I would like to ask a special favor....

[AMDDDA]

Is there a chance for a wreckless person's less experienced friendly version?

[NickN]

just keep the manifold pressure below 65 and the airspeed above 8000ft below the redline for true airspeed and you will be fine


the automatic start system will also work as long as you turn on the fuel pumps

[Brett_Henderson]

I just took a few test flights (and emailed you, Nick)..

All I can say is,

[NickN]

fun

[Doug Kearney]

Interesting article by Andrew Herd at FlightSim.com on Kazunori Ito, author of the freeware Martin Marlin (sp5bvp40.zip).  Regrettably, it appears the gentleman's eyesight is failing. Find the article here -
http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=main/review/ito/ito2.htm

-Doug

[Boikat]

[quote]Interesting article by Andrew Herd at FlightSim.com on Kazunori Ito, author of the freeware Martin Marlin (sp5bvp40.zip).

[Doug Kearney]

Broad shoulders here. All blame happily accepted.  ;) Glad you made a connection with things you want, Boikat.

The reason I posted was to cause the project organizers to consider a renewed approach to Mr. Ito. I don't know if he is aware that the conversion to FSX is intended as a gift to Phil Taylor in particular and as a tribute to Aces in general. There's a thread at Sim-Outhouse with current posts, dating back about a year, in which Mr. Ito's dissatisfaction is recounted with respect to others modifying his work for use in sim programs for which it had not first been designed. Link to thread (4 pages) is

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?threadid=57210

The choice to permit modification except with respect to certain essential aspects, recounted earlier in this thread, may be an application of that general policy. If he knew the purpose, the true purpose, and if he were asked to have a significant role in achieving the goal, leader emeritus or that sort of thing, he might offer more access to the things that are currently off limits. Heaven knows, he's certainly talented enough to improve the product. I just think a careful, respectful appeal can be made to him on that level that might be fruitful. He is due that degree of respect and honor, especially in such an honorable goal as the project seeks to achieve.

Simply submitting the work to him for his improvement might achieve that goal. It's a matter of respect, an awfully important matter. If the first request was simply for permission to change things, it could have been perceived as negative commentary on the original product or on his ability to help produce the new one. Might be time to ask again, in a different manner, is all I'm saying. Why accept limitations when you have a chance to dispel them. He should have the opportunity to make this a part of his legacy, I believe, and I think that could be a compelling appeal.

-Doug

[NickN]

Doug

Permission was requested and granted well before I even began to make any changes. The only stipulation Mr. Ito made was that the original model not be included. He had no problem with redesigning the panel and flight dynamics or even the paint so long as it was offered as an update to the original and did not include the original model file.

This thread was referenced and he was also invited to follow along. Mr Ito can follow everything we are doing here. I made sure full disclosure to the project and this thread was made available to him.



I know better than to even think about doing something like this without permissions from everyone who may have contributed to what is being used before the project starts. Jim has gotten permission for the gauge package we are using so this is all approved through documentation in email.


As for this project.. it was not intended as a "tribute" to anyone. I like the aircraft myself and intend to get a lot of use out of it. When I saw how much Bob liked it and knowing that Phil has been looking for this exact aircraft I decided to take on the project for the fun of it, not pay tribute to anyone.

This aircraft is a lot of fun to fly and with the mods being made to it the realism in my opinion exceeds many payware products. It may not have a fancy and updated VC since we do not have access to the model file, but it will sure fly and handle like the real deal when we get finished with it, right down to the engine damage from over-rev

[Doug Kearney]

Honest. I wasn't trying to get that much wrong. Natural talent, I guess. Thanks for setting me straight.

I knew you had contacted Mr. Ito and referred him to the thread, and I knew you had permission for what you are doing, but I thought you were somewhat hamstrung without access to the mdl file or the VC, something along those lines. Anyway, it doesn't matter now, given the other things I misunderstood. You've cleared it up.

-Doug

[NickN]

I did ask about access and model use and it was denied. I had no problem with that stipulation and Mr Ito was kind enough to allow any change so long as the model was not included or altered.

My first choice was to redo the VC because it needed a resolution upgrade with additional components. One of the walls I hit with this is there is no backlight map in the VC and I wanted to have backlit gauges as we do for the overhead and the 2D. Unfortunately the map is not in the model so there are things about this which would have been nice to have access to but I do understand and respect Mr Ito's wishes

I made the efforts and extended the invitation to follow the thread. I cant do any more than that

[NickN]

Bob

Do you have Acceleration installed or no?


