Spitfire K9817 Build

[Killratio]

Thanks mate!!! Just can't wait to get the video up!

[boris4356]

What an amazing project Killratio! I don't fly the spit in FSX, but I heard about your pit on the B-17 board and had to have a look. Absolutely fantastic! I am inspired!

Bill

[Killratio]

What an amazing project Killratio! I don't fly the spit in FSX, but I heard about your pit on the B-17 board and had to have a look. Absolutely fantastic! I am inspired!

Bill

Thanks Bill,

I have had so much inspiration from others, it is nice to return the favour.

I love what you are doing with teh B-17..almost makes me want to start one. (for the cost of materials, a new house and a good divorce lawyer, I could just about do it I reckon**G**)



No video yet as the lights software has corrupted and jammed the gauge software as well. Still working on fixing that but three deletes and reinstalls later no luck...I'll have to go registry hunting!

[boris4356]

Hi Darryl,

That would be so cool if you ever did a B-17 cockpit, but those are some pretty high costs!
Looking forward to seeing your video!

Bill

[Killratio]

Hi Darryl,

That would be so cool if you ever did a B-17 cockpit, but those are some pretty high costs!
Looking forward to seeing your video!

Bill

Out of town on business for a couple of days from tomorrow but weekendish with any luck at all.

[Killratio]

Some tangible progress today. I sorted the lights out..at least in as far as the software was causing problems with my gauge software. So I needed a break from learning the lights stuff!!

Tony was kind enough to organise trim wheels for me that arrived during the week. So between Wednesday Night and today, I got them drilled, engraved (the rudder trim casting was a little light after I put on the first coat of the epoxy paint I have decided to use). An hour with the Dremel engraver and it came back nicely. Another hour and the legends and arrows were painted to "satisfactory" standard. A final coat of Cabots satin floor sealer makes them rock hard and ready for the heavy use that (particularly the Elevator wheel) they get.

The major problem was however that the Elevator trim wheel is much larger than the mock up I had...and that means that the new one fouled the Gun Camera and Preassure Head Heating Switch assembly....so a THIRD remake for that is in progress. It will be much bigger and better scale..3 inches deaper and also cover more of the port wall, as it should.





In the second picture you can see the two fuse boxes now to hand..after not a little drama!! and the Radiator Lever placard..lastly the double fuelcock face which will be going in when I build a new double switch fuelcock to bring her back to Mk II standard.

Next is the actual Radiator Shutter Lever Gwyn built for me and now installed but not wired.



Lastly you can see the chaos where there will soon be the new trim panel.

.

The silver tap is for a rear fuel tank (early PRU modification) and the electric fuel pump switch is, of course, for that and also not standard for MkII


NOW, I have some lights working and a promise of video editing help from the War Office for tomorrow afternoon, so MAYBE I might just get the done.


Lastly, the door latch is arriving day by day. (we're at about issue 5 now ) There was a picture of the bits so far but the computer seems to have eaten it...0145 here, so tomorrow...now I had better get some sleep!

[Killratio]

A frustrating day here. I had a paint disaster with the trim panel but have now got it finished tonight. It will be Thursday or the weekend now before I will get anything more done at all. probably not a bad thing teh way I am feling right now!

So all I have to show for the day is the trim panel installed and waiting to have the wiring fixed up again. The U/C indicator and Low Volts are wired and working but I'll get those on video as theay are no different from what they were before in a "still"







The wiring also needs to be tied away from the Rear Fuelcock. I'm not sure how I'm going to do that, not much to attach it to.


More soon...now bed

[philip.ed]

Man, coming back from a 2-week holiday and seeing these pictures is awesome.
I think Stephen Silburn (Sefton) would like to see the pictures of you all geared up

[Killratio]

Thanks mate, yes, Stephen will be gettig some photos soon.


I did get to try out the new Track IR last night and it has a much bigger field of view and so doesn’t lose the track when you look down at the panel like the other sometimes did. It also clips very nicely onto the Type C Helmet without having to alter either of them.

So I had my first serious fly last night…I took off form Bunbury and headed north for Jandakot (about 90 NM) and return. I planned to cruise at 20,000ft or at least for the 10 or 15 minutes that I would not be on climb or descent!! It was a cloudy mucky late afternoon (realtime weather) and I was glad of the “big blue compass” (WA coastline) that made needing to see much of the ground superfluous. It went really well +9 Boost / 2850 temps an pressures in the green…until Myalup (1/3 of the way to Jandakot) at 16500ft when the engine gave a loud cough and promptly dropped 800rpm, ran rough for as long as it took me to trim for the speed I deemed appropriate given the spare altitude I had (about 120mph as a compromise between controllability and putting most of my attention inside the cockpit and on the engine…best glide is actually about 90mph) and then it died altogether. My first ever non Accusim, unplanned engine failure in FSX.

I glided in circles around Mylup as there is a small private strip there. I tried the starter…no good. Mixture full rich then back to about almost where it had been, no good, Mags off and on again…nothing.

I shut everything down, noted height (12,000 odd ) and position, still nice and near Mylup. Ok, plenty of time for another go. Fuel on, throttle back as far as possible (given the link between throttle and mixture and the need for a lean mixture at that height), prop full RPM, flick mags, press starter. Bang and off she went but ran rough and the revs wildly varied at anything over 2300. So I set +2 / 2250 and it seemed to settle down. I also found that I could maintain height and even climb a little (200-300fpm) at this setting and about 140-150 indicated, temps OK.

