Shootin' The Bull

[Tom Goodrick]

The level of participitipative ferver that has come over this mottly group is utterly astonishing.

I notice there are about 6 old and new members who pass by each day with no questions or comments. I look in twice a day but don't log in unless I have something to say.

Let's try this thread as a place where anybody can say anything on any topic. This is one place where anything you write is RIGHT and CORRECT and WELCOME (as long as it keeps profanity to an acceptable minimum and observes other rules for membership).

[Ed Burke]

Shootin' the bull eh Tom. Well I could start with wondering about the name of that fever that has caused such a rush of input to the forum. I'm going to stock up on the pills necessary just in case it strikes !

You have been keeping everyone on the edge of their seats with the tales of FS2000. Not a bad sim either but I reckon running vista is showing distinct signs of masochism. My very brief exposure to it brought me close to smashing something, not sure what it would have been as I got rid of the thing before it happened. I remember trying to do a simple mod to an aircraft.cfg file and being instructed that I could not do that sort of thing, it was devious or unclean or some such crap. No thanks, I might try W7 soon as XP is getting a little passe.

However, back to the seed for all this waffle. Every year after the frantic posting that accompanies GAAR, there is a lull but I've gotta admit that '10 has produced a stunned silence.

Why have I not been scribbling you might well ask. Good question. I seem to have too much on my plate at the moment and it is difficult to tackle anything that is not a legitimate household task without feeling that I am not pulling my weight. So much is going on that I have done very little flying. We have a house full with son, wife and two little kids living with us for a while. Then friends come and stay for a few days here and there, a couple from Melbourne, an old friend from south of Boston, Mass. Right now we are about to have a couple of yachties who have finished wandering the Oz east coast, and want some shore time before they fly ex YBNN to the UK for some R&R. I might join them !

The Tassie holiday was great but the exhaust system on the Hilux fell apart, so it was out with welding gear and a total new setup appeared aft of the engine pipe. Designed to be a little noisey but free-flowing, it has been a great success with a reasonable improvement in fuel economy, but it took time. As did the repairs to the ride-on mower. And Nicole's face fell when she saw what the rain during our six weeks absence had done to her garden, especially the veggies. It was hard to fight one's way to view the scene due to the weed growth. That is all now ship shape again.
And I will barely mention the large stack of tough firewood blocks that had appeared after I felled a big eucalyptus tree about 18 months back. With the cool weather approaching it all had to be split didn't it. A hired 21 ton hydraulic log splitter did the job well but, again, it took a little time.

And somehow I seem to be more keen on putting my head down at night rather than roaming the wide blue yonder. This is what a non-salaried life is all about I guess, but I might test my thumb strength on the windpipe of the next creature that asks me "What do you do now that you have retired?"

Ed

[Tom Goodrick]

I almost feel ashamed that I have mostly the opposite problem - not much to do and few to do it with. One of the reasons I put FS2002 on the laptop was that I knew it would give me some FS work to do. FS9 is rolling along fine and needs little help. Also, one big time-waster now is going down to the living room, putting something like the Science Channel on the Hdef and then snoozing for a couple of hours. Now the laptop sits there ready to fly at all times.

Speaking of VISTA, I note that new Dell computers now come with Windows 7 installed but also Windows XP installed in its own partition. That tells me Win 7 cannot be trusted either.

Yes, last night I "installed" Aircraft Airfile manager on the laptop so I could fix some things in the .air files. Last night it worked, bringing up the new Aztec's .air file and accepting an edit. This morning it just shows all the aircraft but won't load in any .air files for editing. I found all my FS files were marked "Read Only" so I killed that and still could not edit any .air files. But I did switch the Baron air file for the Aztec air file and it works allowing the lowered gear to create drag. I had to go back and change all the drag scalars to get the same good performance I had yesterday. Maybe that's progress. Now the gear may be producing too much drag. Level at a low power setting, it cruised at 130 knots and then slowed to 110 knots when I lowered the gear. I'd like to use AAM to reduce that drag just a tad.

