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A little more flying quality info on Dino's T-45

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average_joe:
One learns more and more by posting on the forum ... safe to say not many of us really knows how FSX runs. Case in point is the airspeed discussion. Given the existence of an Airspeed Indicated variable, it appears that FSX knows to display IAS in a gauge or HUD but the numbers may be off ... maybe FSX uses a loose approximation instead of an exact calculation for simulation speed purposes. I'm sure some of us purists could adapt if we knew.

By the way Dino has done a nice job without much official documentation. Hopefully a post here is a magnet for more input.

War story time ... I was involved in a flight simulator validation project. Real aircrew would fly it and critique the fidelity of it. Was easy to provide subjective comments but in order to tweak parameters we had to jump in the real thing and bring back real data that could be turned into coefficients, etc. ... even with the volumes of flight test data and NATOPS info that already existed. The developers could make changes on the fly. Actually turned out to be a fun project.

The T-45 was supposed to be a simple spin off of the BAE Hawk. Things didn't go well in flight test. (Squadron mate of mine was the chief test pilot on the evaluation). Lots of fixes were required but the Navy didn't want to start with a clean sheet of paper just for a trainer (seems reasonable). They had their hands full at the time with the F-18, the cancelled ATF, V-22, etc.

Paddles:

--- Quote from: average_joe on March 25, 2010, 02:04:15 am ---One learns more and more by posting on the forum ... safe to say not many of us really knows how FSX runs. Case in point is the airspeed discussion. Given the existence of an Airspeed Indicated variable, it appears that FSX knows to display IAS in a gauge or HUD but the numbers may be off ... maybe FSX uses a loose approximation instead of an exact calculation for simulation speed purposes. I'm sure some of us purists could adapt if we knew.
--- End quote ---

Well said. Will some of us just check the airspeed numbers with the Hornet?.. For the sake of better understaiding and to make sure that FSX uses a loose approximation for any aircraft...  ;)

SpazSinbad:
From Legacy Hornet NATOPS here is a weight / speed diagram.

Stretch32:
I've been watching this and other threads with some interest and thought I'd throw in some info to possibly help with the new Goshawk model. After reading 'Joes first post I can vouch for a few things. I'll have to go through some notes but here's what I can say so far:

1. Approach speed is obviously based on weight and configuration but normally it's between 115 and about 125 (slightly larger window). We calculate it mentally by taking half our fuel weight and adding that to 111 kts for full flaps, 131 for half flaps and 151 for no flaps. An example would be say 2000 lbs fuel and full flaps would equal 121 kts for on-speed. Half of 2000 is 1000 so that's 10 kts added to our base number.

2. Engine response is very sluggish from what we're told and what I've seen. Since I've not flown a Hornet I can't compare the two however you have to be very careful about throttling back to the idle stop and leaving it there for more than a few seconds or the engine will spool down and delay acceleration even further (bad news at the boat and something they harped on very heavily before we went to CQ). This problem is actually worse at higher altitudes due to the thinner air also.

3. The SBI system on the T-45C does alleviate some of the problems of pitch up when deploying speed brakes but it still takes several pounds of forward stick to prevent it (alot of fun when your in parade formation). Also, when retracting the S/B's the nose drops so again, a pull is rerquired to prevent this.

4. The only top speed posted in NATOPS is Mach 1.04 (good luck reaching this though) which is really more like a Vne. I'll have to flip trough some pubs and see if I can't find some better numbers for cruise, climb etc.

Stretch

SpazSinbad:
T-45A NATOPS weight/airspeed graph. I'll look for the T-45C equivalent graph....

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