Dino's Cat is out!!

[deathfromafar]

I know what you mean 'deathfromafar' about the good groove for approach. If you've ever used a Thrustmaster Hotas, you know about the 'notches' 'clicks' in the throttle. I have found the approach to be in the middle of one of those notches/clicks.

lol pretty fun holding the throttle there, like balancing an elephant on a pin head

<----Yeap, perfect analogy! The sweet spot is elusive! I have used TM HOTAS in the past(the older models from the late 90's if memory serves me correctly) but the last few years I have used Saitek X45 & 52 models. They may have a more sterile feel to them but I force myself to translate/transpose my inputs as if I were flying a true weighted FCS. Of course the multitude of settings helps to fine tune everything.

Relating to my last post, I did a little fiddling with the Flight Tuning section of the config file in an effort to somewhat replicate the feel of my original Iris FS9 Tomcat. It's in the ballpark but then again, another user might get different results that what I did.

[flight_tuning]
cruise_lift_scalar = 1.6
parasite_drag_scalar = 1.2 //<-----Changed
induced_drag_scalar = 1.2 //<-----Changed
elevator_effectiveness = 2.2
aileron_effectiveness = 0.9 //<-----Changed
rudder_effectiveness = 1.0
pitch_stability = 1.2 //<-----Changed
roll_stability = 1.0
yaw_stability = 1.0
elevator_trim_effectiveness = 1.0
aileron_trim_effectiveness = 1.0
rudder_trim_effectiveness = 1.0

Also, I backed the static thrust back a bit to match data regarding "Dry" Thrust(Mil Power w/out Burner). Seems to be more on target now.

[TurbineEngineData]
fuel_flow_gain = 0.006 //Gain on fuel flow
inlet_area = 6.000 //Square Feet, engine nacelle inlet area
rated_N2_rpm = 16728 //RPM, second stage compressor rated value
static_thrust = 23100/28200 //Lbs, max rated static thrust at Sea Level <--Changed
afterburner_available = 5 //Afterburner stages available?
afterburner_throttle_threshold = 0.85 //Percent of throttle range where a/b begins
reverser_available = 0 //Thrust reverser available?
ThrustSpecificFuelConsumption = 0.81 //Thrust specific fuel consumption (Jets)
AfterBurnThrustSpecificFuelConsumption = 1.74 //TSFC with afterburn/reheat engaged

 

[Dino Cattaneo]

Thanks

Thanks for you comments and suggestions.

Observation about the excessive inclination of the tails was found to be correct - will be fixed in 0.93 later on today.

Obsevations to inaccuracy of flight dynamics may be correct. I will check the proposed changes. Please understand that while I am a private pilot and mechanical engineer, I am surely not a flight dynamics expert nor I have ever flown a Tomcat. Feedback from an actual Tomcat driver was generally positive but I am sure that dynamics are far from being perfect. In detail:

Static thrust was artificially increased to allow the Tomcat reach Mach 1.80 which is given as maximum allowable speed in the Natops for the given configuration.

Induced drag was risen as the .air file Wave drage vs.Mach table was changed (and generally reduced) from the stock F-18. I did this to the purpose of balancing the various drag effect at high speeds.

As for the roll performance, as I said, I've never flown the tomcat for real... so I am pretty sure you guys are right.

Will consider the proposed changes and eventually include them in a future release.
Thanks a lot.

 

[Bone]

Try rolling back the Elevator & Aileron effectiveness abit in the config file to tone down the sensitivity a bit. This roll and pitch rates and sensitivity on this model are a bit too high as previously stated.

The CRJ-200 I used to fly is more pitch sensitive than this model. It also had a very high roll rate, believe it or not. When you put the two together, hand flying at cruise was like trying to balance on a pogo stick. Even when the autopilot was on during cruise flight, the nose would oscillate constantly left and right with a slight dip in the middle.

My point is, I don't really find the Dino-Cat flight dynamics to be outside the box of possibility. I'm pretty sure the real thing flew quite differently at each of the various increments of it's speed regime, wing sweep, and weight. I do have the Iris F-14 for FS9/FSXsp1, but who would really know which is the closest to reality. I'll bet there are real Tomcat pilots out there that are laughing at us right now.

I'm not disputing Deathfromafar or anyone else who finds an FDE too sensitive and wants to change it...not at all. I just think that many of the opinions on what is the "right" or "wrong" FD quality is very subjective. I've never flown a real jet fighter, and my opinion here is subjective, also.