Son Craig has not brought back his latest young lady to the house. Maybe he got tired, as one who supervises the building of boxes all day, listening to a disertation on eigen values in relativistic equations. (I knew what she was talking about but kept my big mouth shut. I did nod politely a couple times.)

[flaminghotsauce]

Tom that XP installation on the other partition is one of those "extra" features of Windows 7 for running older programs. You should be able to run FS2002 on that OS, if you can boot into XP. It may be that you have to access XP from within Vista, I'm not sure. I haven't had to mess with that. I'd bet you cannot boot it separately without a boot-loader program.


I've not much of an excuse either, though this week we're getting really busy.

Our family is preparing for the graduation of the #1 son, ceremony this weekend, reception afterwards here at the house. (HERE? C'mon kids, time to reclaim some of the living space!). We've been planning and plotting out a cunning plan for food, festivities, and much of it outdoors. We've been painting the porch, including pressure-spraying the old paint off the beadboard-textured roof, painting the metal glider-couch that we inherited when we bought the house, getting photos taken, wifey put together a CD presentation of #1's life, including a soundtrack, putting together his diploma, .....

Also this week, we always help out with the right-to-life yard sale put on by area churches which needs lots of busy hands to sort clothes, electronics furniture, toys, tools.... Pricing, hauling tables, construction of clothes hanging rods, and on and on....

ALSO this week, the local food pantry has it's truck unloading day, and distrubution days. We always help with this too. The oldest two boys and sometimes the #1 daughter help out there.

ALSO this week, one of the ladies at the food pantry has organized a barn raisin' in a community about 30 miles away, and we volunteered to help construct this soon to be community center.

ALSO this week, it's rained, and rained. More is forecast for the next 48 hours. This has slowed progress on each and every project we've attempted. Ouch.

Other than that not much happenin'.

I bought the new Carenado F33 bonanza and have almost ten minutes flight time on it. While purchasing, I also picked up their version of the Cessna 172. This one has some hours on it already. I've flown it quite a bit. It has no autopilot, and only VOR receivers without ILS capability. Fun fun fun!

I'm plotting out a trip to Jackson Michigan to fly in one of my free moments. I may make a trip to Arbor Springs MI in the next year. They sell right hand drive Jeeps up there, and if I fly in, I can drive it home instead of shipping it. A buddy here has a 172 and a 182, and when and if I do this, I'd rather pay him gas and have a nice day flight than ride in an airliner to Detroit. Should be a real adventure if it happens, so I thought I'd make the virtual flight.

[Ed Burke]

We can't fire up the heater unless there is some protection to keep our 20 months old ankle biter from burning himself so now I am into welding together a screen. My approach to the job is more Boeing Stearman rather than B787, sort of angular and agricultural.

Oh yes, my workhorse computer refuses to get any further with FS9 than the 'splash' screen. Just a puzzlement, I can fly on the dedicated sim box, there are no bugs there.

Ed

[Ed Burke]

Hi Tom, this referral from and old Pommie friend might give you some food for thought while you are dozing off in front of the TV ------ www.globalaviationresource.com/reports/2010/oldwarden100502.php ------ Old Warden just had their first air show for the season. WX was poor but the a/c were tops, click on the photos to enlarge and then the tabs near top right and left.

Ed

[Allen Peterson]

