Grumman Albatross HU-16/G111 Thread

Currently its not possible to operate one engine with forward thrust and the other one in reverse simultaniously to produce a strong momentum. I think its a limitation of the sims physics. At least thats what I found. Axis and ohs will noit help much, if that is the case. If someone knows a possibility to get the effect somehow, please let us know.

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I am by no means an expert, however this is what I have set up in Axis and Ohs for my Honeycomb Bravo. This is only one way, I am sure there may be others depending on what hardware you are using. Also, reverse could be improved if you were using an axis to control it, that would provide a range. My solution uses the switches on the bravo axis to provide full reverse and then idle when returning to the idle stop on the honeycomb. This solution utilizes MSFS Input Events (IE:).

This is the throttle 1 axis:

This is the Reverse Switch for throttle 1:

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Good. Another way of doing it is setting up a separate axis with the reverse axis (0 to -15) and the throttle reverse lever on the Boeing throttle as a combo to enable the axis ( and to turn of the normal positive throttle axis).

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@CelloCellinsky You absolutely can get a decent powered rotation in place if you put one engine in full reverse and the other at around 1/3 forward throttle.

Max reverse RPM is around 1600, so if you set one engine to that and match the other with 1600 forward RPM you should just spin without forward or backward movement. You’ll know it’s working when the reversed engine is covering your windshield in water. :wink:

I have limited the yaw rate to around 3 degrees per second though. The Albatross is a heavy plane with a deep draft at rest in the water, and a long hull, so it has a lot of inertia and water drag to overcome. Something like a Twin Otter on floats would be able to manoeuvre much more rapidly on the water with differential thrust. The key to manoeuvring on water at low speed is to anticipate power changes needed and start them a couple of seconds before you need them. Also reduce throttle slowly when coming out of reverse, as the blades change angle faster than the rpm can drop, resulting in a slight forward push before reaching idle. It takes some practice, but once you get it you’ll be surprised how tight of a space you can manoeuvre the big bird in.

Fun sidebar: If devs don’t actively limit the yaw rate you can get some wild results, over 360 degrees per second, which looks hilarious but is almost uncontrollable, since the sim only simulates translational water drag properly right now. Hopefully this will improve in the future.

Cheers.

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And this seems to be the only way to get rid of the bug juice on the windshield!! I now use the reverse thrust, even when not necessary, to get the windows scrubbed clean. The option on the EFB doesn’t seem to do anything - at least for me.

I’m now just half way across Canada having put over 12,000 nautical miles behind me with the goal of flying at least 22,000nm - more distance than the circumference of the Earth at the Equator. I have more water landings than land landings by a factor of 3.5 to 1 so the windshield is kept pretty clean.

@Servia8729: You’re so right - this is perhaps the greatest plane in MSFS right now.

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It certainly is, IF you have a controller(s) with two engine axes available.

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@AerobaticAce Thanks! The windshield spray shouldn’t have any effect on the “cleanliness” of the windshield though. I think what you’re seeing is just the general wear and scratches, which are more or less apparent depending on the lighting conditions.

The “Remove Insects” checklist board option is just to remove (or prevent) insects that accumulate over time. Those will only hit the windshield under very specific circumstances though, the same way they would in reality. By default you would run into them all the time, but I set up the Albatross so that you’ll only encounter them when flying lower than 1500’ AGL over land, and only if the temperature is above zero degrees C. If flying over open water, or ice, or snow you’ll never hit any, regardless of altitude.

Your trip sound great btw. :slight_smile:

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Still works fine dragging the engine throttles with mouse unless it was recently changed.

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And how to do? I can get different forward thrust per thottle-lever, but there is no reverse-command per throttle-lever. Only all at once or none. So throttle 1 forward and throttle 2 in reverse simultaneous is not possible with msfs default keybinds as far as Im aware. Msfs 2024 btw.
Maybe there is a way without complicated third-party tools to solve this?
Thanks, Cello

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Well, I think there is an easy way. I freed up the assignments for the functions keys F5 - F8 on my keyboard and assigned the following:

F5: Throttle 1 decrease
F6: Throttle 1 increase
F7: Throttle 2 decrease
F8: Throttle 2 increase

It’s working just fine and as soon as you slightly move the normal throttle lever, both throttles go back to what the throttle lever demands.

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This has been discussed previously in the thread at least once or twice. If you have physical axis levers or sliders, Set engines 1 and 2 to Throttle 0% - 100%. Anything below a certain percentage (around 30% I think) puts that engine into Beta. Right at that point is Idle, The rest of the range is forward thrust.

