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Twins - engine failure / EFATO (merged)

The sim is pretty good at that kind of thing, yes, though, as I say, it would be much better with motion.

As I say, come and have a play, see what you think.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Timothy – I appreciate that, what I mean is if you dont do those things, and allow the aircraft to go beyond its envelope does it behave in the way we would all think it might – in other words the typical accident after losing an engine after take off, not handled correctly? Of course no one would do that for real, but of course unintentionally they do, and I was asking if the consequences are as we would expect? I was wondering if you had explored how recoverable the aircraft is if you go beyond the envelope. The sim would seem very useful for exploring beyond the envelope scenarios if only a) to demonstrate what happens, and b) to see if recovery is possible. We never want to go there, but we know even some of the best pilots have and died.

Fuji_Abound wrote:

For example what happens when you dont feather the dead engine and dont do anything with the rudders?

As you know, there are many other parameters to be known, but assuming the standard EFATO of gear and flap up, blue line, full power on the other one, the answer is that it is controllable with full aileron, and, at blue line, it climbs at about 400fpm.

But it’s a bit of a non-question, as no-one would do that, it is second nature to the MEP pilot to use the rudders to get the ball in the middle.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Yes, but as I mentioned it would be interesting to hear your thoughts about the edge of the performance envelope and beyond. I think sims are extraordinarily useful for routine simulation but they really excel doing things you might not want to do for real, or simulating what happens when you go beyond the practices you are happy to do for real. I know, the trouble is perhaps you cant be sure how good a match it ultimately is with reality, but it would be interesting to read your thoughts. For example what happens when you dont feather the dead engine and dont do anything with the rudders?

As to the Chieftan, how does the asymetric handling compare with real life, again especially at the edges of the envelope and beyond when insufficient rudder is applied?

It is pretty good. It would be better on a motion platform, of course, because, whatever we say and teach, a lot of asymmetric is about the seat of your pants. However, my gorgeous, pouting, uncomplaining bride might baulk at that suggestion

Rudder response through the Brunner pedals isn’t great, though I have worked very hard with them, so you need to pay more attention to the ball than in real life, but that’s a good learning tool.

Performance is a pretty good match. Add about 6” to what would be the ops normal setting and it’s fine. You soon forget that you are on one.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Obviously the models are only as good as the people who put them, but X plane uses a very different approach than most other sims, using real aerodynamics instead of table run airplane modelling. Austin Meyers is maybe one of the very few people in this field who really understand what these sims do (one of the others is Simon Hradecky of the Aviation Herald) and he has maybe gone further than most in this regard. I’d say, if a sim is capable of really simulating these issues, it probably is xplane.

The main reason is that the original idea of Xplane had nothing to do with a competition product to MSFS but it was targeted to a very different market, namely the experimental airplane builders. The idea was, that anyone designing his own plane would be able to “fly” it before the first piece of wood has been removed from the forest. Therefore, the approach by tables and flight data packages used for most full flight simulations was impossible to begin with. It was only at the Microwings conference at Dallas that Austin brought his new sim to a different audience and realized what potential it had. I remember him and his presentation vividly, a young boy he looked like then with a product which had the audience pay attention to. But even then, the real breakthrough in the entertainment industry only came when Microsoft decided to shut down their francise and with the introduction of smart phones, which now appear to be one of the main sources of income for Xplane.

But all that nonwithstanding, Austin has to my knowledge never really lost the primary objective Xplane was made for but listened to others how to make it sellable (pretty graphics and so on) with considerable success. I’ve flown some sims which are run by xplane and they are fantastic, the very best I ever saw being the Caravelle simulator at Munich but there are others as well. He also used the same engine for his Xavion app and I am quite sure he used a lot of his knowledge when he built his own airplane.. as far as I know most of the instruments in that plane are programmed by himself.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Airborne_Again wrote:

As far as I understand, yes. In fact, X-plane was initially developed not as a general purpose flight simulator but to predict behaviour of experimental aircraft designs (thus the name).

but presumbaly would therefore only be as good as the third party data used for the particular aircraft? More to the point are the models sufficiently accurate to predict how the aircraft would behave at the edges of the envelope? I havent used that particular FS, but it would interesting to take a basic type such as a 152 with known stall characteristics and see how the simulator deals with a wind drop, spiral dive and fully developed spin.

As to the Chieftan, how does the asymetric handling compare with real life, again especially at the edges of the envelope and beyond when insufficient rudder is applied?

There are huge numbers of aircraft on the market, nearly all created by third parties. Some are excellent and some are crap. Carenado is a good manufacturer and I am impressed by the Chieftain (bearing in mind I fly about 200 hours a year in PA31s).

EGKB Biggin Hill

“Does that give it the ability to compute how the wing would perform upside down and with an asymetric engine then? It is a serious question, and genuinely interested, although it might seem otherwise.”

If you try benchamaking XPlane vs PoH on few aircrafts under various inputs, appart from popular GA aircrafts, the numbers (climb rates, cruise speed, stall speed, takeoff distance..) are way different

My understanding X-plane uses realistic physics for “airflow models” behind the scenes so it should be good on medium speeds subject to accuracy (putting aside stall/turbulence on slow speeds and compressibility on high speeds), in the other hand how realistic the specific aircraft model is really hit and miss except on popular types…

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Fuji_Abound wrote:

Does that give it the ability to compute how the wing would perform upside down and with an asymetric engine then?

Both seem separately pretty realistic, yes. Obviously not something I have tried in combination for real!

EGKB Biggin Hill
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