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Post by hanspetter on Sept 10, 2009 14:25:02 GMT -5
After practicing flying Tom's Dassault Falcon 50 I searched the flightsim sites for Falcon aircraft. FS 2004 doesn't seem to have any Dassault Falcon 50 downloads but there are a couple of the later versions, among those "7X". These are bigger and may not have the same STOL capability. There's an FS2002 Falcon 50 CAEA Copyright Y Lavigne - F Banting - R Young. It's a lot prettier than the old Wasnick model with the texture problem and it will easily take Tom's FDs for those who care to mix and match. As always, if you do add the better FDs to another model the thing is to keep the model's original contact points while replacing everything else, airfile included. And, due to copyright issues you ought to keep it to yourself.
However, the main point is that I'm curious about the later and larger versions of Dassault Falcon. According to Wikipedia they have the same three engine design with the tail mounted center engine having an offset intake / exhaust. That feature is a bit strange since diverting the airflow would seem to cause added resistance and some loss of efficiency. The more recent Falcons have more technically advanced systems but that's of less interest to us flightsimmers. If you're like me you want to fly the plane rather than leaving most of the handling to the flight computer.
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Post by Tom Goodrick on Sept 10, 2009 19:08:24 GMT -5
My FD files include include both the aircraft.cfg file and the .air file. You must move both of these to the new aircraft. Many items in the aircraft.cfg file modify numbers in the .air file. You'll get different performance if you use the new .air file. There is nothing in the .airfile that gives you the fancy stuff in the new models. That is in the model folder and the panel folder.
The new real version of the 50 behaves the same as the old version. But it has better range with different fuel tanks.
The same applies to the 900B. It does not have quite as good a STOL capability as the 50.
I have also the 2000 which is a two-engine version. It has a large cabin like the others (all have standing headroom and flat floors). The 2000 probably has more efficient engines but its range is about the same as that of the 50. The 900 has the longest range.
Falcon 2000:
8 pax on long trips, rang 3125 nm at M0.75, 3000 at M0.80, Balanced Field Length (8 pax) 4,240 ft)
Falcon 900B:
Range with 8 pax at M0.08, 3860 nm. Balanced landing distance: 3800 ft. Stall 106 KIAS. EX version goes 4330 nm.
Falcon 50:
landing distance 3350 ft (standard model), 50EX at MLW: 4865 ft. Range 8 pax: 3025 at M0.80 for EX model, 8 pax. My guess is the standard 50 has a range of 2700 nm at M.80 - enough fro Bangor to London. I'd use M0.75 coming back against the westerly winds. Once I considered stopping at Gandor but made it to Bangor.
Here are the landing stats from my landing log for these aircraft. Note the small number of landings recorded in some cases.
Aircraft______KIAS Min __ Avg___ Max___FPM min___avg___max
Falcon 2000 (3)____104___106___109___-42______-138___-326
Falcon 50 (6)_____80___87____92_____-92______-149____-209
Falcon 900 (10)___90____98___107____-30_____-182____-698
My model for the Falcon 2000 came from Stone but he gutted the fancy stuff before releasing the final version. It looks nice. My 50 has an opening air/stair door. Fancy enough for me.
In case you are wondering, two jet engines can be as economical as three jet engines and even 4 jet engines (Jetstar). now that engine thrust capability is much greater than it was while specific consumption is the same or slightly better, two engines are preferred for simplicity. But it you are a smaal plane in line for takeoff behind a jet, you'll prefer the Falcon 3-holers to the others because they can use just the center engine for taxiing.
If I must lose an engine over the North Atlantic, I'd rather it be one of three or one of four rather than one of two!
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Post by hanspetter on Sept 11, 2009 3:00:00 GMT -5
As we have both stated in our posts above, to port the trusted FDs into a new visual model we have to port all of the aircraft.cfg data except the contact points AND port the airfile. The fancy stuff in the panel folder applies if you want to use that panel. FS2002 panels will usually work in FS2004 -- specifically, FS2002 gauges will usually work. If I see holes in a panel made for a previous version and I know that I have all of its gauges that indicates that some gauges won't work anymore. In any event, I always keep both panels and choose either one depending on what I want to do. For test flights I always use the TG panel. It's a simple matter of switching the panel path in the aircraft.cfg.
Regarding the third engine I asked about why the intake is offset from the exhaust. I assume it's basically a case of engineering limits since the intake has to be above the fuselage and the exhaust fits nicely at the rear end of the fuselage. The other option would be an engine that sits entirely on the vertical stabilizer and that might not be a structurally sound option. The question remains, does it matter (a lot) that the airflow doesn't move along straight line through the engine? Other tri-engine jets have the same kind of tail mounted engine design so I will assume that there are good reasons for making it this way.
I'll look into other Falcons when I get time, probably this weekend. I just found it a bit strange that FS2004 designers had skipped the Falcon 50 since that is the model that really brought something new -- a fast jet that also has a very low landing speed. It's quite unusual to be able to get it both ways.
