Which Connie is which?

falcon409

falcon409

Moderator
Staff member
I would love some clarification here. I know Willy will have the answer, but I wanted to get this started before I went to bed, soooooo. I know that Manfred Jahn seems to have the market pretty well cornered on the Connie business, however, after looking through page after page on flightsim.com. . .it's obvious there's no such thing as just "A Connie". So, in order to narrow down the selection process, how many different "Connies" are there and are they all separate models, or is there one base model that all the others are derived from?

Also, I am not a "systems person". Irregardless if the M. Jahn Connies have systems accurately modeled, that is low on my list of necessities. I will take the path of least resistance when flying the airplane which leaves system monitoring out completely. As long as I can set the power settings correctly and monitor my fuel, that's the extent of my workload. Thanks in advance for any assistance you can render.:salute:
 
Hi Ed,

Glad to hear you have discovered Manfred & Co's wonderful world of Lockheeds. Willy and others will probably have all sorts of different opinions but to get you going I would suggest the "standard" L-749. She looks and flies beautifully and once you get the hang of her stepping up to the stretched 1049G/H Super Connies (and their military offshoots) or the Starliner (my other favorite) is easy. These are VERY satisfying and rewarding aircraft to fly in FSX. The big radial engine management is fun and mostly intuitive. Let us hear how you get on.

Expat
 
As member in Manfreds team I cannot comment our work,but i can recommend you also Howards L-049-No VC though

look at flightsim for fsdzl049.zip


And the Avianca paint-unbelievable both in FS9 and FSX

Roland

RIP Howard
 
I would suggest the "standard" L-749.
Click to expand...

I'll echo expat's sentiments. If you decided to play with fuel management, it is much easier & straigthforward in the -749 than in the other models with long-range tanks, etc. As far as power settings go: I believe all the Manfred & team Connies have a clickable icon which automatically sets the best mixture & prop settings for your given throttle setting. It's been a while since I've flown them, so maybe someone could correct me if I'm wrong.

Whatever you decide, they're all stunning models. Good luck!
 
Here are all the basepacks I could find at Flightsim.com, Ed:

The aircraft files:

The short versions: lockheed749.zip and 749_models_update.zip

The 1049 models: l1049h.zip, l1049g.zip with update l1049g_u.zip

The military L-1049 models: ec121r.zip, navy121j.zip, r7v-1.zip, wv2-1.zip, wv2-1a.zip and wv2-2a.zip (Requires L-1049 models)

The L-1649 Starliner: starli22.zip with FDE upgrade: l-1649a_fde_30_upgrade.zip

Experimental turboprop Connie: yc-121.zip


Other files of interest:

conniesnd22.zip(Soundset)

super_constellation_fde_upgrade.zip

vc_l1049g_h.zip (Upgraded VC textures)

xc-69.zip (XC-69 / L-049 Constellation Prototype textures for the L-749 model))

l749_paintkit.zip and 1049pkit.zip (If you have ideas..)
 
Like Bill I am not going to judge our Constellation series...but I would say I am quite proud of it :)
The series now does include every one of the Lockheed triple tails starting with the L-049 going all the way to the L-1649A.
You might now that Manfred Jahn started the series with the L-1649A and then worked backwards. The L-049 was done after Manfred had moved on to the Diesel 3 and BT, but of course with his blessing and using his original Gmax files and a few years of Volkers life.

http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=copyright&fid=158117 or Lockheed_l-49_v1_0.zip
http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=copyright&fid=160764 or l-49_weather__radome.zip
http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=copyright&fid=158392 or lockheed_l-149_v1_0.zip

In general all of our Connies do require a certain amount of PIC "training" because of the built in system modeling. Showing the trottles full forward and leaving them there will cause failures.
Exceeding Vle or Vfe will cause failures. That said they are not overly hard to get used to.

Cheers
Stefan
 
Thanks for the breakdown Ferry. I've got a Navy R7V-1 (C-121J) paint that I found and wasn't sure how the models worked together.
 
My thanks to all the outstanding replies, it's very much appreciated. I have selected the 749 along with various updates (FDE, VC, Sounds, etc) and several Air Force liveries that I want to take a look at. Thanks again for the excellent information on this Classic.:applause::salute::salute::applause:
 
The L-749 is basically only more complex in the fuel tank management when compared to the L-049. Included in the packages is a detailed pilots handbook so to speak that covers all the systems. It is generally a good idea to read through that before the first flight so that you have a overall handle on the airplane.
In flight the checklist and reference tabs can provide the required reminders for how she should be flown. The biggest aid to new Connie pilots typically is the FE Status window which you can access at any time by right clicking the Checklist Icon.
It shows graphically information that in the real airplane the FE would either read from his gauges or calculate based on his handbooks.
Most important in the beginning is probably the engine status information by color coding....

RED : Requires immediate remedial action or you are earning your glider rating
YELLOW : Caution your are pushing the limits...consider backing off a bit or things might get hairy.

And finally IF you should "break" the hydraulic system by exceeding Vle or Vfe...your virtual FE can fix the RED hydraulic system with a mouse click as long as you are now below those limiting speeds.

Each update has it's own readme file which also is considered required reading...it's easy to follow the steps but due to the complex nature of the modeled system if files do not match with each other...very strange things happen :D

Cheers
Stefan
 
Hi,

two versions by Manfred, that I have not been involved in:

- the plain L-1049 (no suffix letter) with long fuselage, but 'jet-stack' engines. Just a quick fix visual model, no dedicated FDE.
- the L-1249 turboprop. No VC, relatively basic FDE due to the lack of proper performance data.

With all Connie versions together, you can more or less simulate all kind of operation that the Constellations were involved in: High-speed airliner, long-range over-water flights, cargo flights at high operating weights or perhaps the bush-pilot like operations at the end of the career, including clandestine flights into Biafra? Options are just too numerous to list them all. Have a look at Calclassic.com if you want to find out more about classic airline operations. The C-121A (L-749A) transport were only briefly used for cargo transport, but served as an VIP tranport for most of their career. If you operate them at less than full MTOW, they have an incredible acceleration on take-off.

While basically designed as an civilian airliner, military versions made up the majority of the production runs. The C-121A/B was only a small batch of aircraft, while the L-1049A/B/F were the most numerous. The L-1049A "Warning Star" Airborne Early Warning (AEW) version has quite different flight dynamics compared to the airliner/transport versions due to its major radomes. First time I loaded one, I felt like I had run into a brick wall. Might be an interesting experiance to compare the handling of the AEW version to a regular airliner. As we found out after the release, it is actually a bit too 'hot', if this is the right word for the 'Flying Speedbrake', since it uses data for the EC-121T version without upper radome. A FDE upgrade makes a radar screen available for FS9 that allows tracking AI traffic. Unfortunately, FS does not simulate AI traffic to the full range that the Warning Star would cover, and the radar is a bit too perfect for the era.

Have fun. There's a lot of different things you can do.

Best regards,
Volker
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top