RealAir Griffon Spitfire Flight Test Report

[Guest Tim W]

Vincent/Dominique/KenIf you have a look at the real Spitfire pilots notes (via the control panel) and go to page 34 (17 in the PDF) you will see a nice table giving you a guide to the rpm and boost settings and speeds for various stages of the approach from 1500 feet down to landing. Final approach speed should be about 100 mph (+5mph for the clipped wing). The exact numbers aren't important. It's seat of the pants flying by feel.Touchdown should be nose up with the tailwheel just off the ground and the stick coming right back. I find about 1400 rpm over the fence and 105 mph works for me.Of course engine/speed management is important especially in an aircraft of this era being flown today. In wartime engine management and cooling wasn't your highest priority as much as getting out of trouble and if you blew an engine doing it, so be it. Engines were often pushed "through the gate" but the Rolls Royce engines were so reliable they were trusted implicitly by the pilots and often performed beyond their design limits.The important thing with this aircraft as with any high powered piston is planning ahead. You don't want to arriving in the circuit doing 250 knots so you slow down in stages as you approach to join the circuit at around 180 kts. It then becomes so much easier to manage your further speed reduction and you are being kinder to a very expensive piece of metal.The secret is to practice. Touch and go;s can be boring but making a perfect approach and landing with hardly a bounce (about 1 in 3 I find)is so rewarding! Above all, enjoy it, it's fun!CheersTim RealAir

[Guest Dominique]

Thanks Tim ! Missed that one, I see that the boost level can indeed be almost none without shockcooling the engine... I agree with you practice is the key AND is fun too.Dominique

[Guest Melvin]

Hi Tim,Thanks for these additional informations.>The secret is to practice. Touch and go;s can be boring but>making a perfect approach and landing with hardly a bounce>(about 1 in 3 I find)is so rewarding! Above all, enjoy it,>it's fun!>>Cheers>Tim> >RealAir I confess you that Touch and go is my main and favorite activity in FS. It's so rewarding as you said and you are right.Kind regards,Vincent Mellinger

[robert young 2,897]

One, perhaps slightly unconventional, but nevertheless extremely efficient way of slowing down the Spitfire is to use INDUCED drag to advantage. A high G steep turn with little power creates a lot of drag. It won't look neat in the circuit, or "pattern" as our US friends call it, but it's very effective.If you are downwind and still doing 250 MPH descending and therefore unable to put the gear down (160 MPH limit) you can do a brief succession of S turns, quite steep ones. That'll get you down to 160 MPH in no time. I won't look pretty to the Control Tower but it does the trick.The other simple way, if the airfield you are circuiting allows it, is to simply climb with low boost settings. That will bleed off airspeed quickly, and thereafter you can drop the gear. With gear down you should be able to maintain 1500 fpm descent rate without accelerating.Kind Regards.Rob Young - www.realairsimulations.com

[Guest Tim W]

>If you are downwind and still doing 250 MPH descending and>therefore unable to put the gear down (160 MPH limit) you can>do a brief succession of S turns, quite steep ones. That'll>get you down to 160 MPH in no time. I won't look pretty to the>Control Tower but it does the trick.Aaah, the Rob Young school of flying...LOL!Thereby giving the controller palpitations and a request from your flight commander to explain what the hell you were playing at!!! Followed by a lesson on speed management!CheersTim

[srburger 0]

Tim was absolutely right (and I was absolutely wrong) about the original Pilot's Operating Handbook providing guidance. The chart to which he refers is there, and it gives a recommendation of minus 4 pounds of boost in level flight on the "Preliminary Approach". But I can take solace in the fact that my intuitive setting of minus 2 pounds wasn't too far off the mark!Best,Ken

[robert young 2,897]

