• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

An old project brought up to date: Canso PBY-5 of SAGQ

Thank you for that explanation Lagaffe. It's an easy thing to deal with, no problem, I was just passing my observations along to you.

I did notice that the autopilot will not hold altitude or follow vertical spend commands, as feet per minute? I don't know if it is my setting or not. It sure would be nice to have a completely functioning autopilot. The freeware
B-24 autopilot works very well. I am not sure what the difference is between your PBY and the B-24? Did you test out the autopilot installed in your PBY. I am sure you did and would like to find a solution to this issue so my autopilot functions correctly. I've only flown the Blackcat model.Screenshot 2025-10-21 055204.pngScreenshot 2025-10-21 055149.png

Here is a picture of the trim tab in level flight. The airplane is very stable in cruise.

There is some pitch moments when the wing floats go up and down. when they go down the nose pitches down and when they go up the nose pitches up. Maybe this is correct? I never flew a PBY.

The water landings and take offs are very nicely modeled. You did very good job in this animation.

You have created a beautiful PBY.
 
Last edited:
Lagaffe, just wondering if you could remove the radar like this non-Black Cat model? If it is not too much work, and I think this would be a nice addition to your PBY fleet. I believe this is a PBY-5A?


PBY No Radar.jpg
 
@ezunino,
The four points which are not validated currently are: the light system, the fuel comsuption, the hydraulic system and the PBR textures.
I note this point to be checked as soon as possible.

@Hollister56,
All remarks are good to take: there is the one that can be corrected and those that I cannot. If anyone has more specific information on feathering, I am listening :encouragement:
As for the autopilot, I use the one from Asobo which is integrated into the radio block: the 3D model and the code are directly taken from that of the C152. For it to work, it must be declared in the system file.cfg: what has been done.
bus.6 = Connections:bus.2 #Name:Avionics_BUS
Click to expand...
battery.2 = Connections:bus.6 #Capacity:80 #Voltage:curve.1 #Name:Main_Battery
Click to expand...
circuit.45 = Type:CIRCUIT_AUTOPILOT #Connections:bus.6 #Power:10, 15, 20.0 #Name:Autopilot ; Autopilot 15W
Click to expand...
[EDIT] Of course, the section [AUTOPILOT] is included in system.cfg file. :encouragement:
This part of code has not been modified since the first release version (v0.7.0). I note and would check.

"There is some pitch moments when the wing floats go up and down. when they go down the nose pitches down and when they go up the nose pitches up. Maybe this is correct? I never flew a PBY ..."
The fluctuations of the aircraft when the wing floats are lowered or raised are due to the fact that wing floats are asociated to flaps function (the PBY did not nave this equpment) which induces additional drag when they are lowered and therefore the flight of the aircraft is automatically modified.
Similarly, dropping water tanks operations for water-bombing versions is associated with spoilers (the PBY does not have any), so there is still a modification due to this supplementary drag ;) These little tricks allow for a more realistic flight model.

For the "radar", it’s not very difficult but it increases the number of models in the package. I can process it by moving the 3D model of the radar into an attachment file that would be called by a xml function, which would limit modifications and wouldn’t increase the overall size of the addon too much.

PS: Each 3D model needs 40 MB for the exterior and 15 MB for the interior that’s why I moved the specific 3D elements in separate 3D files which are called according to the needs of each variation but this trick also has limits. In fact, the new file architecture in FS 2024 is directly based on this function that was introduced in FS 2020.
In fact, there are few different models of PBY but for a given model, the equipment and functions of the aircraft have led to external modifications which ultimately lead to too many variations.
There are those who were equipped with additional antennas, others with bombs and even torpedoes ... for this last point, I have ideas
 
Last edited:
Thanks for your permanent efforts, lagaffe!!!
I installed your latest version from the download above. I wonder, after takeoff I can't get the plane speed above 86 knots.
What am I doing wrong? (gear is up)
Is there any advice, please.
 
This plane had the reputation of doing everything around 90 knots, so if the gear has been retracted and the wingtip floats are folded, it must reach its operational speed in a few minutes.

Some engine usage tips (for now, I haven’t installed the Damage Mod yet), once the climb to cruising altitude is complete, it is necessary to reduce the intake pressure to 32" approximately and the RPMs must be set to be less than 2400 rpm (there is a vibration zone between 2450 and 2650 - see the decal on the VC). To finish, the mixture must be reduced to LEAN in order to have the maximum allowable duration.

