A Lockheed "Rounder"

[aardvark62]

Alternative Air Crew textures

Firstly, massive thanks to Milton and Team for the Lodestar.

Just a small contribution here - alternative WWII era flight crew textures (knocked out quite quickly).

I'm no texture artist, and these weren't as straight forward as could have been - the jacket arms come from the top of the trouser (sorry- PANTS!) area of the texture, so far from perfect.

Ideally intended for 'Good Time Gal', but don't look too out of place in the RAF schemes.

Thought I'd share as I've not seen any other pilot retextures yet.

Cheers, A.

 

[Milton Shupe]

Firstly, massive thanks to Milton and Team for the Lodestar.

Just a small contribution here - alternative WWII era flight crew textures (knocked out quite quickly).

I'm no texture artist, and these weren't as straight forward as could have been - the jacket arms come from the top of the trouser (sorry- PANTS!) area of the texture, so far from perfect.

Ideally intended for 'Good Time Gal', but don't look too out of place in the RAF schemes.

Thought I'd share as I've not seen any other pilot retextures yet.

Cheers, A.

Thank you Sir; I like variety in these things and your textures look great to me. And that copilot seems to need a mustache

 

[vonernsk]

Yes Milton,

Your description of a Lodestar circuit tallys with mine. However I did find that with the 'Alpha' airfile and cfg load set up I was constantly correcting a tendency to nose up and having to use excessive trim to correct this.

I have just reverted back to your 'Alpha' release air file but took the liberty of re-balancing the pax/cargo load by the simple expediency of placing all loads (excluding crew and fuel) at the 0.000 point.

I find that this re-balance makes flying this beautifully modelled a/c much more relaxing.

Will probably still revert to the 'Beta' Lodestar air file as it still (to me and my set up) has a nicer feel.

Apologies for being so picky over such a lovely a/c, but just felt that flying it seemed too hard work for such a well loved workhorse.

I am still with FS2004 and just recently upgraded to WINDOWS 10 PRO 64 BIT, but, apart from the loss of my a/c preview box, FS2004 is very stable and giving me a slightly smoother experience.

Thanks again Milton and team for this gift.

Mal

 

[edakridge]

To all who had a hand in this project: THANK YOU! It turned out great. Milton, thank you for the radio fix. I was kind of wondering what was wrong. I have worked up some FSX Views for the Lodestar and will post them below. Just copy and paste into your Aircraft.cfg below the General section.

[CameraDefinition.0]
Title = "Tail"
Guid = {5c1df273-034b-4e7f-953a-9d5e26f1646c}
Description = Looking forward from behind the aircraft
Origin = Center
SnapPbhAdjust = Swivel
SnapPbhReturn = FALSE
PanPbhAdjust = Swivel
PanPbhReturn = FALSE
Track = None
ShowAxis = FALSE
AllowZoom = TRUE
InitialZoom = .75
ShowWeather = Yes
InitialXyz = 0, 7.5, -30.0
InitialPbh = 10, 0, 0
XyzAdjust = TRUE
Category=Aircraft
MomentumEffect=TRUE
ClipMode=Minimum


[CameraDefinition.1]
Title = "Right Wing"
Guid = {C690EAFD-223A-42d0-99E0-681ADF93BB59}
Description = View from the right wing tip looking at the cockpit
Origin = Center
SnapPbhAdjust = Swivel
SnapPbhReturn = FALSE
PanPbhAdjust = Swivel
PanPbhReturn = FALSE
Track = None
ShowAxis = FALSE
AllowZoom = TRUE
InitialZoom = 0.5
ShowWeather = Yes
InitialXyz = 15.8, 1.3, 0.0
InitialPbh = 8, 0, 270
XyzAdjust = TRUE
Category=Aircraft
MomentumEffect = FALSE
ClipMode=Minimum


[CameraDefinition.2]
Title = "Left Wing"
Guid = {f25dfa2e-fd2e-4b89-81e2-0575cbcb60de}
Description = View from the left wing tip looking at the cockpit
Origin = Center
SnapPbhAdjust = Swivel
SnapPbhReturn = FALSE
PanPbhAdjust = Swivel
PanPbhReturn = FALSE
Track = None
ShowAxis = FALSE
AllowZoom = TRUE
InitialZoom = 0.5
ShowWeather = Yes
InitialXyz = -15.8, 1.3, 0.0
InitialPbh = 8, 0, 90
XyzAdjust = TRUE
Category=Aircraft
MomentumEffect = No
ClipMode=Minimum


