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DC's P-38m

gedm

gedm

SOH-CM-2022
Finally got a chance to sit down and work on something fun for a change. I had been intending to convert this beauty into a cfs2 capable craft for sometime.
Anyway, she converted fine with the exception of the flaps, only the starboard side deploy. It's obviously an animation problem but beyond my abilities to fix... Any help would be appreciated.

G :ernae:
 
OBVIOUSLY A NIGHT FIGHTER!

Cannot help you with the flaps animation, but looks like a nice bird.

AND, who needs flaps?!?!?:mixedsmi:
 
Dave Copley has certianly made some beauties, oddly enough the L model had the same flap problem just reversed to port side??

Cheers :icon29:
 
Just think about those poor Zekes and Oscars trying to get a firing solution on that bird when the pilot lowered just one side of his flaps!

BTW, REAL P-38s had a 4% or 8% combat flap setting they used in dogfights to make it a more stable fighting platform. Anyone happen to know how to change the air or dp files to utilize that?
 
Devildog73, I believe #315 in the air.ed is what you are looking for. "Sometimes" the figures may also be found in a second place: The air.cfg file under [flaps.0] What ever the outcome, I do expect that if the air.ed #315 shows '5' positions that if [flaps.0] exists in the air.cfg it should reflect 5 positions also.
Such as position 0=0, 1=25, 2=50, 3=75, and 4=100 degrees. Also think if air.ed #315 is showing 4 positions that if [fraps.0] exists in the air.cfg, it should reflect only four positions such as 0=0, 1=33, 2=76, and 3=100 degrees. It appears that that you could possibly add more positions to change the degree of angles... anyone else that can explain this better than I please feel free to step right in and make things right... don
 
Thanks fellow Illinoisian! I will pop into aired tonight and take a look. I will also go back to my books where I read that tidbit on the combat flaps and get the exact degrees of flaps for the first setting.
 
Devildog73 said:
BTW, REAL P-38s had a 4% or 8% combat flap setting they used in dogfights to make it a more stable fighting platform.
Click to expand...

OK, we gotta clear up a few things here guys. The flaps on all "FTD's" were just standard types for landings and takeoffs. And they all had these of course. So fiddling with the settings of the standard flaps is not the answer. Besides, it can be bad business for AI landings too if you get it wrong.

The magic was intoduced when Lockheed added the underwing combat flaps to the later F model and beyond. They only had two settings - in and out - with a limit of about 60 degrees of radius. But these added a modest amount of drag and HUGE lift, not stability. The FTD was already a very stable and rugged weapons platform up to this point, so much so that many pilots preferred it to the Mustang for air to ground attacks. Although originally intended to assist in forestalling compressibility problems in this "devil of a diver", pilots later found that the dive flaps actually made the FTD turn tighter and faster in the horizontal fight also. This along with the added aileron boosters made these birds truly live up to their moniker of "Fork-tailed Devils", particularly in the Pacific and Asia. In Europe, it was known that the Fw-190 had the best split S performance of any Allied or Axis fighter in theater. The later P-38F models and all others after with boosters and diveflaps neutralized this advantage effectively. The FTD could now roll and turn as fast as the 190, plus outdive it in the split S for both the defensive and offensive advantage.

Attached is a modified P-38 air file. Take off the txt extenstion and open with Aired. Note the following records:

320 Control Surfaces --> Spoiler angle limit
327 Spoiler Avail.= TRUE
1101 Prim. Aero. --> Spoiler Cycle Time, Drag Coef - Spoiler, *Lift - Spoilers, *Pitch Moment - Spoilers
 
Thanks Bearcat. Not being a real pilot I appreciate the explanation. I used the wrong terminology based only upon something that I had read many months ago while doing research for the 39th FS campaigns.

I appreciate your knowledge on it.

:ernae:
 
Devildog73 said:
Thanks Bearcat. Not being a real pilot I appreciate the explanation...
Click to expand...

Yeah...i'm no licensed pilot either, although i've done a little cockpit work off record...hehe.