If you don’t have physical levers or sliders to use, you can still click and drag the thrust lever into beta range.

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Can you tell me how many nautical miles you flew during your flight? My goal is to try to exceed that distance simply flying across Canada. At just over half way across Canada I’m on track to exceed the circumference of the Earth at the equator but I’d like to now set a new goal.

edit: I took your map and the closest I can come, on Google Maps, is about 25,100nm with 46 fuelling stops. Fuel isn’t a problem in my case as I always fuel up fully whenever I can and airports are fairly close together here.

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Hi @AerobaticAce,

You’re close to it I think! Volanta says 46 stops and 26.0k nm. Not sure if that is map based or real distance flown recorded; I had a few legs that bugged out and that I had to tinker with, so there might be a little discrepancy.

Show us your map for the Canada trip!

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Here it is:

I fly the way my wife and used to do day trips in our convertible: only during the day in nice weather and, while we had a destination in mind, sometimes we never got there because of side trips.

This is the 4th version of my Epic Cross Canada Quests; the first 2 were flown east to west then return in my Carenado WACO YMF-5. The 3rd was an East to West in my Blackbird Cessna 310R. The 310R was the most finicky needing fairly long smooth runways. Those were all done MSFS 2020. Whereas the others needed runways this one is most fun being able to just drop down somewhere in a body of water for lunch and a bit of fishing.

All my ECCQs start on the East coast at St. Johns NL and head west. Right now I’m in Schist Lake just off the point of Channing MB - that’s the end of the line farthest west on the map. I started on Sunday, July 14, 2024 and right this moment it is August 26, 2024. In real life I started this on Sunday, May 5th, of this year.

Every leg starts where the last leg finished and, unless I’m at an aerodrome where I can fuel up, I start with the fuel I ended the flight with. My next leg is a convoluted one down to Brandon Municipal. Unless it looks like I’ll run out of gas then I’ll take a shortcut.

I use what METARs I can find in the areas I’m flying and make custom weather changing the presets every 30 minutes or less.

Total flight time so far is 86.6 hours and the distance is 12,234 nautical miles. I don’t count take off and landing distances or places I’ve circled just flightseeing, like Rankin Inlet NU and Port Dover ON. I place the flight path on Goggle Maps and count the distance shown.

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep say it: this is the best plane in MSFS for me!!

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Thank you all so much for the suggestions and your consideration regarding my throttle question. I am sorry I didn’t check back in earlier - I wasn’t ignoring your comments, I promise!

I think it sounds worth trying out Axis and Ohs… Even if it doesn’t solve this exact issue it certainly looks like a useful piece of software to have to hand.

Definitely a firm favourite, @Ramasurinen - thank you for your work on it. And it’s fantastic to see @AerobaticAce ‘s Canada journeys. This is exactly the sort of flying I’ve been trying to find the perfect aircraft for.

Again, I appreciate all your thoughts and suggestions. I’ll go tweak some axes and see what happens. :grin:

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I’ve noticed my Hobbs meters resetting to 31.9 hrs which is what it was… quite a while ago.

Flights are being recorded in the log book, and the hobbs work normally while flying, then revert when I load the sim again. Is this due to SU-4 beta? Has anyone run into this?

Flying the HU-16 around Hawaii for the first time and I love it. Tried the G-111 earlier, but I honestly don’t really enjoy the glass cockpit.

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Sounds like you could have a cloud save problem? SU4 introduces a popup to indicate that their cloud saving is corrupted have you had that Cloud save error (error code:1047... and now 2047).

On a reload of the sim does it also revert to an older selected plane, no matter what you flew last?
AFAIK the hobbs is a pretty basic instrument in all planes, relying on the underlying sims state save abilities.

No, I’ve never seen that.

It always reverts to the last plane I flew.

Yea that’s what I thought too (about Hobbs), but the 182Q from Carenado doesn’t work right. Once it reaches 10 hrs it just rolls through 10 over and over - so there can be bugs.

@TheBlackWind977 I did some quick testing tonight on the hobbs meters, in both the Albatross and default Cessna 172 G1000, with dev mode off, and I’m not seeing any updates being made to the state.cfg files for either plane after flying (in SU4 beta).

The hobbs meter counts upwards during flight but the final value isn’t being saved and resets with each new flight / sim load. I don’t remember this being an issue before, so maybe a new problem?

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