Thanks for the hint from A1-F18AC-NFM-000. I had a quick search but didn't quite make it to section 11.1.3
When flying tight turns with full dry thrust, low altitude, the aircaft becomes unstable long before 50 deg. AoA, something around 38 to 40 deg. AOA and you go off, with a stall warning. I haven't found out where to modify in the .air file to broaden the flight envelope before stall warning occurs.
Concerning your questions:
- The aircraft.cfg is quite different from your latest version 14.18, e.g. I have modified cp's to work in conjunction with CS version. Still experimenting with the empty_weight_cg, because at -27.00 with full flaps during a landing approach the bird does not hold its AoA.
- In the .air file I have modified entry no. 404 being able to pull generally higher AoAs and no. 473 to limit the neg. AoA to around -6 degrees. I have also added at no. 401 a general drag curve for sub/supersonic speed. Most of the changes I have done are in the section from 400 - 473. The drag values in the primary aerodynamics section are the ones I use to clock the plane at 35,000 ft in under two minutes from 0.8 to 1.6 Mach. I have also experimented with the thrust vector vs mach AB function.
- I found the hi_alpha entries in the fsx airfile configuration and tried experimenting with them. They seem to have a slight influence on how the aircraft handles during tight turns at high AoAs at slow speed. You can see it quite good from a tower perspective coming out of a tight turn straight head on, with both hi_alpha entries set to zero, she will slide much more sideways and the general feel is much more 'artificial'. When both values set to 1.0 (default) the flight path seems to be more natural/cleaner, less gearing - in my opinion, but I am not sure which one is more realistic, or what the FCS would do in reality.
Currently I am experimenting with entry no. 404, but I am not satisfied with the max. AoA setting yet. I will try to set it so you can pull up to 50 to 55 degrees AoA.
Stall warning and instability is another issue. If you have an idea where to look, in order to broaden the flight envelope so the instability / stall warning kicks in not before 50 to 55 deg. AoA, please let me know.
Shaking effects:
As I am using A2A accu feel, I disabled the stall shaker function in their program, because the largest value you can set here is 25 deg. AoA, which is far too early to for an FA-18. Is there a way to implement a VC shake, like the one when pulling high g, that would shake the VC when you approach high AoAs e.g. 40, 50, or 55 deg. to show that you are actually approaching the stall / instability threshold?
I will post aircraft.cfg and .air files the next days or so when I have something new.
Feedback and suggestions are welcome!