Milviz DHC-3 Otter released

[joe bob]

Indicated in the manual on page 80: Max Continuous Manifold Pressure = 33.5 in Hg, Max Continuous RPM = 2200 rpm. Max for 1 minute duration is 33.5 in Hg & 2250 rpm.

Firewalling it might also be entertaining.... just saying!

Thank you, I am obsessed with such numbers.
ps I believe you meant max it is 36" Manifold pressure

 

[Timmy74]

I am getting quite a frame rate hit with this aircraft. Is anyone else getting this issue?

I have tried several different airports and sea bases -same scenario-with different manufactures ie; Carenado, Aerosoft, and my frame rate drops from high twenties down to 5-10fps...!?

Or could it be something else in the sim that I may not be aware of folks....?

Any input would be great to hear for I have chomping at the bit for this aircraft and hope its not full of frame rate gremlins?

Cheers,
Tim.

 

[joe bob]

I have not noticed any so far.

 

[Cees Donker]

Tim,
I have a very average computer and it works fine. No framerate hit here.

Cees

 

[Timmy74]

Thank you gentlemen for your responses. I have no idea what is going on here!!?

 

[heywooood]

I'm just going sit here on the fence too until this is sorted out. I hate to waste money on a model that eats FPS when there are plenty of very good ones that don't...no matter how 'awesome' it is

 

[thefrog]

No problem with fps here and my system is quite dated now

 

[ceo1944]

I can understand caution and I'm not arguing with those that choose to exercise it, but in this case, if anyone really wants this Otter now - I can see no good reason to hold back.

Only one person is reporting any problem with frame rates, while several with older systems have reported no noticeable hit at all. This means that the airplane is exceptionally good at frame rates, if older systems run it fine - there is nothing built into it that will hit your system hard. There may be some quirk that a few people come across, and one of those people could be you, although the odds are greatly against that.

If there's some bottleneck, Milviz will fix that in the first service pack. And if worst comes to worst, you could get a refund, but in reality, that's so unlikely it's no reason to deny yourself an airplane you want now, because that's always true.

If you're just on the fence about wanting it, that's another thing, and I'd hold back until I was sure before I spent the money for sure!

But I wouldn't worry too much about frame rates unless lots of people are saying they are dicey - any airplane can have a weird problem with any system at any time. Everyone could be raving about the fantastic frame rates and you could get smacked. That's life.

Just my opinion on this, your bucks are certainly yours.

Dutch

PS. I had no role in the development of the Milviz Otter.

 

[YoYo]

I'm just going sit here on the fence too until this is sorted out. I hate to waste money on a model that eats FPS when there are plenty of very good ones that don't...no matter how 'awesome' it is

It isnt true, no ANY fps hit. The quality of this is near the same like default aircraft. If someone has a problem its a his hardware or...the scenery.

 

[alehead]

This confused me, until I realized that I had made an error on the product page... It should (and now does) read: "Four Body Configurations - Standard Wheels, Floats, Amphibious Floats, Skis, each with individually tuned flight models."

Thanks!

You're welcome! This is definitely my kind of aircraft, I already have the Beaver... sorry if I confused you...

A

 

[BendyFlyer]

Well, I think it is a fine product. So I would like to say that is a job well done to all those at Milviz who produced this one. Really spoilt now for de Havilland STOL aeroplanes with the Beaver and the Otter.

It worked as advertised and no immediate bugs that I can see. I have a low end system and it coped quite well with this aircraft and model now and then it takes a few secs to catch up with texture reloads but that is my system not the model and nothing that causes me any concern. I have had all the various renditions of the Otter over the years and tweaked a few to try and make them realistic, well this one requires no tweaks as far as I am concerned and behaved exactly as I would expect a large single engine STOL aeroplane to work. Stable in all facets of flight. I like the textures and it is very faithful to an aircraft of its time and period. I also think they did a good job on the sound and you get that low end rumble characteristic of this type of engine.

