I made the same mistake with the TB20. What an awful addon.
Hello everyone. So sorry about those wanting an exact replica of the ‘original’ prototypes. Well, let me tell you why they are not exact.
- No photos of the interiors. And the interiors were stripped down. Only artist renditions existed of a finished interior.
Because of this, I sought to make out a ‘new interior’, a ‘finished’ interior, and used todays state of the art Garmin system from the Beech Kingair. It is modern, it is what people (like my nephew) are flying today. I could have made one with a classic Lear panel of that era, but this was a prototype that was for doing flight time and again, no good photos exist of the panel, and the interior was ribbed, no inner shell was made yet. - The aircraft has a V tail and so she will have pitching, but also has a lower tail that is vertical so she will cut the air equal to her CG, so no torque turn input from rudder response. Bonanza’s porpoise lightly (that have V-tails) and I sought to input that into her tune.
- DarthMelbius states you cannot switch between NAV modes. Sorry, you can. Its even in the manual as I knew people would have issues with this. Radios and nav sources are selected on the Mini screens on the Pedestal.
Sorry for those of you expecting a gutted empty interior with just ribbs and a thrown together rough panel of steam gauges. I wanted something Bill Lear wanted, the finished product, and at todays standards, state of the art. A what-if of what the LearFan would be today, competing against Beech and Cessna and Daher in the turboprop arena. If you do not like my state of the art finished interior, thats ok. I like those bulbous switches too, lol. I wanted something like space shuttle switches that maybe Luigi Colani would have designed. I wanted ‘ultimate cool’, not todays or yesterdays old things. This was an open canvas project on the interior and I went full bore on it. I didnt want old fashioned toggles, I wanted something new and custom and advanced.
- Lastly, I selected a single turbine layout for 3 reasons. 1, MSFS couldnt do this without serious coding that may have taken several months alone to do and would have been buggy. (Two engines, one prop, MSFS coding, make that happen). 2. The FAA blocked Moyra from launching the LearFan because of the transmission, and it was quite heavy. Notes on the testing showed the plane was overweight, and John Lear, CIA pilot and son of Bill Lear states this. 3. I chose to do a modern rendition of a single engine. The new EX model Pratt and Whitney ‘fits’ in this aeroshell and I used it. If I was in charge of this plane, I would have used this. Bigger, twice the power of the twin turbines, uses less fuel, less weight, and less to maintain, and longer work life between rebuilds/maintenance. Win/win and I think Bill Lear would have done it if he had that engine today.
That said, I hope those of you that can see this approach I went from will enjoy it. She has state of the art Garmin screens so she isnt totally alien to manage, she looks sweet, and she is fun to fly. I had a blast building and testing her.
Sorry about the jagged edges on the windscreen. I was nagged about that from my test pilots. Bad me. I did try to improve it and it went horribly bad, so I kept it. I did improve it as much as possible, but it failed. I may give it another go and see about refining that.
She was built with much love. I have always appreciated this radical design.
I was sad that John Lear didnt get a chance to test it out during the build. I emailed him the invite one day after he died. I found out later he had passed. He had filled me in on it in great detail. Sad to lose him. Great guy.
Bill Ortis
Lionheart Creations
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One of the very few photos on this planet of an interior of one of the 3 LearFans.
Just a side note on the panel… Remember, this isnt a ‘LearJet’. His firm, that firm he started, was sold to Goodyear and later was sold to the Canadian firm. Bill Lear started a ‘new’ company, LearAvia. A
new company, a new plane. Competitors in the Executive aviation sector, but not directly competing with the ‘jet’ market, though the LearFan was very fast and probably could hold its ground against some of the slower jets.
So remember, a LearJet panel wouldnt have been right. LearJet is LearJet, and LearAvia was a new firm, a new plane.
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You can also switch Nav source in the menus. Not that hard to find.
One thing I noticed - what is the deal with the overspeed tape? Does that update as you go over a certain altitude? Its supposed to cruise at 280 but shows overspeed (I was at 10k feet).
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Have to say, this manual is awesome - best put together plane manual Ive seen. Good job on that!
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Question for you about this plane - the screens have a white washed look to them, can you make them more clear in an update? They look a bit milky for some reason. Also, should the tape show overspeed below a certain altitude?