But whenever i dive into an air file mod or a major FS9 conversion project i do some heavy homework to learn as much performance history as possible on an aircraft before compiling flight dynamics. A while back i got pretty disgusted with the stock P-38's performance, so i took it behind the woodshed and beat the hell out of the air file until it behaved something closer to what the old aces said it did.

Unfortunately i can't seem to find the web article in which i found the most detail on the effects of the dive flaps and boosters in A2A engagements. It was a Q & A type interview of one of the notable P-38 aces (again, i forget which) in which he went to some detail in describing the effects of the boosters and diveflaps in engaements with Zeroes and Oscars. I just took what i read and translated it into the stock air file and all P-38 addons since.
 
Ah, the same frustration I have with the stockers. I too had read how much the pilots liked the Lightnings and how well they would dive and pull out of the dive and with the combat flaps could hold their own with the Zekes and Oscars. I just was not finding it in the P-38s in CFS2. In fact, I found it very difficult to pull out of a dive at 350MPH when what I had read was saying that 400 was no problem. I also kept stalling out in the Lightnings in dogfights. If, and only if, I had enough alt. I could pull out of the stall spin, but otherwise I would crash and burn.

I was better able to splash enemy fighters in a P-40 than a P-38. That is why I kept asking several weeks ago for a real air file instead of the stockers. I just was not seeing the relevance of the P-38s available to the sim. Their performance SUCKED BIG TIME.
 
OT From Thread

Hi Bearcat, If by chance you would also have a BC241 modified air file for the stocker Hellcat...possibly you could consider attaching one of those. Those Zekes in AI form always seem to be holding all of the cards. That is only if you have one already made up.
Thanks, Dv
 
gedm said:
Finally got a chance to sit down and work on something fun for a change. I had been intending to convert this beauty into a cfs2 capable craft for sometime.
Anyway, she converted fine with the exception of the flaps, only the starboard side deploy. It's obviously an animation problem but beyond my abilities to fix... Any help would be appreciated.

G :ernae:
Click to expand...
Here are the conversion settings I used with MDLC for Dave Copley's P-38M. The conversion I did (a while back) worked out just fine (FS2004 to CFS2). Good Luck with er.
 
Oglivie said:
Here are the conversion settings I used with MDLC for Dave Copley's P-38M. The conversion I did (a while back) worked out just fine (FS2004 to CFS2). Good Luck with er.
Click to expand...

Oglivie, thanks for kickin me in the head, it made me remember a certain B-29 I was having a similar problem with and an old CFS2 sage told me about this mysterious thing called the F switch. So lo and behold I run the P-38's model through it and what ya know...she got working flaps.
Thanks as well to the ole sage...Bearcat for explaining the technique so long ago..:ernae:
 
Archisoft's magic is still alive and well...:icon29:

BTW, for those who may have downloaded my P-38 attachment above, this cfg is the other half of the apple. No air file is complete without its cfg mate.
 
Bearcat, JUST what the Doctor ordered!!!!


:ernae::ernae::ernae:

Deploy the combat spoilers and the P-38 indeed spoils the day for enemy pilots!
 
Bearcat,
just to clarify, are the files you attached here for the stock, default aircraft or for DCC's Lightning(s) ? And could they be used on the B-24 Guy's overhauls as well ?
regards,
Ro
:icon29:
 
The files i attached for both the Hellcat and Lightning are primarily for the stockers, but they can be used for B24's overhauls too. Remember, his overhauls are just stockers with extra detail work done inside the mdl files. But they share the same flight dynamics, panels and contact points as the stockers. As for DCC's Lightnings, you can mate the "stock" air files to them. You may have to make a few changes in the air file for engine and fuel tank locations and also contact points in the cfg.
 
These are the instructions I got from PJMack a while back when I was struggling to convert dcc's XP-38N. (I also know PJ posted them at least once, because I was the one who suggested he do so.) I had the exact same problem with one flap refusing to animate in CFS2. These instructions worked for both the XP-38N and the night fighter variant.

JAMES
 
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