FSD Turbine Toucan is now released

[Tim_FSD]

The Turbine Toucan is now available for Microsoft Flight Simulator X. The FS X Turbine Toucan was made with the cooperation of Infinity Entertainment and represents the highest degree of accuracy possible.
The Turbine Toucan represents the highest thrust-to-weight ratio aircraft in the world today, including any current jet fighter in the U.S. arsenal. Now you have the opportunity to fly this incredible aircraft on their own PC with a virtual model that is absolutely accurate to its real world counterpart. This allows anyone to be inventive and create maneuvers and break boundaries in a way that can only be accomplished with the Turbine Toucan, in both the real and virtual worlds.
For more details see the Toucan web page at http://www.fsd-international.com/Hangar/Toucan

You may also be interested in the real world Turbine Toucan at the Infinity Entertainment site:
http://www.turbinetoucan.com/homepage/


Enjoy!

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

David Kervinen builder & a pilot of the Turbine Toucan , supplied technical data and much insight into how the aircraft performs , he hoped that virtual pilots could come up with some new manoeuvres to introduce into shows , FSD offers to place the scenery package included with the Turbine Toucan anywhere in the fs world in exchange for the production of utube video footage of stunts.

[rcbarend]

(following the link) seeing it's features advertised a.o. as This native Flight Simulator X model has the best detailed aircraft modeling you will ever see in this simulator , makes me lose interrest in it. Almost by definition, when such a statement is used.

Sorry, Rob

[b52bob]

(following the link) seeing it's features advertised a.o. as This native Flight Simulator X model has the best detailed aircraft modeling you will ever see in this simulator , makes me lose interrest in it. Almost by definition, when such a statement is used.

Sorry, Rob


not nice!

Sorry

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

I think he has a point , hyperbole isn’t informative , still Kevin has some talent and reputation with modelling aircraft.

[clmooring]

The screenshots look great!

[dougal]

Oooooh dear..... don't think i'm gonna be able to resist this one:wiggle:

[10lrrp]

Will we see a paintkit ??

[Aviator32]

This native Flight Simulator X model has the best detailed aircraft modeling you will ever see in this simulator

Maybe he means the flight modeling as I hate to say it but it all looks a little bit FS2004 to me :kilroy:


22516

[10lrrp]

the real cockpit looks a little FS 2004 to me, i think this is a great little Aircraft at a great price, with good feedback from users maybe a patch can be generated down the road to fix little things.

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

The aircrafts interior is quite Spartan , it was designed to be as light as possible in the real world and within FSX it has fewer draw calls than the default P51 and about the same texture load yet still has each screw modelled , the VC includes popups of all the glass displays and is rendered with VRay for shading and all paintwork , its uses state of the art production methods but looks very clean as the aircraft is kept spotless<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
22521 <o:p></o:p>
One of the best ways to familiarize yourself with handling the aircraft are the Red Bull Missions included with Accel , , the animations when you clip a pilon are well done and having other players on the course adds to the pleasure , my other favorite was a run up the Grand Canyon , that being a constant source of fun though not legal i suspect.

22517

[tracyq144]

The Turbine Toucan represents the highest thrust-to-weight ratio aircraft in the world today, including any current jet fighter in the U.S. arsenal.

Eeew, that statement alone makes it kind of hard to resist! Like to hear some flight reviews by SOH members, nothing like a good hot rod! :kilroy:

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

It’s a handful , this plane can go pure vertical after a one hundred foot ground roll and has two time to climb records to date , engine management is the pilots job , without keeping a lid on power output it will blow the gearbox , it can be reset in game but i have listened to that boom grinding sound a couple of times.

[tracyq144]

engine management is the pilots job , without keeping a lid on power output it will blow the gearbox , it can be reset in game but i have listened to that boom grinding sound a couple of times.

No just "put the pedal to the metal" and go? It may be over my head. :(

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

It can be turned off in the engine management popup , there is other data that gets logged as well like fuel , hours and the number of flights.

[Barfly]

Never heard of the plane but very interesting... is it's aerodynamic performance similar to a pitts?

[anatolpopov]

Never heard of the plane but very interesting... is it's aerodynamic performance similar to a pitts?

