Lesson Learned

OBIO

Retired SOH Admin
I decided it was time to make a round trip flight. Flying to PAWK (or PAKW) to KFF7 (Jack Hi's Cabin, Leon Louis scenery). Delivering Jack's monthly supplies of beans, fat back, beer and corn nuts (all the man eats). Once I had the plane unloaded, return to PAWK/PAKW.

Well, I took Brian Gladden's PA-22 Super Pacer into ACM and set up the payload sections (Weights). It originally only had one load position (Pilot)..now it has 6: Pilot, Co-Pilot, 2 Passenger/Cargo spots in the rear seat and 2 cargo spots behind the rear seat in the cargo hold. Total usable payload is 1100 pounds (should actually be 900 and some change). Pilot is 180 pounds, a full load of fuel (36 gallons) is 218 pounds....for a total of 400 pounds..leaving 700 pounds for Jack's supplies. I loaded up the beans, fat back, beer and corn nuts and took off into the Alaskan dawn. Weather was horrible (FSMetars pulling down real time weather).....heavy clouds, lightning, some fairly strong wings up around my 6000 feet cruising altitude.

Now for the lesson I learned: Make sure you balance your payload from side to side, front to back. Getting the plane to fly level was easy...some up trim and it would maintain 6000 feet with my hand of the joystick. But due to the fact that the left side of the plane was 180 pounds heavier than the right side of the plane...I could not keep a steady course heading for nothing. The plane would bank to the left and keep going to the left. I was forced to abort the flight, return to PAKW (PAWK, which ever it was) and will have to repack the plane before I head off again.

OBIO
 
Call me lazy, but I almost never fly without autopilot. If my plane doesn't have it, I have a crack team in my hangar that will install one. They're so good, they can have the plane ready to go in about five minutes!:jump:
 
Call me lazy, but I almost never fly without autopilot. If my plane doesn't have it, I have a crack team in my hangar that will install one. They're so good, they can have the plane ready to go in about five minutes!:jump:
Yes sir me too! Full autopilot w/speed control, 500 GPS, and radar altimeter in every a/c i have from ultralights to the heavies.:jump:
 
I used to fly autopilot, but now I like being more hands on. Getting the plane trimmed to fly nice and level...I have gotten pretty good at trimming a plane out and can get a plane to the point that it will fly level and true well enough that I can go to the bathroom knowing that my plane will still be at the altitude I left it at. For my first long flight (coming up Thursday), I will use autopilot a bit....the flight is 5.5 hours from Seattle, Washington to Anchorage, Alaska in Rick Piper's FSDS2 AW Argosy...delivering 12,000 pounds of building materials ordered by some doom's day people who are building an "End of the World" haven in the Alaskan hills.

Now I just need to get my head wrapped around mixture settings and I will be one step closer to being a fully competent sim pilot.

OBIO
 
I've never been able to get speed control to work in anything but a jet unless it was already included with the plane - and that was only on a couple of t-props.

To make it work, you have to have a pitot-static system, even if there's no pitot-static instruments on the panel. Copy the [direction_indicators], [attitude_indicators], and [turn_indicators] sections from the default C172 if they're not already in the aircraft.cfg. Then copy the autopilot and radio sections from there too. Then all you need is something in the panel to operate them. I like to use a popup - it's easier than trying to customize the existing setup. The only time I mess with the main panel is if there's already some sort of radio there, then I delete that and try to find something else to fill the hole. I also delete whatever older radio popup is there, whether it's the default hand-held or the DC-3 radio. I then replace that radio popup with my own custom Com/Nav popup:

[Window01]
Background_color=128,128,128 //Only black shows up invisible, so this eliminates the need for a background bitmap.
size_mm= 359,313
window_size=0.45 //Adjust this number to fit your needs.
position= 0
visible=0
ident=RADIO_STACK_PANEL
gauge00=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio AP, 1, 2, 176
gauge01=bendix_king_radio!Bendix-King Radio Nav-Comm 1, 180, 2, 176
gauge02=bendix_king_radio!Bendix-King Radio Nav-Comm 2, 180, 67, 176
gauge03=bendix_king_radio!Bendix-King Radio Xpndr, 180, 133, 176
gauge04=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio DME, 180, 187, 176
gauge05=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio ADF, 180, 232, 176
gauge06=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio Audio, 180, 278, 176
gauge07=Extra-300!Pitch-Trim, 126, 104, 35
gauge08=Lear_45!Nav GPS Switch, 133, 59, 20
gauge09=Cessna208!Horizontal-Indicator, 1, 80, 113
gauge10=Mooney_Bravo!OMI Lights, 38, 56, 50
gauge11=Beech_Baron!RMI,32,195,113,113

The window_size= line is a percentage of screen width, so if you're running a widescreen monitor, you'll want to cut that back to 0.25 or something along those lines.

Also, if there's no electrical system in the plane, you'll need to do some adding there too. More copy/paste work from one of the defaults will work there too. Once you have the electrical system installed, if you want manual control over those parts, change the gauge11 line from above and add two more as follows:

gauge11=Beech_Baron!RMI,1,195,113,113
gauge12=Mooney_Bravo!Master Alt Bat, 126,185,35,50
gauge13=Mooney_Bravo!Avionics Switch,126,250,35,50


This will move the RMI over to the edge and add the Batt/Gen and avionics switches.
 
oh Thanks Tom,

Now I have to figure out how to copy paste it and where... (I am computer challenged, pardon me) :isadizzy:
 
Auto Throttle in a Piston Powered Prop

This is the auto pilot section in the C172

The values you change are in blue.

