Congrats Goran & Theo,Looking forward to MANY hours in this work of art!

Why is that? AFAIK the DC-3 doesn't have a moveable stabilizer, so elevator trim shouldn't have any impact on the elevator effectiveness.

To put it bluntly, you have to trim it down or it'll be off the deck too early on the take off roll because of the dubious flight modeling which plagues X-Plane and always has. FMs in X-Plane always have to be tweaked to fly right in spite of the dubious claims of BET supposedly making it possible to simply build a shape and have it fly as it would in the real world with no other effort involved. The developers of the DC-3 have done a good job of working around these difficulties, but there is only so much they can do.Al

FMs in X-Plane always have to be tweaked to fly right

Which is even more true for MSFS too, since all top-quality MSFS add-ons (RealAir, A2A, etc.) use heavily tweaked flight models.Marco

AlCan you double check the take off speeds for me when you take off.I took the DC-3 through some rigorous testing and made sure the flight model was just about perfect.Charts show the tail should start lifting off the runway at 55-60kts...as it does in my model.On take-off, there should be no trim needed initially in any direction. As the aircraft picks up speed, the wings provide more lift and the nose will start rising, but that's at full power...which should not be maintained for more than about 60 seconds. Reducing the throttle levers and the prop levers to their maximum allowable cruising power (41.5" MP and Just over 2500RPM) should lower the speed enough to lower the nose to allow for a nice climb rate of about 500-700fpm.The following are pictures of a takeoff I just did a few minutes ago to show this. The only trim that was adjusted was aileron trim (by about 3° to the right). Pitch trim remained centered at 0°.Just before full throttle:http://dl.dropbox.co...creenshot_5.png55kts - Tail begins to lift off the runway:http://dl.dropbox.co...creenshot_6.pngRotate:http://dl.dropbox.co...creenshot_8.pngAdjusting Aileron Trim ONLY: (Note the engine instruments displaying about 47" MP and 2700 RPM and hitting 1100 fpm vertical speed. That should not be maintained for much longer than 60 seconds or an engine failure will result)http://dl.dropbox.co...creenshot_9.pngPower back to max cruise settings and maintaining a 700ft/min climbhttp://dl.dropbox.co...reenshot_12.pngAgain, no pitch trim was used whatsoever.This part of the flight model (the take-off) was extensively worked on by myself and took roughly 3 weeks to nail.If I saw it while I was testing it, I would have definitely addressed it. I'm just curious if your hardware is set for full realism in the x plane settings or if you set the pitch trim to x planes default "take-off" setting.

Does this beast come with a good manual? Obviously a huge amount of research has gone into it and it would be great if some of the research (the flying side of it that is) found its way into a manual.By the way I still haven't found where you can buy this thing.PS how about some fast web typical jpg's for us on poor internet connections. You could always add a link for high res png's.

Does this beast come with a good manual? Obviously a huge amount of research has gone into it and it would be great if some of the research (the flying side of it that is) found its way into a manual.By the way I still haven't found where you can buy this thing.PS how about some fast web typical jpg's for us on poor internet connections. You could always add a link for high res png's.

Yes Jason. I have typed up a POH for the aircraft, some checklists and a separate manual for the Sperry Autopilot.You can get it here...http://www.x-aviation.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=84If you want to see some lower res, smaller images, click on "View Gallery".

kk thanks will go and look now :smile:Just noticed not available for Linux oh well saved me $40 for something else.

kk thanks will go and look now :smile:Just noticed not available for Linux oh well saved me $40 for something else.

Thanks for checking it out!

Congrats Goran & Theo,Looking forward to MANY hours in this work of art!

Thanks, brutha!Have fun!

Not true that the DC-3 does not need trim on take off at all, the pilot's notes for it (i.e. the real ones) state that up to 4 divisions may be needed when the CoG is forward. I just checked my copy of them, it is there in black and white.

 

Not trying to be picky here, I think the X-Aviation DC-3 is great, but I will run a 'by the book' take off though and see what crops up. I just got the impression that it is a bit too keen to lift off early if you don't keep it down, and so I added some nose down trim to make that happen.

 

Al

Make a video to show your point , better than words and the developer can get to see the behavior on your machine

Okay, a quick test, this was at about 90 percent of MTOW, so pretty heavy, air pressure at ISA, no flaps selected. Here is the take off data from the Air Ministry's POH for the DC-3:

 

 

Here's the six pack a second or so after lift off, the aircraft was light on the wheels and coming off the deck a second or so before this, but drifting off the tarmac, so I pulled it off the deck with a little bit of up elevator, as you can see it was yawing a bit under protest, but flying and climbing strongly as indicated by the VSI. Ignore the altimeter, I didn't bother to recalibrate it:

 

 

Here it is, still yawing, but well off the deck at the moment the six pack shot was taken. You can see that there is some up elevator fed in, but no flaps, and this is at less than 75 indicated on the ASI, and remember that this is at 90 percent of MTOW:

 

 

This is why I have been trimming it to stay on the deck until it has some more speed building, since the safe climb out speed should be approaching over 100 before you really start going upstairs. As noted, this is a minor quibble, and where it really matters, the DC-3 is excellent, so as also noted, I think this is part of the notoriously 'floaty' behaviour of X-Plane. I still highly recommend this product though and would not want anyone to be put off buying what is for me, a landmark flight simulator add-on and one which makes X-Plane worth using as far as I'm concerned. After all, it is not a real DC-3 and one has to expect some compromises to get believable all-round performance, and where these have been done they are minimal, we are talking about a 5 knot discrepancy here, which if I'm honest hardly matters to me, nor should it to anyone else. It definitely shines in every other area, especially up in the cruise, where it is highly convincing and I really like it for that. And only a blind man could fail to fall in love with the exterior model.

 

What are you waiting for? This is an FSX-beater, so go and buy it!

 

Al

I'm really pleased with this add-on! hope to see more classic liveries soon, I'm trying some latin liveries by myself.

Alex

What are you waiting for? This is an FSX-beater, so go and buy it!

 

 

Aw, man.. This is going to be an expensive month for me. Just recently bought the Bombardier 300, now I will have to get this one also.. :LMAO:

You should try being an FSX user who loves 737s LOL. Those developers are gonna bankrupt me.

 

Al

By far the BEST DC-3 to date that I've flown!

 

Awesome Job you guys!