DC-3 impressions?

[Maladoror 89]

24 minutes ago, Swe_Richard said:

Rather like this one as well, even though I haven't invested nearly as much time as in the A310. One thing has been odd for me, though. Tell me if you've encountered the same:

The first three flights ended a couple of NM from the departing airport when for some odd reason the plane just keels over to the left and spins into the ground. I had been following the in-built checklists to the letter. What seemed to make the behaviour go away was me setting mixture to auto-lean before T/O and not in cruise as per the checklist. Then it never did the same again. First time it happened I thought I had overstressed the engines, so on the next T/O I took it *really* easy on the engines (props fully forward and, what, #35-40 on the manifold). That maybe gave me half a NM more before the same happened. The third was more or less a repeat of the second. On the fourth and fifth I set the mixture levers, as said, to auto-lean and could complete the two 50NM short hops without issue. Same weather and temps on all the attempts.

I am not a pilot and have only flown a kite irl. Like most things I know, I watched several youtube videos to figure out and I may be completely wrong. This plane is unstable below 120 mph. Get to 85/90 before rotating. Climb slowly below 120mph. At 140 I bring mp and rpms down a bit and start climbing faster. I cruise at mp 25 and rpm at 19.

[jwhak 92]

Howdy,

    I jumped the gun and changed the DC-3 Fuel Flow Scalar to like 0.7.  Can anyone remember what the default Fuel Flow Scalar setting was in the Engine.Cfg?  If so could someone tell me cause I forgot to back it up 😮

   1) Mixture levers. These are “gated” and programmed
to simulate Auto-Lean and Auto-Rich
states. The programming code behid them will not
function with ctrl/E and they are not designed to
work with standard keystrokes for mixtures.
You will have default mixture settings ONLY.

The reason I am bringing this up I noticed on page 37 & 38 of the manual there are 3 different variations involved with starting her up that can affect the Auto Rich & Auto Lean functions if you do Cntrl-E quick start which of course would affect fuel flow.

                                                               Thanks & Happy Landings

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by jwhak

[Chock 17,769]

Was initially all over the place, piyching up on take off etc, but now it flies okay with modded files:

Edited November 14, 2022 by Chock

[bobcat999 8,484]

10 minutes ago, Chock said:

Was initially all over the place but now it flies okay with the modded files:

Glad to see you back and enjoying it Chock!  Nice pic!

[sd_flyer 6,043]

Anyone else has right aux tank selection causing right engine to stop?

[ZoblebV8 57]

1 hour ago, sd_flyer said:

Anyone else has right aux tank selection causing right engine to stop?

The flight_model.cfg files are different for the enhanced vs regular versions and I believe the aux fuel tanks are broken in the enhanced version. An edit of the enhanced .cfg file to match the normal file appears to fix the aux tanks. From what I recall in the enhanced version they show no fuel either no matter how you fill it and when you switch to aux tanks the engine(s) quit.

[Fielder 3,679]

10 hours ago, GaryK said:

Cockpit camera default position is very bad. Too high and too close, difficult to see the instruments at that angle. I guess they've done that so I can see the runway during taxi. (I understand this isn't possible in the real thing)
 

I use one of these in front of my keyboard:

CH Quad. I think I paid $80 for it.

Flip any of  the six toggles down and it's a new view (which I preset).

Flip any of the six toggles up to interface with ATC.

The six levers I use for panning and zooming. For instance in the outside view using a mouse to pan is way way too fast. These levers I remapped to move things in out or pan around very very slowly. I just observed how the mouse pan and mouse zoom functions are mapped in the mouse profile, and copied those same commands over to the levers. (Easy peasy).

In other words a throttle quad that I have set to do nothing at all to the throttle functions. I have another throttle that does that, like everybody else has. 

 

[bobcat999 8,484]

2 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

Anyone else has right aux tank selection causing right engine to stop?

This is just out...

https://flightsim.to/file/43893/duckworks-dc-3-improvement-mod

[mikegrr 109]

So which mod works better or feels more accurate? Do they work with the non-enhance version?

[GaryK 201]

Since my initial quick tests of this AC I've had a chance to complete some flights and mmmmmm.

it's very buggy but flies good once in the air......the start and finish of the flight are another story. 

When I heard that this AC was being made by AH I was very pleased as it really was a brilliant plane in previous sims. I would have happily paid good money for it. OK I might have been disappointed with the results once released but as a paying customer I would have felt I had the right to moan like hell until it was fixed........and how I would have complained, I would have left no stone unturned in my search for satisfaction, I would have pursued them round Good Hope, and around the Horn, and around the Norway Maelstrom, and round perditions flames before I gave it up...........I'm salivating at the thought, my arousal was unbound at the prospect😉

......the DC-3 is now a Microsoft freebie😟 I feel I have been deprived of my right to whinge. Sad, sad, sad.