 

[Rick_Piper]

Hi Deano

Superb model mate :ernae:

Off to fly a few traps on the also superb Enteprise release

Regards
Rick

 

[Killbilly]

First, thanks again Dino and team!

Second, I have a quick question, then I'm going back to practice my traps some more.

How are you guys getting the refueling probe to extend in the air. For me, shift+e then 2 works perfectly on the ground (as does shift+e then 3 for the loadout); but in the air, both those commands only open the canopy (which is a little disturbing at 260 KIAS and 15,000 Ft.).

Is there a trick I'm missing, or is my setup a little screwed up?

 

[Bone]

First, thanks again Dino and team!

Second, I have a quick question, then I'm going back to practice my traps some more.

How are you guys getting the refueling probe to extend in the air. For me, shift+e then 2 works perfectly on the ground (as does shift+e then 3 for the loadout); but in the air, both those commands only open the canopy (which is a little disturbing at 260 KIAS and 15,000 Ft.).

Is there a trick I'm missing, or is my setup a little screwed up?

Click on the Refuel Probe switch, it's on the instrument panel just forward of the thrust levers.

 

[dswo]

Off to fly a few traps on the also superb Enteprise release

Where's the new Enterprise?

 

[expat]

OK, finally got some time to try out this bird.

Nice flyer, nice trapper, nice looker. Love it!

Thanks Dino!

 

[Rick_Piper]

Sorry Nimitz



Rick

 

[fliger747]

I have about 13,000 hours driving various jets about the skies. The secret to flying these things with some precision is attitude flying. you pretty much can't fly them well by looking out the window unless you are also looking through a HUD.... I certainly do not find the T-cat as presented here lacking in stability or overly sensitive.

A swing wing plane represents a fair challenge as it varies in it's responses in no linerar ways with sweep/speed. Generally one will not reach this via adjustments of the scalars in the .cfg file, but with adjustment of the shape of the curves in the .air file hex tables to get a best fit situation.

I fly with all sorts of pilots, from guys who did test flying on the B2 to F-4, F-15 and about everything else and have a chance to observe their flying technique. Surprisingly the fighter guys tend to be very agressive on the controls, slamming the stick all over the cockpit when a little smooth movement would do. I don't know why this is, perhaps a result of emphasis on tactical manuvering or simple lack of experience as they aquire few hours in a career as opposed to civilians or the transport/tanker guys. An exception is the Navy fliers who can fly a very precise approach all the way to impact.... Some habits die hard.

Keep up the good work! T.

 

[piperarcherpilot]

Something rather crude to test the pitch control effectiveness at slow speeds (assuming the CG and everything is set correctly, and the jet is around 55,000 lbs) goes back to something I read once and it stuck in my head; on takeoff, with full elevator back pressure, the nose should lift at around 90 knots. This just demonstrates the control authority. Dino's jet's dynamics replicate this fairly close I think (at least compared to other models).

My feeling is the only thing that's exaggerated is around the roll axis. Does anyone know what max rate of roll is for the Tomcat? I did find this:

"[FONT=ARIAL, HELVETICA][SIZE=-1]The new DFCS [Digital Flight Control System] improves the flight characteristics including the maximum allowed rolling G forces. During flight tests, DFCS F-14D SD230 sustained extensive structural damage on the starboard engine weekly doors and aft fixed cowl due to the high rolling G! This was not a problem of the DFCS, but the NATOPS didn't restrict the flight envelope for such rolling Gs yet. As of January 2000, restrictions to rolling Gs is 4 g's up to 570 KCAS, 3 g's up to 700 KCAS and 1 g stick input above 700 KCAS/Mach 1.4. Additional restrictions are effective if various external stores are carried. Unless structural solution is found, the restrictions are necessary with regards to the F-14 fatigue life. "

http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-dfcs.htm

[/SIZE][/FONT]So it looks like the F-14 has a very high rate of roll unless its limited by the DFCS. But, I think the dynamics are pretty close right now.

 

[dougal]

This is such a beautiful creation, but i cannot do it justice!

Any idea when the 'manual' will be out?

I ask as i'm a complete bumkum with fighter jets, and need all the help i can get.

I think i've completely misunderstood some of the gauges and instruments.

I do seem able to put it down on the deck okay, but I think it's mostly down to 'feel' and luck, rather than 'correctly' using the gadgits

Any/all advice and tips most eagerly welcome

 

[Tim_Horton]

Anyone want to take over this?