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Refunded by MS.
Hello Fox,
The white wash is from the screen bounce light effect which illumiates the cabin, replicating light from the screens. I did try adjusting this, farther back or lessening it caused the cabin area’s (realestate around the screens) to go dark. I wish I knew how to have the glow there without a screen reflection. If I find a way to get around that, I will have it updated.
On speed tapes, if you overspeed, it should show and announce it. Speeds are going to be based on TAS, not KIAS. Watch the black tape zone below, the TAS will be what the system is registering with.
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Since the days of FS9 when he gave every moderator at Sim-Outhouse a free copy of his Kodiak. And we talk regularly on FB. He lives in Arizona and I’m in North Carolina, so we’ve never met face to face, but I consider him a friend.
@LyonHaart001 Hiya Bill!
I support you and won’t say anything bad outright about your plane. But as a designer… those “bulbous switches” are not modern lol. They look like something off of a late 90’s website. With all due respect of course. I’m honestly not sure I’ve seen switches like that in any modern or futuristic vehicles unless it was on something made by fisher price.
I want to reiterate. This isn’t to denigrate or make fun of it. I appreciate that this took lots of work. I just think most designers (that is, the majority) would absolutely disagree with your take on those switches.
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Tom, howdy.
Ive known Tom for many years. I consider this man a close friend and follow him on Facebook.
I don’t really have so much of a problem with the cockpit that people go into a rage about it…I just that with it being a Lear product, thus a “luxury” aircraft, it should have darker color tones. Most of the dials and switches look like a rainbow exploded in the cockpit and can be a bit jarring.
The button colors and their respective labels should really be a neutral color to fit within that modern look you’re going for.
However, I actually do have to give you MASSIVE credit for the switch that toggles the descriptor for every single button, switch and dial in the cockpit. Very nice touch. I’ve not seen something like that done yet.
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Bought it today and there’s a lot I like about it - sound set, liveries, speed, handling all very good - and the aircraft feels like a Lear - luxurious and fast - for a prophet… flew VCE-JER in 1:54 which is only 9 minutes more than the Hjet took - so if this had made it into production it would be very viable - especially for longer flights where the Hjet would have to pit stop.
Good work and you obviously have done a lot of research on the aircraft…
The bits that could be improved
Over speed tape doesn’t work - this is the biggest single issue that needs fixing as it’s difficult to fly without an accurate appreciation of allowable speed regime.
Autopilot oscillation- Nav mode doesn’t work without porpoising and you have to put her into heading mode - again an important improvement to make.
The Garmin map modes need expanding so that you can get more than a North up display, if possible…
Question:
Odd performance happened when I got to FL390 - lost all speed and torque disappeared, dropped down to 280 TAS I only managed to get close to 390 TAS at FL 330 - got 377 TAS , which was obviously temperature dependent - but is this what you’d expect from your experience? Performance wise (obviously there’s very little data to work with)
Overall you’ve done an excellent job on recreating what was obviously an amazing concept (and prototype) aircraft that looks really really special - it really does have that Lear feeling
Hello Stendec,
I havent had that happen. It does have icing in it. I wonder if the MSFS weather engine placed ice on your plane and you lost altitude until it had melted off? Ice also builds up inside the turbine intakes on turboprops. This would explain the odd issue and that it resumed when you had lost quite a bit of altitude.
Try doing it again and turn on all anti-ice switches for prop, engine, fuselage/wings and see if it maintains speed and altitude.
Bill
LHC
Hello my knobs don’t turn. I can’t set the altimeter using my mouse. I can’t do anything to adjust or set vertical speed. I just bought this plane today.
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Good idea - I shall try that - should have thought of that… thanks…
Agree - this is a great idea - and a very useful training aid…
Doesn’t this use the existing G3000? If so, grab the WT mod for that one and you should have Track Up available.
Thank you for making this aircraft available to msfs. To be honest, I never heard of it before. And while waiting for the P180 EVO or an sota gulfstream 650ER I found this. And immediately love it. Especially because it didn’t get stuck in the 70s 
.
Small business planes are very rare by now in msfs.
We need more of them beside all those jets and spacecraft we have seen lately.
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