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Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby bisutti » Tue Jun 23, 2009 2:02 am

Thanks for your help guys, the mixture was the problem.

But I don´t know when increase/decrease the mixture, Do you know the "steps"?

pdt: I think that the help menu is incorrect? because I am confused, the "m" key is to increase the mixture and the "M" key is to decrease it?
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby Yakko » Tue Jun 23, 2009 3:54 am

There are no set steps of "at this altitude set mixture to X, then at another altitude set mixture to Y" - normally you can stay at full rich up to around 7000 and then you need to start leaning out - normally you won't get much past 9000 before the engines cut off completely at full rich
but you are definately losing power well before then.

The help menu seems correct to me - lowercase m richens the mixture, and uppercase M leans it out.

The EGT and BMEP instrumentation is the key to knowing when to adjust - they show you how effectively the fuel is burning and how much power the engines are outputting.
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby yurik_nsk » Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:06 am

Admittedly this is temporary kludge to deal with the issue, and a better way is always welcome.


For Tu-154, i do:

Code: Select all
# Low fuel
#param = getprop( "consumables/fuel/tank[0]/level-lbs" );
param = getprop( "consumables/fuel/tank[0]/level-gal_us" );
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby Tuxklok » Tue Jun 30, 2009 6:20 am

I normally have a button on my joystick for reverse thrust, but found it doesn't quite work for this aircraft. Even though my button sets the reverser property, and I get animation in the cockpit, no reverse thrust actually ocurrs. Backtracking to Lockheed1049h-prop_reverse.nas I see that the actual fdm properties are only set in the toggle_prop_reverse function, called by your ctrl+b hotkey.

to work around it I added the following to the Lockheed1049h-prop_reverse.nas file
Code: Select all
set_prop_reverse = func(index, on) {
    # sanity check
    if (index < 0 or index > 3)
        return;

    # cannot set if reverser is locked
    if (!getprop("controls/engines/reverser_allow")) {
        # make sure prop is unset to prevent cockpit animations
        setprop("controls/engines/engine[" ~ index ~ "]/reverser", 0);
        return;
    }

    setprop("controls/engines/engine[" ~ index ~ "]/reverser", on);
    setprop("fdm/jsbsim/propulsion/engine[" ~ index ~ "]/pitch-angle-rad", on ? -2 : 0);
}

setlistener("controls/engines/engine[0]/reverser",
    func(n) { set_prop_reverse(0, n.getValue()); }
);
setlistener("controls/engines/engine[1]/reverser",
    func(n) { set_prop_reverse(1, n.getValue()); }
);
setlistener("controls/engines/engine[2]/reverser",
    func(n) { set_prop_reverse(2, n.getValue()); }
);
setlistener("controls/engines/engine[3]/reverser",
    func(n) { set_prop_reverse(3, n.getValue()); }
);


Don't know if this is something you want, and I'm no nasal expert so you can prob come up with something more elegant. Just thought I'd give you a heads up...

thanks for a great aircraft!

cheers
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby redneck » Tue Jun 30, 2009 8:07 am

I just now tried this plane yesterday. It's amazing, it's like a mammoth jet liner, yet the engine response feels almost like a little Cessna. The only thing I don't like is that it's nav equipment is as old as the plane is. Well, we asked for realism, and you really dished it out.
Since I'm not too confident using VORs and NDBs, I'll have to save this one for mp events, and other sorts of VFR flying.
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby zakalawe » Tue Jun 30, 2009 11:43 am

redneck wrote:Since I'm not too confident using VORs and NDBs, I'll have to save this one for mp events, and other sorts of VFR flying.

There's plenty of good tutorials all over the web about flying using NDBs and VORs - there's a few basic concepts to learn, but definitely worth the time - especially for flying this era of aircraft.

