Heinkel He-162 "Spatz", 1944

Found a km/h airspeed indicator that is basically a match to the "being restored" one. Interested? :kilroy:

Send me an email or a pm. Right now I'm in the middle of a big download (I'm still on dial-up, you know :redface:), but I will answer you back as soon as I can.
 
Hello Hubbabubba,
Excellent - will do... and no hurry!

Then, I can change some of the other instruments to metric - AND the Checklists, for the sake of historical accuracy.
I had always been used to knots, as nothing else meant anything to me, but then I managed to incorporate mph into my appreciation after a serious showdown with the Beckwith Gauge when I used that for the first time
dizzy.gif
!

Until now I´ve only used kph for cars - but I suppose I can adapt to even that, and users will probably adjust to whatever is needed.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
 
Small advances.

Hello Ivan, Hello Hubbabuba,

Your feedback is bearing its fruit: The plane lands safley, and can bounce a bit without exploding, which is a bit more forgiving than before, thank heavens! Crash velocity on the landing gear at 824288 instead of 524288 does the trick.

Then, the inverted winglets are a bit more rounded and elongated (though not longer), and look better, having 4 more triangles each, and the canopy is not so dark. The latter however, has made some bleedthrough with the pilot´s head more apparent than before, and I´ll have to sort it out with some kind of magic sequencing like the one on the AT-9 Jeep perhaps...

Then, I put some CFS1 metric instruments from the German fighters, which will be more in accordance than the default FS98 ones that I had. I still have to see about the compass, which is now provisionally on the left.
I also used a better looking flaps control lever. From what I can see in the photo, I now believe the artificial horizon contains a compass at the same time, and where I now have the compass, there may be a suction gauge instead. I wonder... ...any ideas?

Update:
Here´s a new Panel Screenshot attachment. I gave the panel a khakhi-green hue like in the cockpit photos and corrected the black square background on the fuel gauge. Then, I changed the Airspeed Indicator for the new 900 KPH one - it makes all the difference!
The Birdie reaches that too! The panel, I´d say, looks very acceptable now, wouldn´t you say? (apart from the compass thing...)

So, at least that´s 4 improvements so far, ... and perhaps more to come!

Have a nice weekend, everybody! Here it´s sweltering again...
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
 

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You work fast!:redfire:
360-cockpit-heinkel-he-162-a-2-spatz.jpg


According to the picture above, the compass was a compass, you simply need a German one with a "O" (for"Ost") instead of a "E" (for"East"). How a ball compass could be adjusted with all the metal and wiring around is a mystery to me...

The flap indicator, now replaced by the compass, was at its place but needed some Germanic version. I think that my Taifun has one that would do the job, I will look later...

The ammo counters (that all Allied pilots praised and often wished for) should be where you put the gear lever/indicator. I think I have some...

My first crash landing was not repeated. So far, all others went well. Full flaps with speeds under 300kph but over 250kph with hands on throttle (almost full or full) and eyes on airspeed and angle of descent to the runway (±3°). The flaps, with a proper angle, reduce the bouncing and stop the machine well before the end of the runway. No adjustment to the AIR file needed!

I do have a question though; wasn't that bird steerable on the ground? Making a simple 90° turn is quite a feat, and exhausting.
 
To smilo; I have been posting using Opera recently and, apparently, it does not "dig" SOH posting... sorry for that
 
hello hubba, i can only guess,
you are referring,
to post #24 of this thread.
fortunately, post #25 is okay.
if you would like,
#24 can be deleted
without loss of content.
just give me the word.

in the mean time,
don't worry about apologies,
they are completely unnecessary.
 
Last edited:
Hello Hubbabubba,

The picture is great, isn´t it? The thing is that I don´t know enough about instrumentation, so your help is very much appreciated!... I´ll put back the compass into its correct position (it comes from the Dornier DoX Seaplane). Then I´ll put the Flaps lever on the left and see where to put the throttle. For the moment, the Gear indicator on the right in my panel replaces the two vertical instruments - whatever those may have been...

So where was the artificial horizon? The Turn Indicator perhaps doubled up as such: The slanted top on the "T" line over the ball seems to suggest an inclinometer too.

