SimWorks Studios and PILOT'S Dash 7!

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187

Do you plan to release the Dash 7 on OrbX? I bought the 314 Clipper direct from your site, but I really prefer the ease of updates of the OrbX client compared to the download/unzip/setup/login/confirm serial routine of the Pilot’s installer.

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188

Bought, but the download speed is so wretched won’t be trying it for 10 hours.

189

A few thoughts as I cruise on my first flight:

  • purchase was uneventful, download was quick.
  • interior graphics look good, no concerns there.
  • exterior textures are a bit too reflective maybe, but overall looks good on the outside too.
  • There are a few minor sound glitches but I’m sure those can be easily ironed out.
  • the engine sounds in sim sound much better than the YouTube preview that I saw…I was concerned when I saw the preview yesterday but in sim no worries.
  • don’t expect to fly this the same way you fly a dash 8 (particularly the very powerful Q400). My naive assumption was that a since Dash 7 looked like a Dash 8 with two more engines it must be a rocket ship. How wrong was I! The real Dash 7 is no speed demon I’ve come to learn. It cruises and climbs rather lethargically compared to a Dash 8. Also, recommended cruise is below 17,000ft unless it’s a really cold day according to this website: https://www.dash7.at/
  • some QOL items like a utility to load the aircraft would be appreciated.
  • I did find taxiing to be difficult, it’s hard to find a sweet spot between the aircraft running away from you vs grinding to a halt.
  • I’d love a Simbrief profile given how unique the aircraft is.

All in all so far it’s an interesting aircraft and I’m enjoying it once I dropped my preconceived notions about how a Dash 7 would fly.

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190

One other QOL item, I don’t seem to be able to map an axis to the propeller pitch, it’s a bit challenging to manipulate all four levers with try mouse rather than an axis.

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191

Thanks for the objective review. Hard to find these days.

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192

The beta range on the TBM-850 was fixed in a matter of days thanks to YouTuber Jaydee. In his preview video of the Dash-7 Jaydee pointed out the problem and offered his advice to the dev. Let’s hope the dev will listen because the current ‘full forward’ or ‘full reverse’ is really terrible.

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This is not a question of us listening or taking advice on board, it’s a question of finding a workaround for something that is currently hard coded by Asobo. We are fully aware of this and prior to release already were trying to find a way to circumvent the reverse thrust triggering full negative blade deflection.

Rest assured, as soon as we have a solution for this it will be implemented.

Jerome

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We have received a few support emails regarding an apparent weird cockpit noise that can be heard at take-off and touchdown.

In case you too are wondering what that sound is, it is the Flight Idle Gate snapping shut:

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The Dash 7’s Flight Idle Gate is designed to prevent the thrust levers being moved into reverse by accident during flight. It is automatically triggered by the wheels leaving the ground at take-off, the wheels touching the ground upon landing.

This was info provided to us by Air Tindi, who currently operate the largest real world fleet of Dash 7s. The sound you hear was taken from an actual real world flight in the Air Tindi Dash 7 cockpit and is 100% authentic.

Jerome

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Yes, it will be available elsewhere, though not necessarily soon.

The price elsewhere will also not be as low as at the PILOT’S store, as there are extra costs involved there.

Jerome

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196

Jaydee wrote about the beta principle in the TBM 850 thread:

Some more details:

  1. Yes it is a realisitic Beta Range that changes the Pitch gradually from its Normal Value at Flight Detent down to 0 at the lower end of the fwd Beta “Taxi” Range, which is by default now your hardware idle position. So there is zero thrust at your harware throttle idle position.
  2. If you have a reverse range or you using Reverse Activiation via Ingame Bindings, you can move the Ingame Throttle further back into Reverse range, still gradually reducing the Pitch doww to its maximum negative value, for maximum Reverse Thrust.
    3). If you have 2 Gates on your Hardware you can set the sensivity curve or use external tools like AAO or Spadnext to adjust you throttle curve, so that your “flight idle” detent is at plus 15% Throttle.
  3. Inflight the Flight Range for the Throttle is capped at min 15%. So the ingame Throttle will not go below “Flight” Idle (15%), even if you move your Hardwarethrottle completely back.
  4. For a landing that means, if you pull you hardware lever before touchdown to the 15% Position you can immediatley after touchdown, again move backwards into beta range. If you have moved your harware throttle to Zero position before touchdown, you would have to move it a little bit, so that the sim is registering you inputs and goes into Beta.
  5. Black Square is thinking about to implement an “advanced” option - which let you choose to disable the in flight limitation. So you can go intentionally or by accident into the beta range in flight.

Seems pretty much in line with the Dash-7 idle/beta safety measures.

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First: I love this aircraft, and my post is not to point fingers or something alike. Pilots have delivered a aircraft that is worth more then they charge for. I was really suprised by the low price tag.

I just believe, that a simple beta range implementation would greatly increase the fun of using this aircraft. So I made a small template, that you as a user can try out, until Pilots comes up with a better implementation.

My Template only uses SDK vars, no fancy code. There still are SDK limitations, that dont play nicely in Beta range, ITT seems not to behave good and prop rpm can increase very high, if you stay long at disc position.
There are certainly more sophisticated ways to implement a beta range, but my template does the job, with a few minutes coding.

So if you want to have a simple beta range follow the steps:

  1. Edit (Notepad) engines.cfg line 92
    minimum_on_ground_beta = 15.2 (from 10)

  2. Open (Notepad) model/dhc7_interior.xml

  • Goto line 69 and make sure it reads /UseTemplate

  • goto end of the line and press enter so that you have an empty line 70

  • insert the following code:

      	<!-- JayDee Dash 7 Simple Beta Range Template-->
  	<UseTemplate Name="ASOBO_GT_Update">
  		<FREQUENCY>60</FREQUENCY>
  		<UPDATE_CODE>
  			(A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:1, Percent) 0 &lt; if{ 
  				1 (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED ACTIVE:1, Bool)
  				(A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:1, Percent) -11 &gt;= if{
  				15.2 (A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:1, Percent) 11 / 19.2 * + (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED POSITION:1, Degrees)
  			}
  			els{
  				-4 (A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:1, Percent) 11 + 14 / 10.48 * + (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED POSITION:1, Degrees)
  			}
  			}
  			els{
  				0 (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED ACTIVE:1, Bool)
  			}


  			(A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:2, Percent) 0 &lt; if{ 
  				1 (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED ACTIVE:2, Bool)
  				(A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:2, Percent) -11 &gt;= if{
  				15.2 (A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:2, Percent) 11 / 19.2 * + (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED POSITION:2, Degrees)
  			}
  			els{
  				-4 (A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:2, Percent) 11 + 14 / 10.48 * + (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED POSITION:2, Degrees)
  			}
  			}
  			els{
  				0 (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED ACTIVE:2, Bool)
  			}

  			(A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:3, Percent) 0 &lt; if{ 
  				1 (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED ACTIVE:3, Bool)
  				(A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:3, Percent) -11 &gt;= if{
  				15.2 (A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:3, Percent) 11 / 19.2 * + (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED POSITION:3, Degrees)
  			}
  			els{
  				-4 (A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:3, Percent) 11 + 14 / 10.48 * + (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED POSITION:3, Degrees)
  			}
  			}
  			els{
  				0 (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED ACTIVE:3, Bool)
  			}

  			(A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:4, Percent) 0 &lt; if{ 
  				1 (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED ACTIVE:4, Bool)
  				(A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:4, Percent) -11 &gt;= if{
  				15.2 (A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:4, Percent) 11 / 19.2 * + (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED POSITION:4, Degrees)
  			}
  			els{
  				-4 (A:GENERAL ENG THROTTLE LEVER POSITION:4, Percent) 11 + 14 / 10.48 * + (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED POSITION:4, Degrees)
  			}
  			}
  			els{
  				0 (&gt;A:PROP BETA FORCED ACTIVE:4, Bool)
  			}

  		</UPDATE_CODE>
  	</UseTemplate>

  • make sure next line is /Component

Save. Try Beta range in Game.
Beta is exclusively on hardware reverse axis to not mess with the rest of pilots flight model.
Minimum Thrust is at around -11 % Throttle, which is achieved when the center of the throttle levers are at the DISC marking on the quadrant.