Hi Tom, this thread is a good idea (and a great site, Ed). We've been busy here, too.
The non-flying stuff first.
My wife has been wanting to get the inside of the house painted for some time now, this year we just decided to have it done, so we are in process of tearing the house apart, moving stuff. The dining room and downstairs bedroom and bathroom are done. The painters are coming again Saturday, and plan to finish up Tuesday. We are in the process of stuffing all of the upstairs bedroom and kitchen stuff into the dining room, and all of the stuff in my office into the downstairs bedroom and garage. My wife just said "My goodness (or words to that effect), if I had known we had all of this stuff maybe I wouldn't have started this." I've been working all day in my office, the only thing left is the center section of my corner unit with the computer and monitor. That will go out Monday, my office will be painted last.
I've been having a little problem with my balance, went to the ear doctor and he said that I have Positional Vertigo, something about little crystals getting out of where they are supposed in the ear canals. I went to a therapy session for the right ear last week, and will go in for the left ear Friday. After the treatment I have to wear a neck collar for 48 hours, that's why we want to get all of the stuff moved by Thursday. Of course, then we will have all of the fun putting everything back.
My son, the lawyer just got selected to be a Magistrate Judge. Wow!
I've been flying in FSX quite a bit since Chris Ross told about pan up, pan down in his post. I also downloaded a scenery file from FS Scene that helps a lot. And I found a version of AAM that works with FSX and I was able to get a couple of downloaded planes that were giving me fits working. I also downloaded a Bede-5 and -5J in FSX, they are a blast to fly, especially the -5J.
Lately I've been working in FS9 on a Harmon Rocket F1. This has been very interesting and informative. I found a F1 builder's site on line and was able to get some good info. I have the dimensions from his datum (the nose) to the wing leading edge, the right and left mains, the tail wheel, the fuel, the pilot and passenger and the baggage compartment, and the CG range, along with performance data. So for the first time I am able to set all of the dimensions into the .cfg file. Then I run it through AirWrench - the latest version has some nice features - and set up the weight and balance. It turns out that the empty weight is about 17% of the chord instead of 25% (which I always thought it had to be) to get the correct loaded and fueled CG range. AirWrench makes it easy to change the station weights and check out the CG range. My friend - I got a ride in his Twin Comanche two years ago - has a son that is completing a F1, so when I get the FDs and panel finished I'll send him a copy (he has FS9) to flight test for me. Should be interesting.

[Tom Goodrick]

Sounds like you are having a lot of fun, Allen. My wife wants to paint the living room. But it is dark wood paneling that matches dark wood wainscoting throughout the house. Don't know where that will go. I keep hoping she'll forget about it.

I have had problems with dizziness for years. It is the main reason I sold my sailboat - figured I'd fall off someday when out by myself. My doctor jumped on that bit about the crystals and therapy. But the same doctor had forgotten that all the pills he prescribed for pulse rate and blood pressure say "MAY CAUSE DIZZINESS" ! Duh! I changed doctors and don't complain anymore. My wife won't let me on the roof anymore - son Craig does that. I just wobble along between walls whenever possible.

No problems sitting at the computer or slouching in the living room with the laptop.

[budsbud]

Well if this is where we can vent I will join in.
I have really had my plate full to overflowing the past month or so. My flight simm Box crashed big time.
Let me tell you about it. I had a dual boot system with XP as one OS, Vista as the second OS. I was in the process making the Vista my primary FS system, sort of a preload test for I had hoped to move on up to Win 7. Now comes the fun part. Vista tells me that it needs a critical update… so OK let her rip. In the middle of the update process it tells me that it has to reboot.. like the dummy that I am , I just let it go. Now the vista side was left hanging with an incomplete update and when the thing came up on the reboot it tried to force the mods into the XP OS. The result was that both OS’s were trashed and I had nothing :>(
Now I am still in the process of trying to salvage something out of this mess. A word to the wise…. NEVER..EVER have a dual boot system. This is the last time for me. I may be a slow learner but I now see the light.
Bud

[Tom Goodrick]

Bud you sure found the right place to tell that tale. I had a good day today but still encountered instabilities in my laptop system caused by VISTA. I correctly installed AAM this morning. Then i fixed the gear drag on the piper Aztec and then "liberated" the Piper Cherokee 180, the dehavilland Dash 8-100 and the MacD-Boeing MD-83. At 0630 i was flying the Cherokee and by 1700 I had made several landings in the MD-83.

To get the Cherokee flying well I had to remember how to adjust a fixed pitch prop so the proper RPM is used at cruise. That was almost a lost art.

But i kept getting hit by those instabilities. To edit I would leave Fulls Screen Mode and after the edit I would try to avoid running in Full Screen Mode. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it crashed the sim. That flip-flopping is the definition of instability. I never saw it before in an operating system.