If you've read the tutorials, and have specific questions about radio navigation, or using them in the Connie, I'm sure people here will be happy to help.
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby Yakko » Tue Jun 30, 2009 5:58 pm

The instructions available for the 1049h give a quick rundown on using the NAV systems - VOR and ADF/NDB navigation is actually easy...essentially they both give you a needle pointing the direction to a known point on a map. The trick
is having the map/sectional chart available so you know where the needle is pointing towards. Without seeing it on an actual chart or map it can be kind of difficult to grasp, but once you have the reference map it becomes clear.
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby Buckaroo » Tue Jun 30, 2009 6:29 pm

Tuxklok,

I think your work-around is the way to go. The current 1049H prop reversing code is essentially the old hack Yakko and I came up with for the original 1049, and I don't think I've even looked at it since that time. I'll have a closer look later, but I think your idea of setting the FDM reverse values based on listeners on the reverse controls is a much better way, and I'll work this in to the next update. Thanks much!
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby Buckaroo » Mon Jul 06, 2009 6:10 am

Friends of the Constellation,

Just a quickie note to say there's been an update posted to the 1049H's home site. (See link on my sig line below.) The update attempts to address issues brought up here, adds some new cockpit details, and a few other goodies including an update to the manual compliments of Yakko. Thanks to all who help make this a better simulation!
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby Tuxklok » Mon Jul 06, 2009 8:35 pm

The adjustable seat is really cool! But...I can only look left/right with my mouse now...not up or down. :D

I don't like to report cvs problems, since you don't develop against cvs, so I'll put this here mostly for other cvs users to find..
Code: Select all
var get_lbs = func(tank_index) {
  var lbs = 0;
  if (tanks[tank_index].getChild("level-lb") == nil) {         # Hack to deal with renaming of level-lb
    lbs = tanks[tank_index].getChild("level-lbs").getValue();      # to level-lbs in JBSsim
  }
  else {
    lbs = tanks[tank_index].getChild("level-lb").getValue();
  }
  if (lbs==nil) { lbs = 0; }
  return lbs;
}

doesn't work for me...seems maybe "tanks[tank_index].getChild("level-lb")" doesn't actually return nil?

I just remove the test, since I know I only use cvs, then all is good.
Code: Select all
var get_lbs = func(tank_index) {
  var lbs = tanks[tank_index].getChild("level-lbs").getValue();
  if (lbs == nil) { lbs = 0; }
  return lbs;
}

Is there a property that holds flightgear or jsbsim version? If there isn't there should be...would make compatability easier I think. :)

cheers, and thx for such a great aircraft!
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby Buckaroo » Tue Jul 07, 2009 2:38 am

Thanks Tuxklok, and please feel free to report CVS issues, it's the only way I can try to keep on top of them, not being a CVS user myself.

Several issues with the seats adjustment have been uncovered since the July 5 release, so I've felt it best to pull the relevant code for now. I've also given up on dynamic compatibility on the fuel issue and am now distributing a CVS version. I've posted new versions for 1.0, 1.9, CVS; they're thrown together a bit fast, but hopefully they'll work OK.
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby Tuxklok » Tue Jul 07, 2009 6:52 am

The cvs version seems to work perfectly with no modifications needed now. Thanks Buck!
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby NicQ » Tue Jul 07, 2009 5:01 pm

Tuxklok wrote:The cvs version seems to work perfectly with no modifications needed now. Thanks Buck!


Indeed.

Reading the fantastic documentation(Yakko, my hat off to you, and to both of you for the aircraft), I have to say that under CVS it's even more overpowered than the numbers quoted in the doc.
So I started looking at jsbsim piston engine header and source files, as well as your engine configuration comments, and reverting back to the real displacement, as well as setting the compression ratio (<compression-ratio>6.5</compression-ratio>).
Do you have a number for volumetric efficiency ? If you provide it, it's actually used by jsbsim in piston engines.
You might want to join the jsbsim mailing list (I'd say get the manual, but it's scant on engine and propulsion data atm) : http://jsbsim.sourceforge.net/ and ask there on how to tweak fuel consumption without boosting displacement and thus power.

