pc pilot editorial redesign

The World’s Best‑Selling Flight Sim Magazine

STORM WARNING!!!

Flight Simulation THE FUTURE

May-June2015-NO 97

Included


Classic Jet Liners

Return of the Falcon!

July-Aug2015-NO 98

Included

A Hidden Gem!!!

CESSNA SkyMaster

Fuel Up

Warm Up

3PC P i lot I ssue 97 | www.pcpi lot .net

13Tutorials

36 A2A SimulationsInnovative aproach to flight simulation

40 Jet Airlines–A pilot’s Guide

44 Cockpit BuildingNewest key softwares components for home cockpit builders

04 Horizon

06 Latest Round-up

08 New Words

10 Latest Sim Programs

11 Fly Tempa Tronto

13 Tornado GR1Latest Release of Just Flight

17 DreamFoil Creation 407

22 Aerosoft CompanyThe view on the hobby

26 Challenging AirportThe dangerous flights mountains of Queenstown in New Zealand

28 Dovetail Games interview

32 Eagle Dynamic GoalsThe secrets behind the DCS Franchise.

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48 Flight AdventureGo to a Canadian adventure, visiting one of the worlds top ten rated aviation!

52 DCS: Bf 109K-4 and MiG-15bis

56 Fly Pad A review of stand alone Aerofly 2 simulator

56 DCS MiG-21bis Navigationand FuelChris Fisherman introduces navigating to MiG-21bis and tips on fuel management

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60 Saitek PowerhouseLastest flight instrument

64 RealAir Turbo Duke V2

68 Dangerous Approaches

72 Alabeo Piper Sport

76 Carenado Citation IIChris Fisherman casts over Carenado’s new corporate Jet

Star Performers80 RAF Wattisham UKGo back at the end of the cold war!

82 EMB-110 Bandeirante

83 Bartel BM-4a, 4h, and 5d

85 Grumman Avenger TBM-3W

86 Swearingen Merlin 300Another fine aircraft by Craig, a Turboprop aircraft seating upto nine passenger

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FSX Steam Edition


FSX Steam Edition

Since December 2014, FSX: Steam Edition has performed extremely well, with sales of over 200,000

copies to date. As the first step into the world of flight simulation for Dovetail Games, the team has been committed to engaging with the large and very passion-ate flight community and has spent the months since the game’s launch develop-ing an understanding of how they can best serve this community.

Dovetail Games is delighted to announce that it is working with a number of qual-ity third party developers and publish-ers. Following a very successful launch in December 2014, the company is commit-ted to bringing players of FSX: Steam Edi-tion a wide variety of immersive content.

We’ve been humbled and gratified to see so many of the key names in the FSX developer community embrace our entry into the market with FSX: Steam Edition, and agree to work with us in providing their catalogue of products to our shared consumers through Steam. We have plans in place to be able to really ramp the con-

200,000 Copieson steam!!!

Flight Simulator SellS

tent portfolio in the coming weeks and months, which includes the release of original content as well as existing offer-ings. It is fantastic news for the flight sim community, that FSX is now also available to the Steam community too. That is over 100 million potential flight simmers! Most recently, Dovetail has cemented partner-ship with Just Flight and Carenado.

FSX Steam Edition

“It’s an exciting time for the whole flight simulation community. We’re keen to work with devel-opers and consumers to ensure we bring the best possible mix of content to market.”Nicholas RookeHead of Third Party, Dovetail Games


For the past couple of years, we have mentioned that we are working on our first product for XPlane, but that the product was being developed slowly, as a sandbox exercise so that PMDG’s Xplane Develop-ment Team could learn to work with, and adapt our existing capabilities to make them function well in the popular Xplane flight simulator by Laminar Research. We have told you repeatedly that we were going to “keep this one in close hold” while we

X-Plane Flies the Douglas

FSX California flight simulator

that will satisfy even the most detail ori-ented classic airliner nut. From an exqui-sitely detailed exterior model, accurate sounds recorded using a live DC-6, a metic-ulously scaled and created virtual cockpit, authentic aircraft system simulation down to the finest and grittiest details- we think this simulation is going to give pure joy to anyone looking for something a bit dif-ferent than the standard “Gear Up LNAV-VNAV” of modern airliners.

worked through the development and learning process, so as to give the development team the freedom they need to really dig deep and learn what is an entirely new platform to us in nearly all regards. During the same period of time, we have been rather mum on the progress forward after our January 2012 announcement regard-ing the DC-6 for FSX.