I started but don't think I will have time to finish, PM me if your interested in the psd file.

 

[Quicksand]

For those of you like running SP2 but not Acceleration, I have mixed news. I couldn't wait for the mailman to get here with my copy of Acceleration, so I took a chance and installed this awesome Kitty. Good news is there is no CTD, and the plane performs well. The bad news is there is no HUD or MFD's in the cockpit without Acceleration. At least I can fly her now. She's beautiful in every respect, Dino, and a dream to fly. Thank you for this wonderful plane!

 

[tigisfat]

"[FONT=ARIAL, HELVETICA][SIZE=-1]The new DFCS [Digital Flight Control System] improves the flight characteristics including the maximum allowed rolling G forces. During flight tests, DFCS F-14D SD230 sustained extensive structural damage on the starboard engine weekly doors and aft fixed cowl due to the high rolling G! This was not a problem of the DFCS, but the NATOPS didn't restrict the flight envelope for such rolling Gs yet. As of January 2000, restrictions to rolling Gs is 4 g's up to 570 KCAS, 3 g's up to 700 KCAS and 1 g stick input above 700 KCAS/Mach 1.4. Additional restrictions are effective if various external stores are carried. Unless structural solution is found, the restrictions are necessary with regards to the F-14 fatigue life. "[/SIZE][/FONT]

[SIZE=-1][FONT=ARIAL, HELVETICA]http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-dfcs.htm[/FONT][/SIZE]

So it looks like the F-14 has a very high rate of roll unless its limited by the DFCS. But, I think the dynamics are pretty close right now.

You're reading that paragraph wrong. Rolling G's and roll rate are two drastically different things. 'G' forces are a measurement of vertical acceleration, not a rate of speed. It is almost exclusively used to describe a vertical acceleration. In fact, the engineering diagrams that help a maintainer determine tactical over g requirements are usually expressed in units of vertical acceleration so they're not confused with anything else.

Rolling g's usually refers to rolling while loaded, and loaded means that the aircraft is cooking along and pulling g's, not the aircraft's weight and balance. Rolling while loaded up exerts special kinds of stress on aircraft, and older fighters had limitations. Even when taking the stress into consideration, it's also important to remember that older fighters could actually depart controlled flight if you rolled hard while loaded up with g's, almost like a snap roll.

 

[deathfromafar]

I want to emphasize that my tunings in the config file don't relax the responsiveness of the roll and pitch axis and moments to the point they are not responsive. More in a way that makes the model "feel" like you're moving a lot of mass when you move the stick dynamically. That's pretty hard to do if you've never flown the real plane but I tried to match both data and video of the actually bird. Having talked to a few long time Tomcat Pilots, the real plane has a lot of responsiveness and significant limitations both in the flight dynamics and the structure. Under normal NATOPS non-wartime limits, you won't exceed 6.5 G's on the airframe to conserve on wear of high stress areas like the wing hinge pins which are notorius for developing cracks after undergoing high G loadings. In wartime, you do what you got to do in the fight. Under such conditions, 8 or 9 G's could be pulled. In reality, there is no limiter. You can pull until something bad happens either aerodynamically or structurally. The other thing is that with the wing swept all the way back, the G limit is 3 to 4 G's. If you push it too hard in that wing config, the plane will depart quickly.

Is up to the Pilot as usual to stay within the limits.

 

[piperarcherpilot]

tigisfat,

You're right. I didnt read that very carefully. (I guess that's a 'blind' icon though it looks like it has a black eye...) Oops. Thanks for catching it.

 

[JT8D-9A]

JT8D-9A killer screenshot wow

Rich

Thanks :ernae:

Life is short

 

[Dino Cattaneo]

Version 0.93 released

I've just released version 0.93 - see the links on my blog - which addresses (I hope) the geometic issues with the tails.

I am sorry for having updated so often (3 times in 48 hours). I know this generates confusion. Still, while the Tomcat has been tested by several persons for more than one month, some major mistakes found their way to the public release. No changes to the flight dynamics so far.

My apologies for the inconvenience. I hope the Tomcat, despite its defects, provides a fun ride.

 

[MenendezDiego]

No inconvenience. Sorry I didn't Beta Test so well. I've been spending my time home driving my brother around like I'm a taxi or something, and finding a place to live in the Fall