I've been following the development of this aircraft, looks to be one of the first really interesting aircraft releases. It seems like it's coming very soon!

Yep, also following that addon 🙂

Looking fwd into it !

Good news with the small price. 

Dino is another brilliant developer oft seen and heard from at SOH. Glad to see his work getting attention... he has been most generous with freeware in the past and I am happy to support him commercially. He doesn’t produce anything second rate... so it should be a great addition to MSFSMP.

C

Oh GOD!

If you follow that link to Dino’s Facebook page you can read some interesting insight exposing the hurdles for devs to get a product to the Marketplace. 

The Rutan Long EZ ups and downs are chronicled over the last 30 days.

Seems like Dino was using the Traditional flight dynamics and MS wanted him to use the Modern so they rejected it, but, agreed to update the sim to properly handle canard airfoils. MS are saying the canard coding could be in the next update.

I am personally more interested in thIs Long EZ development for MSFS than the M-339. This is the one John Denver died in after running out of fuel almost within sight of the Rutan factory. The other tank was full. duh.

Ray

5 minutes ago, raymar said:

I am personally more interested in thIs Long EZ development for MSFS than the M-339. This is the one John Denver died in after running out of fuel almost within sight of the Rutan factory. The other tank was full. duh.

Ray

...and the fuel selector switch was somewhere behind the seat where he couldn't see it or maybe didn't take the time to look, if I remember correctly?

 

This looks very interesting, and will be a good opportunity to test how the scenery keeps up with a higher speed aircraft.

1 hour ago, Stoopy said:

...and the fuel selector switch was somewhere behind the seat where he couldn't see it or maybe didn't take the time to look, if I remember correctly?

Denver knew the fuel selector was located in a awkward spot (a poor decision by the previous owner, who had built the aeroplane), but that wasn't really the only issue, there were some others: At the time of the accident, Denver shouldn't have been flying - the FAA had pulled his medical certificate owing to his alchohol dependency. Denver only spent about 30 minutes transition training onto the type, and so he was not really familiar with just how difficult it would be to swap over the fuel tanks whilst in flight from the pilot's seat.

On the day of the crash, the cobbled together solution (which didn't even work very well) of jamming a pair of vice grips onto the fuel tank selector handle in an attempt to extend it, should have been something of a warning signal to not fly the aeroplane before sensibly addressing the issue instead of taking a chance.

Denver said to an engineer who provided the vice grips, that he would use the autopilot to hold the plane level and loosen his straps so he could turn and reach the badly-placed fuel selector switch. It's likely he inadvertently booted the rudder pedal down when trying to do this, causing the crash by losing control. But what is worse, is that the engineer had pointed out that the two fuel tanks were not filled up and one was fairly low on fuel, and he offered to refuel the aeroplane but Denver refused the offer.

Ironically, Denver was a pretty well-experienced pilot, so it was almost certainly overconfidence at the root of the accident, although clearly since he knew he wasn't actually supposed to be flying, his decision-making skills were quite evidently not at their peak that day. Denver had nearly 3,000 hours of stick time, owned and flew his own LearJet as well as a Christen Eagle, a Cessna 210, a number of vintage biplanes and gliders, plus the recently-purchased Long-EZ in which he was killed, so it is bizarre that he would not bother to refuel or hold off on flying the Long-EZ until it had a better-engineered fuel selector, as he was hardly unable to afford to pay for things.

Quite sad really, he was a very talented writer, had a great voice, was actually a pretty good guitar player and he wasn't a bad actor either. Just goes to show you what drugs and alcohol will do to you though, because he was well into those.

Edited October 8, 20205 yr by Chock

Will it have raindrops on the windshield?

50 minutes ago, dobee51 said:

Will it have raindrops on the windshield?

I second this question.  A modern add-on surely has this immersive feature?

It should not have to be asked, but it's funny to me, we'll see developers put out an aircraft with great looking PBR, but then no windshield rain effect.

Very real possibility.  From Dino's Facebook page I found this.

He is discussing both the MB-339 and the Long EZ but, I would expect both aircraft to have raindrops and ice.

1 hour ago, dobee51 said:

Will it have raindrops on the windshield?

As I mentioned in another thread, took me ages to find the wiper switch in the King Air. They work well though once you work out how to turn them on 😄

quick start video