The Virtualcol - DeHavilland DHC-3 Otter X is out

[OldAirmail]

Virtualcol - DeHavilland DHC-3 Otter X

I haven't played with it much, so these are VERY raw impressions. And as it12:30AM I'll keep it very short.

First impression is that this is not the very best aircraft that I've bought. BUT all in all it's good enough.

Add in the different versions for $12.50 and I'm not complaining.


No time for a long story, so here's a few pictures.

[SpaceHippy1975]

I have to concur, I also have just purchased this bird & having also flown a few times in the various versions, Turbo/Non-Turbo, wheeled/ski/floats. Considering the price I paid for it (£8) I can't complain!

Keith.

[Merlin0859]

As I'm a big fan of both the Twin Otter and the Beaver, I was thinking of purchasing this aircraft. Would love to hear more of why you thought it was just so-so. On a tight budget and wouldn't want a sub par aircraft. It looks good and I love bush aircraft. Thanks for elaborating if you have time!

[OldAirmail]

I just got home and am about to eat, so this'll be sort.

The tagline is "Friendly frames". One way to do that is to reduce the surface detail.

Think about those high end, supper fine, detailed jets. One thing that I keep reading about from many people is how low their FPS drops.

This is one of the higher (finer) detail aircraft that I have.





The detail in the Otter is lower so that it has a lesser effect your on your flight sim experience.

As for me, I don't count the rivets on the wings or fuselage as I fly so I have no problem with it.

I say buy it. A burger, fries, and a drink can cost about the same, but you'll be enjoying this aircraft long after the burger passes (pun intended).

[Flying Trucker]

Going to get on line and purchase a copy...

[OldAirmail]

An added note for Prepar3d flyers.

Although the website says that the Otter X is for Prepar3d too, the installer only points to the FSX install (if you still have it).

Not a problem. Just create a folder on your desktop and point the installer there. Anyone who has manually installed by "copy & paste" should find it easy as pie.

[OldAirmail]

I don't know about anyone else, but I've been busy taking off and landing on water, snow, rocks, grass, and, of course, pavement.


At first I had a terrible time taking off, even from pavement. The plane was very sluggish, even after dumping all of the passengers.

Yes, the aircraft starts out fully loaded.

Needless to say, I was thinking unkind words as I wondered how to increase the power in the aircrafts .cfg file.



Well, you know how a lot of beginners start off with "That airplane that I downloaded from your site doesn't fly right........"

Yeah. I did the same thing. I forgot to check the Saitek throttle control calibration.

The stupid propeller (pitch) lever wouldn't go more than 3/4 of the way up in the cockpit.

The aircraft flies just fine now.

[Flying Trucker]

Thanks for the updates folks...

[Flying Trucker]

Downloaded the Otter and ordered the Disk...

The Pitch control in the radial engine Otter only gives about 75% ...
The Carb Heat Control is not at the bottom of the throttle/pitch/mixture control unit...
P&W R1340 sound not that realistic...

They left out the Royal Canadian Air Force Amphibian Model...
I am sure there is a way to do the textures from the RCAF model and place it on an amphibian

Now for the Turbo model...
I tried three times to get the amphibian to leave the water...no luck...

Perhaps when the Disks arrive I should do a complete reinstall

Hoping for some feed back so I can contact them and go from there if we can not solve the above problems here...

[OldAirmail]

High Doug.

If you look two posts above, you'll see that I had the exact same problem with the pitch - "The stupid propeller (pitch) lever wouldn't go more than 3/4 of the way up in the cockpit."

Although I fly a lot of older, slower, aircraft, most of them don't have variable pitch propellers.


And even if they do, I almost never play around changing the pitch on them.

So whenever the pitch lever on my Saitek throttle got out of whack, I simply didn't notice it.

Anyway, by now I'm sure that you've recalibrated it, and that part is working well.



"They left out the Royal Canadian Air Force Amphibian Model...
I am sure there is a way to do the textures from the RCAF model and place it on an amphibian "

Drop them a line. It sounded as if they would be willing to do at least minor mods.


"Now for the Turbo model...
I tried three times to get the amphibian to leave the water...no luck..."

Same here until I recalibrated the Saitek.



One of the things that I was going to ask you, was whether the flap settings were as critical in real life as they were in this sim Otter.

