21 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

Nice... I think it's safe to say that the Milviz 310 has the most realistic flight dynamics as of now in terms of GA aircrafts in MSFS (and certainly at par with some other birds out there). Will be interesting to see how the A2A Comanche does in the flight dynamics dept.

Thanks! Most definitely! In addition to simulating an engine out in the video, other characteristics including stall and ground rollout are incredibly accurate. I have a feeling, it will be a while till the depth of flight dynamics is matched by another GA aircraft. A2A has their work cut out for them as the bar has been set extremely high by MilViz.

@Doering Really appreciate your videos, have learnt a lot from them already. I love the way the C310R floats and bobs as she moves through the airflow, it feels very alive and reminds me of training for my PPL in a DA42, although that was more like a roller coaster ride in places. I do find the pitch controls and taxi speed very sensitive to my input ,and the way she drops out of the sky on finals rather unnerving, but nothing like a challenge!

Edited June 1, 20224 yr by toby23

On 6/1/2022 at 12:36 PM, toby23 said:

@Doering Really appreciate your videos, have learnt a lot from them already. I love the way the C310R floats and bobs as she moves through the airflow, it feels very alive and reminds me of training for my PPL in a DA42, although that was more like a roller coaster ride in places. I do find the pitch controls and taxi speed very sensitive to my input ,and the way she drops out of the sky on finals rather unnerving, but nothing like a challenge!

Terrific and thanks! Yes the 310 drops quickly. Got to have a good approach speed and attitude! The DA42 was my favourite twin back in the day! Helped model it for Eaglesoft and I did record sounds for the DA42 model at the London, Ontario factory! What a memory!

I have a problem landing the 310r on SECU (Ecuador). The airport elevation is ~8000ft and I am struggeling to stabilise my approach. I noticed that in the landing configuration I can hardly keep the IAS above 100kts, and I end up either floating on the runway (which is much too short for that) or land much with too much vertical speed (>400f/m)

Any tips?

43 minutes ago, orchestra_nl said:

I have a problem landing the 310r on SECU (Ecuador). The airport elevation is ~8000ft and I am struggeling to stabilise my approach. I noticed that in the landing configuration I can hardly keep the IAS above 100kts, and I end up either floating on the runway (which is much too short for that) or land much with too much vertical speed (>400f/m)

Any tips?

Are you leaning the engines properly? Try to maximize EGT or use the orange indicators to the left of the yoke. Generally, 8000' is extremely high, so you need to consult performance tables as to how you have to modify speeds. My gut feeling would be that your approach speed would have to be well above 100kts in order to avoid stalling.

Peter

57 minutes ago, orchestra_nl said:

I have a problem landing the 310r on SECU (Ecuador). The airport elevation is ~8000ft and I am struggeling to stabilise my approach. I noticed that in the landing configuration I can hardly keep the IAS above 100kts, and I end up either floating on the runway (which is much too short for that) or land much with too much vertical speed (>400f/m)

Any tips?

I just did a circuit at SECU! Great scenery BTW! At that elevation with the thin air, performance is not great. Land with no flaps and make sure the mixture is lean to keep your airspeed around 100 plus. Nice, long gentle glide slope and you should be good.

Edited June 7, 20224 yr by Doering

29 minutes ago, qqwertzde said:

Are you leaning the engines properly? Try to maximize EGT or use the orange indicators to the left of the yoke. Generally, 8000' is extremely high, so you need to consult performance tables as to how you have to modify speeds. My gut feeling would be that your approach speed would have to be well above 100kts in order to avoid stalling.

Peter

I had indeed leaned the mixture (max EGT) and at that altitude the engines don't produce enough power to achieve much above 100kts.
While aborting the landing I could not climb even with the gear up. Only when I upped the flaps a notch was I able to climb. Unfortunately I could not clear the trees fast enough.
I tried to take of from SECU and noticed that I can only do that with light load (2 passengers max) and 30% fuel. Even then I needed all of the runway to get airborne.

20 minutes ago, Doering said:

I just did a circuit at SECU! Great scenery BTW! At that elevation with the thin air, performance is not great. Land with no flaps and make sure the mixture is lean to keep your airspeed around 100 plus. Nice, long gentle glide slope and you should be good.

Thanks for the tip. I suppose that full flaps creates too much drag for the engines to overcome at this altitude. With 6000ft the runway is also uncomfortablty short for the altitude to land at, especially without flaps.
It's doable but requires some more practise for me I think. Climb power is already limited at this altitude which means you must really think ahead when trying to land, and abort early enough.

Great scenery indeed, and some challenging airports in the area. The high plateau surrounded by mountains leads some interesting approaches, escpecially for aircraft that are not well suited for operating at this altitude.

