DC3-C

[Deleted]

hi,

When it comes to flying realistically my favourite aircraft is charles Owen's DC3-C. No equivalent so far.
Nevertheless, I have noticed a confusing feature with the attitude indicator. It works opposite other attitude indicators. On every aircraft the pointer is fixed and the angle markers rotates whereas in the DC3-C, it is the opposite. When I fly IMC it is extremely confusing because I am not used to it.
Since this aircraft was betatested by some calclassic members, I would like to know if there is a fix to this problem.
Thanks

[PeteHam]

Hi Yankeegolf,

I don't have this particular DC-3 ( mine's the MAAM DC-3 ) but if you're wanting to replace the attitude indicator it's really easy to copy and paste another AI into the panel cfg.

For an example, here's the one out of Trev Morson's DC-3 panel .... you would need to have his gauges for it to work though.

gauge12=C47!attitude_indicator, 227,435,93,101

Put these .... // infront of the existing entry
//gauge12=your dc-3 attitude_indicator, 227,435,93,101

The gauge number and the position and size numbers would be the same as the original.

Hope this helps.

Pete.

[Deleted]

Thank you for your reply. But it is daunting!
I have found a very detailed step by step tutorial for gauge editing which explains everything, even for complete novices. Impressive piece of work. Found it on the simviation website, file name: Simple panel design, PDToot.zip.
Now I have to digest it but it looks promising.

I am wondering if old attitude indicators where designed the way they are modeled on the DC3-C. It is a dramatic change from "new" ones and with no ground references, I quickly get disoriented and tend to make the wrong corrections. So I fly on autopilot and it fixes the problem.

By the way, you should try the DC3-C because it includes a comprehensive realistic system modelisation coupled with a very convincing failure simulation. You must fly by the book or you will end up in serious trouble!

[Tom/CalClassic]

Take a look at the default DC-3 panel - I assume it has an old time gauge.

[ozbeowulf]

I've flown behind a fair number of old artificial horizons, but I can't recall any of them where the aircraft symbol moved in relation to the instrument case. It should be fixed (except when you raise or lower it with the adjustment knob) and the background should move.

To my mind, this is the only logical way for an a/h to operate because it correctly maintains the spatial reference between the pilot's body and the aircraft's wings. That way, whenever you add, say, more pitch control, the nose of the aircraft goes up as viewed by you and by the a/h. (I know that is not true in EVERY instance, but please bear with me.) Anything else would make instrument flying extremely difficult, I think.

Having said that, I seem to recall reading somewhere that Russian artificial horizons act "backwards", so to speak, just as YankeeGolf described in his original post. Maybe it's all in what you get used to.

I hope this hasn't confused anyone any more than I've confused myself.

Cheers,

Glenn


Added later: Okay, I have confirmed my hazy memory re the differences between Western and Russian artificial horizons. It is a serious issue. The link below considers it a likely reason for the Flash Airlines 737 crash on departure from Sharm el-Sheikh in 2004.

www.aviationtoday.com/av/categories/commercial/993.html

[Deleted]

hi,
I have solved the problem. My idea was to invert the rotation of the pointer. For that I modified the XML gauge file (with a programming tip that I got from a famous and helpful avsim member on the panel design forum). No more spatial disorientations!

In fact it is a well known problem:
I found the following in the FAA pilot's handbook of aeronautical knowledge ( very informative and down loadable for free from the FAA website; Highly recommended)

"Most banking scale indicators
on the top of the instrument move in the same direction
from that in which the airplane is actually banked.
Some other models move in the opposite direction from
that in which the airplane is actually banked. This may
confuse the pilot if the indicator is used to determine
the direction of bank."

I discussed this a colleague who is a former flight instructor and , he was well aware of this problem because in his academy he had one aircraft with the old attitude indicator which caused some problems to the students...