Turbine Duke, a month, 62 airports

[Gregg_Seipp 565]

Greg,

If you do something like this again you should go to blogspot.com or an equivalent site and create a blog with an entry for each flight.  You could post a screenshot or two and write up a brief narative for each segment, and post progressive images of the map showing your progress.  I did this on a real world road trip when my wife and I retired and moved from So Cal to Eastern Maryland, visiting all the places we had lived on the way (over 40 years).  If you like I can send you a PM with the link to that blog so you see better what I mean.  Would add even more value to your trek and would certainly be followed by a number of us here.

Hey FP,

 

Sure...love to see your trip.  I hope I do something like this again but I'll have to think about what.  Hmmm.

 

Gregg

[jcomm 5,890]

I ddn't install my piston Duke this time because I am aware that Real Air will release an upgrade in the future. So, I 'd rather wait for it, but reading your delightful story makes me want to install it anyway :-)

[Gregg_Seipp 565]

I ddn't install my piston Duke this time because I am aware that Real Air will release an upgrade in the future. So, I 'd rather wait for it, but reading your delightful story makes me want to install it anyway :-)

 

The piston Duke would probably have to take a pass on a couple of the airports due to runway length.  But if you did do a similar thing, perhaps someplace else, you could just filter out some airports based on that factor.  It's your adventure...you make the rules!

[Christopher Low 5,332]

I too am looking forward to the piston Duke upgrade. This is a very easy plane to hand fly (a lot easier than the Turbine Duke), and I have no problem getting it in and out of strips only 600 metres long (although that is with a 50 per cent fuel load). The Turbine Duke is even better with the help of reverse propellor pitch. I am surprised that you consider ~3000 feet as challenging in this plane, because it can do half that!

[Gregg_Seipp 565]

 

 

I am surprised that you consider ~3000 feet as challenging in this plane, because it can do half that!

 

It's just something I have to work on.

[Christopher Low 5,332]

The aspect of the Turbine Duke that I find most difficult is the ground handling (particularly on grass). The throttle controls are so sensitive that I end up either not moving at all, or suddenly accelerating rapidly!

[Gregg_Seipp 565]

The aspect of the Turbine Duke that I find most difficult is the ground handling (particularly on grass). The throttle controls are so sensitive that I end up either not moving at all, or suddenly accelerating rapidly!

I use the condition levers for taxi, mostly.  I might goose the throttles a bit but then put them at idle and adjust the condition levers as needed.  Tried using the reversers but when you come out of reverse it just seems to accelerate again.

[CoolP 283]

Must agree on the taxi behaviour of the plane being the only downside. That's with having in mind that it's a treat to actual fly. But taxi.. oh my. I think I've posted something on this a while back over at Carenado's place.

 

The layout unfortunately got mixed up with a forum soft update. http://forum.avsim.net/topic/362241-oil-temp/#entry2255389

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/362241-oil-temp/#entry2263377 Well, the point being that there are some small points regarding the T Duke which are very unique.

[Gregg_Seipp 565]

Not sure if this will help but, when I taxi I:

• put condition levers full forward
• release brakes
• nudge the power until the airplane gets moving
• Once I'm out of my turn, I pull the condition levers back a bit and watch my TRQ as it creeps up.  Once it gets to about 9ish I'm pulling the condition levers back, slowly to about halfway, looking for a TRQ between 12-13%.  Seems to be a good taxi speed at that setting.

[robert young 2,897]

The key to taxiing the T Duke is to use the condition levers. Just a small forward movement will easily sustain your speed. On surfaces with more friction you might need just a small amount of throttle to get moving but the trick is to go back to idle as soon as you are moving and control speed again with the condition levers. Because turbine engines are slower to respond they need a certain amount of anticipation.

 

Regarding the beta range, unfortunately FSX does not make it easy to use beta in a smooth and slow fashion. Unless you have a sophisticated analogue control, pressing F2 then F1 will produce full reverse folllowed by immediate idle. That quick movement will inevitably put the props from full reverse power into full forward fine and that leads to sudden forward acceleration while the engine revs die down.. When landing and using full reverse, the technique to avoid a sudden lurch into forward fine is to slowly move the throttles forward from beta range as your speed decays to fast taxi speed. In this way the reaction will be much more predictable.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Rob - RealAir

[CoolP 283]

Thanks for the explanation, Rob.

 

I certainly don't envy you FSX devs. I actually imagine you sitting there, wanting to present a decent plane for the flight sim crowd and then FSX starts with 'erm, I have pretty wonky ground friction levels for you, haha'. Then you go on with making sure that the ITT values fit at takeoff and, at cruise alt, they are totally off. Or the other way around. Same goes for the fuel burn at times. Hmpf. :wacko:

 

Or.

That quick movement will inevitably put the props from full reverse power into full forward fine and that leads to sudden forward acceleration while the engine revs die down.

Spot on! How many planes in FSX suffer from it? Or, better, how many actually don't?

 

Well, maybe I'm just trying to say that you dev folks should never give up. Even if we users sometimes complain and leave out that we're only complaining because the rest of the plane is so good. Yeah, that's what I wanted to say.

 

I think that, regarding the beta range, one needs to pull some serious tricks. Like Majestic (external) or F1 King Air (haven't tried, but saw good reports). As to which level a community appreciates all that extra work is an open question though. We might just be trying hard to pretend that we're pilots. Details distract us. ^_^

 

I will surely try yours and Gregg's tips the next time. :smile:

[robert young 2,897]

Entertaining reply Coolip. And spot on yourself.

