Flight Sims

[Freude am Fahren]

And 'reverse thrust' on these types of engines is simply reversing the pitch of the prop, yes/no?

Yeah. I think it's only a Turboprop thing. I'm not sure if any piston engines have beta/reverse.

Here's my understanding from sims/flying with my dad/youtube. I'll be getting my complicated rating as soon as I'm done with my private pilot license, and I'll learn about it properly.

So at idle, with the prop lever forward, the pitch of the propeller is "fine", let's say at 1000 RPM. As you bring up the throttle, the RPM increases to the redline (let's say 2700 RPM), but it can reach it at less than full power. So then the governor sets in, and the pitch starts to increase to keep the engine/prop from overspeeding. After take-off, or at the end of climb, depending on the plane, I think, you bring thee RPM/Prop lever back to decrease RPM to a cruise climb or cruise setting, somewhere between 2200 and 2500 RPM probably on a lot of engines. This increases the pitch even more, without adjusting power. You'd bring power back too, but the RPM wouldn't change from doing that (unless you brought it back far enough to not be able to stay on the governor) the pitch would then just decrease a bit. You can usually find online speed vs. range tables for RPM/Power settings.

You can kinda think about it like going up in a hill in your car. For a given throttle position, the steepness of the hill is going to determine the car engine's RPM.

Turbo props are pretty much the same, except the prop spins much slower I think. I think they typically redline in the teens. And you manage power using torque, because the prop is made to take such a large "bite" of the air, I think you can over torque the shaft. And going into Beta is basically any position past the idle position, through completely vertical, when the prop makes no thrust, through to reverse. Beta is often used in taxi, because idle would cause too fast a taxi. It's kinda like throwing the clutch in to tool around a parking lot as speeds that would stall the engine of your car.

Here's a pretty good explainer of turboprop reverse thrust. http://www.12charlie.com/Chapter_14/Chap14Page007.htm

Newer planes had mechanical or computer controlled RPM, where there is just a single power lever, and the RPM is completely controlled by pre-set settings or computers. The Cirrus has the mechanical version, and the Diamonds, and some others go even further with full FADEC control to control the mixture as well, all through computers, so there's just the one lever.

[Rare White Ape]

I figured something like that might be happening, without knowing anything about the details, when listening to the sound the engines make while flying the King Air. When you reduce the throttle after takeoff you get odd sounds that appear to be more related to the spinning props than anything.

In the external camera hud you get the dials that represent the engine performance: an outer marker that matches your throttle position, an inner marker that I’m guessing is your prop status or thrust (could be both) and and a coloured bit; green (good) then a bit of yellow and red, which I assume means you’re overspeeding the props and they’re going transonic (really bad).

Am I on the money here?

[Tom Servo]

Turns out there's a rotary dial on the throttle for my flight stick that was mapped to propeller axis. I still don't totally understand how to use it, but moving that to one end rather than the central position I had it in let me actually get the plane off the ground.

Thanks!

[Rare White Ape]

Japan world update coming next Tuesday: 3D photogrammetry for six cities, six new premium airports, and an updated height map for the entire country. And it’s free.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...omment-8213870

[Rare White Ape]

I just scored one of these mega cheap off Gumtree! It’s practically brand new. The seller had even kept all the boxes and everything.

Takes a bit of getting used to… mostly because I’ve got to relearn the button mapping.

[Freude am Fahren]

Finally got home from my long work trip. After the update, I downloaded the Mooney and took a little trip from the keys up to my home airport, KSUA, with a stop & go at MIA.

Pretty fun (and fast!) little plane.

Carenado is known for beautiful planes with lacking systems/physics. But as my first payware for this generation, it seems like it's still better than the stock planes. Maybe not worth the $30 though.

[Tom Servo]

It's hard to justify prices like $30 for a plane when $60 gets you the base sim. That might be partially because I barely know what I'm doing half the time, so all the extra realism/cockpit interaction is lost on me.

[Rare White Ape]

I would only buy planes if they offered a vastly different role, configuration or era. For example, having both the 747 and A320 fills my jumbo jet quotient quite nicely, so I have no need for the 787. Plus there are a heap of small planes already included, so different variations of Cessna are not required.

I will pay money for various military planes or a Concorde when they finally arrive. And helicopters. But I’d still think twice about paying $30 for one aircraft, no matter what it is.

[Rare White Ape]

Also the flight stick kicks arse. It’s so much better than a controller.

I nailed a landing on my second flight

[Freude am Fahren]

Yeah, when I was using FSX a lot a decade ago, and again when I got back into X-Plane 11 a couple years ago, the idea of paying anything, much less dozens of dollars for a single plane was absurd. Still though, but I'm kinda hooked.

I think Realistically they should be iRacing car prices.

But I've bought both Toliss' A319 and A321 for X-Plane, because I'm a sucker.

Also, this one is of keen interest to me, since a Mooney would be near the top of the list of planes I might get in real life...


...in 20-30 years if everything goes to plan