Most realistic turboprop for P3D?

[KenG 492]

It actually isn't. It is a simple change in basic weight and moment. That is it. Performance charts and autopilot are exactly the same. 

This misdirection and misinformation may pass for some, but as someone with decades of experience in King Airs and my own share of FDE work I know better. A well designed FDE can easily accept a change within the normal weight and balance limits of the documented aircraft they modeled the project off. 

Great product, but with a lead developer who thinks it is acceptable to lie to his customers as to one of the reasons they can't add a feature. 

[19dcavscout 39]

I have never seen a King Air, especially a modern one, without a weather radar. I am sure there are some out there without it, but it should have it.

[paradoxbox 13]

12 hours ago, 19dcavscout said:

I have never seen a King Air, especially a modern one, without a weather radar. I am sure there are some out there without it, but it should have it.

like i said, just use an external gauge. i use the one by milviz and it works great with activesky. it's easy to install (point and click) and not very expensive and can be used in any aircraft. i use it in a bunch of my older aircraft that did not come with weather radar as the technology was not available during development. it works fine.

[Chock 17,769]

On 9/11/2017 at 5:18 AM, paradoxbox said:

whether you think it is a lot of work or not, trust me, as a former developer, it is a LOT of work to put something into an already finished product. it's not a simple matter of adding a little weight to the nose. it will likely require a lot of reprogramming to the autoflight system, the fuel consumption computers, sensors etc. it is more complicated than you think it is.

I'll grant you at least that a real weather radar does often take a reference reading from an autopilot gyro in order to help stabilise the radar dish during flight, but it doesn't actually affect automated flight in any way itself, because it is merely tapping into that already extant gyro's stability data which it is putting out, so there'd be no need to adjust the autopilot functionality. A Bendix Radar 2000 weighs a bit less than 10lbs; that's probably less than the combined weight of the things in your passengers pockets on a ten-seater aeroplane, so it's not really gonna affect the flight characteristics much even if one is talking about obsessive realism where the weight of everything is considered. It's even less than that weight for datalink-based weather radar avionics which don't have a dish.

It is true that any additional avionics system will create some extra electrical load - i.e. a weather radar dish and its cockpit display will draw about 28 volts DC - so I suppose, again if we're getting really nerdy, the additional electrical requirement of a weather radar would mean that fuel consumption was affected just a little bit as the generators provided that tiny bit more power to it, but it's not going to be anything truly significant, certainly not something which would affect fuel consumption to any noticeable level any more than having the cabin lights on would burn tons more fuel. If you could save any significant fuel by turning off something like that, half the GA pilots in the world would be flying round with their avionics bus breaker popped lol.

And that's on the real thing.

Doing a weather radar on a sim version and getting bothered about all that stuff would be going into full on ultra-realistic total nerd mode; a flight sim version could just have a gauge stuck in the panel, and if we really wanted to be slightly nerdy, add about 10lbs to the dry weight to the config file, and that would be all was required. And let's be honest, pretty much anyone could knock up a half decent looking radar gauge themselves in an hour with FS Panel Studio and Photoshop, to function as a placeholder on the panel for anyone who didn't have one of the payware ones. It wouldn't even have to light up, just be there to stop there being a hole in the panel. Thus it's not as if it would take weeks to accomplish. Any half decent developer artist could have that done in an afternoon, with one hand tied behind their back, whilst watching TV at the same time.

So unless one was going to be adding the possibility of simulating an electrical fire in the panel from some dodgy kapton wiring arcing on the CRT display or a tilt motor, which would require a circuit breaker to actually function, then there'd really be no need to simulate any of the electrical loads on the system at all.

Even if one did want to add circuit breaker functionality to the VC, really that's just a copy-paste job of a 3D button model part and the same in Photoshop with the clone tool for the panel it sat on. This is hardly a gargantuan modeling and texturing task and even that would only actually be necessary if there wasn't a spare circuit breaker button as part of the 3D panel model in the first place, which there doubtless would be providing it had been modeled correctly. Then it'd just be a adding a button press function to the VC to turn off the radar display. Even I could program that, and what I know about programming gauges in FS could be comfortably written on one side of a cigarette packet, since I've only ever made one autopilot gauge for FS in my entire life lol.