With a couple of years in development, we have succeeded in bringing together a simula-tion of this magnificent and beautiful airplane

Southern CAliforniA SunShine

The team at SIM720, led by Barry Hudson, may not be a name that you are famil-iar with. However, the impressive product Line-up speaks for itself. The developer was commissioned by ORBX to create its award-winning FTX England, Scotland, Ire-land and Wales scenery packs. It has since branched out on its own, with a number of high profile scenery products that are garnering critical acclaim. The latest pack-age for FSX and Prepar3D has just been released, providing high quality scenery for McClellan-Palomar, the fourth busiest single runway airport in the United States. McClellan-Palomar Airport (Palomar Airport - KCRQ) is a public airport three miles (5km) southeast of Carlsbad in San Diego County, California. It is owned by the County of San Diego. The airport is used for general avi-

ation with United Express operating scheduled airline flights. In 2008, the airport had 192,960 aircraft operations, an average of 529 per day covering the whole gamut of airliner, general aviation, military and helicopter traffic. As such, the airport is ideal for exploring the beauty of Southern California, regardless of your preferred mode of aviation. The SIM720 McClellan-Palomar

download has been created as a replica of the real world site. The package includes a wealth of custom-created and placed objects and a high resolution ground poly-gon. In addition, the precision placement of runways and taxiwaysand the custom night-ligh tingprovide incredibly realistic take-offand landing experiences.

PMDG’s Xplane


DCS World is a free-to-play flight simulation environment that ships with two free aircraft, the

Su-25T Frogfoot and the TF-51D Mustang. You can download DCS World here and pick up any additional modules you’d like here. Remember that while you can download any of the other modules for free, a paid-for activation code (aka license, aka serial number) is required for each module in order to actually play it. Only install mod-ules for which you have an activation code.

In addition to the MiG-15bis module previewed here, there are a slew of other modules currently available for purchase at the DCS Electronic Shop.

The First Jet MiGsAlthough the MiG-9 was Russia’s first

turbojet fighter, their oldest jet-child was a

disappointment. Hindered by poor engine tech-nology and cannon gas ingestion issues,

the MiG-9 was more of a jet-engine stuffed into an airframe than the idealized jet fighter. Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich’s next jet design benefited from an unusual deal with Bri-tian to get higher-performing engines. This extra power, swept wings, and steadily growing knowl-

edge of high-speed aircraft design resulted in the MiG-15. An icon of the dawn of the jet age, the MiG-15 is one of my favorite aircraft. The module is now available in the public release of DCS World.

Note: This is a preview, based on a lim-ited pre-release beta that is believed to be a fair representative of what may eventu-ally become the retail product.

With the understanding that some fea-tures may be added, removed, or modified prior to the release, we give you this pre-view article which is simply a non-critical look at the features that may be included in the retail release.

As usual, all material is subject to change, and all errors in content and facts are the author’s and the author’s alone.

DCS World

MiG-9MiG-9

“When Eagle Dynamics announced that the beta version of the MiG-15bis was avail-able in the open beta of DCS World, I just had to download the update and the module and fly the MiG myself.”

Erik Einstein Pierce


Liveries for X-Plane 10

We have a special set of liver-ies for the A320, made by JAR Design for X-Plane 10,

created by the talented artist Emma Bentley. We hope to include more of Emma’s excel-lent work on future editions of the PC Pilot CD. Liveries in this issue include: First Choice, Jet2.com, Jet2 Holidays, My Travel Airways, TAM Brazil. Virgin Little Red and Virgin Sun. To install these liveries, place the files into the ‘liveries’ folder located inside the A3 20 Neo folderwhich in turn can be found in the Heavy Metal directory of the main X-Plane 10 Aircraft Folder. This will allow you to use these liveries when you select the A320 Neo.

