Simskunkworks Starfighter

[LUCE1]

Just a guess: Several nav lights are not working on the ASA v1.0 (commented out in the aircraft.cfg)

no, as i said before the error can be discovered also without having the model, so aircraft.cfg is not the guilty.
Some lights you see under remark into aircraft.cfg was used to carefully check/adjust weight and balance on the aircraft. Mass distribution, CG and center of lift are as in real bird and adjusted/sycronyzed internal within the model (.mdl) just to protect us with the obvious hackering of the .air file, who wants use the .air file into another similar .mdl will have bad surprises.
cheers

 

[cortomalteseit]

I've just uploaded a mimetic livery used by F-104S of 37th Wing 18th Sqn in Trapani-Birgi (Italy) during '80 years.

here the link:
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/local_links.php?catid=3&linkid=2918

here the preview:


Good flights!

 

[Pluto12]

Just a guess: Several nav lights are not working on the ASA v1.0 (commented out in the aircraft.cfg)

Hi....the lights section of the aircraft.cfg in the ASA version is commented out, because all the lights are "IN" the 3D model, and as you can see they are visible

The S version has the Lights section because the lights are not in the 3D model...

Emanuele

 

[JohnC]

Just took it out for a spin, and overall it's a very pleasant aircraft. Three things stood out (3) much more than (1) and (2)

1 - I can go supersonic at Military thrust in low level and high altitude flight. It wasn't too much over M1.0, but I didn't think any of the Starfighters could super-cruise.

2 - I ran a mock landing/stall at 18,000ft to get a feel for the stalling characteristics before attempting an actual landing. I remember reading somewhere that one of the biggest problems the model (at least up to G) had was that they pitched nose up just before entering a stall...and this led to many many crashes for new pilots. But, the Skunkworks model has a fairly strong nose down moment at stall. Was this tendency fixed for the S model?

3 - On final approach for my first actual landing...immediately after deploying the flaps to landing position I heard a rooster crow*. I then lost control of the ailerons, which went full left and put me into a spin, sending me into a watery grave in the ocean below.

*It's definitely in the sound files; AERIT-F104S-Sound\dsd\Barn_fx.wav

 

[smoky942]

Haha, I heard him a few times on my first flights. The roosters telling you you've made a fatal error. Did you deploy the flaps to the landing position with less than 85% RPM. With landing flap, never let the RPM drop below 85% or the BLC (boundery layer control) will cause just such an action.

 

[Pluto12]

Just took it out for a spin, and overall it's a very pleasant aircraft. Three things stood out (3) much more than (1) and (2)

1 - I can go supersonic at Military thrust in low level and high altitude flight. It wasn't too much over M1.0, but I didn't think any of the Starfighters could super-cruise.

2 - I ran a mock landing/stall at 18,000ft to get a feel for the stalling characteristics before attempting an actual landing. I remember reading somewhere that one of the biggest problems the model (at least up to G) had was that they pitched nose up just before entering a stall...and this led to many many crashes for new pilots. But, the Skunkworks model has a fairly strong nose down moment at stall. Was this tendency fixed for the S model?

3 - On final approach for my first actual landing...immediately after deploying the flaps to landing position I heard a rooster crow*. I then lost control of the ailerons, which went full left and put me into a spin, sending me into a watery grave in the ocean below.

*It's definitely in the sound files; AERIT-F104S-Sound\dsd\Barn_fx.wav

Hi,
I try to answer...

1)It is not true....I can say that Starfighter could fly in "Super Cruise" before of the Eurofighter or F22. There is some factors to consider: Loadout and weight. I can say that in our model is implemented the relationship between Mach and Drag, and altitude.....for example: If you fly with tips, pylons, pod and dispenser you will never reach the maximum speed of Mach 2.2 at high altitude, you will fly With AB at mach 1.2 or little more. At low Level you can reach Mach 1.1/1.2 (there is the limit of 750KIAS, to not exceed the Compressor Inlet Temperature(CIT), as it wrote in the Dash-one)), but for Mach 2.2 you need to fly the clean version, or the Tips version, at least at FL450 to not exceed CIT Limit, and destroy the engine.

