Real Air Simulations Duke

[flaminghotsauce]

This is the first time I've been seriously tempted to actually spend money on an add-on aircraft. I like the free stuff, and there are many that are very good. But this Duke just looks tremendous, and according to the text, it's flight dynamics are extremely accurate as well.
I've poked around Carenado's site a lot, and I'm willing to spend a little cash for an aircraft if it's far and above the quality of a free download. This Duke, however, is $44! Plus change! Wow! But it is truly outstanding. I can't stop looking at the website.

Which, is here: www.realairsimulations.com/duke09/intro.php?page=duke09_intro

I'm still thinking about it. I'm also considering a TrackIR system, as I have a bit of cash floating about from all my computer repair/refurbish side business. For $200, I could own both.....

I've asked around a bit elsewhere about frame rate hits for such a luxurious model, and word is there is a little bit of a drop.

[Tom Goodrick]

I have gone a round or two against the folks who run that group with regard to their flight dynamics in FS9. They blatantly disregard the concepts of aeronautical engineering.

I have a Duke for FS9 I can send you. (It may even be on my site.) The body was done very nicely by a friend whose name escapes me at the moment. My FD are realistic.

It won't cost you a penny.

[flaminghotsauce]

If that's the one on your website, I just downloaded it. Where do I put the guages? Digital and Vlite?

Modified to say that most of the panel guages are there, but not the little ones stuck everywhere, including the engine stuff on the right. I'm guessing that's the Vlite stuff?

[Tom Goodrick]

Dukes are strictly for egotists and no egotist today would be caught dead without a glass panel. So my panel is particularly appropriate.

As in all cases of my panels with XML gauges, almost all go in the Digital subfolder you make in your Gauges Folder. The only gauges for the Vlite folder are the GASP (Gear AirSPeed) and FASP (Flap AirSPeed lights.) All gauges should then fall into place on the panel. I'll email you a screen print of the panel.

Vlite gauges are just lights that turn green when you can activate something and red when you can't.

(This is amazing. I finish that edit and look at the top of the page and see ads for "Duke Eye Center", "Duke Diet List" and "Duke of Edinburgh Hotel" in UK.)

I just flew the Duke the other day and it was fine. But I can't say the one posted is the latest version. I think it is missing only the new sound which is no big deal.

[flaminghotsauce]

I haven't gotten back to my flying computer since you posted, so I haven't yet figured out how to deal with the gauges. Do I simply drag the digital folder into the gauges folder, or do I have to open it and copy the gauges? Digital and Vlite are both missing. Other than that it seems to fly very nicely.

The real purpose of buying the Real Air Duke would be for the superior eye candy, and the "realness" of it. They claim superior engine out handling, even, down to accurate single engine performance. But you make a good point that it would more likely have a flat panel in the dash than the round dials. If I do purchase it, it would be for the FSX only, so I could have yours in FS9 to compare with.

I read some others that purchased it that did not experience frame rate drops, so it's hit or miss depending on my hardware. The FS9 version is very light on frames.

[Tom Goodrick]

The download you have from my site had subdirectories in it for Digital and for Vlite as well as a few gauges outside those folders. If you do not see these subdirectories, there is something wrong with your Windows settings. Perhaps they are hidden from you. All bets are off if this is a Vista machine.

The normal procedure would be two steps:

1: Within the unzipped download, Copy [Gauges] where [Gauges] is a folder within the download.

2: Find your FS9 directory and then Paste (into it).

That is all that has ever been required to install one of my panels. You should NEVER have to break into one of my Gauges folders to get individual files to place in your Gauges folder. The download Gauges file comes with sub folders and that subfolder structure is preserved if you just COPY it into your FS9 folder. This has been covered in my "Basic Basics" text available on the site. The only problem is sometimes I forget to include all the gauges you need. This is normally resolved if you have any other panels of mine or if you see a blank space where the photo I sent you shows a gauge should be and you tell me about it.

I have no way of supporting either Vista or FSX so any problems related to those environmets I cannot help with. I did note that payware file you indicated is an FS9 file.

I'll defend my "realness" against theirs any day of the week unless you are talking about opening doors, etc. Chuck Dome did the aircraft on my site and did it well except for operating doors. My engine-out performance should compare well with published pilot reports. This plane does require that you know hoe to fly a twin and keep your speed up when an engine is lost.

[Tom Goodrick]

I just checked the stall characteristics of the Duke with my FD. Loaded to Max gross weight for takeoff, it stalls at about the right speeds - 79 KIAS clean and 72 KIAS with full flaps. (The "book" gives 81 and 73. it is not clear when flying just when stall starts.) With both engiines turning I did an accelerated stall by rolling to 45 degrres and pulling back hard. I recovered after a loss of 3,000 ft and had to use full power in a steep dive. I think that stall occured at about 125 KIAS.

I shut down the left engine and did some flying. It was easy to use the rudder trim to take out the torque effect in cruise though cruise was fairly slow (130 KIAS at 8,000 ft). Ordinary stalls were OK. But minimum control speed is 88 KIAS and stalls are well below that. So, it is no surprize that you cannot keep the nose straight if you apply full power to recover from a stall. But it is easy to keep the plane flying well above stall speed for normal stalls. Accelerated stalls are another matter. A steep bank, full power on the one engine and some back pressure produced an interesting ride.

From what I understand of the Duke, this is realistic.

On the flight home I noticed it was convenient to have the yaw rate and sideslip angle displayed so I could reset the rudder trim to get the plane flying nicely with both engine turning with no sideslip. Until I fixed that the autopilot was holding straight flight but the aircraft was banked and yawed slightly.

[flaminghotsauce]

Tom I got it going. I went looking for the gauges in the gauges folder and they weren't there. I dragged them over from the download folder, but Vista jumps around when you do it this way. I simply missed the gauges folder when I released the button and it went into the wrong folder. Once I found them, I dragged them into the correct spot and it works correctly.

I did a quick incomplete flight this morning but was unable to do any flight testing before having to leave the house. It seems to fly like one would expect, that is all I can report so far.

[flaminghotsauce]

I've talked myself out of an FSX only version of the Duke. I took a test flight in the Baron in FSX to see how well it'll handle the higher demands of real IFR weather, and it's not worth the trouble. I can fly FSX in clear or the other typical weather scenario, and it'll run well. Clouds kill it.

If I decide to buy the Duke it's going to have to go into FS9. But it's looking less and less likely. I'd rather have the Track IR system.