On Sunday 01 January 2006 03:12, Dick Murphy wrote: > When I launch FlightGear, it opens with the c172 on the KSFO runway. Two > questions: > > 1. Is there a way to increase the power of the c172? It can barely climb > at 500 fps and at that is on the stall speed. A real c172 would climb at > 75-80 kts and 500-600 fps, right? Certainly more fun to fly than brand > 'x' but not a glossy a package. > > 2. Has anyone built a GUI menu to pick an a/c before flight? Without a > bunch of file editing and command line starting? I'm still struggling > with that. > > Newby thanx, > rlm
Hi Dick The 172 if anything seems to be a bit overpowered! It climbs at over 800 FPM till over 4000 feet MSL. I think I know what you're doing wrong to get the 172 to fly like that. You're rotating at a fairly low airspeed (<60 kts) and yanking and holding it nose high trying to force it to climb at 500 fpm, right? That works on airliners and jet fighter which have huge amounts of thrust to spare but what's actually happening on the poor 172 is you're creating a huge amount of induced drag making it impossible for it to speed up. Try this : With a clean configuration (flaps up) do a gentle rotation at 65 knots. You'll hit 75 knots very quickly and can steepen the climb to well over 800 fpm at sea level. The POH says Vr is 55 knots but that's not a hard and fast rule - it's better to let the aircraft fly itself. If you try to climb at 500 fpm at 55-60 knots it'll just "bog down" like the real one. If you're doing short field takeoffs and rotating at 55 knots or less then you'll have to hold a shallow climb out of no more than 200-300 fpm while you clean up and wait for the airspeed to build up. At hot and high airfields it'll be even less - like 100 fpm. :) And if you think that's bad you should try a Cessna 150, two up in hot and high conditions. One of my friends did his PPL in one and one day he and the instructor only managed to climb to 100 feet AGL in a full circuit. They only did one circuit that day. :) Paul ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7637&alloc_id=16865&op=click _______________________________________________ Flightgear-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-users