Not at all. Turbine Toucan is able to do 3D aerobatics and it have a lot more powerful engine. If you don't know what is 3D aerobatics (RC planes do this often): http://www.blaineaustin.com/3d_tips.htm

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

That's a great link , gotta give a few of those a try ! , dont forget that FSD are offering freebies to Virtual Pilots for video submissions of their stunts uploaded to utube.

The aerodynamics of the Turbine Toucan share a great deal with the Pitts though the construction makes use of modern materials throughout , composites , carbon fiber and Aluminum alloys. CJ

[glennc]

Chuck and Tim,

Since no one has mentioned buying and flying this monster (stated with politeness and respect for the real thing):

No real issues at the end of this so hang in for a minute. :salute:

I bought it about an hour ago. I had an Installer Error 70, then it phoned home to to validate the license. That appeared to go OK. I couldn't shut down the installer, kept getting "Invalid Parameter". So, I ended it via the Task Manager. Then, I saw a thread on your site that was similar. I just did another run of the installer and it completed successfully. The PC is Win7, 32 Bit, UAC is off. Norton was off during the download.

First Flight: At first I forgot this was a turbo-prop so advanced the condition lever, and hit Start . The next thing I know, I'm 300 feet up and balistic. :isadizzy: This is one very twitchy airplane. Just via plane(?) dumb luck, I didn't break anything. Now - here is the only issue: Where in the heck is my stomach?

For the overly picky: This is a pilot's airplane. Accept it as that. :ernae:

Glenn

[MarkH]

First Flight: At first I forgot this was a turbo-prop so advanced the condition lever, and hit Start . The next thing I know, I'm 300 feet up and balistic.

Ditto! I have to say, so far starting it by the checklist doesn't seem to work very well. Not much guidance on flying it either, so you're kind of on your own...

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

It aint your grand pappies Pitts is it ? , valid points raised though , there should be more detail on the finer points of piloting this plane , it’s a real "seat of your pants" kind of aircraft and doesn’t have many parallels to draw from.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
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FSX represents turbine start up wrong and would create a hot start situation by flooding fuel as it automatically advances the condition lever to maximum , trying to start in cut-off doesn't work as it automatically jumps when the starter is engaged. the PT-6 calls for N1 stabilization at around 20% ( always a too low 12% in FSX) and then introduction of fuel.<o:p></o:p>
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What i do to compensate is set the throttle at 1% reverse and bring back the condition lever to lower the N1 N2 immediately after i hear the engine igniters , once FSX burns all that extra fuel she settles down , the real plane can take off in 100 feet , and climb vertically so it may well become unexpectedly airborne when the engine starts hot.
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In order to get around some of these hard coded routines FSX has for systems i once ( and only once ) made an aircraft that used only custom variables for everything but the canopy and solved as many problems as i created , it turned out that none of the hardware people use could have buttons assigned to control any of the animated parts ( throttle , flaps etc ) , so i try not to bypass the default animation triggers now but instead control them with additional conditions coded into the model .<o:p></o:p>
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I’ll get with Tim and see what we can build as a knowledge base and ask the pilot / builder to add to the discussion , his input was almost chilling , one fellow called this plane a wildcat and no better description exists for it .<o:p></o:p>

[big-mike]

Comes this Toucan with an own soundfile?
Thank you
Michael

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

Hello Big Mike, Steve of FSD created the " Ballsy " custom soundfile for the Toucan.

[big-mike]

Hello Big Mike, Steve of FSD created the " Ballsy " custom soundfile for the Toucan.

How must i understand this------"Ballsy"?
It´s important for me,that not an "aliased"-soundfile is used.
Thnks
Michael

[warchild]

::LOL:: I think he means its loud and pronounced.. Not aliased..

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

My Bad , i need to remember we are a global community and better select my choice of expressions to use for " loud and pronounced " and not aliased ...

[big-mike]

Now i understand!
Sorry,but my english is........
Thanks
Michael

[MarkH]

FSX represents turbine start up wrong and would create a hot start situation by flooding fuel as it automatically advances the condition lever to maximum , trying to start in cut-off doesn't work as it automatically jumps when the starter is engaged.
Thanks Chuck, I noticed this thing with ths condition lever and wondered what was going on. Of course not being familiar with turboprops or jets at all doesn't help. I assume what we get in the manual is the real-world checklist, which adds further confusion because not everything makes sense. For example, I couldn't see anywhere to check the fuel pressure. It would be nice to get a description of the start sequence that discussed the FSX limitations. Your explanation perhaps helps me understand why I got it to start twice but then not again...