 

[henrystreet]

I also think they did a good job on the sound and you get that low end rumble characteristic of this type of engine.

Wow, yes the sounds are exceptional. Really surprised me how good they were.

 

[Javis]

I have had all the various renditions of the Otter over the years..

Which exactly may have been that, BF ?....

To my knowledge, and other than its older Beaver cousin, there has been only *one* rendition of the DHC-3 Otter radial engine version for FSX. Developed by Virtual Col and, pardon me for saying so, not exactly in the quality a long overlooked venerable workhorse like the Otter deserves. The only (very) decent DHC-3 Otter rendition for FS9 was a freeware model produced by Eugene Heyart. But it depicted the 1000 hp PZL engine version and a turbo Otter was also released. Before that, i.e. FS95/98, FS2K, FS2K2 we had the wonderful true DHC-3 radial renditions done by Fred Banting and Steven Grant to our disposal. It was because of these superb creations that i became a real Otter fan ( i have never even seen or heared a real DHC-3... )

As far as payware is concerned, apart from Virtual Col i actually can't think of any commercial developer ever releasing a DHC-3 Otter package for any MSFS version. We had to wait for Oktober this year for that to happen !

Finally, it's been a very good year for the Otter conglomeration ! ( and i'm not talking about the fact that yourstruly was working on a DHC-3 Otter himself, now resting in peace in the Max dungeons, obviously.. http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforu...list-for-FSX?p=1062494&viewfull=1#post1062494 )

I also think they did a good job on the sound and you get that low end rumble characteristic of this type of engine.

Personally i think that's an understatement, FB. I believe it is one of the best radial engine soundsuites ever !

Cheers,
Jan

 

[THibben]

I have one problem with my installation. My control hardware is all Precision Flight Controls. I have the control console, rudder pedals and 737 yoke. The problem I have is with the visual throttle quadrant. The throttle doesn't move when I move it on the PFC quadrant. The engine accelerates as it should but the throttle visually stays fixed. Both the mixture and the RPM work fine.

This have never happened on any other aircraft I have checked using both the PFC and USB settings.


Tom

 

[henrystreet]

I have one problem with my installation. My control hardware is all Precision Flight Controls. I have the control console, rudder pedals and 737 yoke. The problem I have is with the visual throttle quadrant. The throttle doesn't move when I move it on the PFC quadrant. The engine accelerates as it should but the throttle visually stays fixed. Both the mixture and the RPM work fine.

This have never happened on any other aircraft I have checked using both the PFC and USB settings.


Tom

Tom,

With the Otter, what I am seeing is, the throttle lever on my HOTAS must be mapped to "THROTTLE" axis, not "THROTTLE1" axis for the VC lever to work. Same with pitch lever, "PROPPITCH" not "PROPITCH1". I use FSUIPC and have confirmed this behavior.

Hope this helps.

 

[THibben]

Tom,

With the Otter, what I am seeing is, the throttle lever on my HOTAS must be mapped to "THROTTLE" axis, not "THROTTLE1" axis for the VC lever to work. Same with pitch lever, "PROPPITCH" not "PROPITCH1". I use FSUIPC and have confirmed this behavior.

Hope this helps.

Hi Henry,

I checked my settings and I have "throttle" selected but for what ever reason it does not show it moving. It works and the RPM changes etc. but no visual movement.

On another subject. The manual shows a walk around exterior inspection. Do you know how to get into that?

Thanks for your help.

Tom

 

[henrystreet]

Hi Henry,

I checked my settings and I have "throttle" selected but for what ever reason it does not show it moving. It works and the RPM changes etc. but no visual movement.

On another subject. The manual shows a walk around exterior inspection. Do you know how to get into that?

Thanks for your help.

Tom

A poster over at AVSIM had the same behavior with the VC power lever. He created an FSUIPC profile and assigned "THROTTLE" to get the lever to visually move. In my setup, I do have a profile so that is probably why mine is moving as expected.