10 minutes ago, orchestra_nl said:

I had indeed leaned the mixture (max EGT) and at that altitude the engines don't produce enough power to achieve much above 100kts.
While aborting the landing I could not climb even with the gear up. Only when I upped the flaps a notch was I able to climb. Unfortunately I could not clear the trees fast enough.

I gotta try that myself 🙂

I consulted the POH. ground roll also depends on temperature. At 8000' and MTOW (5500 lbs), ground roll is 3600' at 0C and 4200' at 20C, with a total of 6400' to clear a 50' obstacle.

@orchestra_nl Great! With a little practice and careful engine management you will be departing and landing with no problem. The climb is very slow at high altitudes and you must be patient. Watch your airspeed closely and you quickly see the best angle of attack as you pull back on the yoke. Flying at high altitudes greatly improves your skills as your GA aircraft is less forgiving. When you return to sea level, it really opens your eyes to the difference in performance.

7 hours ago, orchestra_nl said:

I had indeed leaned the mixture (max EGT) and at that altitude the engines don't produce enough power to achieve much above 100kts.
While aborting the landing I could not climb even with the gear up. Only when I upped the flaps a notch was I able to climb. Unfortunately I could not clear the trees fast enough.
I tried to take of from SECU and noticed that I can only do that with light load (2 passengers max) and 30% fuel. Even then I needed all of the runway to get airborne.

Thanks for the tip. I suppose that full flaps creates too much drag for the engines to overcome at this altitude. With 6000ft the runway is also uncomfortablty short for the altitude to land at, especially without flaps.
It's doable but requires some more practise for me I think. Climb power is already limited at this altitude which means you must really think ahead when trying to land, and abort early enough.

Great scenery indeed, and some challenging airports in the area. The high plateau surrounded by mountains leads some interesting approaches, escpecially for aircraft that are not well suited for operating at this altitude.

OK, I did a few takeoffs and landings at SECU. It is tricky indeed, but I managed to depart and land with clear skies. Landing wasn't really a problem, I could easily keep the airplane above 100kts, even with 5 pax and 50% fuel in my main tanks. Takeoff was harder and I did crash once. What did the trick was a maximum performance takeoff:

- Keep on the brakes until you have maximum power, then start rolling. I used flaps on first position.

- Keep torque at max

- Adjust mixture during roll, and use the orange gauges to optimize it. EGT was not sufficient for me at SECU

- Take off gently once you are above stall speed (red line)

- As soon as you leave the ground, retract the gear. It was tight and I got stall warning for a for a second once or twice, but I was able top clear the buildings.

I would say performance is a bit worse than in the POH, but not dramatically. Keep in mind, the engine is probably more than 40 years old 😉

Really interesting airport, thanks for making us aware of it 🙂

Peter

9 minutes ago, qqwertzde said:

OK, I did a few takeoffs and landings at SECU. It is tricky indeed, but I managed to depart and land with clear skies. Landing wasn't really a problem, I could easily keep the airplane above 100kts, even with 5 pax and 50% fuel in my main tanks. Takeoff was harder and I did crash once. What did the trick was a maximum performance takeoff:

Yes, when I did my test circuits at SECU, I was instinctively on the brakes and winding up the RPM before starting the roll out. All the videos I have seen at high elevations in the mountains do the max performance takeoff. Also, get the flaps up immediately after you clear all obstacles to increase your airspeed. As you say, not too bad for a 40 year old engine at 8,000’.

Bare in mind that in the real aircraft as temps and hence Density Altitude goes up so does the required take-off roll.  Eventually you reach a point where you need to dump luggage, passengers or some of your fuel or your not getting off the ground.

We were discussing this at the local aero club a few years back and one of the guys described an incident when he was living in PNG where he calculated the correct weights and fuel for the mountain runway he was parked at 7.00 am but take-off was delayed several hours by weather.  Long story short - in the intervening couple of hours temps climbed drastically and so did the Density Altitude and hence he was over weight. They ran off the end of the runway but were able to stop before hitting anything too substantial.   

Basically the weight that was calculated as correct for a successful take-off at 7.00 am was too heavy by 10.00 am. he should have recalculated his weights and balances for the changed conditions.

 

 

Good read. Made me remember that famous vid here:

 

On 6/2/2022 at 8:01 PM, Doering said:

The DA42 was my favourite twin back in the day! Helped model it for Eaglesoft

I loved that old DA42 addon by Eaglesoft, as well as their Columbia 400.  Was a 2D flyer back then (2006ish?) and those panels on those two aircraft were fabulous!  Eaglesoft never dazzled in the texturing department but their flight dynamics and flight handling characteristics were always wonderful.   Remember their Citation X ? 🙂

2 hours ago, JYW said:

Remember their Citation X ? 🙂

System fulfilling. I also remember how bad the graphics were. 😀