P-38L Lightning for MSFS - Released 9-30-21

[dcc]

Hi P-38 nut. It was just a comment. So do you think that color is right? I´m one of tens of thousands that buy products and know how to use them and add a few itens and do some repairs, not changing anything like this. And the colour of my liking will be the real one, and I simply don´t know what will be. So I have to rely in experts like you, Sir. Will you be so kind and teach me if that colour in that situation is right and, if not, how to change it? Thanks

I think the color is pretty good (I've never seen the P-38s turbos glowing irl but I've seen glowing turbos on automotive engines), I just think it's a bit bright.


Their implementation is quite clever. They're using the sim's 'logo' light feature (tail logo light on airliners, etc.). They put two invisible 'lights' hovering over each turbos that are always on shining down on the turbos. The dimmer values change with power setting (or something related to temperature, not sure...). pretty clever.


If you go to the parent folder (flyingiron-p38l) you'll find a subfolder called Effects. In that are two files called LIGHT_FIS_GlowingMetalRed.fx and LIGHT_FIS_GlowingMetalYellow.fx. If you want to edit these to change the brightness make backups first and then open each up and change the setting near the very bottom called Intensity.


I set the red one to 0.05 and the yellow one to 0.15 for now.


I have only minimal references for how it looks on the real plane. It's mentioned a time or two in P-38 books, but I did ask a P-38 pilot about this during an interview I did some 20 years ago when I was working on my FS P-38s. (I implemented this feature, albeit rather crudely, on my FS9 P-38s.) That pilot told me he recalled seeing the glow only in low light and only at pretty high power. I think FlyingIron did quite well in that regard, but I could see it a bit too much in daylight so I decided to tone it down a bit. My settings above may be too dim. I haven't had much time to play around with it yet.


- dcc

 

[Browncoat]

I picked up the Lightning during the Black Friday sale today. So far so good. The engine sounds don't seem quite up to par with what I'm used to (I'm spoiled by DCC's P-38 sounds), but it seems to be a fine ship.

Now, I do notice that I have to put in right rudder trim to keep the wings level with both engine running. Not something I expected. I also noticed that the autopilot altitude selector doesn't work, or rather the P-38 won't go for and capture the altitudes I select in the auto pilot tab of the tablet like the 109 and Spitfire do.