The Z-142 is a single-engined two-seat Czechoslova-kian training aircraft

manufactured by Moravan Otrokovice. It began development in the 1960s, the cur-rent model, featuring a larger airframe and a LOM M-337 fuelinjected inverted six-cyl-inder, supercharged air-cooled engine first flew in 1978.1t remains the most popular aircraft in the company’s range. Engine sounds from a real Z-142 and Above and below: These are just two of the liveries supplied The aircraft featured here was designed for FSX and Prepar3D by Tibor 1z6kai and Bence Benedek who collectively form the Pan non Wings design team. As

nine different liveries and a plain white one for those who like to paint theirown. Inside the fully modelled 3D cockpit you’ll find 3D custom gauges and lots of work-ing components. The team has also pro-duced a full colour manual that would put many commercial products to shame.

It includes fully annotated illustrations of the coc kpit layout, which is then ref-erenced in the start-up procedures. This means of course that you can operate the aircraft from a cold and dark state, just like the real pilots would. There are no surprises when you take to the air. But seriously, this is a superb product that I’m sure you’ll be impressed with.

you will see from the screenshots and experi-ence when you install it, it’s a superb aircraft both in its simulation and in the quality of the modelling. The team has done an exceptional job that easily puts the Zlin in contention with simi-lar commercial products. They’ve gone to great lengths to replicate just about every part of the Zlin, which from any perspective is a fine aircraft. The package includes lots of custom animations,

C zechoslovakian Aircraft

Platform: FSX with Acceleration pack and Prepar3DZlin Z-142

“ To make the experience as real as possible, the designers record tested the flight model on real Zlin pilots and instructors.”

A320

!?


I have been a PC Pilot reader since issue 7 and look forward to getting the latest issue to see what is new in the flight simu-lation world. I recently purchased the Saitek radio, switch and multi-panels, but seem to have a problem using the multi-panel. After a few minutes the panel switches off and no display is visible.lf I unplug the USB then reconnect it again, the panel comes alive, but after a few minutes, I have a problem.

I have installed the latest Saitek driver from the website and all the other Saitek panels work fine. Do you think there is a problem with the multi-panel unit or some setting in Windows? I am using Win-dows 764-Bit, 8GB RAM and a 800 watt power supply.

Hope you can help,

Saitek Multi-panel Switches Off After a Few Minutes

Hi James, go to the Device manager in Windows. Try disabling the power save mode in the control panel in Windows and see if that makes any difference, then follow the steps below.

To view the ‘Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power’ check box, do the following:

Click Start, then type ‘device man-ager’ in the Start Search box, and then click Device Manager in the Programs list.

In the Device Manager dialog box, expand Universal Serial Bus controllers, right-click USB Root Hub, and then click Properties. In the USB Root Hub Properties dialog box, click the Power Management tab. The Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power check bmi is dis-played. If that doesn’t work, it might be worth contacting Saitek support incase it is a faulty panel using the following link: http:/ /www.saitek.com/uk/info2/contact.php

Hello and a warm welcome to another packed edition of PC Pilot. In each issue of PC

Pilot you will read appraisals about any number of software and hardware prod-ucts made by a relatively small number of producers.These publishers/developers have become household names among the flight sim fraternty. Their drive, pur-suit of excellence and at times willing-ness to take risks, has provided us with exciting and often

innovative products, which have raised the bar in terms of quality and fidelity. So, given the developments and changes that have occurred within the flight sim industry over the past few months, we thought it would be an opportune time to invite a number of these compa-nies to take part in a series of exclusive interviews. In these Q&As, among other

FLIGHT S IMULATION, THE FUTURE


STORM WARNING!!!

Flight Simulation THE FUTURE

May-June2015-NO 97

Included

things, they talk about themselves, their current projects, future plans and per-haps more importantly how they view the future of the industry. Companies featured include: Dovetail Games, Aero-soft, Just Flight, A2A Simulations, Eagle Dynamics and Saitek. Our thanks go to these companies for taking part

in these discussions which were both informative and at times enlightening. Due to the amount of space allocated to these articles, we have had to post-pone the FSX Q&A section for this issue.

However, to compensate for this, we have included an extra number of technical quetions and their accompa-nying answers in the ‘Letters’ section for t his edition.

h a p p y l a n d i n g s !

We hope You enjoy this issue

James McPherson

Richard Benedikz


of interest or of airports that were of nostalgic. I’m wondering whether or not the and FSX and presently I’m useful for my desire to personalise interest to me, but do not exist in any FSX: Steam addition comes bundled considering acquiring the latest FSX: my current host flight simulator. As far as I am aware. With an appropriate Soft-ware Steam Edition.

