New FSXBA Hornet

[Azframer]

Aircraft selection screen all the clean version show blank no planes. Just giving you a heads up Jimi.
Thanks for all you do.

Rick
Edit: Let me clarify, when you sellect the planes and you go and try to fly it is blank, no plane showing.

[PhantomTweak]

Thanks, Mr. Sinbad! That fixed it!

Pat☺

[BAnthonyH]

I've only tried the BA variant and I found a few issues.
The pilots helmet and head is black, I lost the vapour from high G manoeuvres, the elevators stay down, smoke comes from the engines like if I was to press the smoke button continuously every 1 second, after burner affect doesn't appear when throttle is at full AB probably only between 80-95%

[hd764jvgd843]

Hi Jimi,

thanks for the updates, can't wait to give them a try when I will be finished with my scenery installations.

I noticed that the growing number of texture schemes and size of the project has become an issue. You might want to try 7zip instead of zip or even winrar. Especially concerning textures it has a much better compression ratio than any other alternative. I use compression level Ultra and LZMA as compression method, these gave the best results when packing the over 140 texture schemes for the FS and CS version mods. In this case it usually reduces overall size down to 7% of its original size!
Additionally, you might want to consider downsampling texture size, as I did, which will only have a neglectable impact on perceived visual quality and is beneficial to overall FPS as well.

Best regards, Peter

[jimi08]

Everyone,

Thanks for the quick feedback and my apologies for some of these rookie mistakes/problems such as the links and aircraft not showing up.  I'll try to fix as soon as possible.  Figured it's been long enough and wanted to at least get something out to you guys.

BAanthonyH,

Thanks for the inputs.  I concur, for some reason, I am having some issues with the effects on the BA variant.  Didn't have too much time yesterday to T/S before releasing but will dig back into things tomorrow evening if I get the time.  The head and helmet sounds like an easy texture fix.  Thanks for the feedback.

Peter,

Thanks for the heads up on 7zip, I remember ORION telling me about it as well.  Guess it takes a while to break old habits.  I'll be sure to implement next go around.

Azframer,

Thanks for the input.  I'll check it out once I get back.

[PhantomTweak]

I use 7Zip with the same settings Peter recommends, for both zipping things and unzipping, and it works perfectly for me.

I sure appreciate the posting of the new version. I DL'd thhe Training version so far, but eventually I will have them all! MUAHAHAHA!!! Ahem....

Sorry, got a little carried away. I posted my thoughts on it in the wrong thread, I fear, and I apologize. I'll move them over here somehow if you want.
Thanks again! I realize it's a work in progress and will be for a few year, I am sure. I am just enjoying the heck outta what' available so far
Pat☺

[PhantomTweak]

Today's fight testing:
I focused mainly on doing bounces at Whidbey Is. The main runway, 136. No weather. I am trying to get used to the pitch trim/AOA system in the PA regime, and I am slowly getting it. I like it too, may I say. I get the throttle set, and this version has slower speeds in the approach than it used to, let it settle into the correct AOA/airspeed for my weight, and set the trim to about 8.3 on the HUD. Then just play throttle for the correct VS for the AOA. It holds the AOA perfectly, too. At least for me, of course.
I still have trouble adjusting to the roll rate, but I'm adjusting. Once I get landings down, I'll start FCLP's again. I didn't go any higher than 2,000'MSL the entire flight, so the engine power and fuel flow weren't any trouble, although the FF is higher on the Engine page of the DDI than the older versions. I will do High altitude, high AOA maneuvers this evening.
I DID notice the plane needs more aft deflection of the stick in a turn to maintain a constant altitude during turns, than previously, whatever flight regime I am in, and more throttle to maintain airspeed, attitude, and altitude during a turn. Obviously, the greater the bank angle, the more stick and throttle, so to speak, are required, all higher than previously, although this may be correct, and the older version incorrect. I just don't know.
As to the panel.cfg file: I haven't changed anything on it yet, other than the night colors but that's personal preference. I do have a few questions, though. I can't get [window06] (Shft+7), the FCS Data gauge, to display. VC or 2D cockpit. Is there anything I can do to fix this? May I ask why gauges 39, 41, and 55  in [VCockpit 01] are commented out? Just curious on those. May I also ask why almost all the effects gauges in the BA version are commented out, but included in the others? Again, curiousity.

I know, I can be awfully nosey. If anything is none of my business just let me know. I am trying to as honest as I can. I am no test pilot, or even all that good a Hornet pilot, IMO, but I sure am trying to get better
Just as I was learning the NH, yours pops up, and away I go again! Honestly, I love it!
Thank you again for letting us play in your yard, so to speak
Pat☺

[jimi08]

Hey Pat,

Thanks for the feedback.  Fuel flow might be higher, but tried my best to match up per Avg Joe's info.  More deflection is probably do to the turn coordination of the jet with the rudder.  As for the FCS Data gauge out of the jet to minimize a hit on frames.  It was primarily there to tweak the PI Controllers. 

