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c-46 service pack

No Paul I don't think that. If people still do not understand the way we work and support our products, then they never will. There are many reasons that affect work in this business, we are a tiny outfit that is sometimes like many here, afflicted by personal issues and other reasons for "delays" in issuing fixes. As I said, we do not pretend to create "textbook" style product and also do not price it as such. You will never see an AH product at $60 or more. Several well-known and highly respected (by this forum) FD creators have had time with this "problem" and so far, are having issues finding the perfect solution. If one puts a totally new engineer on the job, it is going to take a while for them to complete any work. If people would prefer a C46 built by a company that they feel would give them what they need, I would suggest they go there and find it. JF and AH have an excellent no quibble refund policy and we will always try to find a fix if people would do us the courtesy of contacting us directly instead of whipping up a storm in a forum post. We have helped many people who have emailed me directly. We stand for products that are well-made, fun to fly and beautiful to look at. We have never wavered from that path and never will. If that is not what you are looking for, don't buy.:engel016:
 
Of course we are looking "for products that are well-made, fun to fly and beautiful to look at. " Everyone is looking for that - why would anyone not look for that ? Yes, I understand that you are a small outfit and sometimes real life gets in the way - but look at all the development and releases since the Commando came out, including the Otter, Spitfire and the Lancaster. All very admirable and eagerly awaited, of course, but the perception is that A.H. has moved on to other things and left the C-46 and its problems to rot. That's the impression people get, Bazzar and it's perfectly understandable.

I know there are problems with the C-46's FDE, and I know there are no quick fixes. I tested some of the alterations that Paul Frimston worked on, and so I know it wasn't a straightforward process. But at the end of the day, it is just a twin engined 1940's aircraft, of which we already have a wide variety, and they all seem to fly and handle reasonably well. Might it be an idea to tear the FDE up, and aim for something simpler but more reliable? I don't know - only you can say whether A.H. has the time or inclination.

I'll leave it there ( you'll be happy to hear ; ) )
 
If people want just another twin-engined 1940s aircraft we can give them that. What I understand about the C46 and what people want to see in a replication of one, is a lot different. We continue to work. Thanks for the input. Oh by the way, you left out the Stinson, the VC10 and the P47...:engel016:
 
Gentlemen, as a proud user of AH products since the days of FS9 may I suggest that if you have an axe to grind then go to the JF Forums or email AH but please stop using the SOH to grind your axe. It is the attitude of some posters here that drive developers away from the hobby.

Paul K I suggest you tone down your posts and take your problems over to the JF Forums. If you want to persist I will raise the matter in the Admins Forum.

Also I have been on the beta teams since the F-27 and FYI I have had no problems with the C-46 and I am starting to suspect the problem lies with people who want to play around and try to make their computers do what they were not designed to do. My computer is stock standard but I notice that a lot of the complainants are use a rather ancient OS known as Windows.

I am using the latest Build of Windows 10 (170107), Yes I am also a Windows Insider, and I have not had any problems with my system or P3D V4.2.

And a reminder, PLEASE STOP USING THIS SITE AS A DEV BASHING FORUM.

EDIT: And Bazz I have to wait until Thursday to update from the Beta Dunkirk Spitfire to the Release version. It is a great aircraft and I love flying it.

 
Aussieman - please read my posts, word for word and in detail, then tell me where I am bashing the developer.

This has been about one unresolved problem with one particular model - it is not 'developer bashing' as you have chosen to broadly interpret it. It has been a perfectly civilized exchange of views, and I have acknowledged the accomplishments of Aeroplane Heaven in the process. Try reading Thunderstreaks' post above, and perhaps focus your ire in that direction.



Quote - I am starting to suspect the problem lies with people who want to play around and try to make their computers do what they were not designed to do. My computer is stock standard but I notice that a lot of the complainants are use a rather ancient OS known as Windows.

I'm sorry, but I really dont understand that statement. I am not tinkering with my computer at all, and yes, in common with most of the planet, I am using 'a rather ancient OS known as Windows' - W7 Pro to be precise. I am also using the latest version of P3Dv3. Both of these match or exceed the system specs required.



