My Take On the P-51+Videos of real Mustang flight

[tf51d]

I just recently purchased this aircraft, and I also have had the opportunity to fly on the real thing. A TF-51D Mustang named Crazy Horse. At first I wasn't too impressed, with the flight characteristics. In normal flight, it seemed to run by the numbers (I have a copy of the real Mustangs pilot's flight handbook) Most Aerobatic manuevering, and stalls though inevitably ended up in an almost always unrecoverable spin.

Then I found the 1.1 patch, and what a difference it has made. I sill see some problems, but right now it seems to be the most accurate FDE I have seen for a Mustang in FS2004. The 2 main problems, that remain that I see, is the controls are still a little too sensitive if too much back pressure is used the aircraft will spin, but now it is easily recovered by pushing nose down and right rudder. In the real aircraft you can use more back pressure without ending up in a spin. The other problem is the aircraft seems to lose speed to fast when climbing into a stall. Also the buffet is too short before the stall making it difficult, if not impossible to manuever with rudder inside the buffet. (Check out the Buffet video at my website below to see what I mean).

Below at my website, I have pictures (For you dialup users ) and videos of all the major manuevers of my flight. from preflight to landing. All videos are AVI in DIVX format.

http://www.tf51d.com

[Bradburger]

Very nice site tf51d!

And thanks for posting your observations on the Shockwave FM.

I think the buffet probelm is down to FS9 as in FS2002, it came on a lot earlier IIRC.

Cheers

Paul

[tf51d]

Thank's Paul, One thing that is missing from this Mustang, which I'm a little surprised is a functioning Super Charger. I assume this is an FS limitation, but it would be nice if the switch was at least able to be togled, for when you run through the checklist.

[SD_Research]

We really appreciate your comments, thank you!

As far as the control feel, so much of that is dependent on the individual system and what controllers you are using. You can of course adjust the sensitivity using the menu, but it sounds as if you feel it's still pretty close.

As far as superchargers, FS9 can only model a turbocharged engine. It's possible to sort of "simulate" a two-speed supercharger with .xml gauge trickery but thus far the results have not been faithful to the actual power curves and performance of the real deal, so we've not adopted that technique yet. You can get a switch to click on and off, which gives you something to play with, but at this point that stuff is more "eye candy" than it is "realism" so we're waiting until our boys can get a programming solution that lives up to "absolute realism". FS9 also offers a "War Emergency Power" switch, however, this too does not accurately simulate how the real aircraft system worked so we did not use it. The manual/checklist explains what we did here, essentially you have the full range of power available at all times (just like the real thing) and you'll need to set the throttle accordingly.