Kind Regards
JayDee

12 Likes
198

@PILOTSdev I’ve had this on my list since I heard about it as I love classic regional transports.

Is this being released as a full release or early access?

I can only go by other reviews at the moment but a few concerns have been raised

  1. The manual looks incomplete
  2. No in-sim checklists
  3. Spoilers don’t function (heard this from someone else)
  4. Incomplete warning LEDs/alarms
  5. Arm rests can’t be moved and block the view of certain center pedestal controls
  6. VS/IAS autopilot modes don’t appear to engage (not documented in manual). Also seems possible to kill the autopilot some how.

Can the manual be downloaded prior to purchase?

At 20EUR this is still a lot of aircraft for the money but I’m holding off purchasing for now. If you could give any hints on any of these issues being fixed, it would certainly sway my decision.

One review I skimmed through to find some of this out:
Livestream first look at the PILOTS De Havilland DHC7 Dash in Microsoft Flight Simulator - YouTube

199

For those trying to map the condition/prop levers to one (or four) axis using AAO or Spad the aircraft uses
L:ENGINE_Lever_Condition_1,number (1 through 4). The values are 0-4 with 0 being cut-off and 4 max.
On the Bravo Throttle I’ve mapped the values 1-4 to an axis and 0 to the button below the detent to avoid accidential cut-offs.

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For #3, keep in mind assuming the spoilers work the same way as a Dash 8 you can’t activate them in flight using a lever like a 737 etc.

I’ll have to check again but I think they were working like a Dash 8 on my flight last night.

#6 I was able to use VS last night without issues.

201

Thank you I’ll give this a try tonight. Having some semblance of a working beta would be such a nice addition to an enjoyable aircraft.

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Thanks, don’t know exactly what JB was doing to be honest…he just managed to break it and couldn’t get it to switch on again. Hopefully later reviews will be more in depth.

203

The example shown on this Wikipedia page appears to have a straight leading edge.

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Did you forget something here or is this not needed?

205

Taking my first flight in it right now. Air Tindi WT GTS530 variant.

Started up with engines running despite selecting a parking stand. That was odd, but cutting the fuel condition off let me start from cold and dark. Startup was intuitive enough, but owning the Dash8-400 for Xplane 12 helped. Didn’t read the quickstart for any problems on that front were my own problem, but honestly it’s pretty easy to get up and running.

Couldn’t find a transponder though. Looked literally high and low in the cockpit, no transponder.

Condition lever is super sensitive, and trying to put it into ‘Normal Flow’ almost kills the engines, with prop RPM dropping below 600. A manual would REALLY help here, so that I know what sort of numbers I’m aiming for (Fuel flow, operating RPM, T5 numbers, TRQ numbers, whatever.)

It had a bit of trouble finding the route using GPS., but that might have been more of a me problem. Was able to turn onto it well enough after a quick heading nudge. The IAS button didn’t light up when pressed, but when ALT SEL was active the plane clearly adjusted its angle to maintain speed.

It’s enjoyable enough, and I’ll certainly fly it often, but the presentation just feels… not as professional as other add-ons. I’d say the price is about right, but if you’re expecting as good an experience as a Just Flight or even Aerosoft plane, you’re not going to be getting it.

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206

Thanks for the hint. I didn´t forget something, but I had to remove <> , otherwise, the text wasnt shown.