 

But I do have a view about the often criticised flawed FSX dynamics: They do have a lot of faults, but they are based on something that has lasted many years and are very adaptable to tweaking and arguably still have a better potential than other sims that have appeared since FSX. The problem with parameters that go outside the default aerodynamics engine is that they often feel very artificial, and often even more so than what is there already. Over the last 20 years or more I've tweaked many iterations of a variety of sims and what comes over very strongly about FSX is that replacing the core aerodynamics is not so easy or successful as might first appear. For example, I have tweaked the hand flying dynamics of many, many addon aircraft but the autopilot behaviour has often been a total disaster, with all sorts of oscillations, sudden abandonment of believable behaviour and other oddities. Most of these were caused by a programmer's faith that his over-ride of the FSX autopilot aerodynamic engine was better. It wasn't. I personally find this most frustrating because many freelance jobs I have done were purely hand-flying tweaks and I had no part in the autopilot settings which were over-ridden.

 

Increasingly, developers are seeking to bypass what is there already to be tweaked and adapted. Rather than work with this they conjure up their own system. In many cases it seems ok and conforms to the numbers. I personally ignore the numbers except for those that are a baisc requirement. More interesting is to.simply look at the actual BEHAVIOUR of the aircraft. I ask one question of it: Does it look and feel believable? Would the aircraft I was a passenger in yesterday, or hand flew last year, behave like that? In most cases the answer is no. So to my mind, this kind of tweaking is not mathematical in the end, nor is it even technical. It is almost solely observational.

 

Procedural simulations are in fact very easy to simulate from the hand flying point of view. The hard part is gathering together all of the systems, gauges, autopilots, lighting, etc so it looks convincing as a whole. Not so easy are the aerodynamics of a seat-of-your-pants machine where quite obviously the key element is how the aircraft behaves not by a gentle climb out of an airport or a bland descent under autopilot, but a rigorous testing of the core behaviour under extreme or unfavourable conditons.

 

The turbine prop model in FSX is the most flawed of all. But it is not completely incompetent. The biggest problem is delay. If you quicken the engine and prop response, which is very easy to do, it creates other serious problems which cancel the advantage of the faster response. I've yet to see an alternative that addresses this without creating yet more problems, but progress is certainly being made. By comparison the piston and jet parameters are a walk in the park.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Rob

[Tomaz Drnovsek 440]

Nice adventure!

Today I'm starting my RealAir Turbine Duke adventure. It's going to be Around the world thingy. I'll start at my hometown airport (LJLJ) and of course end there too. I already did around the world flight about 4 years ago but with many different airplanes (mainly airliners). That time I went to the east, this time I'll go to the west. I'll document everything and in the end I'll probably write something about the experience. I didn't plan the whole route yet but since the operation range of Turbine Duke is supposed to be 1,100 nm I think this flight should be possible. What I'm looking for right now is some kind of fuel planner but none seems to exist. Fuel flow should be 66 gph but I anticipate some strong winds along the way and I have no idea how those winds are going to affect fuel consumption. There are some parts of the flight where this could be critical - like over the Atlantic (..Iceland - Greenland - Newfoundland...), over Bering sea and Russia where airports are scarce. Any tips about that?

Now you probably know everything about Turbine Duke :Nerd:  Is there anything important you didn't know before you started and now you do because of the experience? Any general tips for somebody who's taking the Duke around the world?

[simmerhead 885]

Nice adventure!

Today I'm starting my RealAir Turbine Duke adventure. It's going to be Around the world thingy. I'll start at my hometown airport (LJLJ) and of course end there too. I already did around the world flight about 4 years ago but with many different airplanes (mainly airliners). That time I went to the east, this time I'll go to the west. I'll document everything and in the end I'll probably write something about the experience. I didn't plan the whole route yet but since the operation range of Turbine Duke is supposed to be 1,100 nm I think this flight should be possible. What I'm looking for right now is some kind of fuel planner but none seems to exist. Fuel flow should be 66 gph but I anticipate some strong winds along the way and I have no idea how those winds are going to affect fuel consumption. There are some parts of the flight where this could be critical - like over the Atlantic (..Iceland - Greenland - Newfoundland...), over Bering sea and Russia where airports are scarce. Any tips about that?

Now you probably know everything about Turbine Duke :Nerd:  Is there anything important you didn't know before you started and now you do because of the experience? Any general tips for somebody who's taking the Duke around the world?

 

That sounds cool! I'm going to do an ATW adventure as well as soon as ORBX vectors is released. The Turbine Duke is my most likely candidate, although I would prefer the King Air 350 from Milviz, but who knows when that bird will be finnished!

 

Before you go I will recommend a good read (Most aviation books put me to sleep pretty quicly, but this is a blast, and you will get som tips to plan your flights!): http://www.amazon.com/So-You-Want-Ferry-Pilot/dp/1412010667/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379078978&sr=8-1&keywords=so+you+want+to+be+a+ferry+pilot

[ryanbatc 12,813]

We just had a Duke convention here in Duluth.  I've never seen one in real life until today (saw about 15 lol)....  It's my absolute favorite aircraft!  How's this for you Gregg?