If I set them correctly, or even close to correctly, it takes off & climbs like a dream. If not, it runs out of runway, or stays in the water.





As to the sound, I agree. It doesn't sound the way that I would want, or expect, it to.

So I went to YouTube to hear the REAL sound - Not that much better on YouTube.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPSWUfI6oYY[/youtube]

I listened to other sim radial engines that sounded like what I want.

But real life, in front of you, sounds can be incredibly different than recorded sounds. So I thought that I'd wait to see what other, more knowledgeable people, would say.

Swapping engine sounds from one sim plane to another may be the best bet.

But to me almost none of the sim aircraft sounds the way they do flying low overhead in real life.



As far as - "The Carb Heat Control is not at the bottom of the throttle/pitch/mixture control unit..." goes, that is FAR beyond me.

Still, once you recalibrate the propeller pitch and use the indicated flap settings, it does takeoff, climb, fly, and land very well.

And the way that it handles all of that, is quite different from my other STOL aircraft. And that is one of the things that I like about it.

[OldAirmail]

OK, I have to take back some of what I said above.

Yes. My Saitek had to be recalibrated.

Until it was recalibrated, the aircraft had major takeoff problems.


Most of the flying I was doing before was in mountainous areas. I was doing very little straight & level flying.

Now that I've been flying at sea level, I've noticed that I have to fight real hard to keep it from going into a nose dive.

There are definitely problems that need to be addressed.

[OldAirmail]

A .solution

Not necessarily THE solution, but a working solution until Virtualcol makes their corrections.

Total time should be ten minutes or less. Probably much less.


Checking several sources for DHC-3 Otter maximum speed I come up with 139 knots for the radial engine Otter.

This is for the wheeled version at 5000 feet.

Naturally, the turbo engine Otter will be different, as will the ski & amphibian versions.

But I wasn't able to easily find the information on those speeds, so I'll stick with the 139 knots of the radial engine aircraft. It's simpler that way, and so am I.



The modification below will produce an indicated air speed of approximately 139 knots..

Using the Saitek Pro Flight Multi Panel I set the Altitude to 5000 feet, and left the throttle wide open.

I do have "wind" affecting the aircraft in my sim setup so that is a variable not accounted for.

After several minutes at 5000 feet, the speed will be between 139 knots & 144 knots.

With this setting all versions of the DHC-3 Otter fly properly.


Start by going to SimObjects / Airplanes and select the aircraft. In this case there are three types (wheeled, ski, & amphibious), and two engine versions.

You'll need to alter the aircraft.cfg for each combination. Six in all.




Use Notepad to open up the aircraft.cfg file. If you want, you can made Notepad the default program for *.cfg type extensions.




Search for power_scalar=, and change 1.0 to 1.75.

As I said, there are six versions, so you'll have to do this for each type.



Save. Done. Fly.



If you want to be nit-picky about it, you could find the exact speed of each variant and adjust the "power_scalar=" multiplier to match real world speeds.

But "real world" speeds are a fiction, because in the real "Real World" you have winds and atmospheric density affecting the flight.


This is my simplistic approach to correcting the problem. I know that it can't be THE solution, but it will produce workable flights.

Want it absolutely perfect? Get in a plane.

[Flying Trucker]

Thanks OldAirmail...did a recalibration of Attack3 Joystick and the above changes in the CFG File and all seems to work fine.

Much appreciated for your help and will make a quick post in the General Section here for some information for you and others who have purchased this product.

Yes I will contact them about the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) amphibious livery...

[OldAirmail]

Now we just have to improve the sound.

Do you have a sim aircraft with a radial engine that sounds correct for the Otter?

I have no clue what it should sound like, and don't want to go way overboard with the wrong sound.

Checking on YouTube was useless.



Speaking of sim aircraft sounds

When using external views of an aircraft, the sound shifts as you circle around the plane. Sometimes it's absolutely terrible.

Does anyone know of a way to improve that? Even having the same sound front, sides, and middle would be better.

Of particular irritation are the ones where the sound is practically inaudible when you're over one wing, and loud when you're over the other.

In my area, north of Philadelphia, I have a lot of GA, civil, & military aircraft overhead. None exhibit the deep muting of the sounds behind the aircraft that you find in FSX / P3d.

[Flying Trucker]

Hi OldAirmail...I have nothing downloaded that sounds like a P&W R 1340 engine...