baffmeister

What you're considering would be quite a bit of work, I think. You could add new runway lods to the terrain folder then adjust the Types.ini to use the new lods instead of the stock ones. Of course now you will have to use Mues Target Area Editor to reposition all the buildings, hangars, vehicles etc. that are now out of position. Not impossible but like I said, lots of work. Regarding Major Bloodnok's first post, I have that airfield installed but I don't think it ever had a data.ini file to go with it. I put one together with taxi, take off, and parking positions but haven't done any lights yet. Here's a screenshot and the ini file attached. With the curved taxi ways it was a PITA! WW2 Airbase ini: WW2AirbaseData.zip

I originally thought the drag tables were just a modifier for the headline StallDrag=xxx entry but noticed the TW F-16 has StallDrag=0.000 for both inner and outer wing panels while still using a stall drag table. That's just an observation I'm passing along because I'm not sure how it works either. The F-16 still generates a noticeable increase in drag at the buffet point so the table seems to be doing something. When building a new FM I just grab those tables from a TW type with a similar wing design and move along. The above statement caught my eye. I always assumed, because every TW FM has a CDL table that ended at 28deg, there must be a limitation in the flight engine. The 28deg limit is probably OK for most of the older TW aircraft but might be a bit limiting for people wanting to model some of the newer high alpha types. I made an expanded CDL table to check out the behavior past 28deg alpha and it seems to work OK but needs more testing: CDLAlphaTableNumData=31 CDLAlphaTableDeltaX=4.00 CDLAlphaTableStartX=-60.00 CDLAlphaTableData=225.000,196.000,169.000,144.000,121.000,100.000,81.000,64.00,49.000,36.000,25.000,16.000,9.000,4.000,1.000,0.000,1.000,4.000,9.000,16.000,25.000,36.000,49.000,64.000,81.000,100.000,121.000,144.000,169.000,196.000,225.000 The above table probably looks familiar to many. The 28deg version is used on many TW types and is what you get when calculating for a symmetrical airfoil with an aspect ratio of 2.0 and an efficiency ratio of 0.80[80%] The posted table is calculated to +/- 60deg. I'm not really sure how best to implement this table. CDL=drag due to lift and the lift stops increasing at AlphaMax=xxx so it might make sense to limit the table to the AlphaMax range. As an example, your flying the latest high alpha wonder plane and it keeps making lift up to 38deg AOA. In this case it might make sense to stop the table at 40deg, 100.00 on the table. On the other hand, after reaching AlphaMax, the TW flight engine maintains the lift in a straight line [flat line/constant lift] to AlphaDepart=xxx. For the new wonder plane the AlphaDepart=60.0 AOA so it also might make sense to just continue the 100.000 data point right to the end of the table. Or maybe not. I'm not really sure how the game is modeling drag post 'AlphaMax' [edit] and AlphaDepart, maybe it has something to do with the stall drag table Mue was asking about. I don't fly the modern planes very often but I'm trying this new table out on one and for the MiG-21 Bis FM I've been messing with I've got the AlphaMax=33 so I'm trying the new table with a range to 36Deg. The table is an easy copy/paste job if anyone wants to try it out on a high alpha plane that uses the standard 28deg TW table.

Just pissing around, somewhere over New Dhimar. Also bissing around...............