However, for me, the real not being content with flying aircraft Development Kit that will provide at straight out of the box, whichever breakthrough came about once I had to and from airports with personally least building blocks for AI, scenery version I flew, I have never been a computer running FS2004 (Century designed features, I expanded my creation, and equiva-lent AFCAD satisfied because I always yearned of Flight) to my satisfaction. PC Pilot interests further by producing programmes.

PC Pilot Once, again it was PC Pilot, from might consider offering a series of within its pages, which recommended tutorials into ‘tweaking’ the inner a download of ‘FRAPS’ as a suitable workings of FSX: Steam Edition, or programme for capturing flight providing directions as to

sDK support iN FsX steamDear PC Pilot,

For some features that were not pro-vided, via its cover disc, AFCAD, introduc-tion, MS FSX on my I have decided to move forward to AI programmers, which gave me a computer, I had no means or attempt to improve my skills and goals had very humble beginnings, starting point to experiment with knowledge of producing what I had hopefully, enjoyment in flight initially lim-ited to purchasing making changes inside FS2004. achieved with FS9.

Quite simply FSX simulation, but will probably need carefully selected add-ons from high Flushed with some successes I seemed to me to be a far more some help and some questions street or mail order outlets. Subsequently purchased some complicated beast that required answered before I may proceed.

As I gained the passage of time I finally have an includes: Microsoft Flight Simu-lator installed from the cover disc experi-ence, I finally created a couple Acceleration version of MS FSX and 98 (FS98), FS2000, FS2002, FS2004 and anything I considered

where one simulation movie clips that could might Locate suitable programmes for subsequently be assembled by those purposes. Microsoft Movie Maker. Having Learnt, how to introduce AI aircraft into a Cooper scene, I found it most reward-ing, by means of their choreography, to bring about a more convincing produc-tion. It was not until January 2011 that I acquired internet connection and there-fore prior to that date had been denied so much access to the global.

Yours sincerely,Maurice Copper

Richard Benedikz

Hi Maurice,We haven’t had any word on SDK

support for FSX Steam from Dovetail yet, but it is still early days. We will of course provide any updates once we get news on SDK support.

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IN THIS ISSUE WE START TO EXAMINE THE MOST VISIBLE OF METEROLOGICAL PHENOMENON–CLOUDS AND HOW THEY FORM

the Flight Simmer’S guide to weather

which will allow this parcel to expand in size. This expansion causes the pressure within that parcel to decrease which in turn causes the temperature of this air to decrease. If the temperature of this parcel of air falls to the dew point, we will see the water vapor condense and droplets form! {Isn’t science wonderful?!) These clever scientists have also discovered that the rate at which this temperature reduction occurs is related to whether or not the air is saturated. We can read volumes on the intricacies of how this works, but for our purposes we just need to understand that this dry air rate is around 3° (0/1000ft until the air reaches the saturation point when the rate reduces to around 1.5°C/1000ft. But what triggers these parcels of air to rise in the first place?

By appreciating how, when and where this rising of air can lead to cloud forma-tion and other weather phenomenon, pilots can be better prepared and hence fly more safely.

The atmosphere, by nature, contains moisture in the form of water vapor. The amount of moisture present in the atmo-sphere is dependent upon the temperature of the air. Every 20 °F increase in tempera-ture doubles the amount of moisture the air can hold. Conversely, a decrease of 20 °F cuts the capacity in half.

Water is present in the atmosphere in three states: liquid, solid, and gas-eous. All three forms can readily change

Having kicked off with a brief look at some of the properties of the air through which we fly, we can

now move on to some more detailed ele-ments that impact on us as pilots- the way air drculates around the globe and how this, mixed with water vapour, can create what is perhaps the most visible aspect of weather- clouds.

We learnt that the atmosphere is pre-dominantlymade up of nitrogen and oxygen with a smaller amount of inert gases. The atmosphere also contains small amounts of smoke and dust etc and we will see that they play an important role in weather. But arguably the single most important compo-nent of the atmosphere isn’t any of these; it is in fact water vapour. with the amount present measured as humidity. There is so much water vapour present in our atmo-sphere that it is never totally dry, and the amount present in di ferent parts of the atmosphere has very profound effects on the weather we experience. Weather is an important factor that influences aircraft-performance and flying safety.

