Blew through all of the tutorials. I’ve got a couple of comments for the review.
The Beast (as I have started calling it) is awesome. The radar, weapons and avionics are so clunky that it feels like you are driving a tank around the sky, yet at the same time it is smooth as silk to fly.
I had a “minor midair” in one of the A2A tutorials. Fairly damaged— it wanted to roll right and had a lot of brownish smoke coming out of the right side of the fuselage…still managed to get it down on a runway in one piece. That made for one of those memorable moments that makes good flight simming so much fun.
I was reading the manual this morning (dear wife greeted me with a big steamin cuppa and a tablet ) and this thing has its structural members made of steel. No wonder it feels sturdy like a tank.
What’s the max altitude you all got it to? I flew from Sukhumi to Tblisi at about 18km and mach1, had the AB on for about three quarters of the flight! The short legs of this beast don’t really seem to come into play on our current map sizes. Bit like the plastic bug in that way.
Beast is an apt name. I hope the flight model refinements that are being done will bring out some of its vices. Adverse yaw, that sort of thing.
I (accidentally) had it up to about 10 km…accidentally because I was fiddling with the radar or something and lost track of things. Haven’t tried super sonic yet.
I also noticed its short legs–saw I was low on gas and landed, only to flame out during the taxi. The need a radio option for “Ah…Tower, …I’m just going to leave it here…”
Also looking forward to FM refinements. After flying the15 and especially the 21, I am pretty cautious with the Beast. You can almost feel the edges of the envelope…haven’t tried to cross one yet.
As was I…after two days of flying the Beast…here are a few of my rambling thoughts…
Page 50, Numbers 13 & 14 – Fuel tank No.2 and fuel tanks 3 and 4 empty…“hmmm…I probably should have paid more attention to that.”
Page 41, LH and RH Cannon Ammo counters - “…OK, so when they read 0 I should stop trying to shoot down the bandit”
Page 28, Turn Off Radar Lamp: Once the lamp lights up, turn the radar off – “Yeah…that explains a lot…guess I should withdraw my Trouble Ticket”
Page 27, KUS-2000 Airspeed/TAS indicator: There is a Red Line at 1,300 km/h which s the Airframe Max Structural Dynamic Pressure Limit – “OK…then why does the gauge go up to 2,000 km/h?”
Page 76, Canopy Controls: 3 On the RH Glareshield Area is an Emergency Release Handle - operating this will Jettison the Canopy. – “OK…so not for everyday use…got it.”
@Hangar200,
Due to the pace of development, they did not know how fast they might get to. Only 10 years after the jet engine went to war we were going supersonic…
Here are some problems. I cant move the near frequency selector. Even w Radio off or on. Tried all modes. I’m all over the manual…uhmmm
Most of the time cant hear the Morse code. The volume knob has only worked once… seems buggy. Can I get a witness?
Wish I had a key that would rotate the running crank. It’s tough to fly and tune. Programming a key to this does nothing.
When I can get it to work and hear the Morse code the system is Awesome. I got more time w it than w the guns. I love old radios.
I thought I’d provide some info on the FM issues being discussed and what we are doing about them. First off there are a handful of issues here and there that are being worked. However there are other issues being noted where the data and behavior is correct. Since I am not a fan of opinion or feeling and prefer quantitative results lets discuss military power behavior:
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1184x834.
As you can see there is clearly work to be done across the flight envelope in regards to military power level flight acceleration. I have been working on a fully automated test case tool that stimulates the FM code to generate the above outputs along with FM adjustments to much more rapidly make corrections and adjustments. The nice thing is, it utilizes the same EFM API function calls that all EFM aircraft use, so it will become an extremely valuable tool across all airframes.
We are doing this for every data plot that we have and are capable of digitizing and automating to make further improvements.
In summary, here are the issues we are currently looking to tackle:
Improving level flight military power behavior (in general too high for most of envelope)
Improving turn rate (slightly too low currently across flight envelope)
Finally, an issue I’m seeing being brought up multiple times is ground behavior when moving from 9000 RPM through 10000 RM with too quick thrust build up when advancing throttle. Per our steady state engine charts each engine outputs around 800 kg of thrust at 9000 RPM this exponentially spikes to around 1400 kg of thrust at 10000 RPM. I am still investigating this and will create an automated engine test like the mil power test above to ensure the code is generating thrust for a given RPM as expected.
The last issue I’m seeing is roll rate and inertia behavior. From all indications the inertia data is correctly applied but will generate an automated test that analyzes effective roll moment for a given aileron deflection to ensure it is behaving correctly.
My objective is to provide a summary of these test results once their are generated and any corrections applied so you can all take a look at it.
yes, good to see they are being proactive and getting the info out there. I have confidence the FM will be improved greatly in the near future. The lack of stall/spin behavior definitely stuck out like a sore thumb for me.
This morning I cant get the radio to do squat. Its so buggy and broken. In Ant I got it to change ranges but I cant get it to tune. The crank moves but the dial does not. And it will only operate in Far. This is so frustrating.
EDIT: Here is some weirdness. I had decided to go flat screen instead of VR to play with the radio. I could not tune it. When I went back to VR everything started to work.
Weirdness number two. You are supposed to flip the switch from radio to compass on the VHF (voice) radio in order to hear the morse code. This is the way it was working yesterday. Now I had to flip it to RADIO and I picked up the morse code. Works good again, Oye! Shes a handful!
Managed to fly around the map tuning in about 5 stations before making it back to Krymsk. In manual tuning it worked like a charm. Cant figure out the whole Presets thing. I wish it had presets like an old car radio. Just pull and push. Remember them?
My second flight was a little A2G. It was an absolute blast!
I haven’t had an issue so here is what I do: On the NDB radio, I tune to a freq, get the needle pegged, turn up the NDB volume (nothing heard et…that is OK). Then I go to the comms radio, switch the audio button to the NDB and finally turn up the comms radio button to hear the morse signal…yeah, a lot to do for some beeps…especially the I realized I hadn’t written down the morse code for the station I wanted.
Yup! It’s a lot to do and we like how much it sux. These old radios remind me of my early ARMY days.
The button you flip up on the radio (left horizontal panel) is supposed to be down. This is what the manual says and how it is labeled. I believe it’s a bug or oversight. As you stated, it works for Morse code in the up position.
I took Lino’s frequency doc and copied most of the major NBD and Morse codes on to a new document. I had great fun flying around from Krymst to Gudauta to Maykop. Once there I turned for Krasnodar. Since it only took a few minutes, I decided to go for broke and go to Krymsk. I hit 1k kph and nearly ran out of gas.
Have you figured out how to do the presets? Its kicking my butt lol
I think I saw that in the ME - one of the tabs when you select the aircraft - I think the freq is the little radio antenna icon and the NDB presets for Near and Far are under the envelope icon tab
I’ll be forwarding a few “Why ins’t there a button for this?” inputs for the Groupreview - agree that key assignments to turn the crank would be good.
Here are some obvious problems. No pitchforks please. It’s an Early access.
The manual says put the Homing Switch to Near and select the range on the ARK-5P. As far as I can see I can only turn the Radio range selector w the Homing sw set to Far.
The manual then calls for you to use Far to rotate the Presets knob on the left wall. There again, the knob will only turn if set to Near.
So maybe just an honest mistake. But use of presets would be good.
I can get around the map using the manual tuning, so no big deal. I only wish I could turn that crank faster.
) and this thing has its structural members made of steel. No wonder it feels sturdy like a tank.
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1184x834.