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Post by hanspetter on Sept 13, 2009 13:58:58 GMT -5
Tom, I just searched your site looking for the Falcon 2000. I don't think it's there. Could you please send it over? Aircraft.cfg and airfile will suffice since I can easily find Stone's model myself.
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Post by Tom Goodrick on Sept 13, 2009 19:13:31 GMT -5
It was not finished until today! I'll send you those files. When we raided Stones web site just before he closed it down. I mentioned on the Forum (the one related to this) which aircraft I would be working on. No one expressed any interest in the Falcon 2000 ( and not much interest in the others as I remember). So I just worked on it a little now and then. I didn't keep a contiguous set of notes. My notes on the FD development for the 2000 are scattered through my notebooks.
So when I started flying these again because of your interest, I noticed the V speeds were not done right for the 2000. I checked my sources and found no clear spec for the stall speeds. I used reasonable assumptions that would make the performance similar to the other Falcons and came up with something. For the 50 and 900 I have detailed test-pilot reports. There's nothing like that for the 2000 in my library. Even Jane's gives many specs but not the stall specs.
Check the article below.
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Post by Tom Goodrick on Sept 13, 2009 19:27:22 GMT -5
This is a good time to review V Speed gauges which are absolutely necessary for jets. For other types of aircraft there is not so much weight variation as to require gauges used in flight for v speeds. These Falcon jets have significant variation in speeds between takeoff and landing even without much weight variation. But the variation in weight with fuel burn on long trips and the different weight requirements make the gauges useful.
Here is a summary of the ranges of v speeds displayed by the gauges according to the weight. These gauges display V2 (safe speed for lift off) when the wheels are on the ground and Vref (safe speed on final to the fence) when in flight and the wheels are loaded. They are displayed on my panel right next to the airspeed tape so you can easily refer to them while flying.
Falcon 50
Weight________V2________Vref
38676 lbs______111 KIAS
25499 lbs______90 KIAS
35601 lbs_________________99 KIAS
25012 lbs_________________83 KIAS
Falcon 900B
Weight________V2________Vref
45475 lbs______119 KIAS
27521 lbs______93 KIAS
41930 lbs________________94 KIAS
28126 lbs________________77 KIAS
Falcon 2000
Weight________V2________Vref
35647 lbs______115 KIAS
23799 lbs______93 KIAS
33024 lbs________________110 KIAS
23554 lbs________________93 KIAS
To set up the gauges, I do stall tests at the MTOW and takeoff flaps and then mutiply the stall speed by 1.3 to get V2. I jot down the exact weight at stall and enter tht weight and the calculated V2 value into a formula in the gauge. To get Vref I use Max Landing Weight (MLW) and full flaps. Gear is down which contributes to how quickly the airspeed decays but does not affect the stall speed itself. The stall speed I find at this condition is also multiplied by 1.3 to get Vref.
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Post by Tom Goodrick on Sept 14, 2009 10:02:00 GMT -5
About 15-18 months ago, I remember having this same discussion. But since that was on the old Forum, it slipped through the cracks and got lost. First, nobody showed any interest in that. I guess people don't fly jets. Second, because of the lack of interest, I did not include those V2 and vref gauges with the downloads. If anyone wants a pair, just email me and I'll send them by return email.
If anyone is interested, I can show you how to make your own for new jets you get, once you have the gauges for one jet.
The gauges are displayed well on my standard jet panels. But you can make custom displays. Just be sure to display the value near the airspeed.
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Post by hanspetter on Sept 14, 2009 20:05:57 GMT -5
Well, I do fly jets  A previous lack of interest might be due to several reasons. I can mainly speak for myself. Primarily, I didn't realize that the Falcon jets were significantly different from other bizjets. (I like the Lear jets -- do I really want another one?) Further, my focus, interests and time to be spent flying sim aircraft go in cycles -- I may be in a bush pilot, heavy metal or historic aircraft mode or I may not have time for any flightsimming at all. Vref gauges would be nice. Please send them over! Regarding Stone's models they're still widely available. FlightSim.com has most of the original models and lots of repaints. I chose a red/white Falcon 2000 (original by Stone) yesterday and all it needs now is better FDs. |
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Post by Allan_Lowson on Oct 3, 2009 9:52:38 GMT -5
There is also a Dassault Falcon 7X at www.premaircraft.com. While there they also have a Cessna 414 and a Mitsubishi MU2 that could probably benefit from Tom's administrations to the air files. Oh and a SAAB 340 has just been added. Ditto the mods to that! (I'm sure Tom sent me an update to Mike Stone's 340 - need to dig that out) |
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Post by Tom Goodrick on Oct 3, 2009 10:22:15 GMT -5
Sorry, I don't think I did anything with the Saab 340.
I would not know what to do with a Falcon 7x. I have no info on it.
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A previous lack of interest might be due to several reasons. I can mainly speak for myself. Primarily, I didn't realize that the Falcon jets were significantly different from other bizjets. (I like the Lear jets -- do I really want another one?)