It is the state of the atmosphere at a given time and place, with respect to vari-ables such as temperature (heat or cold), moisture (wetness or dryness), wind veloc-ity (calm or storm), visibility (clearness or cloudiness), and barometric pressure (high or low). The term weather can also apply to adverse or distructive atmospheric con-ditions, such as high winds. This feature explains basic weather theory and offers pilots background knowledge of weather. It is designed to help them gain a good understanding of how weather affects daily flying activities.

Understanding the theories behind weather helps a pilot make sound weather decisions based on the reports and forecasts obtained from a Flight. Service Station (FSS)

weather specialist and other aviation weather services. Be it a local flight or a long cross-country flight, decisions based on weather can dramati-cally affect the safety of the flight.

Altitude and FlightAltitude affects every aspect of flight from

aircraft performance to human performance. At higher altitudes, with a decreased atmo-spheric pressure, take off and landing distances are increased, as are climb rates. When an air-craft takes off, lift must be developed by the flow of air around the wings. If the air is thin, more speed is required to obtain enough lift for takeoff; therefore, the ground run is longer.

An aircraft that requires 745 feet of ground run at sea level requires more than double that at a pressure altitude of 8,000 feet. It is also true that at higher altitudes, due to the decreased density of the air, aircraft engines and propellers are less efficient. This leads to reduced rates of climb and a greater ground run for obstacle clearance.

Air Pressure revisedWe have already seen how varyin air pres-

sure has an indirect impact on our initial aircraft performance, but it goes further than that and to see why, let’s look at how air pressure varies across the Earth’s surface.

The equatorial regions experience more heating from the sun and hence we see a thick troposphere in this area, while the density of cooler air at the poles causes the troposphere to be narrower than at the equator. As these pools of air rise or fall the air pressure within them also rises and falls. This causes a lowering of relative air pressure at the Earth’s surface at that site. Conversely, as dense air from the upper troposphere descends, the air pressure at that point on the Earth’s surface increases. If we were to measure the surface air pressure at each of these sites across a large area (and the weather

stations of the world do just this), we can plot points on a chart.

It is a little more complex than this as each measurement is corrected for the height of the weather station above or below mean sea level but this is beyond the scope of this explanation and we don’t want you nodding off! When we join all points with the same surface air pressure with a line. Which should be more familiar! The lines which join these points of equal pressure. If the isobars are very close together, the gradient is steep and we will experience strong winds. Conversely, widely spaced isobars indicate a low gradient and gentle winds.

In very general terms, the air in high pressure systems is quite stable and hence we usually see pleasant weather. Areas of low pressure where the air is unstable and rising rapidly can lead to rapid cloud build up, precipitation and strong. Gusty winds, examining the isobars on weather maps can also indicate approximate , winds tend to flow parallel to the isobars wind direc-

tion. But of course, the Earth is rotating and hurtling through space, so air instead flows around the isobars. For example, if we are in the northern hemisphere, these forces cause the gradient wind to flow par-allel to the isobars.

You will notice that this results in the winds flowing in a counter clockwise direc-tion around a low pressure system and in a clockwise direction around a high pressure system. Note: In the southern hemisphere

however, these are reversed!) The effects of friction from objects such as hills and buildings etc cause the air flow up to several thousand feet to move slightly across the isobars. So now a pilot can view a weather map and quickly determine not only the likelihood of stable weather but also the approximate wind speed and direction!

TemperatureBeing just like any other gas or mixture

of gases, air follow as some fundamental laws of physics, which for our purposes can be summarized as follows:

j As air is heated, it expands

jWhen air cools it contracts

j When air is compressed, it heats up

j When air is decompressed, it cools downAn easy way to demonstrate this is to

pump up a bicycle tire. As you compress the air into the tire, the air and tire heat up. As you release the compressed air, you can feel that the temperature of the escap-ing {and decompressed) air is much cooler. The same principal is used for refrigeration where a compressor pumps a refrigerant into a tank before slowly releasing the compressed refrigerant.

This results in a very cold flow of vapors that is used to remove heat from the con-tents of the refrigerator. So, as a parcel of air rises in the atmosphere, you can expect its pressure to reduce, which in turn low-ers its temperature and density, and of

course the opposite holds true if the parcel of air descends through the atmosphere. Earlier, we also saw that air always contains varying amounts of water vapor which is expressed as humidity.