Yes but this is 1944....no CAA or big brother watching your every move on a radar screen! BTW Tim when I first got my PPL at Biggin I used to take up a delightful yellow taildragger called (I think) a Rolleson Beta. It had the most beautiful stick feel of any aircraft I've flown.In those days you could fly even without a radio, and I regularly flew from Biggin to Stapleford or Norwich passing London exactly one mile east of Tower Bridge which was the limit. Half a mile west of tower bridge was the turning point for Heathrow on a good day. Imagine what it was like being in a radio-less taildragger watching an enormous Jumbo turning for finals into Heathrow seemingly yards away. Overhead Stapleford the procedure was to look at the arrows and signs for the active, join downwind and land. Not a radio message in sight.Nowadays you can't even walk on the Biggin apron without a security pass, hand held radio and CAA approved sunglasses!Rob

[Guest Tim W]

>Yes but this is 1944....no CAA or big brother watching your>every move on a radar screen! BTW Tim when I first got my PPL>at Biggin I used to take up a delightful yellow taildragger>called (I think) a Rolleson Beta. It had the most beautiful>stick feel of any aircraft I've flown.>>In those days you could fly even without a radio, and I>regularly flew from Biggin to Stapleford or Norwich passing>London exactly one mile east of Tower Bridge which was the>limit. Half a mile west of tower bridge was the turning point>for Heathrow on a good day. Imagine what it was like being in>a radio-less taildragger watching an enormous Jumbo turning>for finals into Heathrow seemingly yards away. >>Overhead Stapleford the procedure was to look at the arrows>and signs for the active, join downwind and land. Not a radio>message in sight.>>Nowadays you can't even walk on the Biggin apron without a>security pass, hand held radio and CAA approved sunglasses!>>RobHi Rob,I remember the Rollason Beta, lovely aircraft! Yes, try flying 1 mile east of tower bridge non-radio these days and you'll get shot down! Times have changed. All those DC-4's and DC-6's must have been fun to watch in the sky around you...LOL! :D CheersTim

[Guest Tim W]

>Tim was absolutely right (and I was absolutely wrong) about>the original Pilot's Operating Handbook providing guidance.>The chart to which he refers is there, and it gives a>recommendation of minus 4 pounds of boost in level flight on>the "Preliminary Approach". But I can take solace in the fact>that my intuitive setting of minus 2 pounds wasn't too far off>the mark!>Thanks Ken,I'm glad you located the chart and found it useful! And yes, -2 Boost wasn't far off. Like I said, seat of the pants stuff! Manuals were only for guidance in those days anyway! I remember my dad telling me his first flight in a Spitfire consisted of him sitting in the cockpit while an instructor at the conversion unit briefed him on what did what and when followed by a slap on the shoulder and an "Off you go then and don't prang it!"he said at least he didn't have time to think about it!CheersTim http://members.chello.nl/t.westnutt/realair.gif

[Guest yarvelling]

