NASA WB-57F Canberra by "Piglet"

[GatorFlyer]

If you haven't downloaded Piglet's WB-57F yet, your missing out!

Only 2 left flying in the world today, NASA operates both as high-altitude weather research aircraft, cruising up to 60,000 feet collecting data on clouds and the earth's atmosphere.

Download it here: http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/syb.cgi?section=military&file=rb57_pak.zip

NASA's WB-57F website: http://jsc-aircraft-ops.jsc.nasa.gov/wb57/index.html

Its a great plane to fly in MFS, however, any way to fix this:

On autopilot at altitudes above about 20,000 feet, it has tendency to oscillate with pitch, going between 500 FPM up and then down. Any way to edit the cfg file to fix this and have it cruise straight and level at altitude?

Anyway to get it to cruise at 50,000+ with ease as it does in real life?

Thanks Piglet for a truly rare and well designed aircraft!

 

[falcon409]

If you haven't downloaded Piglet's WB-57F yet, your missing out! Thanks Piglet for a truly rare and well designed aircraft!

Thanks for the reminder. I've got a lot of Tim's planes but I missed this one somehow. . .going to get it now!!

 

[RL_201]

Great Video Of The NASA WB-57F

Here's a great video of the NASA WB-57F I found on youtube. If you have an account for youtube, do yourself a favour and subscribe to 8081rt's channel. He has plenty of videos from Nellis AFB, the even have a website:
http://www.nellisspotters.com/home.html

[YOUTUBE]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TBBRx6oYBok&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TBBRx6oYBok&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]​

 

[nazca_steve]

Nice model indeed, and equally amazing how far the WB-57 has come from the original English Electric A.1 back in 1949...don't forget the Canberra's 60th on the 13th, chaps!

 

[GatorFlyer]

Track it's flight from Ellington Field to Bermuda today:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/NASA926

Nice to cruise at 50,000.....surprised at that altitude they cant fly direct!

 

[Daube]

For information, this model works perfect in FSX, and is part of my FSX hangar since a long time

 

[srgalahad]

Track it's flight from Ellington Field to Bermuda today:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/NASA926

Nice to cruise at 50,000.....surprised at that altitude they cant fly direct!

So there I am, level at 50067, 18 dme west of HRV, about 20 minutes behind the real aircraft. (Real world WX. N1 @ 82%, speed matched to the flightaware speed as close as able)

The autopilot (don't try to hand-fly it) will cause the vertical speed to 'hunt' at certain altitudes and speed, but it usually stabilizes after a bit. Also, as the air data changes in the climb and with space it does have to adjust which takes a bit.

The climb can't be "set and forget" either ....5000-5500 fpm to fl300, 3000 -3800 fpm to fl400 to maintain 175-200 KIAS, about 1000 fpm there after to maintain 150-170 KIAS (TAS 350ish Knots)

The route - from the looks of it they are either following a particular pressure gradient ot a defined area to sample following the Gulf coast. It could have other factors too.. airspace requirements, looking for a 'flow' or wanting to sample things like volcanic ash distribution.. or even simply wanting to do a particular nav exercise.

By SJI, lvl FL500, ETE [LINESTRIKE]2+40[/LINESTRIKE] 2+53
By CEW Lvl Fl500, ete TXKF 2+49

Pretty darn close to Real World

Rob

 

[whitehawk_2009]

Sure is purdy!

WH