For any given temperature, the air can contain just so much water vapor before it condenses to form visible water droplets which manifest them-selves as fog or clouds. The point at which this condensation occurs in a parcel of air is called the dew point. As the temperature of any par-cel of air rises, so does its ability to hold on to more water vapor before condensation occurs. For example, a parcel of air at 40° (can absorb far more water vapor than the same parcel of air at 10°. Indeed, the atmosphere over a trop-ical ocean can include 60 times as much water vapor as that high over the poles! Now we can tie together some of the related points that we have examined in isolation.

Let’s first examine a parcel Dense layers of clouds form across the New Zealand Alps as

moisture-laden air is pushed up by the high mountain ranges Condensation Turbulence of moist air often results in layers of start form, or layered, clouds Condensation Level.

As this parcel of air rises, we have already seen that it is subject to a lower air pressure

“Moist air flows of different temperatures can make clouds through a process called advec-tion of air as it travels through the atmosphere.”

“If the Earth was station-ary, the wind would flow directly from the center of the high to the center of the low pressure system.”

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forms an extremely concentrated vortex from the surface well into the cloud. Mete-orologists have estimated that wind in such a vortex can exceed 200 knots with pres-sure inside the vortex quite low. The strong winds gather dust and debris and the low pressure generates a funnel-shaped cloud extending downward from the cumulonim-bus base. If the cloud does not reach the surface, it is a funnel cloud; if it touches a land surface, it is a tornado.

This danger can be Exacerbated if the pilot tries to fly up valleys to pass the range as the condensation level can sud-denly fall below their altitude resulting in possible cloud formation all around them sadly this is still a major cause of flight aircraft accidents when pilots failed to have had a warning sign and turn back early. If this flow of moist air passes over generally rugged terrian As depicted The resulting turbulence mixes the layer of air which can cause the creation of strat-iform clouds those that appear in layers above the condensation level.

For pilots this usually only means some uncomfortable bumps as you transit the area the are probably familiar with the fact that it’s darker object left out the sun will absorb heat. this object can cause the air near it to heat up and hence start to rise through their atmosphere in a pro-cess called thermal convection. Again

to another, and all are present within the temperature ranges of the atmosphere. As water changes from one state to another, an exchange of heat takes place. These changes occur through the processes of evaporation, sublimation, condensation, deposition, melting, or freezing. However, water vapor is added into the atmosphere only by the processes of evaporation and sublimation. Evaporation is the changing of liquid water to water vapor. As water vapor forms, it absorbs heat from the near-est available source.

This heat exchange is known as the latentheat of evaporation. A good example is the evaporation ofhuman perspiration. The net effect is a cooling sensation as heat is extracted from the body. Similarly, sub-limation is the changing of ice directly to water vapor, completely by passing the liq-uid stage. Though dry ice is not made of water, but rather carbon dioxide, it demon-strates the principle of sublimation, when a solid turns directly into vapor.

Triggers Weather can pose serious hazards to

flight and a thunderstorm packs just about every weather hazard known to aviation into one vicious bundle. These hazards occur individually or in combinations and most can be found in a squall line. As wind moves across the landscape, it may

be moved higher by the terrain. As the air is forced to rise over the terrain, it is cooled at the environmental lapse rate, the rate at which the air temperature changes in that parcel of air in those environmental conditions. For a thunder-storm to form, the air must have sufficient water vapor, an unstable lapse rate, and an initial lift-ing action to start the storm process.

Some storms occur at random in unstable air, last for only an hour or two, and produce only moder-ate wind gusts and rainfall. These are known as air mass thunderstorms and are generally a result of surfaceheating. Steady-state thunderstorms are associated with weather systems. Fronts, con-verging winds, and troughs aloft force upward motion spawning these storms which often form into squall lines. In the mature stage, updrafts become stronger and last much longer than in air mass storms, hence the name steady state. If the temperature of the air falls to its dew point, cloud will form above this condensation level.

This phenomenon is often seen where moun-tain ranges rise from surrounding plateaus and is characterized by clouds forming over the ridges or peaks and is called orographic cooling. Care-ful VFR pilots will be wary of this activity as it is almost always associated with turbulence and Possible when shears as the winds rapidly climb up one side of the range and then rapidly descend down the other.