So yeah, changing some things on flight sim aeroplanes is difficult, but adding the capability to stick a radar gauge in there is not one of them, as evidenced by the numerous FS add-ons which allow that to be done by the user with a quick tweak to the VC panel config file so it displays your add-on GPS or radar gauge.

Of course one can easily just use a 2D radar gauge but it shouldn't be rocket science to give the panel a suitable hole to slot one into in the VC. Anyway, if you want a radar gauge in a similarly capable twin turboprop aeroplane as the KA, as noted, the FSW Cessna C441 Conquest II will let you do that easily enough since FSW do provide the cfg file tweaks as text files for you to add most of the main GPS and radar gauges out there with nothing more sophisticated than Notepad and two minutes work.

[paradoxbox 13]

keep in mind i am talking about the sim and not real life here.

the developers have to do a lot of weird things to work around the limitations of the FSX engine. I suppose it's getting better with p3d and with things like activesky. but in early 2014/2015 that was not around yet.

i strongly doubt that their autopilots are coded to work as the real ones do, and the fuel burn figures probably rely on very specific testing that only works within the CG limits achievable through the aircraft's loading screen. if you throw 10-20lbs to the nose of the aircraft, who knows how that is going to affect the autopilot and fuel consumption since the CG normally never gets that far forward.

and this is just one of the things. who knows what other stuff could break. i am sure they have specific reasons for declining to add it at this point. the product seems good enough as it is IMO. i've never seen such a detailed king air, the only one that came close was for the old Fly!II simulator 15 years ago.

 

i do think that simply adding an external gauge is the best solution. i think i bought mine for around $25 or so and I have put it in everything from the FSLabs Concorde to my newly bought king air b200. It works just fine. if you want to simulate the extra weight you can add 10lbs to your pilot's weight.

[Egbert Drenth 250]

On 9/11/2017 at 6:18 AM, paradoxbox said:

it's not a simple matter of adding a little weight to the nose. it will likely require a lot of reprogramming to the autoflight system, the fuel consumption computers, sensors etc. it is more complicated than you think it is.

So following your reasoning.... If I add an extra passenger in the cabin (weighing much more then a Wx-radar), I have to contact the developer and ask him to reprogram the autoflight system, fuel consumption computers, etc etc......

[MartinRex007 390]

Adding a Wx Radar to their G1000 would be nice, but Jim has stated numerous times that their G1000 as a entertainment product offers more functionally than others, and if you want more features they offer a professional G1000 version. But you never know, there might be some new features added to the KA in P3D v4 when it comes out!

Cheers

Martin

 

 

[KenG 492]

16 hours ago, paradoxbox said:

if you throw 10-20lbs to the nose of the aircraft, who knows how that is going to affect the autopilot and fuel consumption since the CG normally never gets that far forward.

 

I pulled the Maintenance / Install manual for the weather radar. The system and a 12" array the weight is 16.2 pounds.

I also randomly selected one of our BE20s and pulled its weight and balance. Since all of our King Airs are have weather radars installed I reversed the calculations to determine the change in CG from the basic weight. With a WX Radar installed the CG was 186.674" and removing the radar (16.2 lbs from FS30) changed the CG aft to 186.979". We are talking a change of 0.305"! 

Put another way the %MAC with the WX Radar is 21.93% and without one is 22.36% or a 0.43% change in %MAC. Since the limits are 13.9% (19.6% at 12.5k) to 35.7% the change is well within the limits of the aircraft. Thus I know exactly how it is going to affect a real airplane.

Since Flight 1 defined their aircraft model based on the FS default datum as opposed to the actual aircraft datum (with is located 14.2" in front of the nose) none of their weight and balance information properly follows the Flight Stations of the real aircraft. I opened the FDE in Airwrench which provides me a very good view of the weight and balance in %MAC. The basic weight %MAC is 25% while the loaded is 24.81% and the fueled is 24.87%.  Looks to me like they basically balanced the aircraft around the 25% MAC point. Thus their FDE is already more tail heavy than the real airplane and a small 0.43% change in MAC should not be a problem for this class of airplane. That is if their original FDE is correct, which was one of the reasons their lead developer gave.

