Virtavia A-4E-F Skyhawk FDE Update

[big-mike]

Thank you very much for your work,Mal.
I love the new fde,she flies great imho.
Mike

[Deacon211]

Just a note on the actual A-4 roll rate. The A-4 will roll very quickly. 720 deg/sec seems to come to mind from my old CNATRA days. But, because the A-4 is short in the longitudinal axis, the jet's stability will become increasingly wonky the longer you roll.

IIRC the TA-4J/F NATOPS restricted one from rolling more than 360 degrees for that reason.

I haven't tried the new files....I'm just throwing that out for discussion.

Deacon

[StormILM]

Just a note on the actual A-4 roll rate. The A-4 will roll very quickly. 720 deg/sec seems to come to mind from my old CNATRA days. But, because the A-4 is short in the longitudinal axis, the jet's stability will become increasingly wonky the longer you roll.

IIRC the TA-4J/F NATOPS restricted one from rolling more than 360 degrees for that reason.

I haven't tried the new files....I'm just throwing that out for discussion.

Deacon

I found that with this FDE, if I doubled the aileron setting from 1.0 to 2.0, the roll rate was pretty much spot on and the roll/yaw behavior reflected exactly as noted in NATOPS. I have watched in cockpit video of A-4's rolling and noted the asymmetric slat deployment during the rolls(uneven deployment with each slat bobbing in and out on their tracks). This is a key reason the Blue Angels bolted their A-4F slats in the closed position. One other issue which restricted full deflection rolls was the risk of wing panel delamination. I've heard this from several A-4 qualified pilots.

[Deacon211]

I found that with this FDE, if I doubled the aileron setting from 1.0 to 2.0, the roll rate was pretty much spot on and the roll/yaw behavior reflected exactly as noted in NATOPS. I have watched in cockpit video of A-4's rolling and noted the asymmetric slat deployment during the rolls(uneven deployment with each slat bobbing in and out on their tracks). This is a key reason the Blue Angels bolted their A-4F slats in the closed position. One other issue which restricted full deflection rolls was the risk of wing panel delamination. I've heard this from several A-4 qualified pilots.

Yep, that was definitely a concern. I recall that before any maneuvering flight (ACM, Tacform, Weps, etc) you were required to get the slats to deploy at least once, by loading up the jet.

Even a brief delay caused by a sticky slat was a bit of a "whoa, settle down there big fella" moment...for the second it lasted.

[mal998]

Storm, here's the thing, I could go back to the drawing board and increase the roll rate but I think your solution is better.

Initially I had set the roll rate very high but the jet did become squirrely.

I decided to roll it back which makes the paltform more stable for the average flyer, particularly when it comes to carrier landings. At this point I really don't think the slower roll rate detracts from the total flight experience.

If however the general concensus is to up the roll rate I might be persuaded to have another look.

[StormILM]

Storm, here's the thing, I could go back to the drawing board and increase the roll rate but I think your solution is better.

Initially I had set the roll rate very high but the jet did become squirrely.

I decided to roll it back which makes the paltform more stable for the average flyer, particularly when it comes to carrier landings. At this point I really don't think the slower roll rate detracts from the total flight experience.

If however the general concensus is to up the roll rate I might be persuaded to have another look.

MAL, I'm with you, I would not touch it in the FDE because it may(or may not) upset stability. I'd leave it to the user to adjust it up a little via the flight tuning in the config or by other means with their controller software. It feels very good as is but to those who want to get more roll rate, it's easy to adjust but from my testing, 1.8 to 2.0 is as high as I'd set it.

[fsafranek]

I like it as is but here's a video that has pretty good roll rate demo in opening seconds and at 1:10.
And he's carrying tanks (not necessarily any fuel out there though since he lands shortly afterwards).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_7e...layer_embedded

[whiteside]

Thanks! That is very nice of you.

[whiteside]

Let me see if I got this correct,
drop the Aircraft.cfg file in the Virtavia A-4 Skyhawk 0-1 Clean folder?

Then Put the 2 .Air files in that same folder? (Virtavia A-4 Skyhawk 0-1 Clean)?

[Stickshaker]

Put both airfile and cfg in the appropriate folders of each of the two planes. So: one air and one cfg folder per plane.