Unfortunately, knowing the way Microsoft operates, They'll probably hang onto parts of VISTA in every operating system they come up with in the future. So this instability will stay with all future M$ operating systems forever. Sorry. That's a terrible thing to say, isn't it! They often forget the good (like wing incidence angle) but carry the bad forever.

But maybe its all right if we just tell ourselves how much fun we're having!

[flaminghotsauce]

My route at work is mostly rural countryside, gravel roads and trees. Today, it's floods. I had to do some deviations to get where I needed to go. One spot goes under water, and I drive eighteen miles to get around. If the water is really high, a second area goes under and it's a ten mile deviation. Then, when I get to the spot where the 18 mile diversion is, I have to double back around the 10 mile deviation also. Makes for a long morning.

I took my monocular to work today in case I saw anything interesting, maybe I could get a closer look. While out of the car, I heard an aircraft overflying the area. It was some four engine something or other prop airplane, like maybe a DC4 or something. I quickly dashed off to get my spyglass, and I could NOT locate it in the view of the glass! I looked up, aimed, and tried over and over. I never spotted it up close.

Binoculars would have worked better! Googling up an image of a DC4 makes me think maybe that was indeed what I saw, but I can't say for sure.

[Allen Peterson]

Dizzy update
Apparently my first session got the crystals back where they should be because a check at my session today was good. I still have some balance issues so we did a lot of balance checks, like standing on one foot for 30 seconds, walking while chewing gum, etc. I did pretty good, on my next session they will go over some home exercises to help improve my balance. I'll give it a go.
F1 update
Having the builder's info makes setting up the .cfg file a piece of cake. Looking at the data some more I found the dimensions for the empty weight cg, and the fore and aft cg limits. This eliminated the need to adjust the empty weight cg with AirWrench. By changing the station weights (in AW) I confirmed that with a "heavy" pilot and no pax and with a "light" pilot and a "heavy" pax the cg stayed within the limits. Neat. Of course we very seldom get the empty weight cg dimension. Looking at a 3-view drawing I can usually estimate the positions of pilots and pax. Then using AirWrench and adjusting the empty weight cg and changing the station weights (and fuel weight)arrive at a value that gives a reasonable cg range, like .21 - .29.

Tom, after getting the correct power, airspeed, fuel flow and stall speed, and adjust the gear and flap drag, what else do you check for?
Do you check initial climb rate, if so how do you adjust that?
I know you have a TurnData gauge, what do you look for there and what do you adjust? Do you check roll rate or side slip? And what do you adjust the get them "right"? And how do you know what is "right"?
I thought that while you were checking out the "new" FS2002 planes you might expound a bit for us non-pilot simmers.
I'll keep quiet for a while now.

[Tom Goodrick]

Regarding dizzy, empty cg position and what do I look for and regarding the "proper" turn:

Dizzy: I heard another explanation that makes more sense to me than the crystal thing. As we get old the little hairs that detect tilt in our ear canals get stiffer and less sensitive so all old people tend to get a little dizzy. Its just that some of us get there quicker than others. But the many drugs we take for blood pressure, cholesterol and pulse rate control have their infuences too. The Nintendo Wii has an otional feature called the balance board which is a small platform you stand on and it senses where you are leaning. It can straight-up test your weight and your ability to stand still on two feet or on either single foot. It also gives several nice games such as sking on skies or on a board. I have done very poor on the balance tests. If you wish you can get it as a way to check your balance periodically, trying to improve. I just try to stay away from high narrow walkways.

The key weight and balance parameter for the sim is the location of the loaded CG. That is what has to fly. Studies have found it has to be just forward of 25% for best stability. I put the empty cg where ever it is need to get the loaded CG in the right place. The sim does assume that, unless an offset is specified, the X=0 point is at 25% percent and that deviations are measured in feet from that location. When talking about CG position for weight and balance, real coordinates are changed into percent of chord. Putting XECG at +0.2 means that empty CG is 0.2 feet ahead of the 25% position. But the actual effect of any CG position on stability has to be determined by extensive careful testing unless it is so bad that the aircraft diverges in simple conditions.