2)A real stall practice was impossible to train with the zipper. I explain. The Zipper had the famous behaviour, called, Pitch-up if it reached the stall airspeed. The consequence was an uncontrollable spin and the consequent ejection...the pitch-up start with a great nose-up action of the airplane.
The behaviour you describe is the reason for which was impossible to practice a stall with the zipper. There are two system to avoid a stall and the consequent pitch-up..with spin. They are the Stick-Shaker, and the Kicker.

I have to make a clarification: the Zipper has the Automatic Pitch Control (APC) which was the automatic system connected to the two little fins, one on the left, and the other on the right of the nose, that calculated the attitude of the airplanes, and you can read those values on the APC Meter in the cockpit.The stick shaker and the Kicker are connected to the APC.

When you reach an attitude of 4 in the APC the stick shaker start (in the real planes the stick really shakes....and in the sim model you can feel it with a FF joystick). It is a warning, if you continue to pull the stick, when you reach 4,5 on the APC, it's time for the Kicker to start...The Kicker was only a great idraulical nose down action on the stick...for this reason you saw the big nose down action in the sim...it was the kicker (in the sim you have also a sound, and the caution light lighted up)
For sure, this system could be ovverride with the classic Switch in the left console (never reccomended), or if you try many times and with more strength to pull the stick..with catrastrophic consequences......

Just a Tip...there are 3 instruments that are the best friends for the Zipper's Pilot: the Airspeed Indicator, the Automatic Pitch Control (APC), and the Compressor Inlet Temperature (CIT)

3)This behaviour is connected with what I say before.
Two things are happened:
- I am quite sure that when you deployed the landing flaps your RPM were under the 83%. With the zipper never go under the 83% RPM with the flaps in Land Position. The behaviour is connected to the BLC (Boundary Layer Control)...the airplane rolls to the left, or to the right...and start to sink, if the RPM are under 83%.
-I suppose that your pitch was too high...so near the limit, as I described before....

Just a last thing. I tried to explain and to clarify, but there are several factor that could bring in that situation: Speed, configuration and weight are important.
When you tried to land: which was your weight, fuel, speed on the approach?..For Example, if you try to land with more than 2000Lbs of fuel, you have to maitan different airspeed on final.


The crow is a feature that Mario introduced, to remember us that "we are a crow", if we put in an uncontrollable situation, as a spin...due to our poor pilot's skill it's only a funny thing. I can say that I heard that sound...many times....

Sorry for the long post, but I hope this helps.

Emanuele
SIMSKUNKWORKS

 

[JohnC]

(1) Good to know, I thought I was a Starfighter buff...but apparently I was wrong! I just looked at one of my F-104 books and saw the cruise speed jumped from 440 knots to 530 knots from the G to S variant.

(2) Great response!

(3) Guilty on the low RPM. I was coming down on a steep approach at 215KIAS with tip tanks and about 2,500lbs of fuel when I went from half to full flaps. I don't remember exactly where the engine speed was, but it was definitely below 83%.

Thanks for your responses, I think it really shows off the dedication you've put into this aircraft!

 

[LUCE1]

FEW MORE TECH WORDS

Just to add some technical notes to what Emanuel correctly wrote.
Kelly Johnson did the zipper unconventional in many aspects, some of the less conventional are the wing shape and the position of the stabilizer (taileron).
The wing shape, low aspect ratio and laminar profile, have the effect that there is no stall, or better before the stall other phenomena came on play.

