Boeing 307 Stratoliner does not meet performance numbers marketed on the product page

Bug Reporting Hub Aircraft & Systems
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2 tags are required: One for platform, and one for aircraft.

Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it?

Yes

Have you disabled/removed all your mods and addons? If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the Community Support section.

Yes

Which aircraft are you reporting an issue about? (Please also add the proper tag for it)

Boeing 307 Stratoliner

Brief description of the issue:

The addon does not meet the performance numbers marketed on the product page in the section Specifications, namely:
*Ceiling: 23,800 ft
*Cruise speed: 222 mph

The ceiling is much lower around 17,000 ft at which the addon is far from reaching advertised cruise speed. At this altitude the addon is cruising close to stall speed.

Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:

N/A

Detailed steps to reproduce the issue encountered:

Start a flight on any airport. Begin a slow climb in order to achieve a usable ceiling. When in higher altitudes (say above 10,000 ft) keep the climb rate no more than 100-200 ft/min. Lean properly as you climb. If necessary, perform step climb. Observe, that the addon is not able to reach advertised ceiling of 23,000 ft and is not able to reach advertised cruise speed.
Please address these issues or alternatively consider making the currently encrypted files available to mod by the community so that the customers can fix these (and other reported) issues themselves.

Thank you.

PC specs and/or peripheral set up if relevant:

N/A

Build Version # when you first started experiencing this issue:

1.33.8.0

:loudspeaker: For anyone who wants to contribute on this issue, Click on the button below to use this template:

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:

2

The included manual should really match the de rated engines that were delivered with the aircraft, not the dual-superchargers it seems to be based on.

3

based on the way the plane handles on the ground, I am betting that the main culprit is “induced drag” being a wrong number.

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4

I’d rather have the plane matching the numbers on the product page and the manual since it was the advertised performance that I based the purchase on.

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5

OP are you using REX Weather by any chance? I have experienced the unable to climb issue with various other aircraft from time to time using REX Weather. If I turn it off then the plane climbs as normal. This doesn’t happen on every flight but happens enough to be an issue.

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No I don’t.

This issue is experienced by others as well.

7

Ok. I don’t own that plane. Sorry I couldn’t help.

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8

You say lean the aircraft as you climb but the mixture does nothing. You can even put it on cut if you want. No effect.

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9

Thank you for this contribution to the bug report.

I am aware of it and there is also a bug report in this sense logged in this forum. It was closed with a remark “Acknowledge this is a bug but limitations in the sim at the moment have marked this by design.” so there we go.

I just want to make sure I followed a correct procedure no matter what other bugs (or design in this very case :slight_smile: ) are there.

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10

Technically, you’re asking that the marketing materials be updated to match the specifications of the actual model, as it’s most likely that AH either, built the model to the specifications they were told to, or, sold the product to Microsoft, and somebody in Microsoft didn’t fully read what AH told them they were making.

Or


MSFS can’t model a two stage supercharger without extensive programming by the developer, so this is what we get, and that change was communicated to Marketing too late to make it into the ad copy. I think this is most likely what happened?

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Well this being a bug report, I am just reporting a bug, not asking anything. Though my preferred solution is clear from this post here :grinning:

I based my purchase on the info on the product page which talks about ceiling of 23,800 ft and cruise speed of 222 mph.

The SDK provides for multiple speed supercharger already some time via the “new_supercharged” entry (and associated entries) in engines.cfg. AH already worked with it in their DC-3 so they are not new to this phenomenon. Other devs prefer to emulate supercharged engine via a workaround using “turbocharged” entry in the config.

Either way
 if they just update the marketing materials and call it a day, then all the copies they sold till now were mismarketed. Which is perhaps still legal but not really a good business practice. ‘I was buying a pizza prosciutto based on the picture in menu but got pizza margarita instead’ thing.

Let’s wait and hope for a good solution for customers! :+1: :crossed_fingers:

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12

Yeah, but that’s the issue, it’s not a bug.
It is working as designed and Marketing got it wrong.

But it’s certainly reasonable to ask that a different model be modeled than what was originally specified.

I’m pretty sure, however, (60% sure?), that MSFS can’t handle two stage superchargers. IOW, there are reasons why it was designed as it was. So that throws the request out the window if that’s true, unless it sparks a two stage supercharger functionality to be brought to the front of the backlog line, which is not impossible.

But then again, I could be totally wrong on this, which throws my whole discussion out the window.

13

Anyway I look at it, it is a bug from my perspective.

You may be right in what you are saying though I hope you are not because while the legacy FSX code on superchargers was wrong, MSFS introduced a new code which was supposed to

  • correct the old FSX issue, and
  • provide for multi-speed supercharger support (up to 5 gears).

https://docs.flightsimulator.com/html/Content_Configuration/SimObjects/Aircraft_SimO/Additional_CFG_Information.htm#supercharger

So if you are right, the new code is wrong :grimacing:

But then again there are workarounds like the one with faking it with turbocharger code. That way I was able to correct the Electra (same developer by chance?) which now performs pretty close to the official perf charts.

Not trying to be difficult here, only keeping my hopes high :+1:

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Same developer. AH is quite lazy when it comes to product development in regard to systems. Apparently they’ve even quoted they consider their models to be nice looking toys (I don’t have a reference for this though). Be that as it may, “Study Level” is not anywhere on their radar. They develop easy to use, hopefully “fun” models for people to fly a few times and then move on is essentially their motto. Their main skills seem to be in 3D modeling and texturing, but they tend to work quickly and don’t mind being sloppy.

My problem is, they choose planes to sell that are slap dab right in the middle of what I look for
 thankfully there’s people like you who help to fix up some of their offerings.

P.S. I also get the feeling AH doesn’t feel it’s necessary to use any of the new features of MSFS, and essentially just pump things out as modifications of their previous models.

I hope someday they prove me wrong.

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16

I have two planes in MSFS that have working two-stage blowers. the DC-6 and the Hellcat.

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17

Not manually controlled, tho, right?

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The DC-6 is manually controlled. The hellcat auto-switches when you pass 12000

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Yeah, the PMDG DC-6 is a two stage supercharged aircraft with manual controls for them. Once you pass a certain altitude where your MP is not sustainable anymore, you need to put the blowers on HIGH mode and off you go
 so
 no. Not a good excuse. :wink:

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I tthink tthat depends on your attitude, and contract in this case. PMDG wrote their own supercharger code. I doubt AH has the skills or desire to do that. They’re probably waiting for Asobo to fix their code so it works properly.

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