Tigercat Updates

[Ivan]

When the Tigercat was uploaded a while back, I noticed a few issues with the release.
Since this isn't my project, I didn't do more than just note the issues in the process as described in the thread "Need for Research Part 2".

Often on days when I am doing significant Gauge Development such as last night, I finish what I am doing and have nothing more to do that is directly related to my own project.
Those are times when I pick something else to examine and mess with. Most of the time, those other subjects never get any mention on the forum because there may not be anything substantial done.

The Me109E-Trop and the FW 190D-9 by Alex Simon were two cases where work on the other project got to the point where it seemed worth describing.

The Tigercat by Aleatorylamp was a generally nice looking project that seemed to have a bunch of issues that looked to be a good exercise to correct.
I probably would not have described the changes except that about two weeks ago, it occurred to me when I was having issues with Fuel Selectors for the P-38 that the Tigercat has a Fuel Tank arrangement that can be handled without a new Fuel Selector and that I had enough other Twin-engine Gauges and other Gauges to make the Tigercat's Panel fully functional without having to program anything else.

The attached screenshots show some minor VC changes to address an issue that tends to bother me and the updated instrument panel with a Fuel Selector developed for the FW 190D and Fuel Gauge designed for Corsair. The ASI is a generic one reading in Knots that I had done for the Corsair, Hellcat and others. I still don't have a twin engine Cylinder Temperature Gauge but it is in the plans and the singles based on the Thunderbolt are functional for Engine2.

Hopefully Aleatorylamp will not take offense by what I have done on his project. This project is his and this is just me playing around late at night. The results will NOT be distributed.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

The main problem with my CFS1 creations is the lack of a building team, and my "strong
point" is really only building the model itself. Textures, FD and Dp files are a bit more
complicated for me, although in some cases, they come out very well, but not always.

In the case of my FS98 planes, I do the building work, another in the team "The Last Mohicans"
does some very nice textures, and a third member helps with .air file issues.

After the episode with Eric Johnson´s P-39, I wasn´t really interested in
asking anything anyway, although eventually I did respond to your
messages yesterday, but I see...

At any rate, there´s no big deal with the Tigercat and Havoc corrections,
so the issue is unimportant.

Hello Aleatorylamp,

The reason that I don't just volunteer to work on pieces of your projects is basically that I also find the greatest enjoyment in building 3D models. The rest of the projects with DP files, AIR files and such are just things that I have had to learn how to do in order to bring my own projects to completion in the manner that I want.

The ridiculous amount of testing (with a stopwatch sometimes) that goes into tuning an AIR file is just plain tedious as is the editing of a DP file. The texturing can also get to be rather tedious. That is why so many of my own projects get stalled in the Workshop at one of these stages after the "fun parts" are done.

With the Tigercat, I did some pretty simple MDL fixes in AF99 but didn't go very far because I didn't want to get to the point where I would have to redo the animation.
One of the things that really bothered me but a fix in AF99 would force a new trip through Aircraft Animator was the Reversed Pitch of the Port Side Propeller.
I ended up swapping it out and making a couple other corrections using SCASM. The original V-cockpit had a shaded section at the back, which can be seen in the screenshot, that didn't seem to make sense, so I took that out.

When I looked at the DP file, (One has to get that fairly close to be able to get Weights and Balance correct for performance), I found it pretty curious that the Grumman would put Cannon in the Nose and MG in the Wing Roots.
Although the F7F is on my build list, it is so low on the list that I haven't started collecting data for it but finding a reference online was easy. I reversed the locations of the Gun Stations and put the ammunition locations to where I THOUGHT they should be. Since this was an exercise for amusement, I didn't try to be precise.
The weight of the ammunition was also substantially increased. This was easy because I keep a reference next to my Development Computer.

The first odd characteristics one can notice about the Tigercat are that it has a very Strong Pitch Up and a Heavy Roll to the Left. The next odd characteristic was that the AIR file had Manual Mixture controls which was easily fixed. Most aircraft do Pitch Up with increasing speed, but the effect on the Tigercat seemed a bit too extreme and had become worse with the DP file edits which put more of the weight close to the Center of Gravity instead of at the Nose.

The first thing to check for was a mislocation of various Disposable Loads such as Ammunition or Fuel.
Fuel Tank locations were adjusted slightly. I also found a strange Outer Wing Tank on the Left that should not have been there. It actually resisted being removed by AirEdit and C Programs and would crash the applications.
Eventually, I figured that if I could not remove the Record, I could at least edit it so that it would not affect flight performance: Make the Fuel Contents Zero and change its location to the Center of Gravity.
When I did that, apparently some kind of corruption was fixed because the Record could then be deleted.
A couple adjustments to pitch moments and angles of incidence took out most of the heavy Pitch Up moment.
A quick test confirmed that although the aircraft still Rolled to the Left, what remained was due to Engine Torque.
I made some adjustments to the roll characteristics but did not bother to adjust the rudder.

- Ivan.