Ammo counters? Interesting. They had good ideas - also the window to see the runway with extended nose-gear! A Sparrow like this would do me nicely for a change from my 1985 Bavaria Schnellpanzer...

Thanks for confirming no-adjustment-needed on the .air file´s Drag - Great! I like doing a slow flight test with a bit of flap just above the ground - like flying under the Golden Gate, and it´s quite possible with this plane.

Right now I´m trying to polish out the minute dark triangular wing-bit bleeds through the fuselage. We shall see!

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
 
Hello Aleatorylamp,

I will have to disagree with Hubbabubba on this one. I think the AIR file needs some serious adjustment for drag.
While the existing AIR file is flyable, its flight characteristics can be considered a mod because it hardly bleeds off speed even with hard turns (retains energy too well) and has a glide ratio comparable to a sailplane or perhaps even better. With Engine off, I did not lose speed as one would expect with a fighter with a small wing. I ran out of patience before I got any meaningful data here. (I tested out your TF-104 this morning and found that one was NOT flyable)
As I mentioned before, with the engine at idle, it does not lose speed at all which makes even a simple power-on stall test impossible.

Also, was it intentional to have the guns connected to the cannon trigger?

On a related note: Pretty soon I will need to work on a Jet or Rocket AIR file for a project that has been sitting in my workshop for ages. I started with the Learjet AIR file but never managed to get it to work well.

- Ivan.
 
smilo said:
hello hubba, i can only guess,
you are referring,
to post #24 of this thread.
fortunately, post #25 is okay.
if you would like,
#24 can be deleted
without loss of content.
just give me the word.

in the mean time,
don't worry about apologies,
they are completely unnecessary.
Click to expand...

If you could remove the offending post (#24) I would be thankful, my friend.

As I was saying, I was using Opera that I recently installed, and like, to reply to aleatorytlamp preceding post when, after checking with the Preview Post button, I got an empty editor window and the message that my post was too short! So I copy/pasted the preview message in the editor window and got that atrocity. The only thing left was to re-paste in another post and edit the gibberish.

BTW - Replying to a post under Opera does not show the quote of the post you're replying to. Act as simple reply.
- No correction possible as the editor window is empty.
- When using Bold, Italic or underline, the line is carried backward to the last of these special characters if you're, for example, correcting a typo on the last word typed. It makes for quirky posting:banghead:

Hope this help SOH team. This post is, of course, made under Firefox...:kilroy:
 
Hello Ivan,

Thanks for your more exact comments on the Sparrow´s .air file, and of course on the TF-104 - a lucky "throw-in" along the way!!

Hubbabubba´s and my comments on the Sparrow´s Drag were related only to the approach and landing phases. As 1 point of flaps is needed on approach and full flaps (3rd position) for touchdown, the resulting behaviour for THAT phase of flight works seemingly OK. I needed low Drag for the plane to reach top speed with the available power, and I compensated this drawback for approach and landing by raising Flap Drag.

The perpetumobile-glider behaviour is of course undesirable, and needs attention, but I don´t know enough to be able to solve it yet, so I´m glad that you have pointed it out. Hopefully this can now be solved more easily.

Luckily enough, this will probably result in an improved .air file for the Starfighter! The TF-104 2-seater model was a modification of mine on the single-seater RG-104, which I had extensively rebuilt from an FS5 AFX on request by Udo Entenmann (the painter in my old "team" of the last FS98 Mohicans). The fuselage was too fat and ugly and the plane had lots of bleeds despite not having any moving parts.

Then, the .air file .air file was written by someone I don´t remember, and worked fine in FS98 (of course). At the time I improved the TF-104 for CFS1, I didn´t know enough about the different flight behaviour, but now I know for sure: FS98 balances out .air file parameters to do with wings and weights, MOI´s included, in a completely different way. The numbers required to achieve similar "flying feels" in CFS1 are very different.

So, a new .air file for the Starfighter will also be in order, and it´s on my To Do List. Whatever I can learn on improving the Sparrow´s flight behaviour, I can carry over to that of the TF-104 later.

