Some first observations on the C23 v2

[Ifikratis]

Hi,

I have recently bought the C23 v2. Thank you for making this!

I have some issues:

1) On the ground, the friction on the ground is too high. I used it on some ORBX sceneries, and I could hardly accelerate on the ground. For example at KVUO. On landing, the deceleration was too fast also. In order to taxi I need to put the throttle too high. 

2) When airborne, the airplane has a tendency to roll to the left. Like it needs an aileron trim. I have the experimental model enabled.

3) Visually, the windscreen is not curved but has angles. I can clearly see two angles instead of a curve. This is very obvious when looking the plane in external view and somehow kills the realism.

4) Visually, I  would appreciate if you could add some more realistic texturing on the skin of the fuselage and wings. Right now it looks kind of uniform and not so metallic as is in reality. 

5) Visually, I would also appreciate if the rivets was also more realistic. I think the wing rivets are too large.

The instrument panel on the other hand is excellent both in modeling and texturing and I appreciate this very much. I hope you can look at these points and see if you can improve them.

 

[FlyAgi]

4 hours ago, Ifikratis said:

1) On the ground, the friction on the ground is too high. I used it on some ORBX sceneries, and I could hardly accelerate on the ground. For example at KVUO. On landing, the deceleration was too fast also. In order to taxi I need to put the throttle too high. 

Are you talking about grass strips and, does this also happen on default airports and their grass runways and taxiways? For me the Sundowner works well on grass (and paved ground of course) but some designers do grass strips and don't care for debumping the ground so this might be related to missing ground surface definitions on some airports.

 

4 hours ago, Ifikratis said:

2) When airborne, the airplane has a tendency to roll to the left. Like it needs an aileron trim. I have the experimental model enabled.

This might be intended as this is heaviliy depending on power settings, higher throttle leads to more left side roll and to some degree this seems realistic to me but I can't tell you if it's possibly overdone.

 

[Ifikratis]

Thanks for the reply,

Regarding the ground friction, I just solved it ! It seems it was a toe brakes calibration issue.

However I still have this roll to the left tendency all the time. This is regardless of wind or weight distribution. I tried to add a second passenger in the front right seat but the same happens.

Everyone else can takeoff, trim the plane and the plane will not roll to the left?

[FlyAgi]

The plane will roll left - this is because of the propeller torque, the propeller is rotating to the right, so the airplane slightly roll to the left and this effect gets stronger at high power settings. In theory you should be able to use roll or rudder trim assigned to buttons to correct this but I don't know if the aircraft prevents you to do so for realism as the Sundowner has no roll or rudder trim as far as I know.

I suggest to fly the sundowner at about 2500 rpm in cruise flight so the roll left tendecy is there but in a way I think it's fine. I personally don't like having no torque effect at all (of course, this depends on aircraft and engine configuration, if the real aircraft rolls left I want my virtual aircraft to do so as well).

 

 

[ilias.tselios]

About the visual stuff, will review them for the upcoming update, which might take a little longer and won't be just a bug fixing but more of an upgrade in some respect.

About the rolling to the left. A single engine propeller aircraft experiences, as long as the propeller rotates, what the Newton's 3rd law dictates, "for every action is an opposite and equal reaction". That mean as the propeller rotates to the right (from pilot's view point), the fuselage will rotate to the left. On the ground this translates to higher weight pressure on the left tire, so on the roll the left tire experiences higher amounts of friction than the right one (and with the action of other forces), turns the aircraft to the left.

But, on the air, there is no tire friction and the only "stuff" that try to counteract this rotational force is the drag that wings and vertical stab surfaces create when they rotate as reaction of the propeller rotation. You can imagine (and compute if you want) that those forces are not so big to stop any rotation specially at high rpm, and as rotation builds up, the right wind has bigger angle of attack from the left, thus makes the phenomenon stronger. The phenomenon decreases as the rpm go down and the airspeed builds up. At higher airspeed, the vertical stab creates a streamline effect that opposes to a degree any yaw/roll movement, thus makes the aircraft more stable in straight flight.

As long as all the above are happening on the aircraft, it is ok. 

As about aileron trimming, since the aircraft does not have such abilities, we don't provide any in the cockpit, but we haven't locked out the ability to use the aileron trim if you like. 

[Ifikratis]

Thank you very much Ilias for the analytical reply, explaining the left roll effect. I was aware of the phenomenon but didn't know it can be so evident. I'm not sure if I have felt it that much in another airplane so maybe that's why I thought good to report it. I will try to use your RPM and airspeed recommendations and the use of autopilot will take care of it for long flights.

Regarding the visual stuff, thank you very much for taking these into account and thinking to revisit the visuals in a later upgrade. I'll be looking forward to this, the plane certainly deserves all the treatment it can get : )

Thank you again and keep up the excellent job!

[Hangar]

That effect (rolling left) is usually due to either "engine cant" settings or rudder incidence settings or excessive prop wash depending upon engine speed and your current AoA.

These settings can be used to intentionally add or subtract to/ from that effect...question is...is the excessive left roll based upon the true behavior of the real plane, and to the correct degree...or has it been overstated? Only a real pilot with lots of time in type could tell you this.

That all said...in real life what the airplane owner will typically do is to "rig" the plane (via physical tabs) so that once flying level and at typical cruise speeds the plane will not require anymore right rudder and will not roll left. On some planes, if the owner does not do this then the plane may actually require some right rudder the entire flight (we're talking about single props). You too, can rig your Xplane with this tab settings and rudder incidence to lessen and even eliminate the need for right rudder in cruise. You need to adjust the correct settings in the .acf file. It's usually done using some positive rudder incidence along with a very tiny amount of some aileron tab. Small changes, test, repeat.

Another question would be ... does the developer request or require that you need to use the EFM in Xplane to get correct results? if not then do NOT use it and your issue may go away on its own.

After reading up on the real Sundowner a bit...it seems that it requires very little right rudder to stay coordinated and comes with an aileron-rudder interconnect system. I even read an article sort of poking fun at it by saying it's not teaching new pilots how to deal with adverse yaw (since it is supposed to be used as a trainer). Taking this into consideration it sounds like the effect may be over-done...or as I mentioned it could also just be the EFM you're using.

Edited March 13, 2020 by Hangar