Getting carrier planes to do nice landings can be a challenge. For the aircraft carrier data you can check this statement, which I assume shows the left/right offset of the touchdown point, then the fore/aft point. Mues lod viewer should work to adjust that. [Deck] SystemType=FLIGHT_DECK FlightDeckHeight=20.10 FlightDeckLength=396.0 FlightDeckWidth=84.0 LandDeckAngle=-10.0 LandingAimPoint=-0.35,-75.0//................check this If that doesn't work you might have to adjust the aircraft data ini. A slow stable approach works best. Sometimes increasing the drag on the landing gear and/or flaps can help. From my experience, to slow down the approach speed, you can adjust the LandingSpeed=XX to reduce the chance of an overshoot. Here's the TW A-4B: Aircraft Data [FlightControl] StallSpeed=46.80 CruiseSpeed=151.52 ClimbSpeed=195.04 CornerSpeed=158.72 LandingSpeed=50.69//...........you can try reducing this. MaxG=7.00 MaxSpeedSL=295.46 MachLimit=0.900 PitchDamper=0.6 RollDamper=0.4 YawDamper=0.0 GunBoresightAngle=0 RocketBoresightAngle=0 FlapSettingForLanding=2 FlapSettingForTakeOff=1 FlapSettingForCatapult=2 If the plane still has stability issues after lowering the approach speed you can try adjusting these AI values but it can be a long process trying to figure out what works best: [AIData] LandingPitchForSpeed=-0.07 LandingThrottleForAltitude=0.05

Your translations are good, thank you!

After looking through the rack weights it looks like there is some room to save some weight. Keeping in mind the posted documents show the weight for 2 racks, they seem to average around 30-35KG each, with some variation probably due to additional hardware required for certain weapons. ThirdWire is using 60KG for each main rack. On the other hand, the weight of the missile rails from the document are heavier than the 25kg used in the ThirdWire data but overall, with a full loadout, the weight reduction would be around 100kg. I checked the fuel plus tank weights for the 490L and 800L tanks and the ThirdWire tank+fuel is lighter than the document weights but the document info indicates a bit more fuel available. For the next update I will probably leave the tank weight/capacities as is but will include Svetlin's idea of using the 800L MiG-23 on the center pylon. It does look like the correct tank, from the diagrams in the document. Svetlin, I don't need any more translations for the previous documents but could you take a look at this one? I'm checking the deflection angles for the control surfaces and the TW rudder and ailerons match the documents but the H-Stab is different. I'm quite sure the red box I outlined is for the H-Stab but I'm curious about the statement underlined in yellow: For anyone interested, here's the info, at the bottom, for the 800L centerline tank. The way the fuel weight is divided might indicated the 490 and 800 liter tanks had 2 compartments:

It might be starting to make some sense. Using column P, the aircraft empty weight is 5843kg, 2883KG is the full internal fuel+pilot+missiles etc, and 8726kg is the sum of the parts. That's important because now I know which column to look under to get the weight of various racks etc. X and Y columns, as you mentioned, are the length of the horizontal and vertical arm, in meters, from the center reference point. PX and PY might be the resulting moment of the weight times the arm but that doesn't seem to quite work out. Using the two 490liter drop tanks the chart shows 940KG under P column for the mounted tanks and an arm of +1.34M under the X column. If I multiply those together I get a moment of 1259.6KG which is close to the 1257KG under the PX column but, not exactly. Anyway, that's been a big help!

Thanks Svetlin. This page looks like the introduction for the weight and balance section I've posted: This page has some info on the 490 liter drop tanks at the bottom of the page: There is another page that I haven't posted that shows information for the 800 liter centerline drop tank. Not sure when that tank became available and what MiG-21 versions it fits but it might be a nice add-on project for someone. ThirdWire only made the 490 liter version.

Another chart from the Soviet MiG-21Bis technical manual. One of the areas I've been looking at to potentially improve the MiG-21 performance is the rack weights, which seem quite high in the stock FM's. Some earlier information I found indicated there might be reason to believe the racks were lighter but the information was "anecdotal". I haven't been able to make much sense of this chart but it seems to have columns for assorted racks and weapons with weights in kilograms. I think some other columns might be used to calculate the CofG and CofG changes when weapons are dropped. The weights seem to be for weapons mounted in pairs. Any ideas?

A Wall-y World flypast, somewhere over New Dhimar.

