FSX-MS Lotus L39 Albatross - airspeed

[severniae 78]

Hi All,

I've been in a fast jet mood lately and been enjoying flying the L39 - Possibly the best payware jet I've yet tried. One thing that always bothers me though is that the airspeed is in KMH. It's fine for the most part, but my brain is just geared for knots, I suppose because everything else I fly is in KIAS.

I've heard there is a panel mod out there somewhere that has the ASI calibrated in knots, but the only link I've found seems to be dead.

Does anyone have it? I've managed for the time being to very crudely add in markers for knots in the current panel, but I'm afraid my photoshop skills are terrible and I just can't manage to make a decent gauge myself.

Best,

James

[Bjoern 1,152]

All eastern bloc aircraft have their gauges in metric units. If you're not used to this units, dividing kph by 2 will give you a rough idea about the speed in knots (The actual conversion factor is 1.8something, but using two requires less brain capacity).

But I assume that the V and cruise speed charts are in kph anyway, so there's no point in going the long way using knots and then converting back to kph.

 

A quick fix is using Shift+Z (or Y?) for a few touch & gos until you get a good mental correlation between kph and knots.

 

 

P.S: The 4477th TE Sqn, which flew MiG-17s, -21s and -23s during the 1980s over Tonopah, NV never changed the gauges in the birds and some pilots - Aggressors by cover and profession (think best of the best) - admitted to using the "needle here - good, needle there - bad" method until they got the feel for the aircraft and gauges (and developed proper speed charts).

[severniae 78]

Thanks Bowen for the informative post! :)

Yes what you suggested is what I do at th moment, though I'm trying to fly in current US/Europe IFR, and it just helps my mental calculations with the altitude and ASI being it's/feet - also all the L39s in civvy use in the states have had the ASI converted.

 

thnaks,

James

[eelb 5]

Many private owners in the US, have modified them with Garmin G600 PFD/MFD's. Look around on some of the aircraft broker sites under warbirds, and there's often good panel photos. 

[scottb613 1,186]

Hi Folks,

We had (3) of the these at KMGJ - man - they are beautiful - had the opportunity to get up close and personal with one - owned by a guy who made his money off something to do with Pixar animation IIRC - he told a story of traveling over to an eastern block country - drinking with some Russian general and buying the plane with cash... Surprisingly the Russian general kept his word and delivered the plane as promised - as he could have easily just walked with the cash - nothing more sacred than a good bottle of Vodka...

Another one of the three was lost at Greenwood Lake (4N1) in a crash - overshot the runway off the edge of a substantial drop seriously injuring the pilot - these planes aren't know for their performance and a 3400 ft field seems a tad short for L39 operations to me on a hot summer day...

Will this work with P3Dv4 ?

Regards,
Scott

[odourboy 1,286]

I have it mostly working in v4. To get all the cockpit sounds, you'll need to change out the sound gauge for DDs 64 bit version. Also, a couple of the light effects don't seem to work quite right e.g. the strobe sometimes flashes beside the canopy. Minor, but bit annoying so I just turn it off. It's probably easily fixable but I haven't looked at it yet.

[scottb613 1,186]

Hi...

OK thanks - I just purchase v4 last night - haven't even started with it yet - I've always had my eye on this plane due to how well it was received...

Regards,

Scott

[odourboy 1,286]

I think you're going to like v4. A bit of a drag having to wait for, and occasionally, repurchase some of your add-ons, but it's a step up from v3.

[severniae 78]

I'm just in the process of getting v4 set up and ready.... The strobe issue by the way is there in v3 too so perhaps an old error.

Do any of you has the ASI KTS mod?

[severniae 78]

Bump - does anyone have this ASI mod?