So I thought hard about it and decided to limp back to Bunbury, 35NM or so. I got up to nearly 14000 but then the temps started to climb rapidly. Throttle back to +0..stabilize. But after a couple of minutes the temps went wild again and it was running rougher than bush strip in a monsoon storm. I glided for 30 seconds but was losing too much height so I decided to let her have about 500fpm and -4 / 2250, that did the trick. There followed 15 odd minutes of watching temps like a hawk and watching for suitable fields below, between the clouds. I particularly enjoyed entering 8/8 cloud at 8000 and not being able to see a thing…but broke out at 6000 just north of Bunbury strip. So not too bad there. By that time I had decided on a glide approach but a bit quick and a bit high. Bunbury is a long strip for a country field. The engine seemed to be behaving much better at the lower altitude but I wasn’t taking any risks.

In the end a nice three pointer but with a bit of a hop, finished an interesting flight. Total time mount to dismount was 48 minutes. I still have no idea what happened but hey, that is for the L.A.M.E to sort out. One valuable aircraft back on the ground, in one piece and my drycleaner will not be unhappy

Having had an unnervingly similar experience in real life a few years ago (but in clear weather, in a 172 and at 5000, 10 miles out) I was pleased to notice that my palms weren’t TOO sweaty and that the decisions I had made that day held true in the sim.

The helmet, Mae West, gloves, cockpit, TiR5, flight model and the brilliant ORBX/OZx scenery made it a flight to remember.

[Norforce]

M8 when you write we all feel if we are the one flying that baby
Thanks again

Ron

[Killratio]

Thanks mate, I enjoyed recounting it. It is amazing how real world training kicks in. There are many more experienced pilots than me but I have spent a lot of my total time on Aerobatics, EMT and FL stuff. If anyone is remotely interested here is my take on it:

The thing to remember with any engine failure...FIRST action: FLY THE AIRCRAFT. No good noticing that the fuel cock is turned off if while you reach down to turn it back on you don't keep control fail to notice that the aircraft is about to spin into the ground.

As soon as the revs dropped I put the nose even further up as I'd previously drifted up in speed and was still about 10mph above optimum climb speed (what can I say...accurate flying is for aerobatics...cruising is for looking out the window!!*G* ). Then I held her there until it dropped to 20mph above stall speed and levelled off. That little effort bought me probably 500ft or so. In the end I didn't need it but it was 500 extra feet "in the bank" Speed is life but altitude is life insurance.

Then...where can I land, FLY THE AIRCRAFT towards that place and ALWAYS keep one eye on it. It is amazing how that perfect field you picked can vanish into thin air while you look at the AH. FL inevitable...mayday..if not, then , is something OBVIOUS causing this..Fire?, Is the prop still turning? fuel starvation? fuel exhaustion? if not what might be wrong that is less obvious oil pressure? leaking oil, cylinder head embedded in windscreen? no obvious problem, try a restart if this fails then, where exactly am I and MAYDAY call.

THEN try another restart. If you have plenty of Alt, try things one at a time if not, either try everything off then back on or DO NOT TRY RESTART if Alt is lacking and it will compromise a safe emergency landing. Let's face it...if it is something obvious and stupid and you haven't picked it up by now...you deserve to take the flack for a forced landing!!!

Glad to hear other, pilot's opinions...


best


Darryl

[Aerosim Solutions]

Hi all,
I thought I would dive bomb Darryl's thread and say hi to you all as a new member of A2A, I haven't had a good look around yet but will do soon. I can testify that Darryl's Spitfire is absolutely fantastic and I had the opportunity to fly the beasty a few weeks ago. I have made about a dozen pieces for this awesome simulator and it was great to see them all in place and working. I made parts from pictures and Darryl's descriptions and I didn't really know what half of them did! I've always been a Spitfire fan and I have always had a big interest in WW2 stuff. In my home business - http://www.aerosimsolutions.com.au I specialize in custom flight simulator components that nobody else can supply so if you need a special part for your homebuilt cockpit simulator I am happy to help. I had to get a plug in Darryl!! Can't wait to see the Spitfire again!

Cheers,
Gwyn Perrett

[Killratio]

G'day mate,

Glad you dropped in. Not sure on the hotlink policy here...but Scott or Lewis await you with nasty sharp pointy teeth if it is Verboten..... (showing our age now!!)

A couple of side brakets and the de-ice and radiator can be final fitted.

Just worked it out, yep, I make it 12 pieces rudders, throttles, column, de-ice, taps, swage and die, U'C, Emergency U/C etc etc etc....gave me the chance to do the stuff I am good at...cheers mate!!

You really need to see her now the lights are working.



Darryl

[Killratio]

After significant delay, video, battery, software and time problems, here is the first attempt at a video of the sim. For this one I have concentrated on the visuals rather than the cockpit itself. I already have a heap more video of the gauges etc and this will follow as I get the hang of the new video software. You can see the possibilities from this one but it is very much a "learners" effort. Total editing time, videoing and flying about 3 hours to produce this 3 min 48 sec video!
I will get better as I go

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVfeiBX7Aww

I've just played it myself and can see I will have to load a HD version.

[Norforce]

Well done m8
Will have to wait untill I get home tomorrow to listen with sound