Just for info, as you mentioned it, I have already posted about the problems with the FDE at the JF Forum, as have a number of other people, going back into late last year.


Bazzar, yes, as soon as I posted that, I remembered the Stinson too.
 
.....okay its not a 1940's aircraft. But if AH did a DHC-4 Caribou, I would be all over like a fat kid on cake!!
 
Gentlemen, I am not trying to bash the developer here. I was merely trying to find a solution to a problem and discover if anyone else has the same issue. I think my comments regarding the C-46 are fair. I have spent a lot of money with AH and JF over the years and there have been some issues that were never resolved. I am not asking for “study-sim” stuff here. I was just hoping for engine behaviour that is somewhat realistic. I did convey my concerns to JF before I posted here. Again, I appreciate the work that JF and AH do, I have been a customer of both for a long time. AH has released a lot of cool airplanes since the C-46. If time to work on updates is an issue, perhaps some efforts could be shifted from new developments to the existing products. Just my 2 cents.
 
If I may, perhaps I can reduce the heat in here. Quite simply, AH has to develop at the rate it does to survive. Without new product at regular intervals, we would not be around. Period. This does not mean and never will, that we "neglect" previous releases. The C46 was a difficult aeroplane to make and a very difficult subject to get "right". The FDs in a product are what make it live. To be truthful we could just produce beautifully modeled and textured cardboard boxes, give them each a different FD and call them C46 or whatever. The sim doesn't care.

Contemporary accounts from pilots and pilot notes of the period all indicate that this aeroplane could bite and bite hard. We would like to get somewhere close to its wartime behaviour and to do that is a delicate balance of aerodynamics and engine simulation. OK we haven't got it right for some but we have something that does at least give people a taste of what it might have been like to fly in its original form. We will continue to look at it and as we improve it will release more SPs. There is no time limit, nor should there be one if you trust in what we say and do. If that is still not good enough then a refund is always there. Not a bad deal really is it?

However, we need to move on to new projects on a regular basis if we are to survive in this fragile industry. Not to do that is out of the question.:engel016:
 
Bazzar, with regards to your efforts to incorporate some of the idiosyncrasies of the Commando's aerodynamics; there is a well known and high-profile figure** in our world of flight simming who once said 'we dont give people realism - we give them what they expect'.

Thinking about it, there is a truth to that. When it comes to how a model behaves, people tend not to miss details that are omitted, but do notice things that are there, and that don't work quite right. Might that be a pointer to developing a less ambitious but more stable FDE ? Something more conventional..something that people are comfortable with and that behaves how they expect it to ? Nobody would have any complaints about that.

I think the Aeroplane Heaven C-46 really is a fine model, both inside and out, as I said on post #60 ( and which was overlooked by some ). It's much more than ' the only one available' and I feel it really would be worth re-examining the FDE.


But not until the Lanc is finished.



( ** I can PM you the name of that gentleman if you wish. )
 
Paul, that's an impossible brief to meet. How many ex-C-46 pilots have we here? None, I expect, so people's expectations of how the C-46 actually flies are rarely grounded in experience. Some expect the Commando to need a really long roll for takeoff, others (who have at least watched a survivor fly) expect a sprightly performance off the ground. Some have read of flying the Hump and expect a really long slow climb after reaching critical altitude, others expect B-17 style peformance, while others disagree profoundly about where critical altitude is met (the C-46 is not the most comprehensively documented aircraft around). There will be no compromise that everyone will be happy with.

FDE development is a difficult, poorly understood science among simmers generally and those who really understand it are thin on the ground. At least cut the developers some slack if they've built an FDE you don't agree with, or have a bash at building one for real. I've tried it and it ain't easy, not easy at all. You should also consider that most FDEs are adaptations of existing models instead of built from the ground up.

I don't want a generic Large Twin Experience, just as when I buy a new SR-71 it shouldn't fly like a big, extra-powerful Learjet. Kudos to AH for giving us models that aren't cardboard cutouts of the stock FDEs.
 
