A Lockheed "Rounder"

Plane seems to be behaving a bit less wild now, not sure why. Anyway, Milton, I tried adjusting the normalized_starter_torque, but all that changed was that now the left engine starts faster, while the right one still refuses to start.
 
Maty, in your screenie of the cockpit, the prop rpm gauge reads 1950 rpms with the mp gauge at 26" mp so it seems you had it at cruise settings, and was it with a full load of pax and fuel? You would need to use higher mp settings ( i.e. more throttle plus some more prop pitch) than that for a fully loaded aircraft.
 
Andre,

Nothing happens when I click on either one of the download links on the box website. I attempted to download different paints, all with the same result. in IE as well as Chrome.

Am I missing something?

Hi Manfred

Please check the downloads again. I've just downloaded on another PC and it looks ok.
 
Hi Maty,

I did two check flights this morning trying to stay as close to the situation (manifold pressure 26" and - inadvertedly - 1,850 rpm instead of 1,950 rpm, so even a bit less power) with the FS2004 Lodestar v1.1. (as released at SOH). The flightsim settings: realistic (= hard).
I took off at a payload (incl. full tanks) of 18,771 lbs (= 271 lbs gross overweight).


With both engines 26" MAP at 1,850 rpm auto-lean, at 2,420 ft altitude, 0 ft climb and at 160mph (= 139.2 kts) the (slight) nose up pitch was only 3 degrees. A normal attitude for a taildragger (real world DC-3/C-47 shows the same attitude at cruise speed). The Lodestar felt in that situation absolutely stable.

Have you considered a re-install of the Lodestar?

Cheers,
Maarten

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Andre,

The downloads are working now.

Not sure what is different now from yesterday, but I am glad I can now add your great paints to the Lodestar.
 
Hi Rachael,

There are many variations of Andre's release-pack paints (different registrations etc.) which he has available on his own site only. Must be over fifty paints. They represent the entire fleets of South African Airways, Comair, East African Airways and DETA in different liveries.

Cheers,
Maarten
 
Repaint KLM C-60A Lodestar PJ-AKB

Hi there,

Since all of a sudden I am encountering problems uploading repaints at Sim-Outhouse, I am not able (yet) to release my repaint of the KLM C-60A Lodestar PJ-AKB via SOH's warbirds library.

The repaint is currently available at FlightSim.com (lodestar_klm_pj-akb.zip) only.

Cheers,
Maarten
 
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Hi Rachael,

I usually paint all the registrations as I have found that with most there are subtle variations within the fleet. As examples EAA VP-KFB is painted in the earlier bare metal scheme before the Blue colour was introduced. VP-KHZ is depicted as she was during the ferry flight to Canada. SAA ZS-ASP is painted in the later scheme with a bigger springbok logo on the nose and ZS-ASR is looking neglected as she was only used for spares.

Thanks Maarten and Manfred.
 
Yep, so I'm digging these old Lodestars! Excellent job by Milton and helpers/painters! :applause: I've had a chance to fly the R-1820 powered C-60 "Goodtime Gal" model a bit over the last couple of days and really like the end result. It flies nice and is quite like the real thing; stable yet handles well. Gear down, pitches down. Flaps down, pitches up. Just right. The one thing I've noticed about the model compared to the real ship; it's too slow! At cruise speeds it's maybe 15-18 knots slow; last weekend I flew the real Goodtime Gal at the Midland CAF airshow. Airboss wanted us to push it up to lead the bomber flight (B-25, A-26), so at roughly 33-34" MP and 2300 rpm were were indicating 170 knots IAS. In the model, this power setting gets to only 152 KIAS. Is it a drag coefficient thing? The power and climb rate seems accurate, but the top end speed is affected. Granted, we usually don't run it that hard as it's really guzzling down the fuel at that rate...

Another drag (methinks) issue is the speed/power settings with flaps extended; on downwind I throw the gear down and 10% flaps, set 21" MP and she'll ride around the downwind and base leg on rails at around 110 KIAS. On final, it's flaps 50% with the same power to cross the fence at 85-ish knots. The model again seems too slow at this point, needing almost 30" MP to herd around the pattern like that. Full flaps on the model is almost comical with too much drag; gotta stuff the nose down too far with lots of power to drag it in... can the flap "drag settings" be tweaked a bit? I'd attempt it but just don't know how...

I have no screenshots to share, but how about some real pics?

zodc2t.jpg

zjtq4o.jpg

35m2zaa.jpg
 
One more, a shot by Italian photographer Luigino Caliaro from the back seat of an AT-6 last October in Houston...

29gkggg.jpg
 
JBDC9; invaluable insight. Hopefully something we can use to patch the flight model somewhat. When I was testing, i did queery the flaphappyness somewhat, but Milton advised that the flaps weren't often used 'at the time' are they used more now the girl is older and she's beeing looked after? or is that a standard procedure?
 
This is just so valuable to have a real world pilot report on such an old and rare aircraft flown "in the past few days"! Amazing. Great to hear the handling is so close on Milton's model. Speed thing (in FS the problem usually is it's too fast . .) solution could be either a drag or thrust tweak, hopefully that doesn't upset 17 + other carefully determined FDE settings! Many thanks for this input. Makes all of us desk chair pilots feel like we're doing something that much more meaningful.
 
Have found a few issues

Hi all,

Has anyone else noted the VC mixture handles move backwards. Full rich should be forward and cutoff aft. This seems true in all the Lodestar models

Also, when feathering a prop inflight, after killing the engine with the mixture and going to feather (Ctrl + F1) the blades appear to feather until the rotation stops, then they turn flat again. They don't stay knife edge into the wind as a feathered prop should. The feather buttons don't seem to work.

Has anyone else experienced these anomalies?

Dave
 
Hi all,

Has anyone else noted the VC mixture handles move backwards. Full rich should be forward and cutoff aft. This seems true in all the Lodestar models

Also, when feathering a prop inflight, after killing the engine with the mixture and going to feather (Ctrl + F1) the blades appear to feather until the rotation stops, then they turn flat again. They don't stay knife edge into the wind as a feathered prop should. The feather buttons don't seem to work.

Has anyone else experienced these anomalies?

Dave

The Lodestars, along with the Liberators and the Flying Fortresses have mixtures that work that way. This is historically accurate.
 
Sorry for another late bug report Milton, but I didn't make the connection 'til now. I thought it was simply painted black, but now I realise that this area is actually unmapped. I am talking about the area in the middle of the bottom of the vertical stabilizer (circled in green):
 

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The Lodestars, along with the Liberators and the Flying Fortresses have mixtures that work that way. This is historically accurate.

Not so. B-17s, yes, aft is Auto Rich and forward is Idle Cutoff, but Lodestars are actually standard; forward is Auto Rich, aft is ICO. Liberator? Don't know that one...

When I was testing, i did query the flaphappyness somewhat, but Milton advised that the flaps weren't often used 'at the time' are they used more now the girl is older and she's beeing looked after? or is that a standard procedure?

I can't really comment on flap usage in the past, but current day reality, the C-60 has lots of flap! Almost too much... when we flew with an experienced Lodestar driver, he advised that on landings, half flap is plenty. The thinking is, with full flap, your go-around options get tight, kinda limited. Yes, it'll drag in at maybe 75 knots and be able to land on short runways, but at that speed you're well below the Vmc of 95 kts. If an engine quits, gonna have your hands (and feet) full... single engine go around with full flap? Probably not. So, we use half flap for landing and it works fine; home base is a 4000 ft strip, we can turn off at the end with barely touching the brakes. We have done full flap landings on occasion, just bump the power up a bit...
 
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