SSTSim Service Update 3, more previews. [Archive] - Racerplanet Network Forums

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chris
07-12-2005, 06:28 PM
http://www.sstsim.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=7832#7832

Andrew has posted a few more previews of the SSTSim Service Update 3. These are some older British Airways paint-schemes that I worked on. Also new is the reheat effects. :)

Also, browse down the post further and you'll see that the actual full communications plans are being included for many different flights.

The London to Edinburgh flight over the North Sea is particularly different. ;)

I've been testing Service Update 3 myself, and I can quite easily say it is brilliant. The level of realism is quite amazing. For those who are using SU2, one difference you'll note is the fuel usage, which has increased slightly based on some advice of someone who worked with Concorde over the years.

So, how does it perform? Well, I did the long New York to Paris flight (over 6000km) in 3 hours 27 minutes, with the decelleration beginning about 100Nm before the island Guernsey. It basically sat on Mach 2.02 most of the time, with Mach hold only coming on once or twice to correct overspeeds. I also did another flight from Boston to London in 2 hours 53 minutes. On both occasions, it climbed to above 60,000ft.

It is useful to not let the INS handle the turns, but rather to negotiate turns manually using the HDG HOLD, and the DATUM knob/wheel to make the plane bank at a specific angle. You engage HDG HOLD about 30Nm before the next waypoint, then set the INS units to flight between the next flight track (IE, if you are flying from WP 2 to 3, then set them to go from 3 to 4). Next, use the DATUM wheel/knob to make the plane bank to a specific again of your choice. Also, set an INS to the XTK/TKE mode (IIRC) then you can watch your deviation from course represented on the INS display. If it shows 3.1L, then that means you are 3.1Nm left of the course. If it shows 1.4R, it would mean 1.4 right of the course.

Using this method allows you to do very smooth, fast turns without any loss of speed or altitude associated with sharper turns.

Unfortunately we have to do this procedure since the otherwise excellent INS units (from a 3rd party developer) are not the specific Carousel IV-AC ones used for Concorde, but rather just the IV-A versions used on most subsonic planes. I suspect the differences are that the IV-AC is fine tuned for Concordes massively increased speed.

Another nice touch in Service Update 3 is the visor. When you have the visor down at any sort of decent speed above 250kts, you notice that the wind noise is absolutely raucous. But as soon as you raise the visor, the wind noise drops dramatically, leaving the gentle scream of Bristol-SNECMA Olympus 593 turbojet engines to dominate, and the occasional chimes/bells/buzzers/tones of the AFCS attempting bring an event of some sort to your attention, or the TCAS system announcing "traffic, traffic", or one of its other helpful announcements.

chris
07-14-2005, 08:36 AM
http://www.totalnfs.net/cpd/su3_fbtsd.jpg

And here is a preview from me of SU3's Air France Concorde F-BTSD (aka Sierra-Delta). It is descending over Kowloon on the hair-raising IGS13 approach to Kai-Tak airport in Hong-Kong after a 1 hour 40 minute flight from Tokyo's Narita airport.

The flight was completed with only a low fuel load. On finish, about 16 tonnes of fuel was left.

The flight was wonderful, very smooth and the Mach Hold only interrupted once at the corner point (49,000ft) between Max-Climb and Max-Cruise. The plane drifted up to 59,300ft before I descended toward the Tathong Point VORTAC, and then flew the 270 radial towards Cheung-Chau VORTAC, then turned back to proceed with the most dangerous and frightening part of the flight. :)

Frank N. O.
07-14-2005, 08:38 AM
What can I say but the usual, but it bares repeating: Well Done Captain and thanks for sharing :wave:

Frank