Just to clarify my position on this.
I have no complaints on how the current or previous (SP2 and SP3) versions of the C-46 flies.
My only concern is how the engines and propellers behave, which really has nothing to do with the C-46 at all.
The 46 has 2 R-2800's which for the purposes of flight simulation shouldn't be to hard to find some specs on how it should operate.
Whether that engine is mounted to a Corsair, a C-46, a DC-6 or a CL-215, again, for the purposes of flight simulation, it should behave in a similar manner.
I have zero experience in flight simulation modelling, but I am a RW pilot, aircraft owner and also a mechanic, so to me this seems simple, perhaps in the world of flight sim it is not.

That said, thanks to all at AH for their efforts making a bunch of cool stuff for us to "fly". Hopefully this will get sorted one day.

Cheers, Bernard
 
Hairyspin, surely that applies to every model that comes out - how many Lancaster, Helldiver, P-47, Spitfire, C-47 etc etc pilots do we have here ? None, as in your example. But, FDE's are developed for all of these aircraft, and with little resulting controversy.

Take Manfred Jahn's C-47 as an example - who in here has flown a C-47 ? There might be the odd one or two around, but no more. And yet, everyone seems happy with the way it handles, myself included. And the reason for that ? Probably because it behaves in the way people expect. They don't know for sure...but it matches their expectations.

Now, take that over to the C-46. I would put money on the fact that if the FDE was taken from Manfred Jahn's C-47 and transplanted into the C-46, with maybe a few tweaks so that engine and flight instruments in the VCs dial match what people have read in a book - nobody would know the difference. They would say to themselves..well, this feels like a heavy twin...it flies nicely...it seems right - and that's where the analysis would end with most people. Feels like..nicely..seems right - those are the criteria that most flight simmers subscribe to, and nothing much beyond that.

Yes there are C-46 purists around, but I bet not that many

I honestly think that as long as the performance broadly reflects the basic figures gleaned from a book, you need go no further. And certainly, you don't need to add-in idiosyncracies which, though authentic, make the aircraft difficult to use. The vast bulk of simmers, again including myself, would be perfectly happy with something that's simply usable and feels right .

EDIT; IN fact, here's an idea for Aeroplane Heaven - take the FDE from your B-17, put it in your forthcoming Lancaster, and see how many people say 'Hang on a minute, this flies more like a Fortress'. I doubt there will be many, if at all ;O)
 
Paul, perhaps you have discovered my problem!
I personally know people that do fly or have flown some of this stuff for real.

Not the C-46 mind you but Stearman, T-6/Harvard, Yale, Lysander, B-25, PBY, DC-3/C-47 and yes, the Lancaster.

I am very fortunate to be surrounded by some very talented and experienced people who I can talk to about how these things really fly.
They have also generously taught me more about flying than any of my instructors ever did.
 
That's what makes different aircraft interesting, they don't all behave exactly the same. It's what makes simming interesting too, otherwise we have hangars full of different-looking aircraft which are beautifully modelled but fly much like each other, yawn. Eye candy only appeals so long, it's the extra input by developers that makes their models interesting in the longer term. Some aircraft really are/were difficult to fly and many student pilots learned to respect the Harvard Mk.1 and its sudden, nasty stalling behaviour for example - the ones who didn't could end up dead.
 
A couple of things. FDs are not a copy of Manfred's C-47. I would think the likes of Paul Frimston would be a little disturbed by that comment. FDs are not produced with engines in isolation to other factors. It is completely untrue to suggest that the engine component of a flight file is just the same as a similar engine from another aeroplane. It's performance is very different from other aircraft when a multitude of factors governing lift co-efficients, height, climb rate and the weight of the aeroplane all have a governing effect on how the power curves are assembled.

Lastly, a fully ticketed C46 pilot was on the beta test team. The one that approved the model.:engel016:
 
Anybody unhappy with the FDE has an alternative in the one from the Calclassic Commando.
http://calclassic.com/commando.htm

Back up the aircraft.cfg, point the repaint entries in the aircraft.cfg to the other .air file, replace anything relating to flight characteristics (tuning scalars, dimensions, engine and prop properties, etc...) and check the result.
 
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