BAC 1-11 in P3D4

[Chock 17,769]

For those of you missing your old banger jetliners in P3D V4, such as the Greasy Nine and the Thunder Guppy (aka DC-9 and B737-200), the Pocket Rocket (aka the BAC 1-11/Romac 1-11) from Just Flight/Aeroplane Heaven appears to work just fine in V4, which is all the more welcome given that it is perhaps one of the nicest more realistic - and indeed inexpensive - classic jet airliner add-ons you can get. Old as it is (it no longer has a type certificate for use as an airliner), it does still fly - just about - these days, under an experimental certification with Northtrop Grumman, who use two of them to test bits for the F-35 programme.

For those of you who like aviation history, the 1-11 marked a number of firsts. During type testing, it was - sadly - the first airliner which revealed the unwelecome characteristic of deep unrecoverable stalls on T-Tail aircraft, when its prototype crashed, killing the test crew; this led to modifications which were incorporated into it and other later T-Tailed jets such as the DC-9 to prevent such occurrences. It was also the first aircraft on which de-rated take-offs were used, when Laker Airways developed the technique in order to reduce noise and engine wear on its Rolls Royce engines (which were very loud, and are on this sim version too lol), and to also gain fuel savings.

 

[vololiberista 205]

The modifications were actually already present in the VC10. In fact the VC10 had more than 2,000 stall tests and they could not deep stall it however much they tried.

[HighBypass 2,339]

Lovely screenshots! DIESEL POWER! 

[Chock 17,769]

On the subject of the VC-10, more pics of the Just Flight one are up on its product page...

https://www.justflight.com/product/vc10-jetliner

[vololiberista 205]

10 minutes ago, Chock said:

On the subject of the VC-10, more pics of the Just Flight one are up on its product page...

https://www.justflight.com/product/vc10-jetliner

I can see just from the dial indications that they have not modelled very much just as I was told.

[Holdit 551]

22 hours ago, Chock said:

For those of you who like aviation history, the 1-11 marked a number of firsts.

Including my first flight. I think the airline was B-Cal or Dan Dare.

[Chock 17,769]

45 minutes ago, vololiberista said:

I can see just from the dial indications that they have not modelled very much just as I was told.

I think we have to accept that the likes of FSL and PMDG are never gonna have a stab at stuff like the VC-10 - although at a pinch, I wouldn't put it past A2A (they did a Connie and a Stratocruiser after all), but realistically, when it comes to old classic airliners, we'd be a lot worse off without what Aeroplane Heaven and Just Flight have bravely had a go at, I mean, who else was prepared to have a go at stuff like the Viscount, Comet, HS.748 and the deHavilland Dove? We wouldn't even have a DC-8 if it wasn't for them!

[Ted Striker 338]

1 hour ago, vololiberista said:

I can see just from the dial indications that they have not modelled very much just as I was told.

I was at the Flightsim conference a few weeks ago and talked with Just Flight about the VC-10. I mentioned you as a good resource for the project. They said that they had been in contact with you but did not state anything else. I was hoping that you were involved with the project now.

Ted

[vololiberista 205]

1 hour ago, Ted Striker said:

I was at the Flightsim conference a few weeks ago and talked with Just Flight about the VC-10. I mentioned you as a good resource for the project. They said that they had been in contact with you but did not state anything else. I was hoping that you were involved with the project now.

Ted

Thanks for putting in a word for me. They sent me a rather "brush off" email actually. They don't seem to be interested in any input from me.

Quote

The product is being developed by an external team and it should be noted that it is currently part of our ‘Jetliner’ range, so it will not be fully-functional (100% realistic) in terms of systems e.g. electrical and hydraulic

So the FS9 version with avsim updates will still be the most in depth simulation for a while yet.

The systems are not all that difficult to model. Some are time consuming to get right. I would say that it would be much easier to do than the DC6 that PMDG did.

I shall now indulge in a little bit of blackmail lol. If PMDG don't do it I'll disclose Robert's real daytime job!

see here!

I live not to far away and see his handiwork almost everyday lol

[Ted Striker 338]

42 minutes ago, vololiberista said:

They don't seem to be interested in any input from me.

I was afraid of that as they didn't offer up much information besides contacting you. I thought Just Flight was developing it in house. Being developed by an external team and looking like they are getting ready to release it would explain why they didn't want any input at this time. We'll have to wait and see what we get.

Ted

[Chock 17,769]

It's Aeroplane Heaven who are doing the VC-10 for Just Flight, as they have done with many of JF's other add-on aeroplanes. Some AH stuff is really good (for example, their Boeing B17F Flying Fortress is truly excellent, rivalling A2A's much more expensive B17G variant in my opinion, as indeed is their most recent Curtiss SB2-C Helldiver, which is really good fun to fly - i.e. tricky and challenging, as was the real aeroplane), other AH stuff is a bit so-so if one prefers study sims. Whilst in recent months, particularly with JF's own in-house developed stuff, we have seen JF really 'up their game' in terms of their add-on catalogue's level of quality, with things such as their Trinidad and Tobago and Piper Arrow being the equal of any other GA add-on you can get (note their Trinidad and Tobago is on sale this weekend incidentally, for £12.99 - normally £27.99 or thereabouts I think - so if you don't believe me, there's a cheap opportunity for you to find out)

Generally speaking, most AH stuff is kind of 'built to a price', which is nice in regard to how much you pay for things of course, i.e. their BAC 1-11 is £24.99, which, given that you get three variants of the 1-11 with different avionics fits (strictly speaking four if you regard the Ryanair repaint as a Romac-built version of the 1-11, which it was in reality), so that's a about 8 quid for each variant. But, not quite so groovy if you want a real study-level aeroplane, although to be fair, the AH/JF 1-11 isn't missing too much in terms of fidelity to the real airliner and is an interesting alternative to flying a DC-9 or 737-200 in your sim. So, there are some real gems in amongst those AH add-ons if one is prepared to sift a bit. One can perfectly understand that 'to a price' policy too; sometimes those who frequent aviation sim nut forums such as Avsim can forget that we are not the majority, there are loads more flight simmers out there who want something which doesn't require an intimate knowledge of the real aeroplane and 10,000 hours in a real logbook in order to even turn the cabin lights on.

Of course if one wants a VC-10 done to a very high level, something you can at least consider with the Aeroplane Heaven version, is that it will be a nice model which can of course have different avionics and gauges shoved into it courtesy of the likes of SimAvionics etc. Anyone who has been around flight simming for years knows that this used to be a fairly common practice amongst us lot when a decent study-level version of an airliner or GA aeroplane was not available. If I had a quid for every radar, EFIS, FMC gauge etc which I've shoehorned into the VC of various mediocre B737NG's for FSX over the years before the iFly and PMDG ones came out, I'd be rich, and whenever there wasn't a suitable VC slot, I'd happily design a 2D panel and shove the necessary on that, even going to the trouble of designing replacement autopilot panels for Beechcraft Barons and such when there were no decent ones around. So in the case of the VC-10, one suspects that a complex and detailed engineer's panel could be created shoved into it with comparitive ease if the default one didn't float your boat, and one suspects that everyone's facourite VC-10 buff - vololiberista - will find that difficult to resist.

[vololiberista 205]

Well there is stil a lot missing. There's no INS which there will have to be for a BOAC a/c. Marco Ravanello  has been working on an XML version of his CIVA INS so they should incorporate that. all they need to do is chamge the skins of the CDU's to mimick the doppler version BOAC installed.