My memory is not that great, I will have to look and see what gauges 39, 41 and 55 are.  The BA version is "streamlined", meaning most of the special effects have been removed, to minimize the impact to computer/network performance while flying multiple jets in close formation in multiplayer.

Thanks again for the input.

[PhantomTweak]

Sorry I made my first post on this plane in Peter's thread. I made a boo-boo, but I'll stick to this one  now
I wanted to mention that while I need more stick deflection per bank angle, the plane does seem to make tighter turns. What formerly took 40 to 45° bank angle now only takes 30°, if that. Very nice indeed! I like it a lot I am thinking better rudder trim XML gauge/PID controller.

Gauges list, in order: 39 is FX!Smoke, 41 is FX!Lights, and 55 is  Weapons!FA-18C. I am going to guess that the Weapons is for TacPac, Smoke and Lights are to reduce frame-rate hits, not needed, there was a better way, or taken over by another gauge.
Thank you very much for taking the time to answer all my nosey questions. Curiosity will kill me yet
Now, on to tonight's High Altitude, High AOA flight! More to follow I want to test what i know to test before changing ANYthing LOL!
Loving the plane so far, though. You and the guys are amazing!
Pat☺

[PhantomTweak]

Ok, last night and today's flights:
Last night, Hi altitude work with both low and high AOA maneuvers. I haven't adjusted the fuel flow yet, but if you say it's more realistic than previous, that's fine, I'll leave it be. I will even leave the thrust vs N2 and altitude settings alone. For now. I need to read up on that again anyway. The FSDeveloper's forum has some really spectacular info on how the sim does what it does with Jet engines.
Today, I did bounces at Coupeville in the Training version. Mr AzFramer is right, no plane displayed for any of the Clean version, and I get a message that "The Model Cannot Be Displayed". I'll look later, maybe I can fix it maybe not. I'll see. 10 bounces in all. Great practice. I DID change the Aileron line in the PI Controller settings in the aircraft.cfg  file to lower the aileron deflection slightly vs stick deflection, rather than adjust the Control Sensitivity in the Controls menu. I dropped it to 1.70 vs 1.75 (default). That was too low, so I slowly increased it to 1.735, which seems pretty close to how, from what I know of it, which admittedly is minimal, seems to me to be a fairly realistic setting. I don't flip inverted by deflecting the stick 1°, at least. The problem seemed worst during the PA regime, by the way. Before I changed it, it was ok above about 300 KIAS, but when I would slow for a bounce or landing, say 130 KIAS, it would be a lot higher aileron deflection per stick movement than it should be. Again, just my inexperienced opinion. After I made the change in the PID Aileron line in the Aircraft.cfg file, the plane was a lot more  controllable and I would have to move the stick a reasonable amount to get the desired result. At least, it seemed to me as the NATOPS describes such things.
On the bright side, it's a lot easier to make the correct turns around a pattern. I go where I think the plane should, as the NATOPS describes the FCLP pattern, for a given roll rate and bank angle. MUCH better, IMO. By the way, you seem to have solved the bloody left drift problem it seemed to have. It was pretty frustrating to level the wings, and have to "waggle" the rudders to get the plane to stop drifting to the left. Or to have to use the rudders to get the bird to turn 2° for the "perfect" line up. Now, with the PID controllers, it will stop turning when the wings level up, and if I need to go 2° one way or the other I can bank a LITTLE bit to do it. Before, if I was up to 5° bank angle either direction the nose would go left. Now, it goes where it should at the rate it should. No more need to "waggle". I LOVE IT!
This plane is a real joy, although a bit of a challenge at times. If you make it better, I'm going to think I am a real live bird!!
One thing I would like to request, although I haven't seen a need for it yet at all, is a FCS Reboot button, like the real thing has. If for NO other reason than realism, although I wager if I turn Failures on, it would be a very good thing to have...
No rush, just one of those "little details"...
Pat☺

[Orion]

I DID change the Aileron line in the PI Controller settings in the aircraft.cfg  file to lower the aileron deflection slightly vs stick deflection, rather than adjust the Control Sensitivity in the Controls menu. I dropped it to 1.70 vs 1.75 (default). That was too low, so I slowly increased it to 1.735, which seems pretty close to how, from what I know of it, which admittedly is minimal, seems to me to be a fairly realistic setting. I don't flip inverted by deflecting the stick 1°, at least. The problem seemed worst during the PA regime, by the way. Before I changed it, it was ok above about 300 KIAS, but when I would slow for a bounce or landing, say 130 KIAS, it would be a lot higher aileron deflection per stick movement than it should be. Again, just my inexperienced opinion. After I made the change in the PID Aileron line in the Aircraft.cfg file, the plane was a lot more  controllable and I would have to move the stick a reasonable amount to get the desired result. At least, it seemed to me as the NATOPS describes such things.
On the bright side, it's a lot easier to make the correct turns around a pattern. I go where I think the plane should, as the NATOPS describes the FCLP pattern, for a given roll rate and bank angle. MUCH better, IMO.

