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An aircraft you HAVE to try out!!!

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Guest Dominik Mann

I hope you don't mind my promoting a plane like this, especially since I've taken the liberty of adding a couple of screenshots - but I thought that if I posted in the MSFS General forum there might be a higher chance for me to spread the word :-) .Anyway, I just found this puppy over at flightsim.com. Built by Nick Pike, this plane is called the C4 SST, and appears to be either a mid-sized supersonic airliner or a high-class biz jet. It has retractable canards right below the cockpit and a twin engine pack looking a lot like a Concorde engine nacelle beneath the fuselage. However, what makes this plane really special is the amazing panel/systems suite, which can be described most accurately as a "XML Galore". All systems are highly automated - heck, you can even have the A/P perform the entire take-off sequence! Throttles, canards, gear...everything can be operated via the autopilot. However, I'm sure I only scratched the surface so far, because I just had enough time for a five-minutes check flight.But, as I said before, do give it a try! The file name is c4sst.zip.Gotta give it a serious try tonight...and while we're at it, you think somebody might do a more "neutral" business jet-like livery? :-) Just asking - I will not mind at all if nobody would be willing to do one. It's only that my repainting skills are very basic.Cheers,

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Guest

Looks pretty damn smooth! Thanks for the heads-up... Let us know what she is like to land - can you see out when that nose is pitched up? Any interior pics?

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Guest Dominik Mann

Gonna take a few more shots tonight - right now I'm in the middle of renovating my home and only took a short break for some coffee and to check emails ;-) . But, judging from the few minutes I flew this bird, the FM feels very smooth indeed. I think the A/P even includes an automatic landing sequence which can fly you right down onto the tarmac, and then trigger the wheel and air brakes as well as lower the landing gear for you. As I said, I got to check it out in more detail, but that autopilot suite looks D@MN fine indeed!

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Guest Ken Meier

You beat me on your post Dominik, I was planning to spread the word as well. Nick has done an amazing job on this model, but then he built the awesome Boeing 575 Concept plane for FS2000 which converts very nicely to FS2002.Some of the features include, (from the readme.txt)1) Seperate lighting switches for adjustable landing lights and navigation lights, these types having illuminated lenses. Also taxi, strobe, beacon and logo lights.2) Ailerons, elevators and elevons. Two stage rudder.3) Deployable Canards. Not eye candy. Aerodynamically operational for landing. Can also be used for shorter take offs.4) Deployable animated passenger steps, illuminated at night. Will only deploy at zero ground speed when using the panel gauge. Best not to use the spoiler key, as this will deploy in flight and the aircraft will crash.5) Transparent passenger windows, illuminated at night.6) Fully animated Pilot (best seen with DVC) and partially animated Copilot. Animated yokes and rudder pedals.7) Landing gear with locking struts stowed in wing mounted gear pods.8) Variable engine inlet door position with speed and variable area nozzles with engine power.9) Rotating wheels. Steering nose wheel.10) Afterburners.11) Animated exhausts. Realistic smoke, wing mist and wingtip contrails effects appear with use of the 'I' key.12) DVC and conventional cockpit surround views.13) Custom panel with many additional integrated pop-up windows. Mostly CRT with touch screen (mouse) technology. The vast majority of the panel gauges are coded using the new FS2002 XML format (over 14). Automated functions such as auto take off, auto land, auto AP off and auto taxi speed (see details below). Also has working fuel dump gauges.15) Panel sound set. You even hear the sonic boom when breaking the sound barrier. K

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Guest Dominik Mann

Geez, I knew I had come across Nick's name (no pun intended ;-) ) before, but could not place him...! Yeah, I am familiar with his Boeing 575 Concept, and I liked it a lot. Got to dig it out from my FS add-on CDs.Sure would be nice to have a GMax'ed re-pop of that one, eh? :D

