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Revamping the Ito Stiletto

falcon409

falcon409

Moderator
Staff member
I've been piddling with the VC for my own enjoyment. . .cleaning it up, giving it a little better resolution. Given that the airplane was difficult to fly for many reasons discussed in other threads, this one doesn't disappoint, lol. The AP makes it easier, but I found that for some reason once the airspeed drops below 290kias the AP disconnects. No such thing as a long, shallow approach and low TD speeds. Anything below 200kias has you dropping faster than you'd like and the fwd panel obstructs your view if you intend to stay in the VC all the way to TD. The Drag Chute is a nice touch and on a 10,000' ft rwy, touching down at 200kts, I still taxied off before reaching the last turnout.

I plan to redo the exterior as well. I found at least one good Walk-Around site that gives me enough to go by.
 
Thats looking really really nice :).. I was absolutly delighted when i found the Nasa document on coupled Inertia with all the main data from the X-3 published right there, including the MOI's.. It'll be hard to wait to find a workable schematic so i can build this thing :) :) .. I'll have to actually make two fde's as i want to include the original design, and then the modification they made when they moved the horizontal stabilizer 11 inches as that made significant changes in the flight characteristics. I also want to include the engines that never appeared.. No reason is ever given why they never appeared, but they didnt. It wasnt Douglas's fault.. It'll be fun..
 
warchild said:
Thats looking really really nice :).. I was absolutly delighted when i found the Nasa document on coupled Inertia with all the main data from the X-3 published right there, including the MOI's.. It'll be hard to wait to find a workable schematic so i can build this thing :) :) .. I'll have to actually make two fde's as i want to include the original design, and then the modification they made when they moved the horizontal stabilizer 11 inches as that made significant changes in the flight characteristics. I also want to include the engines that never appeared.. No reason is ever given why they never appeared, but they didnt. It wasnt Douglas's fault.. It'll be fun..
Click to expand...

Westinghouse' jet engine program, other than the very low powered, axial flow J-34, was a disaster. Both the Navy and Air Force fell on their swords betting that Westinghouse' J-40 and other projects could power airplanes like the "Gutlass Cutlass" but it never happened. Wright, though making the J-65 (a British knockoff) and Westinghouse were on their last legs, never stayed in the jet engine business. It took awhile for P&W to come along with the J-52 and J-57, which were multiple spool, axial flow engines that were successful and had growth potential. They eventually led to the great JT-3, JT-8 and later our hi-bypass fan series of jet engines.
 
Last edited:
Mike71 said:
Wright's jet engine program, other than the very low powered, axial flow J-34, was a disaster. Both the Navy and Air Force fell on their swords betting that Wright's J-40 and other projects could power airplanes like the "Gutlass Cutlass" but it never happened. Wright was on it's last legs, never stayed in the jet engine business. It took awhile for P&W to come along with the J-52 and J-57, which were multiple spool, axial flow engines that were successful and had growth potential. They eventually led to the great JT-3, JT-8 and later our hi-bypass fan series of jet engines.
Click to expand...

Wright huh?? And they went put of business in the middle of this whole thing?? Damn.. Now i understand why they switched gears and focused on coupled inertia. Well, theres still the fact that they moved the horizontal stabilizer 11 inches and it made a notable improvement in the =flight characteristics ( notable as in someone wrote it down and i read it, but i dont expect miracles )..
Ya know? The Mitsubishi MU-2 is another one of those planes.. Like the X-3 It's design lead to the deaths of a lot of pilots. You see, the horizontal stabilizer was designed, upside down. But rather than scrapping the plane, the FAA set up requirements for new MU-2 pilots and owners to have to take a special class to learn how to safely fly the thing. The MU-2 is now known as a fast maneuverable entry level business turbo-prop. The X-3 didnt get a reprieve.. We only know its failings. It'll be fun learning..
 
Mike71 said:
Meant Westinghouse (see rewrite above) - my 75 year old brain slipped a little --
Click to expand...

Ahhh... Heh. Easy enough mistake too make. No worries.. I make those mistakes all the time.. Just last week, I went out to make a pot of coffee, so I shuffled into the kitchen and propped myself against the counter as i have to do. I pour the last of the pot into my cup, and empty the basket into an old coffee container we use for grounds; fill the basket with fresh coffee, fill the reservoir with water, turn it on and shuffle back to my chair.. About two hours later i've got my breath back, so i shuffle back to the kitchen looking forward to that nice cup of hot coffee, and there, on the counter is the coffee pot i had forgotten to put back into the machine, floating somewhat in about an eighth inch of hot water.. Felt like an utter idiot.. Had to start all over again, so it was another three hours and i finally got my coffee, :)..
 
A zillion years ago in another century I tried to get my employer to get a MU2 as they offered great performance for what we were doing and were dirt cheap. The issue with the MU had to do with technique engine out. The MU2 used spoilers in roll control, much in the way modern jets do. If one uses roll control to pick up the dead wing a huge amount of drag ensues which can negate acceleration and climb performance. Theoretically as jet pilots we were hammered mercilessly in the simulator (and a few times IRL) in use of the rudder, not the roll axis. UAL managed to nearly crater a 747 in SFO with an ill trained FO due to this factor many blue moons ago.

