumps to pump out the tanks and stay on top of the in-flow. The pumps are coded so that they will always pump faster than the aircraft leaks.

All this is explained in detail in the manual and in the pilot's notes on the kneeboard and notes are also included in the relevant sections of the aircraft.cfg file.

Hope that helps.
 
That answers all of my questions. Thank you both for the very helpful responses! It's a great model, and I just did a successful flight in it. I know I'll do many more!
 
That's the Mallard made by Milton. As stated by Falcon at the beginning of this topic, this is a FS9-portover. I don't know in FSX, but it displays perfectly in P3D v3.
The virtual cockpit is very nice and most of the buttons work since they are in 3D. Only the radios won't work because the buttons are in 2D (they'll work correclty in FSX, but not in P3D).
In P3D if I remember correctly there is a small contact point issue which makes the water landings a bit strange, but that's pretty much the only problem so far.
A beautiful aircraft, with very nice default textures :)

daube_image0211.jpg


The LDR Mallard has piston engines, and is a native FSX model. I have it too, but no screenshots yet :p
 
We had originally intended to do the turbo Mallard too but real life changes to every member of the team meant that the project never got started. Since coming back we have decided to finish the uncompleted projects we have going on (several aircraft) before tackling anything new. This is always a problem when you have multiple projects active at the same time, one will take precedence and the others founder in the back waters until they silt up! Maybe once we have the two almost complete aircraft out we can look at the turbo Mallard again. The biggest changes are obviously the engines and the VC, mostly 3D gauges, but high res gauges take a while to build and as we have never built a turbo before we have no stock parts/code to re-use.
 
Tako_Kichi said:
...... This is always a problem when you have multiple projects active at the same time, one will take precedence and the others founder in the back waters until they silt up! Maybe once we have the two almost complete aircraft out we can look at the turbo Mallard again.
Click to expand...

Navion A model ?
 
jmbiii said:
Navion A model ?
Click to expand...
It's 95% done, just needs pilot figures and a special effect making but we are lacking skills in the team when it comes to making good looking and complex effects (engine smoke and water effects we can do). If anyone is good at making special effects then shout up as we need one to finish the project.

We are currently working on the C-119 Boxcar and that is about 80% done now, textures are being worked on and the VC is nearing completion in terms of modelling and coding. That too will need pilot figures as they are always the last thing I add.
 
Glad to hear the Boxcar is still alive. The Navion A is great news too. I love the Navion B. :jump:
Thanks
Sue
 
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