Thanks Svetlin, that's very helpful. I'm taking a closer look at the low speed performance of the stock FM to see if there may be some potential for adjustments. The stock FM makes maximum lift at about 28deg AoA, the same as the AoA limit in the flight manual but the charts show the MiG-21 still making lift up to about 33deg AoA. The 28deg limit was quite conservative giving 5-8deg of protection prior to the stall/departure zone. There were large roll oscillations above 28 deg but the plane maintained pitch stability and American test pilots soon learned they could safely exceed the 28deg limit. Some anecdotal information indicates Soviet pilots were familiar with that capability as well. ThirdWire has the stall buffet starting at about 15deg AoA while the flight manual says the buffet zone starts at 16-18deg AoA range, so there may be some room to adjust the AlphaStall and AlphaMax values while maintaining the same lift slope as the TW original. I'm going to see if I can find some charts that might give a better idea of the instantaneous turn rates and deceleration rates as the stock FM seems a bit limited when doing hard turns at lower airspeeds. By all accounts the MiG-21 had a good instantaneous turn rate and very good pointing ability at lower airspeeds. It might just be a case of increasing the elevator range a bit but will have to find the right chart so I can run some tests. More translations might be required!

Not much I can add to this topic at the moment but here are a few interesting pages from the "official" documents I have access to. From the "Arab Country" flight manual here is a sustained G curve for the MiG-21Bis. To test the stock ThirdWire FM I set the fuel burn to zero to maintain a constant weight, loaded 50% internal fuel as well as two missiles on the inner wing pylons. The external load group 1 mentioned in the flight manual is a configuration with light loads on the inner wing pylons. At full thrust and within about 100kg of the 7500kg chart weight I flew around in circles at 1000m/3280ft and tried to match some of the speeds on the chart and see what kind of sustained G I got. As usual, it's difficult to maintain a constant speed while going around in circles while maintaining a steady altitude but it seemed to me the stock TW FM leans towards some over performance, maybe about 0.5 to 1 G over the flight manual values. Past the 1040kmh/about 562kts on the chart, where the sustained G starts dropping off, the TW FM maintains the sustained G, or maybe even increases a bit, so the over performance increases past 1040kmh. I think the H-Stab on the real MiG-21 did a "gear change" or something like that around 0.90 mach, maybe to reduce pitch sensitivity. It's something I'm still looking into but it might explain the quick drop off in sustained G for the chart values, compared to the TW FM. I also have a Soviet document that might be something like a technical manual for pilots. Here's the front page: The Soviet document has a sustained G curve as well, [upper chart] but it uses mach number and the horizontal scaling looks different. The weight is for 7500kg and the resulting sustained G looks similar to the "Arab Country" chart. From the Soviet manual, an instantaneous/available G chart. [lower chart] I'm not sure what the solid line represents but the fine print mentions 28deg, which is the approved A0A limit in the flight manual. At any rate, at low altitude the available G for the TW FM is more or less a perfect match for the dashed line at 7000kg and zero altitude. Maybe at some point a Russian speaker can explain the details of the Soviet charts. At this point I'm just going to continue reviewing the manuals and maybe run a few more checks on the TW FM.

Interesting, possibly a last gasp but I get the impression SF-2 is picking up some new customers who are looking for something a bit more interesting than the cell phone games and whatever.

Well, there is gravity and I've found the TW "wind tunnel" very good when tuning drag on some WW2 types although the late war prop planes can have issues with top speeds when using what I think are realistic CD0 values. I did a quick test on the MiG-19 and the sustained G seems very high for such an old jet. It seemed to be in the 8+ sustained G at high subsonic speeds although that's a bit of an approximation because it's quite difficult to maintain a constant G turn, especially with the old swizzle stick I'm using. With a proper performance chart it would be possible to adjust the CDL values to get something more realistic but at the moment I have no idea what might be accurate for a MiG-19. From some "web stuff" the DCS MiG-19 does 5.4G sustained but no mention of the weight, altitude or speed that occurs at.