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Guest Dominik Mann

Well, I just almost completed my first serious C4 flight - EDDF to Reina Sofia airport on Tenerife. I made a Direct GPS flight plan, thinking that if you are flying a Mach-2 airplane you should avoid en-route turns whenever possible - curve radii do tend to become very large at that speed! :-shy Apart from that, there isn't any air traffic at the recommended cruise alt of 66,000 feet, so there is no real need to stick to airways, IMHO. Lastly, I think a supersonic passenger plane would make sense only if it were able to fly between points A and B directly.I took off from EDDF shortly after 0800 a.m. local time and had downloaded METAR data via FS's built-in weather generator. Since the METAR file was actually one from around 2200 hours today (09/23/02) and we are currently having some stiff wind, I departed from runway 7L into some serious crosswinds of 15 knots or more. I used the C4's standard "auto take-off" feature to get airborne. I could have chosen "short auto take-off" mode, which would have deployed the canards for added lift and a shorter T/O roll, but since EDDF has plenty of runway length I didn't feel like showing off on my first serious flight on this bird. Before I initiated the auto take-off sequence I entered the desired post-take-off Mach speed (0.5 for the first few thousand feet of altitude) as well as the cruise altitude of 66,000 ft.When I then did hit the ATO button, the engines spooled up, afterburners belched flame, and the brakes were released. Lift-off came quickly enough, and shortly after that the A/P retracted the landing gear. The documentation says you can leave the ATO option active until you have reached your cruise altitude and speed, but I chose to switch to GPS course tracking right after my C4 became airborne. I kept the speed low for the moment to permit the plane to line up with the GPS vector - but after it did so, I punched the autothrottle up to Mach 1.00 for the first stage of the climb to 25,000 ft, as per the manual. Climb rate at this point was an amazing 7,000 fpm, but the plane kept accelerating like the devil nonetheless.I reached Mach 1 a few moments sooner than I passed 25k ft, and thus I increased the A/T setting to Mach 2.01. In a blink of an eye I went supersonic (with a muted "boom" as a reminder for me and a sure source of delight for the poor citizens of the towns to the southwest of Frankfurt :-hah ) and kept rocketing skywards. I reached 66k feet over the outskirts of Baden-Wuerttemberg near the French border, and topped out at Mach 2.01 shortly after crossing the border. From then on it was a pretty uneventful flight, until I came to within some 170 nm of Tenerife. When ATC ordered me to descend I frowned, because I recognized I ought to have slowed down from my cruise speed farther in advance - and indeed, when I crossed over the island I was still at 30k feet :-shy . Well, I got my mind set for a spiraling descent to the approach altitude of 2,200 ft once I would have crossed the southeastern coast of the island. At this point I had slowed down to around Mach 0.83 or .84, and continued to decelerate. However, since I wanted to see if the automatic landing feature worked, I hit the "RWY Info" button...but this caused FS to crash, so that I could not terminate the flight as planned. Oh well.All in all, however, this plane sure looks like an interesting creation, and you can bet I'm going to spend some more hours on learning to fly the fast bird properly :-hah !

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Guest eko

Wonderful description and synopsis. I'm sold! :-)Whenever I encounter a panel with the RwyInfo gauge, I immediately comment it out of the panel. I have yet to try this gauge without it crashing the sim on me. I understand there was an update, but I still crash when trying to use it.Just FYI if other folks are experiencing the same thing.

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Guest Dominik Mann

Well, I just completed another flight - EDDF to Santo Domingo/Las Am

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Guest russell

Hi guys, I'm having some problems getting this plane to work.I unzipped the whole zip file to my FS2002 directory, and made sure it put everything in the proper subdirectories. But when I select the aircraft, I get the msg:=======================Microsoft

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Guest Dominik Mann

Hmmm...could it be that it has something to do with the FSSound.dll file, which must be located in the "Modules" sub-folder? If this file IS already there, did you add the section(OldModules)FSSound.dll=1to your FS2002.cfg file?(replace round brackets by square ones)Are you saying that you do not have *any* sounds - not even engine noises and the like?

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Guest russell

Actually I don't have the FSSound.dll file in the Modules folder. Not sure what that file is, but apparently I don't have it.The flap-movement sound works fine, and the flaps work. But I'm not getting any engine sounds.Russell

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Guest Dominik Mann

The file ought to be in the C4's main folder. Just move it to the Modules sub-folder in your FS2002 directory and add the parameters from my previous message to your FS2002.cfg file.Apart from that, you should also drop the FSUIPC.dll file into the Modules folder. This file appears to be essential especially for the advanced autopilot functions to be working correctly.As for engine sounds, do you happen to have FS 2000? If so, the C4's documentation recommends you to copy the FS 2000 Concorde sound files into the C4's "Sound" folder. After that, delete the sound.cfg file that belongs to the Concorde sounds, and rename the file "C4sst_sound.cfg" into "sound.cfg". If you do not have the Concorde from FS 2000, you should be able to find several repackagings of this plane adapted for FS 2002 on the more popular download sites. There might also be the sound package available as a stand-alone, but since I have FS 2000 and could just copy over the Concorde sound from there I cannot guarantee for this statement.Hope this answers your questions. If not, please feel free to contact me again!

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Guest russell

Thanks Dominik.That'll teach me to try to install a new aircraft when I'm tired :-) I should've paid more attention to the instructions.The sounds work fine now (I opted for the Concorde sounds), and everything seems to work fine except opening the exit doors. But who knows, I might be doing something stupid there too :-) I'll try again tomorrow when I'm more awake.Anyway, it's a beautiful aircraft -- thanks very much for it, and the help.Russell

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Guest Dominik Mann

Glad I could be of help :-) !Just guessing here, but might you have altered your keyboard command list inadvertently so that Shift-E is no longer mapped to the "open doors" command? Also note that it is the RIGHT FRONT door that opens on giving this command, NOT the left front door.You know, what I'd love to see would be a reworked Boeing 575 Concept, equipped with twin RR Pegasus thrust-vectored engines to give the plane VTOL capabilities (within the limitations of FS) and, of course, a similarly advanced autopilot and instrument suite as on the C4 :7 ...!

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