Suffice it t say that the market segment purchasing the MU2 generally didn't invest in sufficient training. I am not aware if any Level D full motion simulators for thins aircraft, though it is possible one might exist. Our pretty good record flying heavy iron is mainly due to the wonderful resources and redundancy available to a fully trained crew. Initial qualification usually was six weeks of very intense training followed by sometimes weeks of OJT. Recurrent training was another 10 or so days a year spread over two sessions.

The planes are certified by what is possible with very skilled test pilots using normal procedures. Your mileage may vary!

I puked four engines, one at a time, over the years, the training works!
 
Some WIP shots:
Cockpit/VC pretty much done
Adjusted some of the colors (seat, backrest, catapults)

Exterior is just getting started. I have two pages of a walk-around with good close-ups so I'll do what I can to replicate what I can see.

X-3_WIP-004.jpg


X-3_WIP-002.jpg


X-3_WIP-003.jpg
 
I have completed my meager contributions to the current X-3 Stiletto. While there are two variances in the original download (one designated texture.ref) the difference is so insignificant that it wasn't worth including in my release. I will release the textures for the main texture folder with a short readme. Also, I will zip up everything else I have as far as layered files goes, on the off chance that they might be interesting/usable by anyone else who wants to expand on what I did.

I'll get them uploaded in the next hour, but may not be available for download for a time after that. . .as soon as Rami can get to them.

NOTE:While zipping the work up I realized that with the complete and extensive re-do of the VC and the gauge layout, etc., I would need to include the new panel.cfg file and all the gauges I used as well. Because of that, you cannot mix and match. . .in other words you either use my work or you use the original, but you can't just use the textures I did for the VC but use the original panel.cfg. . .it won't work that way. More in the readme!
 
fliger747 said:
A zillion years ago in another century I tried to get my employer to get a MU2 as they offered great performance for what we were doing and were dirt cheap. The issue with the MU had to do with technique engine out. The MU2 used spoilers in roll control, much in the way modern jets do. If one uses roll control to pick up the dead wing a huge amount of drag ensues which can negate acceleration and climb performance. Theoretically as jet pilots we were hammered mercilessly in the simulator (and a few times IRL) in use of the rudder, not the roll axis. UAL managed to nearly crater a 747 in SFO with an ill trained FO due to this factor many blue moons ago.

Suffice it t say that the market segment purchasing the MU2 generally didn't invest in sufficient training. I am not aware if any Level D full motion simulators for thins aircraft, though it is possible one might exist. Our pretty good record flying heavy iron is mainly due to the wonderful resources and redundancy available to a fully trained crew. Initial qualification usually was six weeks of very intense training followed by sometimes weeks of OJT. Recurrent training was another 10 or so days a year spread over two sessions.

The planes are certified by what is possible with very skilled test pilots using normal procedures. Your mileage may vary!

I puked four engines, one at a time, over the years, the training works!
Click to expand...

heh.. most likely i became fixated on the upside down horizontal stabilizer.. In X-plane it caused ( or i believe it caused ) some fairly intense yaw problems and i would have to enter a turn rudder first, then ailerons.. to counter it.. Could have been bad programming too..
 
A variation for the VC:

black_cockpit-001.jpg


Also did a gray exterior and found that, in fact, this airplane unlike every other Ito one I've ever tried, actually accepts an alpha channel. So putting a shine on the exterior is possible.
 
Took it for an hour and a half flight yesterday and yes, indeed, there's instability in there. Autopilot helps a lot but just like in the F-104 turns must be gradual - except I found in this bird the turns have to be even more gradual than in the -104. Lots of wobblin' and bobblin', minor but it's still there. If you've flown the F-104 in FS9, either the CS or the Cloud9 versions, it will help a lot in learning a little faster how to handle this airplane. It lands HOT - 200 KIAS or a little better, with a long, flat approach through a letter box slot, and has to be flown down right onto the pavement.
 
SSI01 said:
Took it for an hour and a half flight yesterday and yes, indeed, there's instability in there. Autopilot helps a lot but just like in the F-104 turns must be gradual - except I found in this bird the turns have to be even more gradual than in the -104. Lots of wobblin' and bobblin', minor but it's still there. If you've flown the F-104 in FS9, either the CS or the Cloud9 versions, it will help a lot in learning a little faster how to handle this airplane. It lands HOT - 200 KIAS or a little better, with a long, flat approach through a letter box slot, and has to be flown down right onto the pavement.
Click to expand...
The 104 analogy is a good one. . .very similar in the way they both respond and definitely on approach.
 
The X-3 was the study for the 104. Thats why i call the 104 the bastard child of the X-3. Data gained from the X-3 as well as the X-3's wing, went directly into the design of the F-104. Thats why the horizontal stibilizer in the 104 is so much higher than in the X-3. It helps to counter adverse yaw.
Anyway.. glad to see everything is working in FSX and Ito-San's flight modl is so accurate. Guess i'll shut up now..
 
Came across interesting info concerning the X-3 Stiletto in an online NASA ebook pdf called "Probing the Sky" by Curtis Peebles, published in 2014.

Chapter 4: Unfulfilled Promise, Serendipitous Success: The Douglas X-3 Stiletto.

Perhaps it can be of some help to members if not to only further one's knowledge in a chronological historic way concerning this unique aircraft.

https://www.docdroid.net/hN7AxLJ/probing-the-sky.pdf#page=4
 
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