| Rating
Guide |
The panel, all systems off.
The aircraft, Short Brothers factory livery.
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Authors:
Panel: Dai Griffiths, Dragonflight
Aircraft: Chris Bawden. |
Description:
A stunning and ground breaking Shorts 360 package. |
D/L
Size:
4,445 kb |
Format:
Zipped |
Simulators:
FS98 |
| Reviewed
by: Jonas Lundh, AVSIM Staff Reviewer |
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Possible
Rating Score: 1 to 5 stars
with 5 stars being exceptional
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Without
any further warnings Dai Griffiths released this gold nugget! If
you are one of us who truly enjoyed Eric Ernstīs 757 for the realism
and in-depth system complexity, you going to love this one. If you prefer
the default MS Cessna and frequently use the Ctrl-E shortcut to
start the engines... well forget it!
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Background and SD3-60 history
According to the documentation (more on that later) this panel is
more or less created for the Shorts flight school. The panel designer
Dai Griffiths has been given full access to all documentation, a training
video and a training cockpit. As Dai tells "Of all the information
I had the video turned out to be a goldmine". This seems to show why
so many of the more successful panel and aircraft designers refuse
to work on anything without the proper facts. The aircraft replicated
in this package is the Shorts SD3-60 (S360). Perhaps it
is most well-known to people because of its exterior. To be honest,
it looks like a square-shaped box with wings.
The S360, image by Ian Pearson
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The history of the
aircraft goes back to 1959 when it was designed as a short-field,
low cost aircraft. The first flyable aircraft, the SC-7 Skyvan, rolled
down a runway in 1963. After several other designs such as the SD3-30
with its twin tail, in 1981 the SD-3-60-100 flew the first time. The
SD-3-60-200 is powered by two PT6A-65R engines with five-bladed propellers.
The cabin with space for 30 pax is unpressurised, although the aircraft
is certified for 20,000 feet. The reason is to reach some of the high
situated airfields in South America.
The normal cruising altitude is however FL060 and matching speed is
apr. 160 knots, or 190 for high speed cruise. Nowadays the SD-3-60
is not in production. One of the major reason was Shortīs inability
to produce enough to satisfy the market, hence many purchasers went
elsewhere.
The panel
This is a amazing piece of work—no efforts seem to be left out to
make this as realistic as possible. First of all, there is no way
you could even get the engines started without reading the documentation
that comes in the package! There are several subpanels such as overhead,
center and avionics in addition to the ordinary main panel—all of
them needed often. One great thing is that Dai has given the user
a option to click to make the correct subpanel active; very good! When
flying at night you will notice that Dai has gotten rid of the horrible
FS98 orange glowing panels and replaced those with realistic lightning.
Main panel, notice the lights and the short cuts to all subpanels
Overhead, also with lights on. All systems on internal power.
Right pilots panel with gear and flaps
The complex and realistic avionics subpanel
Center console with power levers, takeoff set
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According to Dai there is no lightning in the gauges on the S360; all light comes from separate "torches". This is also very carefully
modeled and with a very good result. When you have been setting and looking
at all the buttons (I admit it, I am a 'buttonoholic') and gotten the
right feel for things it would be time to start for a short flight
around your favorite airfield. Hey, donīt even think about reaching
for the J++ and CTRL-SHIFT F4... it wont do any good with this aircraft.
Dai has supplied us with extensive checklists; all checks and actions
described in them is possible except for the maneuvering of the air-condition,
ain´t that great!?!
The first thing you would be doing is to get electric power to the
a/c; do this by reaching for the Batteries and flip them on, put the
master power to INTERNAL, check essential services to normal, generators
off, shedding buses to EMGY and invertors on. This is the kind of
realism I enjoy, and I can ensure you that this is not all—for instance
you will probably want to continue to get ground power and make some
tests before you reach for the starter switches.
The engine startup procedure is also quite magnificent; the only drawback
is that the prop- and power levers are a bit hard to operate. The reason
for this is inherent in FS98 and its poor ability to simulate turboprops. One
more nice detail about the panel is that all switches work very well;
you will be able to see whether it is on or off—this is not the case
on all panels. Also operation of the switch is true to real life— if there is a three way switch you will have to click it more than
once to get it thorough all the way. Another brilliant part of the
panel that you might easily forget, with all the different systems
you have to work with, is the sounds. There are sounds implemented on
just about everything, and they are really good! No silent switch clicking
with this panel, and when a alarm goes off it really goes off!
Let's take a short look at each subpanel; first out is the 1P-Primary flight
instruments. Some of the features out of the ordinary here are the
GPWS that works very much as does the real one, the FCP-65 flight director.
The flight director functions pretty much as a ordinary autopilot except
that you have no Alt Hold option. Other nice things are the lighting,
the fast access to other subpanels and the warning lights pushbuttons.
Let's check the first officer panel; here you will find the gear lever
with a working gear horn test switch, flap indicator and all the other
gauges youīd expect to find here. Continue down to the 2P-Avionics
panel; this area contains all the radios, emergency parking brakes
and prop-pitch indicators.
The later will be used when you do some of the pre-takeoff checks.
