andyw248

Great thread, almost like a dataref tutorial... thanks Cessna729 for explaining all this!

As was stated in other posts a lot of trimming is necessary, all three axis. This doesn't seem unusual, if you have enough levers on your joystick / yoke / throttle quadrant I suggest you just assign them to the trim axis. The roll and pitch rates seem a little aggressive so I have reduced sensitivity by 20%. Works like a charm and feels like I would imagine for a plane like the JS31. Also, I wouldn't be too sure about correlations between weight and twitchyness... I've flown C172 and Bonanza in real life, surprisingly the Bonanza is much more unstable than the Cessna, even though it's much heavier. Different ballpark than the Jetstream of course, just to illustrate my point.

Thanks Tom, great insight into the genealogy of the scripts! Personally since I'm only doing scenery I'm fine with Marginal's script, and editing the resulting .obj files manually. Yes, it's archaic, I know ...

What's that thing on the left side of the cowling? Is that a cow horn?

Great stuff! It's really gaining shape now.

It's funny... had there not been the smiling pilot in the cockpit some sequences made me think this video had been created in a flight simulator. I think it is the purity of the shots, just the water surface, the sunset, and the plane that made me feel this way. Most real world aviation videos have this moment of imperfection that makes them look more "real" than what we see in a sim, but this video here does not have any imperfection, it's just 100% perfect.

Yes I've been enjoying it a lot for the past 2 years or so. Some observations: - The flight and engine models are mostly excellent, and they have been getting better if you compare early planes with later creations. The torque generated by rotating engines is modelled very well. The fact that they are all taildraggers requires some good landing skills. Forward slips feel very much like the real thing. The lack of many of those steam gauges that we are used to requires you to look out of the window a lot (well, they don't really have windows do they?). - The flight environment is modelled very well. Turbulent air feels realistic, clouds are not too bad, light effects are nice. The airstrips are bumpy which makes for some good taxiing; they come with grass as well. There's a mission editor that lets you create your own airfields which is good because the default ones are not densely populated; you might want to add some hangars, vehicles, triple-a's, and villages, to look it more realistic, and to give you more visual clues upon flare. Hint: create a mission with a lead plane so that you are his wingman, and try some formation flying... - Dogfighting is modelled very well. Having used CFSI and II, only when I started flying rof I realized how difficult it is to shoot down other planes. Also, even if you prefer the pilot's seat you may want to check out the turret gun, it'll make you realize how hard that job was. - Performance. Frame rates tend to be very good, on my system as good as with x-plane. After all at times I found it hard to return to x-plane, but rof covers a totally different flying context, seat-of-the-pants flying a hundred years ago. It is at real as it gets, but then I still want to simm in a contemporary flight environment, with navigational aids, instrument approaches, and ATC, so x-plane is just so much closer to what I would normally fly.

There's a keyboard command, I think it's either 'i' or 'L', that let's you illuminate the cockpit so you can find the battery/master and light switches.

That sounds exactly like me before starting working on my instrument rating. Now, about 35 hours into it, I'm amazed how I can fly for an hour and a half without ever getting off the assigned altitude by more than 50ft and the assigned heading by more than 5 degrees. To me it seems it's just practice... ...but in a sim it also depends on the equipment. Do you use yoke and rudders? Makes a huge difference to using the keyboard, is expensive, but also yields huge rewards.

I just came across this new book: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118105028,descCd-buy.html. Looks like real world instruction books start to include x-plane.

Did you ever consider one of those introductory flights that your local flight school might offer as a gift for him? Experiencing the real thing might get him even deeper into this...

Great news! I still find the previous versions of the MU-2 pretty decent, and the Falco is my preferred single engine model, mostly due to its stunning cockpit. I'm sure these two combined will blow away most of the other offerings in the market...

Looks great, that's gonna be fun to fly... Are you going to add placards to the dash?

What kind of avionics will it come with? ADF and one VOR, but no ILS?

Question: Will you provide a radio range finder?