I'm also under the impression that for boost levels, rated power is only used in calculating the boost steps, and actual power boost only comes from the manifold pressure increase. And as far as I could ascertain, rated power should be the total power with boost (but then, it's not used to calculate power, so it's only important when you have multiple boost levels. that's from a quick search in the source files, so I might be wrong.)
Don't take my word for it, ask on the jsb mailing list, they're a bunch of friendly, deeply knowledgeable guys (there is thread going on about the pitfalls of making good sims) and will give you invaluable advice.

Great, great work : this might be the plane that makes me fly leviathans of the sky :)
Really gives a feel of big airliner.
Managed to land only once so far, with a huge bounce on first touchdown, hahaha.

I've noticed something (and with other a/c with more than two engines) : it would seem joystick commands by default for mixture and pitch only affect engine 1 and 2 (even with all engines selected), while the keyboard shortcuts affect all engines as expected by default.
This is NOT specific to the Super Connie, and I was wondering if anyone else had noticed ?

There are glitches with the camera keyboard bindings ( I suspect because cvs has model view added, or is that already in 1.9.0 and 1.9.1 ?) : Ctrl-E takes me to the view before Engineer view, which is Model View. I then hit v, and I'm in the Engineer seat.

Thanks for your hard work,
Cheers !!
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby Yakko » Tue Jul 07, 2009 5:32 pm

I played around a lot with the engine and prop config files (with much good help from Jentron!) trying to get the power levels close to right - it was all trial and error using 1.0.0 and 1.9.1 as test beds. The starting point for everything was the older 1049 model in Flightgear, which worked well in 1.0.0 but the engines were never really right in 1.9 versions. The tunings used for the 1.9 version give correct HP reading at full power in the properties browser at full throttle, we get the real world known top speed in level flight and flight performance similar to the previous 1.0.0 versions - unfortunately the takeoff seems to be a bit too strong and the manifold pressures are definately not in line with real world values at cruise speeds. Detuning for more realistic takeoff resulted in barely acheiving cruise speed even at full throttle, nowhere near the known real world top speed and still had unrealistic low manifold pressures, so I didn't use that. A compromise setting with a little off the top end (which is almost never used anyway) for slightly less aggressive takeoff envelope might be doable, but I won't know how that reacts in CVS versions.

I don't have CVS so I can't tell how it is performing there, but I know that JSBSim and CVS itself keeps changing so what works this week very likely will be incorrect next week. I'd like to be more familiar with how JSBSim actually works in regards to engine power, prop pitch and such since I think it COULD be made to work much better - I'm shooting in the dark sticking values in various properties to see what happens :)

I have a feeling that the prop config table also needs tweaking, but everything I did to it in experiments made it worse, so that has stayed pretty much as-is for now. As always, if someone has ideas, input, etc on how to make it work better I'd love to see them - I am always playing with the engine config files trying to find a happy balance but its all trial and error, plus there isn't much info online about what the real world performance is under various throttle/pitch/rpm/speed conditions.
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Re: Lockheed 1049H Constellation (Beta Release)

Postby Yakko » Tue Jul 07, 2009 6:34 pm

I forgot to address the joystick throttle/mixture thing:

Check the XML file for your stick - it may only have the throtttle and mixture levers mapped to engine[0] and engine[1] - I actually keep several versions of my joystick XML laying around because I have dual throttle levers, so I have versions that map engine[0] to left and engine[1] to right (for twin engine flying), a mapping with engine[0]+engine[1] on left and engine[2]+engine[3] on right (for 4 engine flying) and even a mapping with 0-1-2 on left and 3-4-5 on right for 6 engine flying.

I only have 1 mixture lever, so I have engines 0-7 all mapped to it, so it works no matter what I'm flying....

If you only have 1 throttle lever I'd just map engines 0-7 to it and that way you are covered no matter what you fly, do same for the mixtures also.
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