[JRBarrett 3,069]

On 9/11/2017 at 9:37 AM, KenG said:

It actually isn't. It is a simple change in basic weight and moment. That is it. Performance charts and autopilot are exactly the same. 

This misdirection and misinformation may pass for some, but as someone with decades of experience in King Airs and my own share of FDE work I know better. A well designed FDE can easily accept a change within the normal weight and balance limits of the documented aircraft they modeled the project off. 

Great product, but with a lead developer who thinks it is acceptable to lie to his customers as to one of the reasons they can't add a feature. 

Well stated. The B200 is a software emulation of an aircraft, not a real, physical aircraft where adding new equipment has an actual effect on the aircraft weight and center of gravity.

A digital emulation of a weather radar doesn't HAVE "weight", and there is absolutely no reason why W&B effects have to be accounted for in any way.

There is no question that adding a radar emulation could require substantial changes to the programming of the aircraft's systems, modifications to the 3D panel graphics etc. I can't fault the developer if he can't justify the extra work that adding radar would entail - but saying that it can't be done because it would change the aircraft loading and FDE characteristics is absurd.

I have added the recently updated F1 GTN750 to several of my default and add-on P3DV4 aircraft - and doing so has not changed the empty weight or CG of any of them in the slightest. 😜

[paradoxbox 13]

you guys aren't getting it.

if you are really so bent on doing it, why not just hack an addition into your aircraft and see if it still works as intended.

you need to realize that it is a simulation that was made to work around internal FSX limitations. the product was completed at that time.

 

adding it in now causes problems that you are not foreseeing because this is not a real aircraft but a simulation built using the SDK and limitations of the sim engine. all of the systems and performance figures in THE SIMULATOR were achieved with its present coding.

 

it does not matter how real aircraft behave in this situation because they designed the SIMULATOR to behave as the real aircraft, WITHOUT the weather radar. that includes aero data but also systems integration, circuitry, etc.

 

PMDG's 737 is a good example. I think that now, it finally has weather radar, but how many months or years did it take them to add it once they had already built it into their other, newer aircraft? PMDG has a way bigger budget than most other developers too. if it took them that long, how long is it going to take for a team of 1-3 guys to do it? how much money is that going to cost?

it is not as simple as you guys believe it is.

 

If you really do think it is that simple, why don't you code a replacement DLL yourself and pop it in? I mean, if what I'm saying is absurd, it must be easy enough for you to do yourself, right?

 

anyway, enough with the arguing - I learned to fly turboprops on a B200 back in 2001 and this rendition of the B200 is the best B200 sim product I've ever flown.

I also picked up the MU-2 and Conquest II and they are both fantastic. The Mu-2 is a rocket and very challenging to fly at heavy loads and high airports. The B200 is a docile kitten in comparison. Very satisfied with these products. All of them have weather radar installed BTW, including my King Air. Again can't really understand the resistance to just put in an external gauge.

[Yoda967 23]

On 9/11/2017 at 6:37 AM, KenG said:

It actually isn't. It is a simple change in basic weight and moment. That is it. Performance charts and autopilot are exactly the same. 

This misdirection and misinformation may pass for some, but as someone with decades of experience in King Airs and my own share of FDE work I know better. A well designed FDE can easily accept a change within the normal weight and balance limits of the documented aircraft they modeled the project off. 

Great product, but with a lead developer who thinks it is acceptable to lie to his customers as to one of the reasons they can't add a feature. 

Quite right, and I spoke out of turn. I made the mistake of trying to give an answer beyond a simple, "asked and answered many times," and I apologize for not thinking it through completely before submitting my reply.

That said, having spoken with the lead programmer directly on the issue of adding either radar or satellite weather display (both of which are options on the real G1000), the real answer is that, given the processor load required to run what's already there, adding a weather display to the current Flight1 G1000 would be too big a performance hit. 

 Again, I apologize for having offered an inaccurate explanation.