The reason I ask is because I discovered some of the code I am using --may-- only work with Accel. I am checking into that now to find out for sure but I suspect its an 'Acceleration only' deal.






===================



I discovered this past week I misread some of the specs. Apparently the top end for this bird is not 251 KIAS, its 251 MPH or 219 KIAS with a cruise of 130Kts, not 150.

That changed everything in terms of the engine power curve. I went back to the numbers and also pulled the FAA documents on these engines and recalibrated. Initially I did fudge a few things because of limits to MSFS and assuming the specs I had read at WIKI were correct... however in reconfiguring based on the real BMEP @ hg listed at the FAA for 100/130 fuel burn,.. I found during a test flight the ceiling for the aircraft fully loaded to be 18-19K MAX and not 24,000

That made me scratch my head because the sim is usually not that far off when the real values are applied. In digging into the BMEP I discovered a real BMEP gauge on the net along with Wright's original engineering EGT/Mixture/BMEP specs which provided a lot of missing data and matched the FAA for top end MAX @ 2900 RPM so at that point I knew something was not right.

I figured it out finally

Apparently the net is full of wrong information about this aircraft, including WIKI. The P5M-2 or T-Tail model was refitted with a large amount of heavy gear which is why they upped the HP on this model from 3450 to 3700 with the supercharger. The real ceiling for the P5M-2 T-Tail is exactly 18000ft

That also made me scratch my head because I have been reading pilot and crew accounts of the plane and I know it was the right plane they were describing because they wrote quite specifically it was the P5M-2 T-Tail. One of the accounts noted a pilot managed to take that aircraft (on fumes and no load) up to 27-28Kft which did not make any sense if the max ceiling was 18K.

So I got to thinking... since the P3 variant was the 24K model and the major change was weight and a few body changes perhaps the P5M-2 would indeed make 27K if the fuel and load were removed as in the description I read.

27500 was the max and the aircraft did make that although it took time, was slow and that was a "nose up" max. I could not fly level at that altitude but could fly level at 24K stripped.

Empty = 27.5K (24K level)

Fuel only (full) 22K (level)

Fuel and payload (max weight) 19K (level)

Service Ceiling = 18K

So this past week I have recalibrated the gauges for the correct BMPE and pressure on the manifolds which removed some of the 'fudge' I made originally and replaced it with true values.

I also found some lift/drag equations for the Marlin wings and I reconfigured the Oswald based on those. It needed to come down to between 60 and 63


The next issue is I discovered that the detonation and supercharger power scheme I am using I think is for acceleration only. That means I will need to create an acceleration and non acceleration aircraft config. In order to make the aircraft more realistic to the original the supercharger is required and acceleration provides that. I can fudge it for non-acceleration users but it may not be as accurate. When I get to that point I will decide how to deal with it.

I also fixed the battery drain problem. The batter will discharge now correctly if the generators are not running

So that

[Bob70]

Bob

Do you have Acceleration installed or no?


The reason I ask is because I discovered some of the code I am using --may-- only work with Accel. I am checking into that now to find out for sure but I suspect its an 'Acceleration only' deal.



No I don't and I have no plans to to get it. I hope the final release will not require Acceleration or SP2. Also I'm not upgrading to Vista on this computer.

Bob

[NickN]

Sp2 wont matter.

OK, I can work around the accel code

[NickN]

Does anyone wish to try their hand at paint on this bird?

I am working out all the power curve, gauge and consequence issues but with GEX its a bit slow getting it all together and I know I wont have time for a repaint.

If someone out there would like to do a nice repaint in the original Navy Blue color scheme and you think you can handle it please post.

its a very simple layout which is currently low res. It would be nice to have a bit better res with a touch of reflection if possible.








I finally figured out the RPM problem which was tied back to the fact that Wright, the engine manufacture, has a reduction factored into the prop system before the main 16:7 gear reduction takes place. That small fraction was just enough to throw off the RPM/prop speed and that has now been corrected. (Thank you FAA!) That also means the Hamilton Standard prop specs for MOI and beta are now set correctly and require no fudge to get the power curve right. The original military spec props were indeed 15' 2" even though the FAA now specifies 14' 2" max for any aircraft of this model flying today. That change was made because of the change in AVgas and lower MP requirements with todays fuels.

No more fudge... the aircraft config now reflects the correct specs on just about everything.

CHT now resopnse to cowl flaps correctly... if you dont open them under T/O and powered climb, you can overheat the engine... chug, chug.. sputter, sputter and if you leave them open at high altitude cruise, you cool things off too much.

[NickN]

Anthony Vos is doing the repaint with modern 32bit reflective textures