Looking at the picture above you see that as the angle alpha cames to max there is not a sudden fall of the CL as in other more conventional wing profiles, the wing enter into the pitch-up area before stall. Another consequence of the unconventional profile of the wing is the position of the taileron just over the rudder, the well know T-shape of the zipper. That position was imposed by the need to remove the taileron from aerodynamic shadow that high angles of attack of the wing produce, this position in turn causes considerable stability and inertia in the roll axis, which is why the wing has a negative dihedral angle, another unconventional aspect of the zipper.
Describing the pitch-up:
increasing angle of attack, CL (center of lift) moves forward until he goes before the CG (Center of gravity), this happens before the conventional wing stall.
At this point the aircraft becomes unstable and tends to further increase the angle of attack until the fuselage is also involved in making the phenomenon "divergent", airplane goes "upside down" and the structure collapse.
To avoid the pitch up the zipper has an APC (Auto-pitch-control) system that first warn the pilot with stick "shacker" and then "kicks" (so called kicker) the stick forward to abruptly cut angle of attack, as all systems APC is not perfect, if you insist on insulting the zipper you will know the pitch-up and most likely also the infamous "chorus of chickens" that warns you that also the engine is leaving you.
When the zipper model goes into pitch-up most likely it won't recover, however there is timed random number generation that under some circumstances gives you the possibility to recover it, the probability that you can recover from a pitch-up is higher if you have a good altitude margin.
When this happens you ear a "you are lucky, very lucky" voice and you have few seconds to recover the airplane, not more.
As you can imagine modelling all such behaviours using the "conventional" FSX physics engine was really a challenge for us, we guess to have won it, thanks to having all needed tecnichal data and table came from real tests done at AERITALIA and LOCKEED during zipper project developing and also to hundreds test flights done with our model by real zipper pilots both italian and german, actually one of the F104S model developers is a former zipper pilot with more than 2000 hours of flight on the F-104 G and S.
cheers
THE SIM SKUNK WORKS

BTW:
Just to give you a nice little gift, here down the link to a funny collection of cartoons from the S.U.R.E. (Starfighter Utilization Reliability Effort) project. Drawings by P.P "Pete" Trevisan, Aeritalia/FIAT test pilots in the early 60s.
http://www.vaafse.org/simskunkworks/goodies/SURE-project.pdf
The purpose of the S.U.R.E. project was to highlight the F-104 limitations and operation restrictions to the aircrew in order to reduce the then very-high loss rate experienced by the European F-104 operators.

 

[Stickshaker]

Did the S-version not have two small ventral fins left and right of the big fin in the middle?

My compliments on the aircraft; i will certainly buy it when the new VC is ready. And a -G would really be wonderful too.

 

[Pluto12]

Did the S-version not have two small ventral fins left and right of the big fin in the middle?

My compliments on the aircraft; i will certainly buy it when the new VC is ready. And a -G would really be wonderful too.

Hi,
the S version has the two little fins......and so the ASA version.....and also the new nozzle for the J79-19....

for sure there will be the G version....with che C2 seat....

Emanuele
SIMSKUNKWORKS

 

[hschuit]

I've just uploaded a mimetic livery used by F-104S of 37th Wing 18th Sqn in Trapani-Birgi (Italy) during '80 years.

Thank you Daniele :salute: ! Reminds me of the 1st time I saw a 37° Stormo F-104 when they visited the 1993 Norvenich airshow in Germany.

cheers, Henk.

 

[StormILM]

Emanuele, I just bought the model and gave it a good testing. Very nice and it's a very good evolution from the C9 version with some obvious refinements for FSX.

Please forgive my asking this question as I may have missed other asking and answers from you. When V3 becomes available, do the current customers get this as a free update or will it cost extra?
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[Pluto12]

Emanuele, I just bought the model and gave it a good testing. Very nice and it's a very good evolution from the C9 version with some obvious refinements for FSX.

Please forgive my asking this question as I may have missed other asking and answers from you. When V3 becomes available, do the current customers get this as a free update or will it cost extra?
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Thanks, I can say that it is particulary different from the Cloud9.

About the V3, it would be another model. The external model and the VC will be totally new with new texture mapping, particulars, and animations. There will be totally new features as droppable payloads, and more improvment in the dinamics and Handling.
Other infos soon

Emanuele

 

[LUCE1]

When V3 becomes available, do the current customers get this as a free update or will it cost extra?