The most violent thunderstorms draw air into their cloud bases with great vigor. If the incom-ing air has any initial rotating motion, it often

this parcel of air will then start to cool at the lapse rate described above and if it reaches its dee point, cloud will form.

Again this doesn’t normally cause any difficulties for pilots other than the turbulence associated with the rapidly rising air. The terrain doesn’t always play a part in cloud formation for example if two opposing moist winds of mildly dif-ferent temperature meet the resulting mixing advection can result in the tem-perature of the mixed air dropping to the saturation point Perhaps a more com-monly knowns and more highly visible methods of triggers vertical air move-ment is frontal activity, a cold front,

air is lifted, the temperature drops and condensation occurs.

Next time We will continue to explore more

triggers and the cloud types and flying conditions that occurs. In the meantime start using mean sea level pressure charts, to see how it correlates with the actual wind speed and directions as you fly and pay attention to the cloud types as the triggers start to appear. — Peter Stark

where large mass of cool moist air is blowing in toward a mass of warmer air. At the point where the air masses meet, the dense, cool air pushes the warm, less dense air upwards. As the large moist air can hold large amount of water vapor, the precipitation resulting from hos phenomena can be substantial and isn’t the sort of environment where VFR pilots like to fly. A warm front occurs when a warm mass of air advances and replaces a body of colder air. Warm fronts move slowly, typi-cally 10 to 25 miles per hour (mph). The slope of the advancing front slides over the top of the cooler air and gradually pushes it out of the area. Warm fronts contain warm air that often have very high humidity. As the warm


Triggers

Wind Shears

Change in Temperature

Lightening

Advantages of Simulators to Avoid Triggers

3-D Radar System provide pilots with a full view of the weather by scanning in altitude in and out view of the aircraft.

Automatic Operation and instinctive Display

Rerout faster during hazardeus weather.

Better security with advance wind shears and turbulence detection with alerts.

Predicting Storms and lightening with 93% accuracy five to ten minutes before happening.

RELEASE OF torNado gr1 BY JuSt Flight

16

Tornado GR1

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veloper.com. I'm sure that every project

will have the aircraft, being able to use

both its own set of challenges. After the

stations, and lots of interesting Tornado

we will be working on the systems not

commonly seen on Socata TB-20, which on

the face of it other FS aircraft- SPILS, Air

to Air might seem like a relatively simple

refuelling. TFR and so on. However, the

plan is to simulate it to a very high level

and that will no doubt present its own

unique set of challenges to overcome.

PC Pilot: As a fan of the Tornado, I for

one can't wait for this simulation to be

released. Our thanks go to Richard Slater

and the rest of the Just Flight team for

taking part in this interview. We wish

them all the best with their Tornado GRl

simulation. j By Derek Davis

“What would you say have been the most challenging aspects of this project?” –PC Pilot

have been replicated?

Richard Slater: During our research

trip to document ZA465 we recorded the

sounds of the switches and mechanical

parts. The engine sounds will be supplied

by Turbine Sounds Studio, so they should

be up to their usual high standards. The

TFR feature has an interesting birth. As you

may or may not know, there is no docu-

mented way of accessing the terrain ele-

vation data in FSX other than immediate-

ly below your aircraft, which of course is

of no use for a terrain avoiding system. In

the past people have been able to come

up with some solutions such as importing

a separate elevation database, but that

may not actually match up exactly to the

terrain shown in the sim, or spawning a

series of dummy aircraft out in front of your

aircraft, we can have negative impacts on

performance. Readers might not be aware

that nn we spent a considerable amount

of time negotiating with Microsoft in

taking over the FS licence from them in order

to develop a successor to FSX as a joint venture

with a couple of other companies. Sadly that

didn't come to fruition, but during that time we

were able to establish contacts with the people

who developed FSX and we gained insight into

the workings of the code. One of the things we

learnt was the very useful trick of being able to

pull the elevation data for any point in the flight

sim world, giving us the ability to have a fully

working TFR system.

Richard Slater: A great deal The Canberra

was the first main project any of us had ever

worked on so the learning curve with that

was enormously steep. During the Canberra

project we had all sorts of problems to do

with pushing the FS tools beyond their limits

and having to learn how to work around that

in order to compile a working aircraft. Luckily

there are some invaluable resources and people

in the community who are always willing to

share their knowledge and experience, lots

of whom gather on great sites such as FSDe-


Getting those working in FSX is quite a

challenge as there is no facility for things

like TFR, SPILS and TACAN in the sim, so

all the codingfor that has to be done in-

dependent of the sim.