I thought the Sparrow´s weapons were cannon, so I defined them as such in the Dp file - maybe that was a mistake.
Not to worry! There will be a nice upgrade coming for the Heinkel He-162-A2 when all the problems are sorted out.

Incidentally, I managed to get rid of the dark triangles bleeding through the fuselage - from the duplicated aft-wing-root component, I removed the vertical panel that is flush with the flaps at the wing-root, and that´s solved now!! Lucky...

The panel is also slowly getting a very much better, so that´s fortunate too. Anyway, if it weren´t for all this feedback and help, this plane would not be getting any better at all , so thanks once again!

It will be interesting to see if we can get your own future jet/rocket project sorted out too! A new challenge.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
 
Hello Aleatorylamp,

As I understand it, the Heinkel 162A was capable of 522 MPH @ Sea Level with a burst speed of 553 MPH at Sea Level. Its maximum burst speed even at altitude was only 562 MPH. I did a little speed test a few minutes ago. I still have no idea how to use the burst speed.

With the typical Beckwith test panel that I use for propeller fighters, what I am getting is
609 MPH at 1050 feet with 1958 pounds thrust.

I was planning on more testing, but with this first result, I must be misunderstanding what your performance goal is here; Maximum speed already seems way too high.

Regarding maneuverability, I am finding that I can pull 9.8 G at will. The Volksjaeger IS a light fighter at only 6000 pounds fully loaded, but remember in comparison with the Me 109G, it does not feel quite right. The Volksjaeger has a wing that is only 120 ft^2 as versus 173 ft^2 for the 109G. The 109G is heavier by around 2000 pounds but the wing is much bigger so the wing loading is actually less than the Volksjaeger. In addition, the 109G has automatic leading edge slats which also would increase lift. So at lease from a numbers standpoint, the Volksjaeger should be a lot worse in a sustained turn than the 109.

I still have not read the pilot reports so perhaps there are other factors to consider.
Hope this helps.

- Ivan.

P.S. I don't know if it is appropriate to discuss the Starfighter here, but here goes anyway: The reason I believe it is un flyable is because it has such a strong pitch up with increasing airspeed that it becomes uncontrollable pretty quickly. It also does not ever stall. It seems to get into a nose-high attitude while maintaining about 85 Knots and looses altitude VERY quickly. There may be more but I never got past that.
 
Hello Ivan,

OK on the "No K" for the two jets. Thanks very much for the additional testing. For the moment, there is enough information to go by in order to try and improve things.

I hadn´t realized that the Sparrow model speed was so high. At least there does seem to be some room for a Drag increase.
Perhaps reducing FDEditor´s parameter "wing efficiency", whichever that one may be in AirEd, will help here. I´ll have a look.

The Beckwith panel was giving me very near 1760 flb at 9500 RPM (more or less 90% thrust, depending on engine temperature) at 500 ft. Then, it appears that flat out at over 100% readings went up a bit. The problem is that at maximum thrust, the engine would break after 30 seconds, and I don´t think there is a way of making that happen in FS98.

The Boost Thrust is just Key "0" for a max. of 30 Sec!

For the Starfighter, the picture looks dire... I´d hardly ventured into the FD, and the present state of affairs seems awful, so that will need some work.

As the Sparrow is a jet, and this thread can well serve for old jets in general, I´d say!

There was a tiny little Messerschmidt Rocket Plane (interceptor) Me-163 Komet, which a friend made a better .air file for, making it flyable, as the original one was useless, so I´ll have a look into those FD too.

I wonder...
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
 
Turbine fine tuning...!

Hello Ivan,

I was trying some finer adjustments as regards thrust and the 3 diffent kinds of drag entries, (zero lift, induced and skin friction), and a very familiar situation arose, a bit reminiscent of a recurring bad-dream: If I got power and performance correct for S.L., for 6000 and 20000 ft, performance was about 50 kt short.

On the other hand, If I adjusted power and performance correctly (+- 2 kt) at 20000 ft and 6000 ft (+-0 kt for normal power and +11 kt for Boost thrust), at S.L. I got too much power power and about 50 kt in excess.

Another thing: Turbine lag makes maximum specification performances impossible to attain with 30-second boost bursts, as it takes longer than that for the plane to reach the higher speeds being at normal speeds for any height.

