Spent the last few weeks tweaking the more esoteric parameters of the airfile, and finally came down with something that I believe I can live with. Still a little bouncy in pitch, but apart from that it flies more or less “on the numbers”. High Mach numbers are now easiest to achieve at around 10 km altitude, and the effective ceiling is somewhere around 15 to 16 km.
Did some aerobatics today at low altitude, staying below 700 kmh all the time on full throttle. Pulling a few G:s will keep alpha up and speed down, as it should. Flies like a dream in my opinion. Roll damping has been adjusted to get a snappier roll, as the real thing could actually do a full roll in 2 seconds. If you liked the somewhat sluggish response of the previous versions you might not feel at home with the new FDE, but this is actually more realistic. I think.
Put the afterburner back in the mix today and started tweaking the afterburner thrust curve and the high Mach drag values. I have been using the NASA EngineSim applet as a starting point, then recalculating those results on the data I have from Rolls-Royce and Volvo for the RM6C engine with the EBK67 afterburner. Feels OK, although I suspect that wet thrust might now be a little too high. Will try to check this with some Draken pilots. Peaks at M 1.75 with bingo fuel at 10 km altitude, this should be more or less accurate according to the real flight manual.
A number of bugs related to the autopilot appeared during this testing round, probably because I have been pushing the limits a bit. Will work on these bugs the rest of the week, then start finishing up for a 4.1b2 release at the end of the month.
Stay tuned /Tom
It’s really exciting this series of fast updates!
Good job, I’m loocking forward to fly with the new fd.
Come on, coooome oooon :)