Flight Dynamics experts...I need help

[Felixthreeone]

Ok here is my issue:

I have a tweaker's mentality when it comes to flightsim, and have learned my way around things pretty well over the few years I have been into it. One pesky problem seems to keep creeping up and ruining my tweaking life, and it is the #@#! stalling issue that I seem to have with certain addon aircraft, both payware and freeware. I will elaborate.

I recently set out to modify the FS-KBT super hornet to add some different effects and tweaks (I know my way around the aircraft config fairly well), and have been successful adding the mods I wanted. When I get into the flight dynamics, however, i run into a 'stalling' issue. Now as a real-world pilot, I am familiar with AOA, airspeeds for safe operation, and MOI and the like. This aircraft, like a few others in my hangar, exhibit behaviour that is uncharacteristic for the flight envelope they are supposed to mimic. For example, at 250-350 knots, any stick deflection (pull) that i feed into my X52 beyond, say, a third of the stick range, almost instantly throws the stall flag, and the aircraft begins to depart controlled flight. Now, I have some fast jet experience IRL, so i can attest to the fact that this is not the case with the real thing; speaking to some super hornet pilot friends of mine, I have gleaned some very good info on the handling characteristics of the real jet.

Another example is the Dave Garwood Hunter. It flies beautifully...whereas my Alphasim Hunter has the same stalling issue as my KBT Superhornet.

I have AirEd, but am not too familiar with the settings inside of the .air file, so i am not sure if the solution to the problem lies in the .cfg, or the .air file itself. These aircraft shouldn't throw a stall flag under the circumstances that they are. But if anyone here can help me solve this issue, It would be a fantastic leap that would allow me to remove from mothballs a few aircraft that I really enjoy outside of this issue. I thank you guys in advance for your time and knowledge.

[Z-claudius24]

Hi,

Dunno if you know this small tutorial .. it's useful infos there:

FS2004 (ACOF) - Misc. FS2004 How To Tweak Flight Dynamics
[ Download | View ]
Name: howtweak.zip Size: 47,722 Date: 09-12-2005 Downloads: 1,785
FS2004 How To Tweak Flight Dynamics. This pdf file is for people who want to learn, or learn more, about updating the flight dynamics of FS2004 aircraft. It won't tell you everything, but it will tell you some things the majority of flight simmers don't know about updating flight dynamics. By Bob Chicilo.

[Felixthreeone]

Thank you, Claudius...I will check it out

[aeromed202]

I updated the flight dynamics for this some time ago. I'll review what I did and see if it does what you say yours does.

[Felixthreeone]

I updated the flight dynamics for this some time ago. I'll review what I did and see if it does what you say yours does.

....thank you very much; I downloaded the tutorial claudius pointed me to, and went about a few tweaks, but it didnt seem to have an effect on the issue...

[fliger747]

Fly by wire aircraft are particularly frustrating to deal with in FS. The reason bering they react as their computer says they should, not as one would expect the airframe to fly by raw data. I am afraid that you will need to start mucking about in trhe .Air file. Aircraft Airfile Manager is a usefull utility and does provide a small number of hints at what each parameter does. AirEd is another useful tool once you have some idea what is going on.

By stall flag you mean the small red message at the bottom that says "stall" as opposed to the break? You can specify the AOA at which this occurs.

Good luck: T

[Felixthreeone]

Thanks, T...when you say you can specify the angle, how do I do it? I tried what I thought was that exact thing in AirED, and increased the angele, but it had no noticeable effect....what am I missing?

[Milton Shupe]

Lots of things can impact this issue and here are a few to look at attached.

See highlited section near top to adjust angle.

[Felixthreeone]

Thank you very much, Milton. I had seen one or two of the lines you pointed out, but you also pointed out a few I hadn't looked at....I will mess with 'em a bit and see what happens....

......*edit*....also, Milton, one other interesting phenomena I notice: I can put this aircraft into a shallow dive, picking up speed; during the descent, if i quickly apply a brief 'pull' on the stick, the stall flag shows on the screen, but only for the split second that I applied the excess backpressure....its almost like a 'switch' in the travel of the controls is triggering the stall signal from FS. Since I have essentially no positive AOA, why on earth would that happen? This is something I am determined to fix...and I appreciate the feedback very much.

[fliger747]

Thanks Milton, was gone for a bit, but that was what I was looking for!

As to the brief stall, my guess is that it is sensing (developing) an instantaneous G load. Aerodynamically this is not correct, but the interaction between the elevator and the wing is one of the more approxiamate areas of FS.

Cheers: T

[Milton Shupe]

You might compare some of the key values to an air file of a similar aircraft.

Optionally, you might post the air and cfg file here so that we have something to look at. Darkness hides the obvious.

[MaddogK]

Hmm, never bothered to look at the FM for that plane as I stripped the bird of panels and scrapped the rest. I'll compare the C and D models from Areal Foundry to your pic and see what their numbers indicate (as those AF Hornets don't show stall warnings like you indicate)

[MaddogK]

Sadly NONE of the A/C I looked at have those circled items in sec 1101: Not the Abacus F-18, neither of the aerialfoundry hornets V2 or V3, not my gripen C, not the Viperden F-16, Eaglesoft Citation X, vistaliners 727, CLS DC-10, POSKY 757, nuthin.

You sure thats the FS9 model ? The KBT F-18F doesn't have them either, weird.

[Felixthreeone]

I really appreciate all of the insight and info..hopefully we can figure it out...

[Felixthreeone]

Maddog, I believe the values are there, they are just labeled differently than in Milton"s example; I still don"t have a clue what to do with them really, other than changing them and going in-sim to see what happens