Interestingly enough (and expectedly) drag alterations will change the thrust readings, and also, thrust changes with speed.
Then of course, it also takes considerably longer for a turbine´s speed and power to stabilize after a throttle change than on a piston engine.

Not an easy kettle of fish!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
 
Hello Aleatorylamp,

I did a bit more testing with your Volksjaeger today and also did some tuning.
Here is what I am getting:

Maximum Speed at 500 feet is now 560 MPH. I did not do any fine tuning of drag to see if I could bring it down further.
At 19,750 feet, speed is only 460 MPH or so. The problem is that engine thrust is way too low here at only about 1150 pounds.
So from a simple (possibly OVERLY Simple) calculation this aeroplane needs about 1770 pounds thrust at 19,700 feet to achieve the performance according to "The Book".
I did not try to tune the engine power because I do not know how to do that yet.

With the adjusted drag and wing efficiency, I am finding that it WILL slow down but always a minimum of about 100 pounds thrust if the engine is on. Even with the engine off, it loses speed slowly especially from about 150 MPH to 250 MPH.
I don't know how to cure this yet or even if I should. This aeroplane does not have propeller drag to contend with.

Perhaps I need to learn how to tune a Jet engine now.
It might come in handy for a Me 262 at some point.

- Ivan.
 
Aleatorylamp said:
Hello Hubbabubba,


The picture is great, isn´t it? The thing is that I don´t know enough about instrumentation, so your help is very much appreciated!... I´ll put back the compass into its correct position (it comes from the Dornier DoX Seaplane). Then I´ll put the Flaps lever on the left and see where to put the throttle. For the moment, the Gear indicator on the right in my panel replaces the two vertical instruments - whatever those may have been...


So where was the artificial horizon? The Turn Indicator perhaps doubled up as such: The slanted top on the "T" line over the ball seems to suggest an inclinometer too.


Ammo counters? Interesting. They had good ideas - also the window to see the runway with extended nose-gear! A Sparrow like this would do me nicely for a change from my 1985 Bavaria Schnellpanzer...


Thanks for confirming no-adjustment-needed on the .air file´s Drag - Great! I like doing a slow flight test with a bit of flap just above the ground - like flying under the Golden Gate, and it´s quite possible with this plane.


Right now I´m trying to polish out the minute dark triangular wing-bit bleeds through the fuselage. We shall see!


Cheers,
Aleatorylamp
Click to expand...


Hello Aleatorylamp,


I'm no expert on cockpit but what I don't know I search for and, if I'm still unsure, I will take an educated guess... and probably search again. In the case of the compass, I simply blew-up the image in my browser (Ctrl+=) and could faintly see a "12" just on the left. What you see as the horizontal bar of a T is in fact the degrees' ladder and the vertical bar is the hairline midle separator to read the degrees with some precision.


My guess on the flap indicator was wrong as, later on, I stumbled on a fragmentary British test pilot's report (probably Brown) stating that there was none. My guess was based on the position, close to the flap pump, and the little sticker underneath where some warning about that pump are written in German. Next best guess would be hydraulic pressure gauge based on its location, size and lack of graduation. But which hydraulics? I really have no clue. So again I went researching and finally found that little gem HERE! In it, this dial is described as AFN 2 for Anzeigegerät für Funknavigation or Radio-Navigation Display System.


AFN2.gif



The above picture shows exactly what we barely see in the precedent general view cockpit panel picture. It was basically an early ILS (Instrument Landing System). The vertical needle was to be kept dead center to line-up the a/c with the landing strip, aided by an audible signal made of dots (1/8 second) and dashes (7/8 second) that would give a continuous buzzing sound when aligned with the landing strip, the transmitter being at the far end. Range for that localizer was about 40km. The other needle was bending upward as the transmitter was getting nearer, until reaching nahe (near), giving a rough idea of the distance remaining to the runway. Two transmitters along the approach path, on a different frequency from the localizer, and acting only as short distance markers would light-up the "target-like" window at 20 and 3km respectively of the threshold. If all went well, the pilot should "see the lights" if is glide slope was in accordance with his training.