PC Pilot: The screenshots, as seen in

this article, are pretty impressive. Describe

the work that has been done to date on

the graphical side of things, both inter-

nally and externally.

Richard Slater: As result I think the

Tornado visuals will give anything else

available for FSX a run for its money. Again

the same artist one Mark Griffiths, who

worked wonders on the Canberra is the

man for the job on this one too.

Richard Slater: The pilot’s station will

have an entirely clickable cockpit Every

switch in there will work and be Linked

to a system. The navigator’s station will

have a Lot of functionality. You will be

This shot illustrates the authentic cockpit

wear and weathering able to use the map

and navigational.

PC Pilot: The terrain-following radar in-

formation on the central panel and system

is one of the distinguishing use either

the TV screen to load and features of the

Tornado. Tell us how display flight plans,

manage your this has been implement-

ed into the fuel and configure weapons

Load- simulation and did you encoun-

ter outs. However, and this is a good any

challenges in replicating this example of

where limitations of the feature?

Richard Slater: Platform become an issue

we’ve actually hit the limit of the number

of animations that FSX can handle, so it’s

unfortunately not possible to get every-

thing working in the rear position.

PC Pilot: Can you tell us about the

nature of the work that has gone into

the audio simulation and which elements

by arranging for access to ZA465 which is now

a museum piece at the Imperial War Museum,

Duxford. We spent a full day at the museum pho-

tographing and videoing every inch of it inside

and out After that we were able to obtain copies

of plans, pilots’ notes and performance charts

from various different contacts and sources. (A

video of the research trip is available to view on

Just Flight’s website: www.justflight.com - Ed).

Although we are including other liveries and

configurations in our package, ZA465 will be the

baseline for our Tornado simulation.

PC Pilot Were any currentpr past Tornado

pilots enlisted as consultants on the project and

if so in which capacity did they advise?

Richard Slater: We are very fortunate to have

access to a very experienced and knowledge-

able group of gentlemen who we are able to

consult with during the development stage of

the project, before we get anywhere near the

beta stage. Chaps like Dave Sweetman and Bruce

Martin have had long careers in the RAF. which

included working directly on the Tornado, and

Paul Frimston who is a walking talking technical

manual. That sort of assistance is invaluable

and allows the real flavour and quirks of the

aircraft to come to life in the sim.

PC Pilot: Tell us about the work that has

gone into the systems modelling. Specifically,

which systems have been modelled and to what

extent? In addition, did you encounter any par-

ticular challenges and limitations with respect to

the host software in modelling those features?

Richard Slater: All of the systems controlled

by the pilot have been authentically modelled.

That includes systems such as TFR, SPILS, HUD,

air to air refuelling. TACAN radios and so on.

Just Flight first published a Tornado

simulation for FS2002 and FS2004 to

great acclaim at the time (it's still

available for sale on the Just Flight website).

I for one was a great fan of that addon,

so when we heard the team was working

on a brand new version, we invited pro-

grammer Richard Slater, to tell us about

the work being undertaken, as well as

outline the main objectives of the project.

PC Pilot: Thanks for agreeing to take part

in this interview about your next project:

Tornado GRl. Can I start by asking what at-

tracted your team to this particular aircraft?

Richard Slater: At JF. we have an in-

teresting and successful history with the

Tornado. The version we published back in

the days of F52002 and F52004 was great

and it's perhaps been the most consistent-

ly requested product from our customers

over the years, be it at shows or via online

forums and websites. So, when we were

weighing up what project to undertake

next it was a pretty easy decision in the end.

PC Pilot: What would you say were your

main objectives with this project, particu-

larly with respect to its scope and detail?

Richard Slater: As with this team's first

project, the Canberra PR9.we wanted to

couple the very best modeling and textur-

ing with authentic system coding.

PC Pilot: tell us the kind of preliminary

research that has gone into this aircraft.

Richard Slater: We began the project

“Will Tornado GRl come of the aircraft by the people who are with a fully clickable cockpit and actually going to be building?”

“For me. the Tornado has always been THE jet. In the same way that when somebody says 'sports car' some people will conjure says 'jet' my mind goes straight to the Tornado.”

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