Regards the exterior inspection, all I am seeing is a diagram in the POH...no mention of pre-defined views or procedures in the sim.

 

[THibben]

A poster over at AVSIM had the same behavior with the VC power lever. He created an FSUIPC profile and assigned "THROTTLE" to get the lever to visually move. In my setup, I do have a profile so that is probably why mine is moving as expected.

Regards the exterior inspection, all I am seeing is a diagram in the POH...no mention of pre-defined views or procedures in the sim.

Okay, Thanks. I am not sure what a profile is but I will look into it.

Tom

 

[BendyFlyer]

Which exactly may have been that, BF ?.... I became a real Otter fan ( i have never even seen or heard a real DHC-3... )

Jan um well I cannot say every Otter ever made for flight sim, though there was as FS9 version that I ported across into FSX but it was hopeless. AS for FSX there was the Virtual Col version which a search of the Library here shows I spent a great deal of time attempting to get it to behave like a real Otter should or would, close but lots of issues with textures etc but that said it was not that bad. Then came the AH/JF version - Lots of eye candy but the air. file and probably the mdl. files are a problem as there is build in issues with excessive acceleration in flight, overspeed and somehow mach buffet when you get to 125 kts and it is a frames/fps hog despite having many many nice points it was not as far as I am concerned authentic. I have seen and heard real Otters and have personally flown the Beaver in the RW. I have also spent many thousand of hours in noisy box fuselage STOL aeroplanes at about 105 knots, they are all good climbers (not fast but great angle and ROC intially to get you out of tight spot with ease, with steep nose down attitude on approach with full flap and marvellous low speed control right to the stall. Could not achieve this with the VirtualCol or the AH versions. So I tested this one, set up power and attitude for a 65 knot approach and it held it flawlessly all the way down from 3000ft to touchdown exactly as I would expect it to do. For that alone it gets a big tick. Likewise 105 knots is an ambitious cruise speed but near enough.

Some have said the Otter is like a truck, well maybe no it is just a classic STOL aeroplane, they are all like this very stable, slow and compared to even a Cessna, they have quite pedestrian performance and that's the charm of STOL aeroplanes and STOL flying, that is what they were built to do, big loads short fields. The Otter is a very large aeroplane next to a Beaver with nearly twice the volumetric and weight carrying capacity but with a big box fuselage and a fat STOL wing profile. On top of that it has built in drag from struts wheels and or floats not to mention its general shape. If you ever get the chance to see one you will be impressed how big these are, especially if they are on floats. Of course its successor with 2 PT6's is charming and also great fun but that has been done well already.

Then of course last but now there is the current MILVIZ rendition and it is in my humble opinion an authentic rendition and a lot of time and trouble went into the texturing etc which is superb. So that's my salad bar of Otters. I find them to be an aeroplane that grows on you, they are ruggedly styled but you want to have fun and use them as they were used, try flying them to their STOL parameters into tight strips with big loads, mountain side sloping runways. The only thing I can say is that finally, along with the Beaver, we have STOL aeroplanes that fly and perform like STOL aeroplanes, proper STOL flight has been sadly neglected in the real world and the sim world because it is a specialty operating environment but it teaches you precise speed/attitude control power/performance control, my kind of flying (that and radial engined aeroplanes in general) and now I can really explore this side of the simulation environment properly.

Point taken about the sound it is very very good. I can almost feel that engine rumbling along.

Well I am now a very happy camper, the MILVIZ Beaver and Otter, Milton Schupes Dash 7 and the Aerosoft Twin Otter, my cup runneth over with STOL aeroplanes built by de Havilland Canada.

Anyhow for those around if you want to really go bush flying with a model that performs like a STOL aeroplane should but looks great, has an appropriate vintage and modern VC and amazing sound package, then this is it, FULL STOP.

 

[stearmandriver]

Can anyone comment on how she wheel lands?