Jets are for kids!

[teisco]

Jets are for kids.
A long time ago,,maybe the 80's, I was at Oshgosh and came across a fine B-24 and in the tail gunner window was a hand written sign that said Jets Are For Kids. I took a picture of it and had a laugh and later saw many other pictures of it in magazines and other places.

Is it true? Are jets just for kids? Well I never was excited about them because I love classic planes but the other day I saw the movie 2012 and they had a six engine jet transport called Antonov 500. Of course it was put through all kinds of hell and ended up scrap but it was so cool.

The next day I fired up the pc and googled Antonov 500 and found there was no such animal but was really an An 225. So the movie renamed it and put a rear drop down loading hatch in it and other things. I also hit Flightsim.com and found a great 225 by Tom Ruth.

Tom's plane has lots of toys such as spoilerons, spoilers, tons of wheels, lots of hatches and they all move, open or twitch in some cool way, heck even the wings flex. No vc but a great panel is available. Of course I had to repaint it to match the movie monster.

Now I still dont dig dem jets but this plane will be a classic so I am just getting a ahead start on it.



PS this probably should be in the screen shot forum but I wanted to share my delusion with everyone first.

[coenraad]

Thomas Ruth has a few nice planes. I have his A330-200/300 and A340-200/300/500/600. All those come with a very nice VC, one that works allot better then the standard VC's.

I like to fly them every now and then, and used to fly them quite allot before i found the Constellations.
I especialy like thefact they have no FMC, so you still need to do a fair deal yourself.

[teisco]

My problem is I dont know how to fly these things. I just push buttons on the panel until things look right or I crash. I usually overspeed and hate landing. Seems you have to start your landing setup in Iowa to land in Kansas.

I do wish I could just sub in a nice vc from some similar plane but I am sure this is a shortlived love affair and will be off on another prop er plane soon.

[coenraad]

Well, the biggest differences with those big jets, is that the engine response is really slow compared to a prop. And you really must be below the Max landing weight and make a smooth landing, or you'll wreck them.

[sunny9850]

Subbing in a VC never works....if the model doesn't have a VC you can't just copy one in. That goes for all airplanes ... not just this one.

The jets are for kids statement is largely pointed at the differences in engine management. A lot of it on the big old radials and progressively less on the jets. With FADEC now controlling everything around the kerosene burner in modern planes such as the new Cessna CJ4 there is literally only a single button to push to start the engine...on/off..that is it. None of the fiddling with a myriad of levers and listening to how the engine sounds as one or two cylinders catch. Playing with fuel mixtures to bring the rest online and then keep the lot running for hours on end.

But in the end Jets are not all that different either...it's a numbers game. They fly higher and faster and can get up and down faster.
You simply need to find the numbers that work for one particular airplane....if you want to fly it right.

The An-124 and An-225 are certainly amazing pieces of engineering. The bros Wright could have easily done their first flight in either one of them ;D

I met the An-124 at KSBD back when I was still flying our Archer. And it was an amazing site to park the tiny Piper at the back of their ramp....if she had been emptied out I might have asked to see if we can taxi in for a snapshot in exchange for a few bottles of GreyGoose

Stefan

Stefan

[coenraad]

Yeah, they are huge, they dwarf most planes around them.