This bird will now languish in the hangar alongside all the other offerings that I'm indifferent to. I may dust it off if AH fix it on behalf of MS.

I'm now going for a lie down and I shall dream of the lost opportunity to vent my spleen across the world wide web😪😴💤
 

Edited November 15, 2022 by GaryK

[Swe_Richard 1,172]

39 minutes ago, GaryK said:

......the DC-3 is now a Microsoft freebie😟 I feel I have been deprived of my right to whinge. Sad, sad, sad.

This bird will now languish in the hangar alongside all the other offerings that I'm indifferent to. I may dust it off if AH fix it on behalf of MS.

I'm now going for a lie down and I shall dream of the lost opportunity to vent my spleen across the world wide web😪😴💤
 

Ouch. That was quite the eloquent critique. What are the biggest issues in your opinion? Have you tried the mods for it?  I have yet to try any modifications and have only two short flights yet however agree with your opinion that it feels good in flight. 

[GaryK 201]

The eloquence isn't entirely my own.

The post was tongue in cheek and a bit of a poke at the Twotterites but it does have a point: The simple supplier/customer contractual agreement which helps ensure satisfaction for both parties has been clouded by a third party that has made it a freebie. 

I have very limited time. My flights are typically 30mins to an hour, about 2 or 3 maybe 4 times a week. I no longer have time to either trawl the net and forums looking for answers or tweak configs and install mods. Years ago I used to love the tinkering inside the files but I no longer have the time and in my experience the more vanilla an installation the better for overall stability. I don't expect perfection in sims or addons but I do expect them to be usable. The roll out in this DC-3 is the killer for me so I'll leave the AC until AH fix it.

It's no big deal (now it's a freebie)🤣😂
 

Edited November 15, 2022 by GaryK

[AJZip 251]

Well...I've just had what is undoubtedly my most enjoyable VR flight yet - and I've had some great ones in recent months.  But this 'best yet' has been in the (unmodded) DC3.

Yes, my first couple of tries when the SU11 first came out had all of the above that folks have outlined above: the snaking t/o, uncontrollable nose up, stall, wing drop calamity.  But this last flight - other than the landing (managed to stay on the runway but the snaking down to stop would have got me losing my license IRL) which I put down to pilot error - was immensely satisfying.

I found that the biggest change was working out the best way of adjusting the pitch trim.  I found that using the mouse to move the trim wheel created MASSIVE trim changes - and had resulted in some of my previous difficulties.  That is because, I now realise, I was doing the equivalent of over-control rudder snaking - but this time in pitch.  On the other hand, the Honeycomb Bravo trim wheel was the opposite - it produced extremely small movements. 

So for the good flight, I did a 'cold and dark' start from EGNX.  The engine start is magnificent!  Once lined up on the runway, I used the mouse on the trim wheel to set my starting trim but then kept the mouse well away from the trim wheel.  Down the runway, I used the control column pushed slightly forward to lift the tail and prevent early pitch-high takeoff.  I tried to keep the lift off as shallow as I could to gain speed as I raised the gear and flaps.  I then flew straight as I climbed and held the pitch with the main column and used the Bravo Trim wheel (it took quite a few rotations) until I could let go the control column and then adjust pitch from then on with teeny changes of the Bravo trim wheel.

Found my way to EGBB on a VFR basis, lined up, controlled the landing with throttle and teeny trim changes and - other than the final snaking that I think came from letting my tail drop too soon - a respectable landing speed and attitude.

I did another flight to ensure it wasn't just luck and same result (with a little less snaking on landing 🙂 )

And so, as far as my own set up goes, it's the sensitivity of the pitch trim that was causing me the problems - I think I would have struggled to have controlled it just with the VR mouse.  Not sure if the modifications mentioned above address this or if anyone else has the same issues as on my rig.  If trim was an axis, I could simply change the sensitivity but even the Bravo trim wheel has it as a series of button pushes.  I'll investigate further.   

 

[regis9 4,014]

Aeroplane Heaven stated on Facebook yesterday that their contract with Microsoft includes support and updates for some time to come so they will be addressing bugs/issues.

[Stearmandriver 2,296]

I still hold out hope that we'll see the Jahn / Visser model in MSFS one day.  It blew the AH version away in FSX.