Avro Lancaster

[Dave Morgan 68]

Hi Ian.

 

Dave - once you've had some time with the FCS version in FS9 would you mind giving us a mini review? If the VC is close to the screenshot of the FSX version above, I think I would purchase it also

Cheers mate

Ian

 

Here's a long dose of text to go with a couple of dozen screenies. I don't get out enough...

 

There may be typos as I'm about to be kicked off my favourite spot in the town library so if you can wait until Tuesday evening (UK) I'll get the accompanying pics into photobucket or imageshack and post appropriate links. There are a couple of dozen with annotations so I can't fit them all in here.

 

Cheers,

D

 

I've decided on two yardsticks for the Lancasters. At the top of the range is not a Lanc but Captain Sim's C-130. If a control in the VC doesn't have a yellow INOP sticker then it works, whatever it is. The only thing missing is a Dave Maltby point-of-view-drag-spot or the holographic realism of some of Carenado's stuff.

 

At the other end of the range is the Lanc I've had for a couple of years: Dave Garwood's FS2002 BIII with an updated FS2004 flight model by Rick Rutherford, Des Braban's 2d panel and sound to frighten the neighbours' pets by Doug Smith. It flies pretty well, looks ok from the outside, and in true misogynistic fashion if you're not expecting too much the VC looks fine in the dark. It's been adequate but I've grown pampered in the last year.

 

Dave Garwood's plane has no shine, rather blue textures, dummy gauges in the (partly untextured) VC but was after all made for FS2002. It's actually pretty good with the modifications. The 2d panel needs a couple of taps on the 'Eyepoint (move up)' key combo or you can't see where you're going. There's no throttle quadrant and the VC levers aren't clickable so you can't shut down & feather one ailing engine. The rudder works nicely, introducing a strong pitching moment if used roughly in a steep turn. The rather nice split flaps have a hefty air-brake drag when fully extended (90°) and they're invisible when viewed through the prop discs. The aircraft.cfg needs a bit of alteration too as there's no payload station, just the 7 crew. Even when lightly laden it's a bit slow to respond to the yoke though rudder & flaps are very snappy.

 

*                       *                       *

 

So much for the ends of the spectrum...

 

I've had three new Lancs in the last week. I couldn't get the download for Plane Designs' model from Simviation to work - probably another security policy thing...

 

The first to arrive was a Wings of Power disc from Ebay. This Lanc doesn't look much good from the outside. The exterior textures are slightly blurred, which I put down to a combination of bitmap size (1024 × 1024 888-8 complete skin) and a nod in the direction of realism - the DPM paint job is blurred deliberately as though it was applied by airbrush. That's ok but the colours are pretty well real-life and they strike me as being far too rich for a dirty night-time workhorse (cf. FCS below). It has a gentle shine which helps the 3d effect in my imagination. The props aren't all aligned, adding further realism, but there's no opening exit and I can't tell if the bomb-bay is stuck or if I just don't know how to work it.

 

The 2d panel is good. Everything works and the panel background looks pleasantly real. Panels normally inaccesible to the pilot (engines, sparks and combi nav & wireless) are available in pop-up and sim-icon as well as throttle quadrant & compass. It's a shame the radio stack isn't contemporary but that's a small niggle as there's a GPS in there as well...

 

The VC is better (after flying the FS2002 plane for a while). From the pilot's position everything is good - textures, lighting, wing views (indispensible in a 4 engine prop that someone else is trying to break) with animated prop pitch. A couple of switches & buttons are dummy in the VC, notably the covers for the engine starter buttons. There's no head-rest for the pilot so you can screw your head right round to look behind you, useful as you can't play mid-upper or rear gunner. The VC extends as far back as the astrodome but there doesn't appear to be a wireless operator's seat behind the partition wall. Gauges aft of the engineer's seat are dummy so you need the 2d pop-ups. Panel lights are bright but I don't suppose they'd be used in-flight and the gauges are perfectly visible at night without illumination. Single-sided textures mean the bomb-aimer's station has a bloody big hole where his feet should go and you can't quite get your head into the bubble at the sharp end. The little oval window in the floor is ok for dropping things on people but not much good if you want to compare the ground with your map.

 

The sounds are unimpressive. Flaps sound like foghorns (you know, the ones with concrete horns and big fences with notices saying 'Keep out! Danger of deaf'. Starter sounds and engine sounds up to 2000 rpm don't exist in spot view but you can hear the wheels rolling on the ground. All the wav files are there so I don't know what's gone wrong. I'll have to teach myself sound.cfg I suppose. It's a pity because the cruise and balls-out engine sounds have a beautiful humming bass note that beats the equivalent in Doug Smith's set, very much like the perfectly maintained current flying Lancs.