I will persevere. At least I haven't blown up the gearbox yet in 3 'proper' flights (i.e. the ones where I meant to take off). I've also landed it twice, including once almost entirely on the runway!

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

Landing , that takes practice , the Real Toucan has a tendency ( pronounced ) to over speed on landing , and at 0 throttle has a great deal of prop drag , so what works well is to coming in at about 120 knots and cut the throttle as you come over the fence and touchdown at 85-90 , hit the brakes and slow it down to about 60 and set the tail down , give it some rudder input to stay strait and look out the sides to keep lined up with the runway as you can’t see much of it once that tail is on the tarmac , if you want to you can reverse thrust to a stop in about 100 feet.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

[MarkH]

Landing , that takes practice<o:p></o:p>

Okay, I guess I'm trying to land much too slow. Also trying to fly it like a piston engine doesn't work as the engine lags way behind throttle changes, and the slightest blip sends me right back up! I assume I want the prop fully-fine to land? Now I just have to find out how to map reverse onto one of my levers...

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

Okay, I guess I'm trying to land much too slow. Also trying to fly it like a piston engine doesn't work as the engine lags way behind throttle changes, and the slightest blip sends me right back up! I assume I want the prop fully-fine to land? Now I just have to find out how to map reverse onto one of my levers...

Using the prop as an airbrake cut the throttle and let the speed bleed off from propdrag at the end of the approach leg , come up on the end of the field at about one hundred feet AGL and cut the throttle , by the time you are over the numbers it will sit right down on the runway.

[glennc]

Now I understand. The thing that bothered me about the two landings I did was getting down to about 120 then having the ground coming up real quick. It was more of an arrival than a landing.

Glenn

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

It took us a while to get the hang of it , the combination of overspeed and the prop drag at 0 throttle made floating in just above stall speed impossible , David ( the pilot ) had said one needed to make a powered decent ( 3-5 % ) and cut the throttle at the fence.

Glad to hear you made it down safely . CJ

[MarkH]

one needed to make a powered decent ( 3-5 % ) and cut the throttle at the fence.
More good info Chuck, I'm finding it hard to get a descent at 120 and the throttle is very twitchy, but looks like very little throttle is required to maintain that. I wonder if it needs more finesse than my throttle setup allows. Perhaps now is the time to bite the FSUIPC bullet and set my controls up more precisely...

[big-mike]

This Toucan is really a beast!
I Have a lot of fun with this bird,also you must handle it with care
or you kill the engine with a bang.
Thanks for this aircraft,it`s worth every cent!
Michael

[10lrrp]

Anyone have some guideance on hovering with this bird ???

[MarkH]

Anyone have some guideance on hovering with this bird ???

Did you check out the manual? Has some guidance there. Not tried it yet, I'm still getting to grips with starting and controlling a turbo-prop engine!

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

Hovering / Prop Hanging in this plane is something of a balancing act between throttle control , timing , speed and position.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
Getting "Up To Speed" is the key , get started by going into a vertical climb at around 50% throttle and as the speed bleeds off you look for the sweet spot in thrust levels to equal your current weight ( for shows they don’t have full fuel loads ).<o:p></o:p>
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A couple of pointers , trimming the elevator up gives it more authority to control your pitch once your above 70% AOA and below 30 Kn , the other tool that helps is the HUD , in addition to VSI , Pitch , Roll , ASI and GSI are readily monitored, additional engine information can also be monitored by pushing the button on the MFD panel that displays it on the HUD .<o:p></o:p>
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Last tip on practicing this is to switch to fixed spot view and look down on the wings with the HUD displayed and try to control the airflow with the ailerons while you get the VSI & GSI as low as you can , it’s closer to a " crawl " than a hover in FSX , stall behaviour in sim requires airflow over the wings from forward velocity , the stall speeds in this were manipulated to be much lower at high angles of attack , getting your ASI around 27 knots and GSI to 1 or so with VSI reading as low as a couple of hundred fpm is the threshold you can ride, from ground level this would appear to be almost stationary .
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Hope this helps <o:p></o:p>