Well!! What more can be said??!! I'm still deaf from the screaming wind from around my canopy, and the monstrous growling from that powerplant in front!!Incrredible, RealAir...incredible... :)I always wanted to fly a Spitfire when I was a kid, and have only ever seen them flying at airshows, but now I feel as though I've finally done it.....Having read this threrad of glowing testimonials this evening after returning from work, I decided that I'd get the Spitfire...and so I did. Installed with no effort, read through the first introductory set of tutorials (superb documentation by the way....)and then fired-up the sim.I started at the newly installed RAF Mawling (sp?) and having made the necessary changes to the realism settings, as instructed, I was off....did a ground loop turning onto the runway...OOOPS!! To much throttle !! Reset and tried again. This time, no problems...Wow!! That Griffon engine is massive!! Such power, such torque, and what a gorgeous noise!!!! I guess from the feel of this aircraft, and having read the original report here, that it seems that this marque of Spitfire HATED being on the ground!! She leapt into the air, and when the gear was stowed and trim adjusted, it just leapt upwards! I decided I'd do a short flight to Belgium, EBBR, a frequent and familiar flight in an Airbus, or a KC-135, but now with nothing but the compass and map, it was a whole new adventure. I climbed to aprox FL200 and zipped across the channel. Shortly afterwards and a few direction changes later, there was EBBR fast approaching. Putting the Spit into a smooth dive I swooped ever lower across the Belgian country side and sped out across the city of Brussels. Cutting back on the speed and leveling out at aprox 1000ft, I managed to navigate by site to the airport, and line up with runway 25L, and much to my amazement, brought her down, relatively smoothly, with only a slight bounce, fair and square on the tarmac!! Not a big deal, you may say?Well, consider that every other flight that I've ever made to EBBR, runway 25L has been ATC guided, after FMC or GPS steering, in one of the aforemwntioned Airbus's or a KC-135. I have never totally hand-flown a plane from start to finish in FS9, and have been happy to rely on the equivalent sim systems that guide RW airliners around. For me this is a fair acheivement, and one that I wouldn't have had if it weren't for this amazing Spitfire.Not only does it feel right....how one would expect a fighter of this type to feel, but for all the complexity of the flight model, the dynamics, and fluidity of the gauges, it doesn't have ANY impact on frame rates either...it was better than most other add-ons I have in many areas, and when in the air, remained steady at 29.9fps (sim locked at 30fps), even when panning the view around and rolling, and performing other 'aerobatics'. Most aircraft, even the default Microsoft ones have a negative impact on frame-rates when in VC mode, but this does not...one heck of an achievement :)So, my thanks to tis great community for bringing this aircraft into the spotlight, and of course, massive thanks to Real Air for creating this work of art.:)

[crvm 0]

Thank you sir for your valuable insight, pleasure reading your posts.Best Wishes,[h4]Randy J. Smith[/h4]http://www.rawbw.com/~bdoolin/shinault/southparkcartmad.gif[h3]PMDG 747![/h3]Caution! Not a real pilot, but do play one on TV ;-)ASUS KV8 DLX | AMD 3200 64 | 1 GIG PC 3200 DDR | GIGABYTE 5700 ULTRA | ViewSonic VP192b 19" |

[Guest Tim W]

Nice story, glad to hear you are enjoying yourself! It's nice not to have to worry about autopilots, SID's and STAR's and FMS's for a while isn't it?CheersTimhttp://members.chello.nl/t.westnutt/realair.gif

[Guest Wedge598]

Tim and the rest of the team,You have developed an unbelievable bird here. I was grinning from ear to ear all last night while sifting over the documentation and working through my first flight from cold start to touch-down.Everything worked so smoothly and felt so real it was like nothing I'd ever experienced before in flight simulation.I have one question though that I thought you might have some insight on.Initially I had started with my Mip-map level at level 6, frame rate lock at unlimited and global textures at massive. Everything looked great but during some attempts at high speed manuvers the game would pause or stutter a little bit. I then set framerate lock to 35 fps and global textures to high to see if that might help. It seemed to do the trick as my next flight was much smoother. However, when I loaded up the Racer model for my last flight of the day I noticed that my gauges became blurry when I toggled into the VC cockpit view. I found that if I zoomed into view the gauges up close the textures would become clear ... even after I zoomed back out. This was necessary each time I toggled out and back into VC view. I'll experiment more tonight but was wondering if you think if might be a function of the frame rate lock effecting the update of the mip-map for the gauges? Perhaps I need to go back to unlimited or a higher lock?

[Guest Zevious Zoquis]

I noticed the recomendation to set the mips to 5 or higher, but I've just been flying it at the defualt 4 setting and the guages are crystal clear. The problem I have is that when I set the mip levels to higher than 4 I start to get noticeable shimmering in the distant scenery and I find it very annoying (plus the framerate becomes a bit more jumpy). I don't think theres necessarily a need to set the mip mapping higher than 4 unless perhaps you do notice the guages are blurry for some reason. This is on a 128meg Geforce4Ti4200 card btw...

[Guest Kingair315]

I'M Sold . . . .. :-)) Grrrrrrrr, no I have to wait until about Feb to get the money. Too many Kids and Grandkids (19) to get it now, but Im drooling. In the meantime, will just keep on reading about it. Bob