To test this, get the aircraft in steady level flight using the autopilot. Then turn off the autopilot and see what happens. If it remains nice and steady for at least 20 minutes, it is very well balanced. But give it a very slight pulse on the elevator and see how it responds. It can oscilate a bit but it should remain "reasonably well behaved." (Define that as you wish). If a loaded CG is well aft, you may have great difficulty taking off and climbing out steadily. "Divergence" means each pitch oscillation gets bigger than the last one and that is very bad.

I don't test for climb rate becuse I haf found that is very hard to judge. This was true when I was doing real-world flying. I always saw the vertical speed indicator moving all over after lift off and transition to climb which was never steady for me. I see the same thing in FS unless I let the autopilot do the climb. Sometimes specs list the max climb rate. They mean the max sustainable climb rate. Trouble is that takes some time to develop. By the time it should get steady, you are at a higher altitude where the airspeed and climb rate may both increase (depending on your control method).

You should get my turn Rate gauge and use it carefully if you suspect a plane may be too slow to turn at a given bank angle. It's late now and I don't want to dig up that equation. But there is a straight-forward equation based on physics that relates the turn rate to bank angle and to true airspeed. I noticed today during a maiden voyage flight of my new C-124 Globemaster that it seemed to be turning very slowly. but, alas I still can't get any of my XML gauges to work on the laptop.

This problem usually occurs when an FS model designer thinks "Hmm, this is a very big and heavy airplane so I will turn up the turn resistance" so he gives it a super big yaw MOI and a high yaw damping coefficient (dCn/dr where Cn is Yaw moment coefficient and r is the rate about the body z axis). The MOI's should always be determined using a standard approach (I have described it many times and Microsoft describes a method in their ACSDK that is good). then the yaw damping should be reasonable. Try a rudder pulse while in steady flight and note that the nose wanders through only a cycle before getting steady just a little off the original course. if it jumps in yaw pitch and roll it is too loose. If it barrels ahead like nothing happened or it's riding on rails, then the damping is way too tight.

I have not been talking much about the tweaks I have made in the FS2002 models because few people remain interested in FS2002 models. A year ago I mentioned i might fool with FS2002 on the laptop and started a section of FS2002. Nobody was interested. indeed I am developing a new respect for that program. It looks good and it flies good and it is much more sensible regarding ways you can tweak the aircraft ( for CG and incidence).

I'm too tired to continue. I have a 0630 takeoff scheduled tomorrow in the C-124 followed by more work in the DC-4 with a good panel.

But as I have said many times, if you have a question regarding these things, either general or specific, just state it. We'll decuss it. We have discussed AirWrench before and I think it is pretty good for most problems you run into. That stuff can even be discussed in a more specific Forum thread.

[Allen Peterson]

Thanks, Tom. I goofed on the cg range, I should have said 21% - 29%.

[Tom Goodrick]

So this experiement with Flight Sim on a lap top has been fun but I am strting to see a down side. The laptop becomes unhandy when you hook a bunch of stuff to it. To fly I sit slouched in a recliner half of a love seat with the joystick on an adjacent end table. The laptop is plugged into a wall plug 5 feet away. The joystick plugs into a USB plug on the left side, the poer cord plugs into port on the right side. Each of these sticks out 2 inches from the edge of the computer. If I use ATC, I plug ear phones into a port on the front of the computer. I have to get up ocasionally and that means a delicate act to balance the computer as I retract the seat and stand up, then set it down in a safe place where neither I nor the dogs and cats will step on it. every so often a pet tries to get my attention by stepping between me and the computer while flying. The dogs need to go out and the wife thinks of many things I can help her with.

This interference does not happen at my deck top flight station which is a corner desk in an extra upstairs bedroom.

Recently my joystick connection has become unreliable. I usually turn on the autopilot after getting into a safe and steady climb. Then At the destination I go back to manual control some place downwind of the airport. now what frequently happens is the joystick is dead when I turn off the autopilot. It seems to be caused by moving the plug a slight amount when getting up and down from the seat. The fix seems to be simply to unplug the joystick and then plug it back in. But during all this my concentration on the approach is disrupted.