[CameraDefinition.001]
Title = "Copilot"
Guid = {195EAB58-9E4A-2E2A-A34C-A8D9D948F078}
Origin = Virtual Cockpit
MomentumEffect = YES
SnapPbhAdjust = Swivel
SnapPbhReturn = False
PanPbhAdjust = Swivel
PanPbhReturn = False
Track = None
ShowAxis = FALSE
AllowZoom = TRUE
InitialZoom = 0.8
SmoothZoomTime = 2.0
ZoomPanScalar = 1.0
ShowWeather = Yes
XyzAdjust = TRUE
ShowLensFlare=FALSE
Category = Cockpit
PitchPanRate=90
HeadingPanRate=90
InitialXyz=0.76, 0.0, 0.0
InitialPbh=0, 0, 0


[CameraDefinition.002]
Title = "Passenger Compartment"
Guid = {195EAB58-9E4A-3E2A-A34C-A8D9D948F078}
Origin = Virtual Cockpit
MomentumEffect = YES
SnapPbhAdjust = Swivel
SnapPbhReturn = False
PanPbhAdjust = Swivel
PanPbhReturn = False
Track = None
ShowAxis = FALSE
AllowZoom = TRUE
InitialZoom = 1.4
SmoothZoomTime = 2.0
ZoomPanScalar = 1.0
ShowWeather = Yes
XyzAdjust = TRUE
ShowLensFlare=FALSE
Category = Cockpit
PitchPanRate=90
HeadingPanRate=90
InitialXyz=0.45, -0.2, -5.0
InitialPbh=0, 0, 0

 

[Milton Shupe]

Yes Milton,

Your description of a Lodestar circuit tallys with mine. However I did find that with the 'Alpha' airfile and cfg load set up I was constantly correcting a tendency to nose up and having to use excessive trim to correct this.

I have just reverted back to your 'Alpha' release air file but took the liberty of re-balancing the pax/cargo load by the simple expediency of placing all loads (excluding crew and fuel) at the 0.000 point.

I find that this re-balance makes flying this beautifully modelled a/c much more relaxing.

Will probably still revert to the 'Beta' Lodestar air file as it still (to me and my set up) has a nicer feel.

Apologies for being so picky over such a lovely a/c, but just felt that flying it seemed too hard work for such a well loved workhorse.

I am still with FS2004 and just recently upgraded to WINDOWS 10 PRO 64 BIT, but, apart from the loss of my a/c preview box, FS2004 is very stable and giving me a slightly smoother experience.

Thanks again Milton and team for this gift.

Mal

Hi Mal,

I appreciate that you raised this issue. I see it and am evaluating how to proceed.

I do find that if when reaching 125 knots (the max speed you can deploy gear and flaps), if you drop gear and flaps, there is no issue with nose up here.

Secondly, you can move empty weight CoG to:
empty_weight_CG_position = 0.5000, -0.000, -0.000

it helps a bit.

I will try load re-balancing as well to assess the affects.

Also found that the contact scrape point.7 is a bit too low causing sparks when the tail wheel touches down.
Change as follows to eliminate that issue and still allow for wheels up/belly landings no problem:

point.7 = 2, -33.5, 0, -0.0, 800, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 9

I will have these improvements in a future update, after my vacation.

 

[menef]

Thank you Milton for both Harpoon and Lodestar! Elegant, big and beautiful old twin-engine birds. I like them!
Only the Lodestar has the radio ( Nav/ADF ) issue. I've added stock C172 radio stack to put frequencies. ( I don't know if there's
a fix for this bug. I haven't lot of time to read all in the forum). Thank you for these gifts!!!

 

[Milton Shupe]

To all who had a hand in this project: THANK YOU! It turned out great. Milton, thank you for the radio fix. I was kind of wondering what was wrong. I have worked up some FSX Views for the Lodestar and will post them below. Just copy and paste into your Aircraft.cfg below the General section.

Thank you Sir; I'll add that to my FSX cfg.

 

[Milton Shupe]

Thank you Milton for both Harpoon and Lodestar! Elegant, big and beautiful old twin-engine birds. I like them!
Only the Lodestar has the radio ( Nav/ADF ) issue. I've added stock C172 radio stack to put frequencies. ( I don't know if there's
a fix for this bug. I haven't lot of time to read all in the forum). Thank you for these gifts!!!

Thank you Sir.

Yes, the fix was posted earlier in post#2215 (and the download zip was updated in the library). You may also have to change the Electrical section Avionics bus entry as follows:

From:
avionics_bus = 1, 10, 17
To:
avionics_bus = 0, 10, 17

and change the Radio section per the link.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforu...t-Rounder-quot&p=978359&viewfull=1#post978359

 

[menef]

Thank you Sir.

Yes, the fix was posted earlier in post#2215 (and the download zip was updated in the library). You may also have to change the Electrical section Avionics bus entry as follows:

From:
avionics_bus = 1, 10, 17
To:
avionics_bus = 0, 10, 17

and change the Radio section per the link.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforu...t-Rounder-quot&p=978359&viewfull=1#post978359

Thank you for the support!!! I'll fix all ASAP.