 

There's a nice tendency to pull to the left when accelerating on the runway. When empty the plane flies itself off the ground. At MTOW it climbs out at 1000 fpm and 120 kias with plenty to spare. It's easy to roll and even to loop... even fully laden so I think there may be something a bit funny about the handling. It's fun though and I rather like the idea of dodging fighters. Rudder control is smoother than Dave Garwood's plane and doesn't seem to fade. Flaps don't provide such a braking effect even at 90° so landings have to be approached quite low from a distance.

 

On the whole I like this one now that I've replaced the sound folder with Doug Smith's work, and it comes with half a dozen friends and enemies (Ar234 Blitz, Flying Fortress, Liberator, Superfortress, Heinkel Volksjager, PB4Y Privateer and a Ta183 Huckbein), four of which were unknown to me.

 

*                       *                       *

 

On to the First Class Simulations offering.

 

There are lots of variants: a 10MR, three BIs, three BIIIs and an MR3.

 

I was severely disappointed by this one. It looks amazing from the outside, and even from the inside as far as it goes, but in the FS2004 version the textures are all single-sided and the model has neither wings nor engines when viewed from the 2d or virtual cockpits. Full textures and wings are only available for FSX, something the developer doesn't mention.

Inside the plane, the 2d and VC both look very good but they have a few omissions. Magneto switches don't work properly (two don't work at all). Four of them are labelled 'master ignition switch' in the tooltip; flipping one moves all of them. Bomb door switch doesn't work, but the oxygen system does... If auto-start and eye-candy are all you want then those errors will be insignificant because the VC really does look very, very good. From the pilot's seat. In the pop-up 2d panels I found more of the same niggles. Tooltips are unfinished, fuel selector switches don't work properly in 2d (they take a right-click so can't be done in 2d), wireless panel looks good but only has a couple of click-spots and they don't work in 2d...

Worst of all is the view from the nav or w/o stations: single-sided textures everywhere which I now understand to be the 'skeletal textures' mentioned in a few other forums. If you have FSX I think this is probably a very good add-on but for FS2004 it's a waste of money.

 

I don't think I'll ever fly this - I haven't bothered so far as what I've seen while just parked up is enough of a disappointment. Still, if the foregoing doesn't put you off, I can reinstall it and try a couple of air tests. Just let me know.

 

Did I forget to mention you need a patch to stop it causing CTD when the props start to turn, and to stop the prop discs turning pink at acute viewing angles when the engines do successfully start? The patch also addresses my criticism of the tooltips. I didn't bother with it. I'm tempted to ask when they'll rebrand themselves as Half-A***d Simulations.

 

To be fair, perhaps this is a FSX plane ported to FS9 (though if Carenado can do it...)

 

*                       *                       *

 

Time to move on to a FS9 plane ported to FSX, Aeroplane Heaven's Lanc, bought from FSPilotShop. I have a suspicion this is the same as the JustFlight Lanc but without spending some time with my friend Google I'm not sure.

 

It has different configurations called 'fitouts' by AH. They are different starting eyepoints for the user: essentially a handful of VCs as the entire inside of the plane is too complex to allow easy modelling a single all-encompassing VC. I found this frustrating because knowing the other stations are modelled but inaccessible without changing aircraft while in-flight simply makes me want to be able to use them. I probably wouldn't use them if they were accessible (doing a complete flight from the w/o's station would be difficult and pointless) but the fact that I can't... It might be useful for a multi-player mission perhaps but I've never tried anything like that.

 

The download includes a PDF help document that brought back a smile - a 35-page faux facsimile Pilot's & Engineer's Notes, complete with typos, a list of variants with a brief description of each and instructions relevant to each of the VCs. I'm already happier and I haven't even started FS9 yet.

 

The exterior is good but all the textures take time to load. To avoid mishaps, I found it necessary to pause the sim before changing view or Alt+Tabbing to another application. Maybe it's time for a bigger PC. I'd give this second prize: a long way behind the FCS textures but way, way ahead of the other two planes. There's some funny colouring on the underside of the engine nacelles - a rather lurid green & purple which I suppose is meant to imitate a sheen of petrol. It doesn't.

Some rotten swine stole the squabs from the pilot's seat and took the textures from the compass at the same time. It's just as well there's a repeater perched on top of the instrument panel.

 

The 2d panel texture is a bit smooth and doesn't look real but everything in the VC seems to work so the 2d cockpit is just there for convenience, such as calling up panel 0 when you're in a non-pilot VC. Using the 2d cockpit in that way means you could fly a whole mission from the bomb aimer's station. Magneto switches in 2d don't match the mags in the VC. That confused me late last night when I simulated two engine failures and ended up losing a third. In the VC magneto switches and engine gauges have the same physical arrangement as the engine nacelles, 4-3-1-2 from left to right, while in 2d the gauges are correct but the switches are arranged numerically, 1-2-3-4 from left to right. If I keep the 2d panel I'll have to try to squeeze in some labels.

