Spartan Executive - FSX Native

[Milton Shupe]

It does. I got to looking closer in the sim and figured it out. I was trying out an idea on how to do better metal flake and it didn't quite work out.

Trying to figure where I stashed the pdn files I was working on for it. While I'm in the wait mode, I'm mucking about with a new wood panel for it. Still a work in progress, but the wood itself is pretty much there. The rest of the wood work in the vc is looking at getting redone as well. The panel was too dark for my tastes to begin with.

The FSX native version will have specular highlites to bring your red nose to life.

The dark original panel was actually a copy from a RW version.

The wood panel will look great once you get some shading going under the glare shield and around the edges, maybe under some of the protruding items on the panel.

[semo]

I hope you had a great vacation, Milton. But it sure is nice to have you back.

[Milton Shupe]

I hope you had a great vacation, Milton. But it sure is nice to have you back.

Aw, thanks Semo. Being there with 3 siblings was great fun; they are a lively bunch. Driving 2 days each way, the pits. Still trying to recover.

Working on getting the pilot and yoke visibility working correctly now so we can get this Spartan out of the hangar. Anything this simple should work the first time; not!

[txnetcop]

Milton this is going to be EPIC! I still fly this baby today several times a month!
Ted

[Milton Shupe]

Milton this is going to be EPIC! I still fly this baby today several times a month!
Ted

@Ted, well-l-l-l epic may be a bit strong :-)


@everyone:

I just finished up everything I know to do at this point so will start assembling the beta package, upload it, and send out some copies for a swamp test.

If any of you have time to do a thorough testing of the package, PM me and I will forward a link.

Thanks

[Milton Shupe]

Beta sent out ... now we wait ...

[blanston12]

I tested the spartian in P3D V3.4, here are the things i noticed.


1) bit of a pet peve of mine, in P3D the primary descriptor in the aircraft selector is the title= line from the aircraft.cfg. I know in FSX its never shown to the pilot so it does not have to be readable. So to find the aircraft I had to look for 'Executive VC'.


I think it would be nice if you changed the lines that read


title = Executive VC


to:


title = Spartan 7W Executive VC


2) In the VC if you hover over the throttle lever it shows as a tool tip, 'Engine 4 Trottle Control'. The prop lever shows 'Propeller 1 Control' which is what you would expect.


3) In the VC if you click the 'Display/Hide Fuel Panel' button and it does not do anything. The GPS and Radio buttons do hide/show the way you expect.


4) Flys pretty nice, don't know how she should perform so I will just describe what happened when I tried to do some aerobatics. She barrol rolled easily, twice I tried to do a loop and it went ok until I got the nose pointed at the ground and then I could not get her to come up past about 80 degrees down, before the flight ended.


5) VNE seams a little low. Twice while doing high speed passes over the airport I got aircraft overstressed. I would probably increase max_indicated_speed to 240, just to give it a buffer before the flight ends prematurely. Its currently at 225. Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge states max speed is 223kn.

Overall I like it alot, and the only thing that will push her out of the hanger, is your next version.

[txnetcop]

Well I found pretty much the same thing as Blanston 12. The fuel gauge is readable in the virtual cockpit and by pushing F7 key it comes up. She flies and looks just beautiful! The one thing I thought the original Spartan did was the back table came up and I could not get it to do that. However I can't remember ever flying an aircraft from the back seat LOL! I did go through the start up procedures as well. Beautifully done Milton! The flightsim community would be hard pressed for great freeware aircraft if you were to leave this hobby. Thank you for your labor of love! We are very fortunate to have the developers(freeware and payware) we have in Sim-Outhouse!

Milton I have the same socket 775 system as you do, as you know, except I did buy a used QX9775 CPU on EBay real cheap O/C'd to 4.5ghz. The frame rates stayed in the high 60s with the Nvidia GTX 285 and Orbx scenery and real weather...now back to desktop flying.
Ted

[Milton Shupe]

Adjustments made based on reports; will await further test results.

[Roger]

Hi Milton,
No issues to report in Dx10 (with Fixer). All animations seem ok but one issue is the panel light and cabin light do not function with the panel switches. This maybe missing fx files.
Otherwise exceptional and I especially like the cockpit glass!

[Milton Shupe]

Hi Milton,
No issues to report in Dx10 (with Fixer). All animations seem ok but one issue is the panel light and cabin light do not function with the panel switches. This maybe missing fx files.
Otherwise exceptional and I especially like the cockpit glass!

Thank you Roger.

RE: Cabin light-there is a cabin light switch next to the panel light switch. For some reason (as I have experienced in many of my projects) cabin lights seem to be funky with a delayed presence. That is what I experience here. Turn on the switch and it may take 5-10 seconds for the lights to appear. There are in the electrical section, have an appropriate light setup in the lights section, and uses a smaller fx_cabinlites fx I created to not overwhelm everything at night. The light works here most of the time with and without a delay.

RE: DX10: could you expound on the issues that the fixer corrects. DXT3, or 8-bit textures?

[Milton Shupe]

All the issues reported so far have been addressed. Thanks for your help in getting this package ready.

[Roger]

Hi Milton,
the Dx10 fixer has a tool to correct 8 bit textures but so far I haven't found any texture that need correcting.