Those two vertical instruments are the ammo counter, left and right. I don't know the mechanicals innards of the system but, quite simply, they gave a quick idea of the remaining rounds/shells left. Bar high = lots of ammo, bar low = few ammo left, no bar = I will let you guess (your turn, LOL!).


There is no artificial horizon. The bar you think you see is simply the reflexion of the left window and its cables underneath.


And I was not saying that your AIR file was in no need of change! Simply warning you on the danger of overdoing it. Your a/c is way too fast. I'm reaching easily 900kph IAS near sea level, way too much!


As I was doing research, posts were piling-up!


And thanks again smilo, this time I'm typing off-line and posting with BB code already parsed. Cross my fingers!

P.S.-Thanks Ivan! We learn (or re-learn) everyday!
 
Hello Ivan, Hello Hubbabuba.

I have just seen the new posts. This is getting very interesting. Perhaps jets aren´t all that bad - especially the old turbojets!
Slowly we are arriving at improvements with regard to instrumentation and engine/aircraft performance.
The Radio Navigation Display System is incredible. Great research work, Hubbabubba!

Yes, I´m afraid that the Sparrow´s performance was way too high. Somewhere along the line I must have got the Drag values way too low. Perhaps I had concentrated more on altitude performance - I can´t remember.

Anyway, I centered the correction on non-boost-thrust S.L. power and performance, which is the basis.

For the moment, allow me to post the latest and more detailed trials, which will coincide with Ivan´s findings on performance loss at altitude - possibly a S.L. power compensation will be needed.

New settings for wing parameters to increase altitude loss in turns:
Angle of incidence: 0.275
Angle of twist: 0.269

Then, to reduce gliding speed (still a bit difficult to achieve):
Induced Drag: 3000
Zero lift Drag: 45
Skin Friction coefficient: 334

New findings on EGT control parameters:
-Turbine Temp gauge factor = 170 keeps EGT in safety zone (heats up a little w. boost burst)
-Turbine Temp gauge scalar = 256 (affects max. RPM - at 1024 it limits RPM to under 9000)

Fine tuned maximum thrust to have Idle RPM at 3500: Thrust max S.L. set to 2187 flb
-Idle will still give about 125-130 flb thrust.
-Gliding is still excessively good, so flaps and undercarriage are needed to reduce speed on approach, and full flaps for landing.
-Crash velocity has been corrected to prevent explosions on touchdown.
-Fuel Tank capacities adjusted to correct the l/r tank fuel gauge reading.

So here are the present new .air file test results: (new .air file enclosed with this post, just in case).
S.L.:
At _92% throttle: _9500 RPM, 1760-1781 flb and 427 kt (correct)
At 100% throttle: 10100 RPM, 1968-1991 flb and 448 kt (39 kt under)

6000 ft:
At _90% throttle: _9500 RPM, 1515 flb and 431 kt (56 kt under)
At 100% throttle: 10200 RPM, 1713 flb and 451 kt (55 kt under)

20000 ft:
At _83% throttle: _9500 RPM, _971 flb and 435 kt (53 kt under)
At 100% throttle: 10350 RPM, 1150 flb and 464 kt (50 kt under)

Perhaps it would be better to increase normal non-boost S.L. performance and make that inaccurate, so that all the other readings get better.

It´s getting interesting, innit?

P.S. Just to prevent mental merry-go-rounds:
Shall we continue to talk about speeds in MPH then? I´d reverted to Knots because the instruments are in KPH and CFS1 has a general HUD display in Kt... I had also just changed the Checklists from MPH (+ Kt) to KPH (+ Kt), but I can always change it back again.

Cheers
Aleatorylamp
 
Hello Aleatorylamp,

I have not found a reference yet on the Heinkel 162 that lists the speed in Knots.
Then again, I have not done much searching either but so far I have only found MPH and KPH.
I don't see the point in translating to Knots especially since the test instrumentation is in MPH.

My own opinion is that my test results will be in MPH and the Aircraft Checklist should be in whatever units that nation would have used at the time. Did the WW2 Luftwaffe ever use Knots to measure speed? I had always presumed that they did knot.

- Ivan.
 
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