The FCS is set to give you a maximum roll rate of 240 degrees per second with maximum horizontal deflection of the stick.  The ideal roll rate for a given stick position x (regardless of PA or UA modes) is given by the following function: .

One thing I would like to request, although I haven't seen a need for it yet at all, is a FCS Reboot button, like the real thing has. If for NO other reason than realism, although I wager if I turn Failures on, it would be a very good thing to have...
No rush, just one of those "little details"...
Pat☺

You can "reboot" the FCS by toggling the spin recovery switch.  When the spin switch is enabled, the FCS is disabled, all PID controllers are reset, and pilot input is sent directly to the flight control surfaces with no intermediate processing.

[PhantomTweak]

Thank you, Mr. Orion!
As for the roll, umm...oops. I will restore the provided PID setting asap. Thank you for setting me straight on that.

Thank you the info on resetting the FCS. That was exactly what I was wondering about. As I mentioned, I haven't needed it yet, I was just hoping for the realism factor

Ok, more testing to do.
Pat☺

[Orion]

Well, that's not to say your change is necessarily better or worse -- I was just pointing out that (when properly tuned), you should get the aforementioned roll rates for a given stick input.  It sounded like you wanted to change the ideal roll rate for a given stick input, which isn't what changing the PID coefficients does -- the roll rate is governed by the previously described function.  What changing the PID coefficients does is controls how the control surfaces react given a certain state.

I'll try to explain this succinctly: every simulated frame, the FCS goes through and calculates the difference between the current roll rate and the ideal roll rate; this value is called the current error.  It also calculates the sum all the previous errors (this is the cumulative error), as well as the difference between the current error and the previous error (this is the change in error).  To get the value sent to the ailerons, it takes the sum of the proportional coefficient (1.75 in the current release) multiplied with the current error, the integral coefficient (0.05 in the current release) multiplied with the cumulative error, and the derivative coefficient (0 in the current release) multiplied with the change in error.

What changing 1.75 to 1.735 did was tell the FCS to send a smaller command to the ailerons by reducing the "weight" or "importance" of the current error.  Doing this will cause the flight controls to take longer to attain the ideal roll rate described by the aforementioned function (this doesn't change the fact that the FCS will still try to tend towards that ideal value).  Different PID coefficients may minimize the error better or more quickly or with less oscillation or less overshoot than others.  I haven't done much testing, so perhaps your proportional coefficient works better, perhaps it doesn't.  The metric you should be comparing is the error, though.

The spin recovery mode in the FSXBA Hornet FCS turns on what I've dubbed "pass through" in my code: it doesn't do anything fancy and just passes the control input through to the sim (instead of preventing the sim from being able to read the pilot's input and doing the PID stuff to set control surfaces).  In the real jet I think spin recovery mode (SRM) is a subset of direct electrical link (DEL), which is actually a sort of failure mode with slightly different control augmentation system (CAS) parameters?  Just wanted to clarify that it may not be 100% realistic.

[einherz]

is it posible got only clean version with aggressor's(grey, blue, brown) skin?
no tanks, no pylons, no weapon, please(and with clean physics dynamic sure:))

[PhantomTweak]

The spin recovery mode in the FSXBA Hornet FCS turns on what I've dubbed "pass through" in my code: it doesn't do anything fancy and just passes the control input through to the sim (instead of preventing the sim from being able to read the pilot's input and doing the PID stuff to set control surfaces).  In the real jet I think spin recovery mode (SRM) is a subset of direct electrical link (DEL), which is actually a sort of failure mode with slightly different control augmentation system (CAS) parameters?

Ok, thank you, and yes, that's essentially what the NATOPS says about the SRM. Generally, if you are in an apparently unrecoverable spin, it's a "last resort" thing to try, before ejecting. Apparent;y, in this plane it does reset the PID to a "starting" state, which is effectively what the FCS Reset button does, so that's exactly what I was asking about

As to my small change. It makes the plane work much better for ME. Maybe it's not realistic, as the real plane flies, I don't know. But it seems stable and yet agile. I deflect the stick, and it does roll, the more the faster, so to speak, but with the change I made, I don't wind up wobbling around trying to get the wings to the angle I want, whatever it might be. It may well just be me, my system, my joystick, I can't say. But  it works prfectly for me , so I'll use it for now. Perhaps something like 1.737, or 1.738 would be better. I'll test and see. Again, this is all on me, and may not be as "realistic" as it should be. That's entirely up to wiser heads than I
As to the parameter I SHOULD be watching, the "error", I would love to, but Jimi removed the FCS data gauge, so I have to use what I have and kinda guesstimate as I go I DO appreciate you providing the chart, though, that is very helpful
Pat☺