Not Worth The Money!

[rlbomber 0]

Sure wish I could get a refund for this purchase!  Definitely not worth the $39.00 I paid for this aircraft.  The flight characteristics when coming in for a landing and the use of the flaps are horrible.  I'm surprised because the Shrike 500 is such a nice plane to fly unlike this one.

[FDEdev 955]

It shouldn't be a problem to get a refund from Carenado. That said, what's wrong with the flaps? The S330 has much more effective flaps than the Shrike. 

Edited September 7, 2019 by FDEdev

[GrizzlyAir 7]

Absolute nonsense.  Great plane

[scianoir 610]

Although I like this aircraft, which I have recently bought, I would agree that the flight dynamics need a bit of attention. In particular the degree of ballooning when flaps are deployed from 15 to 35 degrees at the correct VFE (125kts or less) is excessive with the vertical speed transiently increasing by between 1500 and 2000ft/min. This sudden change in vertical speed is difficult enough to handle when flying a manual approach but lowering full flaps when flying the ILS on autopilot results in a huge deviation above the glideslope which the AP has difficulty correcting. Although I have never flown the 330 in the real world and am open to correction by anyone who has, I cannot believe that this aircraft would have had such an excessive tendency to balloon when full flaps are applied.

Perhaps this is something Carenado might address in any update.

Bill

Edited September 25, 2019 by scianoir

[FDEdev 955]

3 hours ago, scianoir said:

Perhaps this is something Carenado might address in any update.

Just checked and there is a rather serious error and mix up in the aircraft.cfg file. PM with a corrected FDE sent 🙂

FYI, this problem, as you have noticed, only occurs with flaps 35 which is the short field flap setting. It's usually only used when absolutely necessary.

 

 

 

Edited September 25, 2019 by FDEdev

[scianoir 610]

Inserting the corrected FDE into the cfg considerably improved the ballooning on selecting flaps 35 - many thanks!

Bill

[FDEdev 955]

You are welcome 🙂

Another point concerning ballooning. On larger aircraft like the 3-30 and up, the flaps and flap mechanism are weak points and hence some operators even forbide to extend the flaps at V_FE and you have wait until the speed has dropped at least 5kts below the limiting speed.

Generally, if you haven't screwed up the approach and you don't need them as speed brakes you reduce the speed even further.

E.g. you slow towards to the minimum maneuvering speed (V_MAN = V_ST x 1.4) for the actual flap setting and ~10kts above this speed you select the next stage of flaps.

This procedure will greatly reduce/remove the ballooning, it's more elegant, smooth and passenger friendly. Especially at low weight.  

At e.g. 17000lbs forcing the flaps out to 8deg at 148kts isn't necessary. V_MAN without flaps is ~115kts and extending the flaps to 8deg at 125kts would be early enough.

With the flaps at 8deg V_MAN drops to 100kts, so flaps 15 at 110kts would be a nice extension speed and if really needed, flaps 35 at 105kts.

Hope this helps

Bernt

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2019 by FDEdev

[scianoir 610]

Thanks Bernt, that’s very useful additional information! It’s also good to know the minimum manoeuvring speeds for the different flap settings. It’s a pity Carenado doesn’t include data such as this in their documentation and indeed also some information on actual flying techniques particularly for their larger aircraft.

Bill

[FDEdev 955]

I didn't find any V_MAN in the manual, this speed is 'borrowed' from jet flying. At these low approach speeds it's basically sufficient to simply add another 10kts to V_REF and you've got the 'appropriate' speed.

Nevertheless it's nice additional info for the operation of any aircraft.

[scianoir 610]

22 hours ago, FDEdev said:

I didn't find any V_MAN in the manual, this speed is 'borrowed' from jet flying. At these low approach speeds it's basically sufficient to simply add another 10kts to V_REF and you've got the 'appropriate' speed.

When I first get a new aircraft, my normal practice is to do a number of test flights to assess its flying characteristics for myself. During these flights, I usually check and record the stalling speeds in various configurations, particularly if this information is not given in the documentation. With this information, I guess I should at least be able to make a reasonable estimate of Vman for different flap settings in individual aircraft. 

Thanks for your help with this!

Bill

[rlbomber 0]

Will an update being coming out with the corrected data or is this something that is only available to certain individuals when requested?

[FDEdev 955]

V1.1 will be available very soon.

[RonyJoshua 0]

I do understand, i had the same problem before. I bought it for my son and when i saw the quality of this airplane i was really disappointed