This is a matter still to be discussed, however as a guideline: since we plan to mantain the "cheapware" model, so low prices should not expect free upgrading.
Differently all manual or checklist upgrade should be free of charge.
cheers
SIM SKUNK WORKS

 

[harryrupert]

HSI Locked

Hi everybody,

I have downloaded the s version which is fantastic, may I ask how can I unlock or activate the HSI on the right side of the panel? being a bit of a dummy, I guess I should get the manual tomorrow if that sort of info is on there.

Thanks.

Harry

 

[LUCE1]

Hi everybody,
I have downloaded the s version which is fantastic, may I ask how can I unlock or activate the HSI on the right side of the panel? being a bit of a dummy, I guess I should get the manual tomorrow if that sort of info is on there.
Thanks.
Harry

really would be a PHI (Position & Homing Indicator), both PHI and main attitude are driven by the inertial platform, so you need to align it to correctly use PHI and main attitude.
Once you get the DC bus powered (engine running):
QUICK ALIGN PROC:
- IN switch on "align" (quick align it takes 60")
- when IN green light flashes switch on NAV
- both attitude, heading card and PHI became alive
However we have published PILOT CHECK LIST today, is free of charge and should be of great help.

cheers
SIM SKUNK WORKS

 

[harryrupert]

really would be a PHI (Position & Homing Indicator), both PHI and main attitude are driven by the inertial platform, so you need to align it to correctly use PHI and main attitude.
Once you get the DC bus powered (engine running):
QUICK ALIGN PROC:
- IN switch on "align" (quick align it takes 60")
- when IN green light flashes switch on NAV
- both attitude, heading card and PHI became alive
However we have published PILOT CHECK LIST today, is free of charge and should be of great help.

cheers
SIM SKUNK WORKS

Thanks Luce1,

All ok now I have it, every thing is working, I think I will download the manual as well as its such a great aircraft, am I right that the manual on your website with the Italian front page is for the 104S?

Thanks,
Harry

 

[LUCE1]

Thanks Luce1,
All ok now I have it, every thing is working, I think I will download the manual as well as its such a great aircraft, am I right that the manual on your website with the Italian front page is for the 104S?
Thanks,
Harry

Yes it is,
don't worry about, just the cover is in Italian, the manual is in english.
cheers
/Mario

 

[LUCE1]

AERITALIA-LOCKEED F-104S PILOT CHECK LIST - WEAPON SYSTEM PROCEDURES

Has been loaded into our server.
You can get it free of charge, visiting the "Manuals" section of our site store at:
http://www.vaafse.org/simskunkworks

Above check list will help you on:
- Use of aircraft configuration/loading panel
- Use of optical sight in ground and air-to-air mode
- Use of Ground Speed Error Readout feature
- Weapon delivery / shooting Procedures
- Use of the radar both in Air-To-Air and Ground Mapping mode
- Special weapon delivery using Dual Timer Bombing method
It conclude the condensed pilot checklist series:
NORMAL PROCEDURE PILOT CHECKLIST
EMERGENCY PROCEDURES PILOT CHECKLIST
WEAPON SYSTEM CHECK LIST
All above check list has been taken from the original manuals and pilot check- lists of the AERITALIA-LOCKEED F-104S "Super Starfighter", modified and adapted for the sim model SKUNK WORKS F-104S.
We hope to have done something pleasing to our users, we emphasize that the model wanting to be as close as possible to reality is necessarily complex and needs to be known and used in accordance with the manuals and checklists provided by us.

 

[LUCE1]

SIM SKUNK WORKS Starfighter version 3 first "solo" run.

F104-S Version 3 developing is still in progress.
We plan to release a beta version for the first 2011 quarter
Version 3 will have
a completely revised exterior model with new textures, bump maps, etc.
a remade from scratch, completely 3D modeled virtual cokpit with originals photoreal textures
animated weapon loading/delivery and weapon effect as well
a further improved, 99% close to real flight dynamics model
We are looking for experienced simmers as beta-testers, those interested should contact staff@102virtual.org
NOTE: interior cockpit shown in to the clip is a "worksheet", the final version will be different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBgUb0f7_GE