Add the red values also

The real key to get it to work is changing the 90 to 3600

[autopilot]
autopilot_available= 1
flight_director_available= 0
default_vertical_speed= 700.0
autothrottle_available= 1 // auto throttle is available
autothrottle_arming_required= 0 // 0 no arming required 1 = arming required
autothrottle_max_rpm = 3600 // make prop jobs 3600 on the RPM
autothrottle_takeoff_ga= 0 // Actually I don't know what this one is. :icon_lol:
pitch_takeoff_ga=8.0
max_pitch=10.0
max_pitch_acceleration=1.0
max_pitch_velocity_lo_alt=2.0
max_pitch_velocity_hi_alt=1.5
max_pitch_velocity_lo_alt_breakpoint=20000.0
max_pitch_velocity_hi_alt_breakpoint=28000.0
max_bank=25.0
max_bank_acceleration=1.8
max_bank_velocity=3.00
max_throttle_rate=0.10
nav_proportional_control=9.00
nav_integrator_control=0.25
nav_derivative_control=0.00
nav_integrator_boundary=2.50
nav_derivative_boundary=0.00
gs_proportional_control=9.52
gs_integrator_control=0.26
gs_derivative_control=0.00
gs_integrator_boundary=0.70
gs_derivative_boundary=0.00
yaw_damper_gain = 0.0


Chacha

Put the pointer by the upper left hand corner

Left click and hold

Drag down and to the right and highlight all text you want.

Once highlighted put the pointer over the text

Right click

Select copy

Go the section of the aircraft.cfg file that you want to add it to

Right click

Select Paste
 
Full autopilot w/speed control, 500 GPS, and radar altimeter in every a/c i have from ultralights to the heavies.

Now I'm curious...

That works for the plane but when does THE PILOT do any flying?

Is there a system installed to auto-boot / start Flight Sim / select flight /select destination / program GPS?

Do the ultralights have any weight allowance left for the pilot? (oh, but then he's not required anyway it seems)

How good is that autopilot down in the Grand Canyon?

Is there an auto-land system too?

Maybe Northwest Airlines would be as interested as I am....

<shakes head slowly while walking out the door, holding latest copy of Private Autopilot, carefully holding tongue in cheek...>
 
No AP systems cant take into account how much Beer I can haul in a AN-124 into YZF, nor the WX. So for me its planning via maps and WX charts and using my pencil and compass and protractor:icon29: Excellent point.
 
For those of you that know the logistics and physics of layouts of an aircraft, and how you can 'cheat' balances, you can lower the location of certain payloads, as well as adjust them to 'center of gravity' so that when you are airborn in 'FS', you are a bit more stable.


You have to remember that this is FS. We have to consider so many parameters and compensations. We too can cut through the half way points just as the sim does.



Bill
 
Auto pilot speed control is in the airfile not aircraft.cfg, you need a airfile editor to get into it I found this out searching for reasons why a plane would not land when used as AI, turned out the power would not go below 80% fixed the speed settings and all ok.

The autothrottle_max_rpm = 3600 // make prop jobs 3600 on the RPM should actualy be apercentage of RPM hence 90 = 90 percent not 90 RPM

autothrottle_takeoff_ga= 0 // Actually I don't know what this one is
I think it is to do with the TOGA button on the throttle pedestal on the default Boeings a one press auto throttle opening though I have never tried it =take off go around


These 2 screenies are where it is in airfile manager and the sort of settings you should have.

It will work on piston power too
 
I already have it with 90 which is 90% rpm not sure what 3600 does as it is way above 100% throttle.

Will look again tomorrow and I trust no one unless I know them, old Army habit
 
Full autopilot w/speed control, 500 GPS, and radar altimeter in every a/c i have from ultralights to the heavies.

Now I'm curious...

That works for the plane but when does THE PILOT do any flying?

Is there a system installed to auto-boot / start Flight Sim / select flight /select destination / program GPS?

Do the ultralights have any weight allowance left for the pilot? (oh, but then he's not required anyway it seems)

How good is that autopilot down in the Grand Canyon?

Is there an auto-land system too?

Maybe Northwest Airlines would be as interested as I am....

<shakes head slowly while walking out the door, holding latest copy of Private Autopilot, carefully holding tongue in cheek...>
I said there in the a/c didn't say they are used all the time and u can call it anything u want I call it doing it my way:bump:
In FS9 the autothrottle setting was usually 990 In FSX MS shows it at 110 and one of the nunerous tweaks said to set it at 110 for all a/c.
 
I don't use the AP when I'm doing a canyon run either, but two hours in an airliner - even a prop-liner - can get old after a while. It's good to let "Otto" take over for a while.

Now if I'm island hopping in the Leewards, I'll use throttle and trim. There's also an advantage of having rather easy to spot landmarks - if it's land, there's your mark! Head southeast out of Princess Julianna and the next big rock is St. Bart's. Head south and Saba's just to the right. Each hop is long enough to trim out, but not worth using autopilot.
 
I already have it with 90 which is 90% rpm not sure what 3600 does as it is way above 100% throttle.

That is 90% of N1 for jets

For Props it reads the 90 as 90 RPM (what propeller turns at 90 RPM :icon_lol:)

So I use 3600 for 3600 RPM

Technically you could set that value to 2200 which would be 2200 RPM and still get the desired results.

Auto throttle is only going to use enough power to maintain the set IAS value anyway.

Now really do we need auto throttle in a prop job well no but its fun playing with things and finding out how they work.

Will look again tomorrow and I trust no one unless I know them, old Army habit

Good idea.

I am the same way.
 
Back
Top