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747-400 Development

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747-400 Development

Postby Marsdolphin » Tue Mar 17, 2020 2:15 am

Hello, Let us introduce. We are Lincoln and Marsdolphin and are working currently on the 747-400 from FGAddon in our own fork. We however need some extra hands to do the project as we found the 747-400 packed with bugs. We have currently put ITAF in the 747-400 and it works but we found some bugs. We are in need of some extra help to get the aircraft flyable.

See: https://forum.flightgear.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=37072

All the respect to the original developers of the 747-400 but we want to improve the 747-400.

We require at this stage:

-Someone who can do 3d.
-Someone who can help tune the new AP (ITAF)
-Someone who can assist with testing once we get the aircraft in a flyable state.

I will be working on the liveries to adjust them if needed.

We have a discord which you can find here: https://discord.gg/AX3jy4g

Repo: https://github.com/Marsdolphin/747-400
"When everything seems to be against you, remember that the planes always takeoff into the wind".

Have fun flying!
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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby D-ECHO » Tue Mar 17, 2020 7:00 am

Are you already in contact with Gijs?
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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby Marsdolphin » Tue Mar 17, 2020 7:29 am

Ummm, not yet.
I know that he is also doing 747 though.
I'll PM him later today.
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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby Gijs » Tue Mar 17, 2020 9:50 am

Hi guys,

Nice to see that you're interested in improving the 747! Do note that I have a couple of improvements on my computer that still need to be pushed at some point, so it'd be nice to coordinate things a little bit before anyone spends time on something that won't make it to FGAddon.

I've got some 3D/texture changes to optimise performance for example and also the FDM is still not completely done. I'm afraid that tuning the AP right now may be a little premature. I don't know all the details of the ITAF AP, but my plan was/is to do the AP mostly as a JSBSim system anyway, as that supports time warp much better than the FG-based autopilot as far as I've experienced. Though I must admit that it's been a while since I fiddled with autopilots in FlightGear.

With "once we get the aircraft in a flyable state", do you mean once the autopilot works? If not, what is it that prevents you from flying the aircraft? I happily receive bug reports if there's anything that's currently broken. "packed with bugs" implies that you have a nice list of things? If so, it'd be beneficial to share the list as I may be able to fix some of them fairly quickly (or possibly already fixed them locally). Thanks!

Regards,

Gijs
Airports: EHAM, EHLE, KSFO
Aircraft: 747-400
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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby Lincoln » Tue Mar 17, 2020 10:08 am

With ITAF we noted that the ailerons lock shortly after rotation and ITAF overcorrects the airplane. I will be happy to invite you to the LincolnWorks discord so we can discuss development!

Bugs in place:

-Autopilot(ITAF) overcorrecting the airplane, Could be due to this aircraft having realistic thrust settings instead of regular planes who need not alot of runway to get airborne. (this is currently preventing us from testing our improvements)
-Ailerons locking shortly after ITAF autopilot connects.

Also we noticed that your cockpit isnt fully complete. The QNH selector misses for example. To just name a couple of things!

For me ITAF is a very nice autopilot to work with and i have alot of experience flying planes equipped with ITAF or ITAF related autopilots.

Liverywise i noticed the plane has a kinda weird behavior. colors show very reflective on the airplane. I dont know why it is happening but it doesnt really look good. Ill attach 2 screens.

777 normal color:

Image

747-400 weird behavior:

Image

As you see the blue on the 747-400 reflects much more than on the 737
Currently flying the 737-800YV / MD-11-GE / 747-400

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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby Gijs » Tue Mar 17, 2020 10:59 am

Hi,

Lincoln wrote in Tue Mar 17, 2020 10:08 am:With ITAF we noted that the ailerons lock shortly after rotation and ITAF overcorrects the airplane.

Sounds like an ITAF problem then. Do note that the 747 has aileron lockout implemented at high speeds (but that shouldn't be applicable at rotation).
Also we noticed that your cockpit isnt fully complete. The QNH selector misses for example. To just name a couple of things!

Ah yeah, I don't call that bugs but missing features ;-) There's indeed still a lot to be added. QNH can be adjusted through the menu in the mean time.

Liverywise i noticed the plane has a kinda weird behavior. colors show very reflective on the airplane. I dont know why it is happening but it doesnt really look good.

That'll be the fuselage shader. You'll find its code in Models/Effects/747-400.eff.

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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby Lincoln » Tue Mar 17, 2020 11:36 am

Regarding ITAF, We will dive into the code.

Regarding missing QNH adjuster, Do you have plans to model it in the near future?

The fuselage shader doesnt look realistic to me. I might disable it on a local copy.
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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby SP-NTX » Wed Mar 18, 2020 12:17 pm

I want to help in testingaircraft, i like it :D :D :D :D
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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby Marsdolphin » Wed Mar 18, 2020 1:14 pm

Ok, please join us on Discord.
Link: https://discord.gg/AX3jy4g
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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby SP-NTX » Thu Mar 19, 2020 12:53 pm

Marsdolphin wrote in Wed Mar 18, 2020 1:14 pm:Ok, please join us on Discord.
Link: https://discord.gg/AX3jy4g

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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby Lincoln » Thu Mar 19, 2020 1:37 pm

Discord is free :wink:
Currently flying the 737-800YV / MD-11-GE / 747-400

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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby wkitty42 » Thu Mar 19, 2020 5:00 pm

and discord is available via web interface or app for one's device or PC ;)
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"Why not?" said Gurder.
"Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."
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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby Marsdolphin » Sat May 02, 2020 12:30 pm

We have moved~ https://github.com/LincolnWorks-FlightGear
All 747s are up and running, the ITAFs functional. More work includes various improvements and 3D and systems work.
"When everything seems to be against you, remember that the planes always takeoff into the wind".

Have fun flying!
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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby Gijs » Sun May 03, 2020 10:46 am

Hi,

Please do let me know whenever something's ready to be merged back into FGAddon. I'd happily accept any merge requests! Preferably in small pieces rather than a huge changeset after weeks of work ;-)

Gijs
Airports: EHAM, EHLE, KSFO
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Re: 747-400 Development

Postby Octal450 » Sun May 03, 2020 4:39 pm

Gijs wrote in Tue Mar 17, 2020 10:59 am:Sounds like an ITAF problem then. Do note that the 747 has aileron lockout implemented at high speeds (but that shouldn't be applicable at rotation).

This is false. ITAF controls /controls/flight/aileron. (unless you turn on disable-final and build your own final control system for pitch and roll rate) What you do with this value is on the FCS.
As for overcontrolling - it is not possible to make 1 pid control all planes.... so go here: http://wiki.flightgear.org/IT-AUTOFLIGHT#How_to_Tune
I wrote a article in the wiki which explains how to adjust the final controllers (only 2 need to be adjusted due to how I've designed ITAF) to fly correctly.

Kind Regards,
Josh
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