Post by Tom Goodrick on Sept 23, 2008 19:51:15 GMT -5
The other day I was reviewing the old aircraft that are available for various uses today. One of the best aircraft in many respects is the Baron 58. It is reasonably small and light yet it has a lot of capability. It offers twin engine safety at night and in IFR conditions. This makes it very useful to businesses where it must be able to make trips in most of the weather encountered. Indeed it is used nightly to run banck checks, medical specimins, and various business papers around the US.
But a major shortcoming of the regular Baron 58 is that it must fly "in the soup" most of the time. Passengers don't like this which is why most business applications do not involve passengers. But if you bring in the pressurized version of the Baron that was made between 1979 and 1985, then you have a versatile passenger carrier. It will maintain an 8,000 ft cabin at 20,000 ft and can go up and down quickly enough to utilize the higher altitudes where you look down on the clouds, precip and turbulence, passing through them only briefly at the beginning and end of the flight.
So I used the 1985 FLYING ANNUAL to make a normal Baron 58 into a Baron 58P. The span is the same but the area is less. This increases both the wing loading and the aspect ratio making it faster and more efficient. Also, the gross weight was increased significantly from 5500 lbs to 6200 lbs and the useful load from 2057 lbs to 2214 lbs. Where the normal Baron 58 cruises at 203 knots at 5,000 ft, the P Baron cruises - supposedly - at 241 knots at 25,000 ft. A more practical cruise is 236 knots at 20,000 ft where the cabin is at a more comfortable level for all on board. Fuel flow goes up only slightly from 210 pph to 223 pph. (Cruise power is decreased by 2% and engine power goes from 300 hp to 325 hp per side.)
The landing speed goes up about 4 knots with the stall speed with flap.
The result of all this is a nice-looking aircraft (the same as the default aircraft) that goes faily fast and goes high when it has to jump over mountains or storm clouds.
I looked up some current examples of Baron 58P's that you can buy today. They ranged from a 1981 with 3300 hrs at $450,000 to a 1985 with 3078 hrs at $405,000. I changed the N number of the one I fly to N58PA which matches the 1981 model that is still flying a fair amount in the Southwest. You can change yours by simply typing in a new N number when you load the aircraft.
I can send you a new aircraft.cfg file that includes all the changes. You simply copy the present Baron 58 folder to a place outside of the FS9 folder, switch my aircraft.cfg file for the old one and copy the folder back into FS9 where it will reside nest to the Baron 58. You might want to change the panel a slight bit. I simply used the panel from my Beech Duke with a switch in the cabin altitude gauge and the GASP gauge for the different values of the Baron. having a cabin altitude gauge is handy in that it shows you what the pressurization does for you. There is also a pair of TIT gauges instead of the EGT gauges because the 58P is turbocharged.
Send me an email and I will return the aircraft.cfg file and the two special gauges.
By the way, you might wonder why I made the 58P when we already had the Duke which is also a pressurized twin. Then answer is the 58P uses less fuel. It has 325 hp engines compared to the 380 hp engines on the Duke. The weights are also different.
But a major shortcoming of the regular Baron 58 is that it must fly "in the soup" most of the time. Passengers don't like this which is why most business applications do not involve passengers. But if you bring in the pressurized version of the Baron that was made between 1979 and 1985, then you have a versatile passenger carrier. It will maintain an 8,000 ft cabin at 20,000 ft and can go up and down quickly enough to utilize the higher altitudes where you look down on the clouds, precip and turbulence, passing through them only briefly at the beginning and end of the flight.
So I used the 1985 FLYING ANNUAL to make a normal Baron 58 into a Baron 58P. The span is the same but the area is less. This increases both the wing loading and the aspect ratio making it faster and more efficient. Also, the gross weight was increased significantly from 5500 lbs to 6200 lbs and the useful load from 2057 lbs to 2214 lbs. Where the normal Baron 58 cruises at 203 knots at 5,000 ft, the P Baron cruises - supposedly - at 241 knots at 25,000 ft. A more practical cruise is 236 knots at 20,000 ft where the cabin is at a more comfortable level for all on board. Fuel flow goes up only slightly from 210 pph to 223 pph. (Cruise power is decreased by 2% and engine power goes from 300 hp to 325 hp per side.)
The landing speed goes up about 4 knots with the stall speed with flap.
The result of all this is a nice-looking aircraft (the same as the default aircraft) that goes faily fast and goes high when it has to jump over mountains or storm clouds.
I looked up some current examples of Baron 58P's that you can buy today. They ranged from a 1981 with 3300 hrs at $450,000 to a 1985 with 3078 hrs at $405,000. I changed the N number of the one I fly to N58PA which matches the 1981 model that is still flying a fair amount in the Southwest. You can change yours by simply typing in a new N number when you load the aircraft.
I can send you a new aircraft.cfg file that includes all the changes. You simply copy the present Baron 58 folder to a place outside of the FS9 folder, switch my aircraft.cfg file for the old one and copy the folder back into FS9 where it will reside nest to the Baron 58. You might want to change the panel a slight bit. I simply used the panel from my Beech Duke with a switch in the cabin altitude gauge and the GASP gauge for the different values of the Baron. having a cabin altitude gauge is handy in that it shows you what the pressurization does for you. There is also a pair of TIT gauges instead of the EGT gauges because the 58P is turbocharged.
Send me an email and I will return the aircraft.cfg file and the two special gauges.
By the way, you might wonder why I made the 58P when we already had the Duke which is also a pressurized twin. Then answer is the 58P uses less fuel. It has 325 hp engines compared to the 380 hp engines on the Duke. The weights are also different.