 

Once I'd got that straight I found I couldn't do an air start - some learning needed. Worse, cutting one or other engine (or just losing three out of four) also cut the electrical supply or vacuum to the attitude indicator and compass repeater making navigation almost impossible. This morning I found the stand-by vacuum pump switch - more learning needed.

I used the 'Pilot-only VC' model for flying, on the assumption that the reduced poly count would improve FPS. The pilot's VC is surprisingly cramped and I found it looks best at about 0.60 × zoom. Panning showed AH have the eyepoint about right but I preferred it moved slightly aft to give a view of the attitude, vertical speed and airspeed indicators. The airspeed is calibrated in mph and labelled clearly... oops. It was night-time and I was tired. Bomber Morgan? Don't make me laugh. It has wing views with animated prop-pitch but no ailerons.

 

The 'w/o and nav' VC consists almost entirely of dummy switches: practically nothing works, or even moves, and since even the 3-d pilot's controls don't move this VC is a complete waste of resources. The same is true of the navigator's part of the 'pilot and nav' VC. Less effort put into eye-candy and more put into things like a working wind-drift periscope thing would have made a huge improvement. The front turret & guns move when you sit in there and activate the controls but there's no corresponding movement of the guns in spot view - they are fixed forward.

 

Start-up sounds are very good, much more like thunder than the other sets. The full-throttle is a bit high-pitched for my taste when heard from the cockpit and there's an obvious loop in the cruise engine sound. Flaps sound like the C172. There's no thump when the gear locks up or down and I didn't hear a squeak on landing. This set will end up being replaced.

 

You can simulate a bomb-release with one of the fitouts. The bomb-door lever is by the pilot's seat and the bomb-release button is in the bomb-aimer's station so co-ordinating them necessitates opening a new view window. The release isjust a visual effect: the payload station's weight doesn't change when you hit the button so the plane doesn't lurch at all and there's no control feedback to your joystick.

This is a very good air file for just flying. There isn't quite enough power for a loop, which is good, but the rudder fades in a 360° roll, which is not. Flaps don't go to 90° and I felt there wasn't enough of a braking effect with full flaps and gear down. I don't fly at all so I only have the other models for comparison.

 

There is a bounce in the oleos which made me smile again.

 

If Aeroplane Heaven and JustFlight are the same plane then there's a patch...

 

A handful of words summary:

 

Best exterior            FCS
Best 2d                    FCS if not for the numerous bugs so AH or ###### until I make my own from parts of each

Best VC                   AH hands down
Best sound              Doug Smith
Best handling          ######
best engine failure AH

 

Extra bits I'd like: a lurch when the payload is released though I suppose the weight & balance is fixed after starting a flight unless the player makes a manual change.(even Flight Unlimited has jet- and prop-wash strong enough to blow your plane over if you loiter too near the active runway). Tyre-squeaks. An extra couple of feet of VC in the bomb-aimer's station. Faster loading times.

[wad53 3]

Just out of interest Dave, I have the Wings of Power Heavy Bombers working in FSX too. 

If you go to the A2A Forums, they have info for how to port them across. The Lanc VC looks a bit worse (even) than in FS9, but the other bombers are pretty good in FSX.

 

Just in case. ^_^

 

Cheers,

 

Warren

[kiwiflyer45 123]

Thank you Dave for taking the time to give such a thorough reply... It seems like there's no real "winner" - a shame that such an iconic aircraft doesn't have a really definitive FS representative like the MAAM B-25 or RAS Spitfire XIV. I enjoyed your comment about the CaptainSim C130 as a bench mark - I agree...

Cheers mate

Ian

[Dave Morgan 68]

Hi.

 

 

Thank you Dave for taking the time to give such a thorough reply... It seems like there's no real "winner" - a shame that such an iconic aircraft doesn't have a really definitive FS representative like the MAAM B-25 or RAS Spitfire XIV. I enjoyed your comment about the CaptainSim C130 as a bench mark - I agree...

Cheers mate

Ian

 

You're welcome. I think I'll keep the FCS version just because it looks so good from the pilot's seat but I'll be making my own favourite from bits and pieces of each. I may even try modifying one set of textures with bitmaps from another though right now I just want to do ,some recreational simming!

 

Here they are, a day early --  a gallery of screenies illustrating points I made above. For anyone who hasn't used Photobucket, for full-res viewing click a thumbnail in the gallery then choose 'Download' from the Media Options sidebar, or for a quick look click 'Slideshow' at the top.

 

http://s1074.photobucket.com/user/defaid/library/flight%20sim%20screenies/FS9%20Lancaster%20screenshots

 

I see plenty of mistakes in my long post. The worst is the numbering of the engines; that's corrected in the screenshots.

 

I took an hour or so to work out why all those hash symbols kept appearing as I posted. There must be an auto-censor built into the forum. They obscure the three letter acronym for Wings of Power. The word is known in Britain but I don't think it's used much.

 

Best regards,

Dave