Great Aircraft, couple things I noticed

[redrooster]

Just got it and it is a joy to fly Yet another well done WOP aircraft
The two things I noticed were that on the Fw190 A-9, it does not have a drop tank like all the other variations, and it even seems to have the mounting for one
The other is that on the panel with the generator, master starter, etc. all the labels had something that looked like a sticker pasted over them that had an english translation. While I don't mind them to much, they seemed to take away from the realism of plane. It also seemed strange because the other German jets in the original WOP(which all basically had that same panel)did not have translations. I'm not really complaining about the two things, they just seemed a little odd.

None the less it is still a superb product and I am happy to see the WOP aircraft series being continued

Thanks,
redrooster

[Dan459]

Okay, I now have about an hour and a half flying...very nice. However, I have noted the following:

1) I see there is not the same attention to detail about weights and balance as the Mustang has; perhaps the popularity of that feature isn't worth the extra programming?

2) I wish more versions would come without the droptank! Clean versions, please? (Just add that to the wish list).

3) While the 190A-9 is supposed to have the more powerful powerplant over the A-8 (1700 hp vs 2,000 and not counting the nitrous oxide injection of the A-8 ), the engine parameters in the config files are curious.

The A-8 has been given more horsepower with 1800 hp and the A-9 just 1675. Also, the A-9 was supposed to be a higher altitude fighter, with a re-geared blower, but both fighters have the same critical altitude: 20,750 ft.

Just curious about those things.

Dan

[SD_Research]

Okay, I now have about an hour and a half flying...very nice. However, I have noted the following:

1) I see there is not the same attention to detail about weights and balance as the Mustang has; perhaps the popularity of that feature isn't worth the extra programming?

***
While it may not be apparent, there was actually MORE attention to weight and balance with these aircraft than with the P-51D. Although the Mustang provides the option of adding/subtracting ammunition/guns, each one of these Fw190s was very carefully set up to be as true to the original variant as possible. Those that carry additional armament, such as the A5/U12, have the option of deleting the payload weights for those weapons. However, we did not included the "civilian" version this time since that option did not seem feasible with so many different versions, along with issues with the swap utility wiping out repaints.
***

2) I wish more versions would come without the droptank! Clean versions, please? (Just add that to the wish list).

3) While the 190A-9 is supposed to have the more powerful powerplant over the A-8 (1700 hp vs 2,000 and not counting the nitrous oxide injection of the A-8 ), the engine parameters in the config files are curious.

The A-8 has been given more horsepower with 1800 hp and the A-9 just 1675. Also, the A-9 was supposed to be a higher altitude fighter, with a re-geared blower, but both fighters have the same critical altitude: 20,750 ft.

***
The horsepower figure in the aircraft.cfg file is only used to set the sound parameters and has no effect whatsoever on engine power. Each engine makes exactly the horsepower it should at all power settings, as indicated in the checklist. Sound parameters were adjusted to give a better representation of the sound at all altitudes, since FS does not properly model supercharging-it only has the capacity to model turbocharging and greatly simplifies the engine performance changes as the plane gains altitude.
***

Just curious about those things.

Dan

[Dan459]

...However, we did not included the "civilian" version this time since that option did not seem feasible with so many different versions, along with issues with the swap utility wiping out repaints.

Okay; I wasn't so worried about the civilian versions, as I fly the "military" Mustang loaded as if in civilian life anyway. I just noticed there was no way (with the Fw-190) to adjust the myriad of weights as with the Mustang...but I never doubted correct weights.

The horsepower figure in the aircraft.cfg file is only used to set the sound parameters and has no effect whatsoever on engine power. Each engine makes exactly the horsepower it should at all power settings, as indicated in the checklist. Sound parameters were adjusted to give a better representation of the sound at all altitudes, since FS does not properly model supercharging-it only has the capacity to model turbocharging and greatly simplifies the engine performance changes as the plane gains altitude.

I didn't know that the horsepower file only set sound parameters! So, what sets the horsepower parameters?? Good to know the horsepower settings are correct...

Thanks for answering the questions so promptly. This is going to be a fun airplane to fly (even if it never really replaces the Mustang! )

Dan

[SD_Research]

"I didn't know that the horsepower file only set sound parameters! So, what sets the horsepower parameters?? Good to know the horsepower settings are correct... "

What you want to look for are the maximum manifold pressure values in each aircraft.cfg file. These will vary with each individual engine. Most of the Fw190 aircraft used some version of the BMW 801 D-2, but most versions made different power due to different equipment, such as differing supercharger ratios, a higher allowable maximum MP, or chemical injection. So you'll see quite a bit of variation between the individual aircraft. There are also several parameters in the .air file that are used to determine engine power and torque, but that is beyond the scope of our discussion here.

Just to clarify further on the fuel and payloads, we felt it made more sense this time around -- after having tried the swapper utility with the civil/combat versions of the P-51 -- to preserve the combat configuration. Not only is this the way the aircraft were flown into combat, which provided good historical realism, it simplifies the installation and prevents the possibility of repaints being wiped out. It is easy enough for a customer to simply reduce the weight of the aircraft in the aircraft.cfg file to suit the configuration he or she wants. For example, if you prefer a civilian version, just reduce the empty weight of the aircraft by 400 pounds for the non-armored versions, and by 1250 pounds for the armored versions (this also simulates the removal of the armor). This is a lot simpler that having a swap utility which can really confuse the installation and create customer complaints!

[Dan459]

Thanks for the answers...and it makes sense, to me at least, to keep the weights simple.

Thanks again for the attention here on the boards...see my seperate post for another question, please.

Dan

[redrooster]

Any chance of a confirmation as to whether the fact that the A-9 has a mounting for a fuel tank but no tank is a bug or not?

Thanks,
redrooster

[Scott - A2A]

A limitation in FS2004 is it does not allow drop tanks to be dropped. So this means a new model is required for the drop tank version and another model for the clean version. We have 9 aircraft in this pack, and it weighs in at 65MB already, so making versions of every variant with and without drop tanks would be a little over the top.

As we were producing the aircraft, you can imagine what it was like when an error was found. It had to be applied to every model and then built.

We picked certain configurations for each aircraft, that we thought best represented the variant. This isn't to say we can't do different things, as there are a lot of things that can be done w/o changing the model, but I just want to express a bit of our thinking process when building the Butcher Bird package.

Scott.

[bthorson]

A limitation in FS2004 is it does not allow drop tanks to be dropped.

This isn't entirely true. FS9 doesn't allow for a tank to be used in the way they were in CFS2 or CFS3, but FS9 does allow you to dump the drop tank fuel (the key command from CFS2 still works), and the use of xml animation that checks external quantity could hide the visual model of the tank after the fuel is dumped.

Bruce