There, I am coding everything that will vibrate when the plane is maintained in the area indicated above.
 
Hello Lagaffe,

I heard the same thing, 90/90/90, take off, cruise, landing.
I have the autopilot working now. Thank you for the corrections.
Tom, I am getting around 95 kts at cruise power setting 30 inches, 2000 rpm. Half fuel in the tanks.

That would be a great idea to:
For the "radar", it’s not very difficult but it increases the number of models in the package. I can process it by moving the 3D model of the radar into an attachment file that would be called by a xml function, which would limit modifications and wouldn’t increase the overall size of the addon too much.

If it isn't too much trouble that would be great Lagaffe. Then we can have a PBY-5A.

Thanks again........
 
Oui !!!

dMpSBsL.jpeg
 
OK Tom, that’s what I had intuited :p

I just did a test flight to check all these points you raised but that I do not systematically check these days.

The fuel pressure is set at 5,99926 psi (checked with SimVars program) which is below the red line on the gauge
=> I need to check in the documentation if I made a mistake but it corresponds to the gravity pressure that I entered in the FUELSYSTEM section. Perhaps I have forget the electric pump pressure :unsure:...

As for the speed, by stabilizing the parameters during the climb: 36" Hg and 2300 RPMs, the Canso stabilizes at 110 knots. On the other hand, it is centered a bit too much on the front, I need to slightly review two parameters.

The autopilot works but I have no display on the screen (the one below the transponder)
=> probably a slight texture issue $VC
 
I was having an issue with the idling of the engines and then I noticed that when I would close my Honeycomb Bravo throttles the MP would drop below well 10 inches on the guage and the engines rpm dropped to 500 rpm.
If I increase the throttles to where the needles just hit/touch/read 10 inches of MP then all is well. RPM is 900 rpm and the visuals look like a nice spinning propeller. I wish there was a way to calibrate this, but I'm not sure? Does anyone else notice this? I will just just watch the MP guage and set it there and use the same position for engine start.20251021_102633.jpg20251021_102829.jpg20251021_103520.jpg
 
Propellers at fine pitch on shutdown. You need to move your propeller levers to full decrease and the propeller look like this. Full forward put them in the feathered position.Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Screenshot 2025.10.21 - 10.55.46.42.png
 
@Hollister56
If it can help, by default if the engines are started with the CTRL+E keys, I pre-position the throttles at 20% and the start props at 10%.
As for the idling speed, several hours of testing allowed me to lower it to the manufacturer’s values between 500 and 700 RPMs with the throttle at a minimum.
For the propellers, that you write corresponds exactly to the technical explanation I gave above (post #119)

For the fuel pressure problem:
I browsed several times the Canso PBY-5A & 6A manuals (see folder Documentations I provided them) and I found nothing except that there is a bypass that recycles fuel when the pressure exceeds 18 psi !

In desperation, I searched in my documents for a manual on the R-1830 and there finally I found that the pressure (electric pump) must be between 14 and 16 psi which corroborates the previous information.
[FUEL_SYSTEM]
....
Pump.1 = Name : pump1#Pressure:17#DestinationLine:line3#Type:Electric#Index:1#TankFuelRequired:tank1
Pump.2 = Name : pump2#Pressure:17#DestinationLine:line4#Type:Electric#Index:2#TankFuelRequired:tank2
Pump.3 = Name : pump3#Pressure:8#PressureCurve:2#DestinationLine:line13#Type:EngineDriven#Index:1
Pump.4 = Name : pump4#Pressure:8#PressureCurve:2#DestinationLine:line14#Type:EngineDriven#Index:2
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Talking about the slowness of the PBY:
I was standing next to the pilot of PH-PBY looking at the aircraft when someone asked '..but doesn't it have any flaps?', to which his reply was: "Sir, we're so slow on landing that our only worry is birdstrikes....from the rear!"
 
lagaffe said:
For the wheels that continue to turn: the XML code used for the wheels (blurred / still) are the standard Behaviors model of Asobo and all the points of contact have been successfully associated, therefore currently I do not see the reason for this ... but i wil investigate :unsure:
Click to expand...

I think adding a runwaywater.flt file to each version should fix this, with the following line added to the [SIMVARS] section after 'SimOnGround':

OnPlatformHeight=-9999999999
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top