[Milton Shupe]

Hi Milton,
the Dx10 fixer has a tool to correct 8 bit textures but so far I haven't found any texture that need correcting.

Ah, great; I do try to avoid 8-bit textures since I found out about the DX10 restriction.

[Milton Shupe]

In case you are wondering (and haven't read the docs), there is a yoke hiding mechanism.

Click on the base plate around the base of the yoke stem at the floor.

Unfortunately, I left out the texture for that base plate so it is hard to see but the tool tip will show if you point to it.

The pilot "goes to lunch" when the Battery switch is set to Off position.

[PhantomTweak]

Yes, I noticed the lacking texture for the yoke base plate, but it's not a big problem. The tool tip shows nicely, and clicking on it makes the yoke vanish, as expected. Just curious, is there a way to move the yoke to the other side? It looks like it should be able to, looking at the design of the yoke assembly, but I couldn't get it to move. Not critical, just a curiosity.
The gear and flaps both work as expected, either up or down. It lands beautifully, although I tended to bounce a bit. Just me. I'm so used to landing on carriers...
It flew wonderfully, speeds and climb rates exactly as written up in the documentation. Very stable, although agile. Couple of barrel rolls on take off. VERY fun Even the AP worked as advertised, holding altitude, and heading as expected. I didn't try any heavy NAV exercizes with it yet, though.

Still needs more tests, but so far, it's an absolutely wonderful aircraft overall.
Pat☺

[falcon409]

I did discover something that I'm curious about. Why were the gauge sections of the VC panel moved to a second texture? I was anxious to place the hi-res VC I had done about 3 years ago. . .only to discover when I loaded the airplane that I had bits and pieces of the new version but not the gauge sections. I attempted to take those sections from my new panel and resize them, but they are sized differently and it's becoming a guess as to what it might be. Add to that the fact that the new VC is textured and it makes it more difficult to get the textures to look correct since the sizing is in question.

[Milton Shupe]

I did discover something that I'm curious about. Why were the gauge sections of the VC panel moved to a second texture? I was anxious to place the hi-res VC I had done about 3 years ago. . .only to discover when I loaded the airplane that I had bits and pieces of the new version but not the gauge sections. I attempted to take those sections from my new panel and resize them, but they are sized differently and it's becoming a guess as to what it might be. Add to that the fact that the new VC is textured and it makes it more difficult to get the textures to look correct since the sizing is in question.

The VC panel gauge section was upgraded to hi-res several years ago; that's why the gauges were broken out separately.
Why are you trying to guess? See the VC02.bmp

Are you saying the old VC was not textured?
You are not being very clear Ed. :-)

Sorry, I cannot accommodate everyone's changes and updates.

[Henry]

perfect for my private aircraft a great price tooH

[falcon409]

The VC panel gauge section was upgraded to hi-res several years ago; that's why the gauges were broken out separately.
Why are you trying to guess? See the VC02.bmp

Are you saying the old VC was not textured?
You are not being very clear Ed. :-)

Sorry, I cannot accommodate everyone's changes and updates.

Old age and poor choice of words combined to make that understandable only to myself. I've got it worked out. . . . .

[Milton Shupe]

perfect for my private aircraft a great price tooH

Henry,

I pay the price so you do not have to, and I do it gladly. :-)

[Milton Shupe]

Old age and poor choice of words combined to make that understandable only to myself. I've got it worked out. . . . .

LOL I thought only I did that. :-)

[Milton Shupe]

Yes, I noticed the lacking texture for the yoke base plate, but it's not a big problem. The tool tip shows nicely, and clicking on it makes the yoke vanish, as expected. Just curious, is there a way to move the yoke to the other side? It looks like it should be able to, looking at the design of the yoke assembly, but I couldn't get it to move. Not critical, just a curiosity.
The gear and flaps both work as expected, either up or down. It lands beautifully, although I tended to bounce a bit. Just me. I'm so used to landing on carriers...
It flew wonderfully, speeds and climb rates exactly as written up in the documentation. Very stable, although agile. Couple of barrel rolls on take off. VERY fun Even the AP worked as advertised, holding altitude, and heading as expected. I didn't try any heavy NAV exercizes with it yet, though.

Still needs more tests, but so far, it's an absolutely wonderful aircraft overall.
Pat☺

Hi Pat,

In the RW, the yoke could be switched. I did not upgrade the original model to do that as I did not want two pilots in the cockpit.

Landing is best accomplished as a 3-pointer low and slow. Check your landing speeds against the flaps stall speed and give yourself a little margin for wind changes.

The Localizer captures fine and she will follow it down perfectly.

As WND mentioned, flaps drag is too high and that has been adjusted.

If you have any radio setting concerns, see the panel docs in the aircraft folder.

[Willy]

Just finished my current paint project and it's about time to see what I can do with specs and bump maps on a Spartan. This should be fun!

[Milton Shupe]

Just finished my current paint project and it's about time to see what I can do with specs and bump maps on a Spartan. This should be fun!

Great Willy; look forward to that.

Of all the FSX native conversions I have done, and each has neutralized spec and bump maps included, no one to my knowledge has actually used the features.

The FSX material properties have many options and adjustments available to control outcomes.

Since I have not yet seen bump maps applied, I am uncertain if the default settings on bumps are okay.
So, we may have to adjust something as we move forward.