The radios are nonstandard and can hold a multitude of preprogrammed
frequencies. There's one option that I have never seen before, two active
ADFs! There is also a dummy GPS which the user can replace and mount
with a third party GPS, or as Dai puts it, "Simply note it as a squawk".
The S360 is not standard fitted with any GPS. There is also an avionics
master switch that you will be using in order to not blow the radios
when switching power on and off. Behind the overhead there is a roof
console; this area houses two low pressure fuel pumps, crossfeed and
emergency gear drop. Try starting without the fuel pumps, it wont work!
On to the 3C-Centre Console; this is where you will find the power,
prop and HP fuel levers—the power levers are a replicate of the real
turboprop power levers and work as they should. There is even a detent
at Flight Idle that has to be operated in order to reduce power further.
The fuel and prop lever is best manipulated with the mouse; this is
a bit tricky but adds to realism. All operations are according to the
SOP; however, FS98 has its limitations in the Turboprop aspect so some
things are a bit fuzzy. Letīs hope for a FS2000 Pro update in the future.
The exact operation of the levers is quite complicated but Dai gives
you much help with his extraordinary documentation! Also on the center
console are the trim indicators, flap lever and the control locks. The
control locks are used in taxi to prevent overspeeding and seems to
work in the proper way.
Look up again; here we will find the 4P-Engine
Services panel, this is very much used part of the panel with over
30 usable buttons! The systems found here is anti-ice, heating, fuel management, starters
and electric's. There is no point in going through all of them in
this review; but the startup sequence is a gem! There is also a system
for takeoff reserve power for you to try out. As you would suspect,
almost all of the switches have an effect on some other part of the
panel, just as it should be.
On to the 7P-Hydraulics Panel. This is
where you check and set the hydraulics; again, a true to real world
part of the panel—no pressure means for instance no working flaps, just as
it should be. In addition to the hydraulics panel there is a separate
panel with a working steering tiller (you can till steer on the ground
using your yoke) and parking brakes. As for the 10P Lighting panel, well the
name pretty much tells you what this is. Also found here are the pax
signs switches. One minor detail here is the three dummy switches;
these can not be operated. However this is understandable since there
is no support for correct lighting in FS98.
The last sub panel is
the 11P Systems Test Panel. This is the only one that can not be reached
via the shortcut areas on the main panel—no big deal since you will
only use it at startup. This is the place where you test all the systems
and warnings, and works 100% as youīd expect it to do. One fun thing is
the fire alarm—I tested it but when I flipped the switch back to
the neutral the alarm still sounded. It took me a while to realize
that I had to cancel the alarm on the main panel as well—well done
Dai!
Errors
Nope, not bugs, errors. Dai has included some excitement in this panel.
This is one of very few FS98 panels that triggers errors not dependent
on the built-in FS98 error generator. I have yet to explore some of
them, but there is one that is very easy to "trigger". Try to taxi
away with the Ground Power Unit attached... sounds expensive.
Some of the provided failures are engine failure, hydraulics failure
and various instrument failures. The beauty of it is that you will be
able to fix the problems with using the emergency checklists included
and activating the standby systems. To be honest I donīt think there
is any panel out there with all these features. I have not yet had
enough flying time with the panel (some 8 hours) to get a feel for
how common this is, but it seems like it wonīt happen too often.
You will also be given the possibility to try out some of the backups
by following some procedures included in the documentation.
Positive climb, gears up, side pilot panel open
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At cruise, notice the low fuel pressure
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Final at Karlstad
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Taxi to active rwy at Karlstad (ESOK) airport
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Cruising at 3000 feet, over Värmland and lake Vänern
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Short final
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The aircraft
With this much of a panel one can easy forget that there has to be an aircraft included...
So far the aircraft
constructed by Chris Bawden seems to be spot on in regards to flight
dynamics; no doubt this panel requires some magic sense for the air
files which Mr. Bawden seems to have. The handling is smooth and pleasant
just as I want it to be. Of course I have not flown any real S360īs (guess
why I like Flight Sims so much) other than as a passenger, and unfortunately
I have not been able to verify the flight model with anyone who knows
the S360. On the other hand, when you read the documentation and realize
that the package has been made with the support of Short Brothers
flight school you must assume that the model is correct. The sad thing
is that with this panel you almost forget about the work with the
flight model, but credit must be given to such a good one!
The visuals is quite OK, nothing to get excited about and unfortunately
no moving parts. Also I find it a bit surprising that the aircraft
has the old "transparent disk" propellers. But, you won't have much
time to look at the outside anyway...
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Test
System
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Dell
D233 PII 233 MHz
Windows98
96 Megs RAM
3dfx Voodoo 3, 16 meg |
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Summary
Great package! Please Dai, give us more panels, we need you!
:) This is exactly the panel I like the most; everything is there.
To be honest, I have been sitting in front of the computer for hours
not even bothering to take off. The aircraft is okay, and the flight model
seems to be spot on.
How about your social life? Well... it gets a bit disturbed when you
get your hands on Daiīs package, but on the other hand, such a complex
panel really gives you a reason to invite a Flight Sim friend home for
some copiloting!
The Aircraft file s360ac.zip and Panel file s360gau.zip are available at the AVSIM Library.