 

[Maty12]

Yes Milton,

Will probably still revert to the 'Beta' Lodestar air file as it still (to me and my set up) has a nicer feel.

Mal

I agree with that. With the beta, I found the plane only nosed up drastically on the first flight, but with the new one it seems to always do that. There's also a slight problem with manual starting: Engine No 2 will not, no matter the mixture, throttle or other settings, start. No. 1 seems to start very easily.

 

[Milton Shupe]

I agree with that. With the beta, I found the plane only nosed up drastically on the first flight, but with the new one it seems to always do that. There's also a slight problem with manual starting: Engine No 2 will not, no matter the mixture, throttle or other settings, start. No. 1 seems to start very easily.

For engine starting, adjust the starter torque value in the Piston Engine section to your liking:

Here is an example of an increase:

normalized_starter_torque = 0.2

Take it higher or lower depending on your preference.

In FS9, manually starting requires you continually click the starter switch.

In FSX, that is very hard to do; you might wish to crank up the starter torque to .5 or .6

Sorry I do not have a gauge programmer to help out here. I do know with a 2D gauge, starting is no issue. The xml 3D switch that everyone prefers these days, well, this is what we get.

As for the nose up issue, drop the gear and flaps as soon as possible and it should not be an issue.

Nose up after take off is normal if you use flaps (you shouldn't unless absolutely necessary-read the docs) but once you retract flaps and gear, she settles in as it should. This is normal behavior for this aircraft per the docs.

I may look at this further after vacation.

 

[Blackbird686]

Enjoy your time off, Chief... you deserve it.

BB686

 

[Milton Shupe]

For those who do not read all the thread details, I wanted to ensure that you got this scrape point change.
The issue this morning was regarding scrape points around the tail wheel causing sparks when landing.

In the aircraft.cfg Contact point section, please replace point 7 with this line:

point.7 = 2, -33.5, 0, -0.0, 800, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 9

The issue was that the point was too low. This should work for you and still allow belly landings.

My apologies for the inconvenience.

 

[Moses03]

Just wonderful. Thanks to all

 

[Maty12]

Milton, the nosing up issue isn't a simple "the aircraft is nosing up" issue. Instead, the gauges seem unaware of the plane's angle of attack, showing 0 climb with a nose up attitude. To better explain, these two were taken at the same time, with the game paused:

 

[Maarten -]

Milton, the nosing up issue isn't a simple "the aircraft is nosing up" issue. Instead, the gauges seem unaware of the plane's angle of attack, showing 0 climb with a nose up attitude. To better explain, these two were taken at the same time, with the game paused:

Hi Maty,

Looking at the speed you're flying (103 mph = 89.6 kts), while no flaps used and undercarriage retracted, I think it is not surprising that the Lodestar flies in a strong "nose up" attitude with the altimeter showing 0 climb. The speed is way too low, all lift has gone and the Lodestar is just about to stall.
It seems to me that this is not related to the model/FDE, but to the way the plane is being flown and of course the weight of payload and fuel.
During the entire test period I haven't experienced this kind of flight behaviour, nor with the Lodestar as released (v1.1).
Just my two cents, of course.

Cheers,
Maarten

 

[Andre19]

Thanks, it was great being part of the team. As Maarten said, if you keep your speed up it doesn't have much of a "nose up" issue.

Apologies for the scrape point problem, that was my fault. Thanks to Milton for correcting it.

I have finished all the other registrations for my paints and uploaded them to my website.

http://www.arpaints.causewaysystems.co.za/Lodestar.html

 

[Maty12]

Hi Maty,

Looking at the speed you're flying (103 mph = 89.6 kts), while no flaps used and undercarriage retracted, I think it is not surprising that the Lodestar flies in a strong "nose up" attitude with the altimeter showing 0 climb. The speed is way too low, all lift has gone and the Lodestar is just about to stall.
It seems to me that this is not related to the model/FDE, but to the way the plane is being flown and of course the weight of payload and fuel.
During the entire test period I haven't experienced this kind of flight behavior, nor with the Lodestar as released (v1.1).
Just my two cents, of course.

Cheers,
Maarten

The plane maintained that altitude for over 30 minutes after the picture. Also, Milton, I believe the trouble with engine start is related to the boost bumps. I momentarily replaced the aircraft.cfg file for that of the beta and had no trouble starting.

 

[Firekitten]

I've got around 20 odd hours flying that plane and have never had that nose up attitude, are you leaning the mixture enough to have the engine power at cruise? I don't get any nose high attitude at all... in any stage of flight.

 

[expat]

Prop RPM's set right? I find this one a joy to fly + like most of Milton's you can trim her out and let go of the controller and just watch her fly straight and level. Great short field performer as well!