Wow, that’s great 
1 Like
So I like this plane quite a bit but always felt that something was off with its performance, it just doesn’t fell quite STOL enough, and watching videos of the real plane, the in-sim version is quite under-performant.
So I decided to take matters into my own hands and, using the various lengthy videos available of this plane as reference, I modified the flight dynamics a little bit to allow it to more easily take off at the speeds seen IRL and referenced in JD’s checklist. I also modified the engines to remove the torque limiter at 4200 lb-ft since I didn’t see any reference to the real plane having one in the AFM.
This means you can now push the engines to their max takeoff power of 4860 lb-ft, and you can also over-torque them, although there’s no damage simulation in this so you don’t need to worry about blowing them up. Same for the N5 temps, they will get quite hot at this power so throttle back right after takeoff.
I wanted to make the prop drag effect a lot more pronounced but unfortunately rising the previously mentioned prop_mod_zero_lift_frag_cf also introduces a lot of parasite drag even when the engines are producing thrust which was hurting performance, especially cruise and climb tremendously, so I decided to leave it at the default.
And lastly, I made the HSI slaved, so you don’t need to constantly adjust it anymore, as it should be.
Hoping I’m in no violations of any rules regarding config file sharing, I’ll leave the files here for you all to try and give feedback on before I upload to fs.to. Just move the ungen-dhc-7-mod folder to your community folder.
4 Likes
For those wanting reverse sounds added to engines 2, 3, and 4 (which are missing), edit your sound.cfg as follows…add the following below the three entries for Engine 1:
[DHC7_PROP_2_00]
filename=DHC7_eng2_reverse_beta
flags=8
viewpoint=1
rparams=0.002208,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000
vparams=0.004415,93.617020,0.130243,92.553192,0.285714,50.000000,0.428571,50.000000,0.571429,50.000000,0.714286,50.000000,0.857143,50.000000,1.000000,50.000000
link=DHC7_PROP_1_01
[DHC7_PROP_2_01]
filename=xDHC7_reverse_beta
flags=8
viewpoint=2
panning=0
rparams=0.000000,0.957447,1.000000,1.000000
vparams=0.398805,0.000000,0.456574,79.162407,0.599602,99.284988,0.703187,98.978546,0.794422,85.801842,0.834661,69.765068,0.851394,43.615936,0.879681,0.000000
link=DHC7_PROP_1_02
[DHC7_PROP_2_02]
filename=xDHC7_reverse
flags=8
viewpoint=2
rparams=0.001195,1.085106,0.998805,1.106383
vparams=0.709562,0.000000,0.796813,19.509705,0.815139,32.277836,0.835458,48.518898,0.844622,60.776302,0.878486,93.564865,0.937450,99.284988,1.000000,99.693565
[DHC7_PROP_3_00]
filename=DHC7_eng3_reverse_beta
flags=8
viewpoint=1
rparams=0.002208,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000
vparams=0.004415,93.617020,0.130243,92.553192,0.285714,50.000000,0.428571,50.000000,0.571429,50.000000,0.714286,50.000000,0.857143,50.000000,1.000000,50.000000
link=DHC7_PROP_1_01
[DHC7_PROP_3_01]
filename=xDHC7_reverse_beta
flags=8
viewpoint=2
panning=0
rparams=0.000000,0.957447,1.000000,1.000000
vparams=0.398805,0.000000,0.456574,79.162407,0.599602,99.284988,0.703187,98.978546,0.794422,85.801842,0.834661,69.765068,0.851394,43.615936,0.879681,0.000000
link=DHC7_PROP_1_02
[DHC7_PROP_3_02]
filename=xDHC7_reverse
flags=8
viewpoint=2
rparams=0.001195,1.085106,0.998805,1.106383
vparams=0.709562,0.000000,0.796813,19.509705,0.815139,32.277836,0.835458,48.518898,0.844622,60.776302,0.878486,93.564865,0.937450,99.284988,1.000000,99.693565
[DHC7_PROP_4_00]
filename=DHC7_eng4_reverse_beta
flags=8
viewpoint=1
rparams=0.002208,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000
vparams=0.004415,93.617020,0.130243,92.553192,0.285714,50.000000,0.428571,50.000000,0.571429,50.000000,0.714286,50.000000,0.857143,50.000000,1.000000,50.000000
link=DHC7_PROP_1_01
[DHC7_PROP_4_01]
filename=xDHC7_reverse_beta
flags=8
viewpoint=2
panning=0
rparams=0.000000,0.957447,1.000000,1.000000
vparams=0.398805,0.000000,0.456574,79.162407,0.599602,99.284988,0.703187,98.978546,0.794422,85.801842,0.834661,69.765068,0.851394,43.615936,0.879681,0.000000
link=DHC7_PROP_1_02
[DHC7_PROP_4_02]
filename=xDHC7_reverse
flags=8
viewpoint=2
rparams=0.001195,1.085106,0.998805,1.106383
vparams=0.709562,0.000000,0.796813,19.509705,0.815139,32.277836,0.835458,48.518898,0.844622,60.776302,0.878486,93.564865,0.937450,99.284988,1.000000,99.693565
3 Likes
Just wanted to say this Aeroplane is amazing in VR! Looking forward to many hours flying it. Thank you!
2 Likes
After the last update I’m having this problem:
After a while my engine #1 is failing, then I get a battery 1 and 2 hot warning light in the panel and the aircraft spins out of control.
What can be the reason for the engine failing?
What is the meaning of the battery hot message?
Why is the aircraft spinning out of control on 3 good engines?
Thanks for the help!
My suggestions would be:
A. Possible fuel starvation. Are all pumps on and valves open to engine#1?
B. Electrical circuit to/from engine #1 not shut down after engine failure.
C. Prop not feathered on engine#1 after engine failure.
1 Like
Fuel is definitively not the cause because I’ve had this problem 3 times and in one it was just after takeoff.
Maybe it is related to the autofeather switch? I have turned it now to “arm” instead of “sel-arm”.
WTT mode now supported for the Pms50 Gtn750: Aircraft
3 Likes
I always start on the runway with everything up and running, so I haven’t exerienced any of this.
I leave the autofeather switch on “sel-arm” and it switches itself to “sel” during descent.
If you’re following the steps in the Quick Start Guide - Community\pilots-aircraft-dhc7\Manuals - this shouldn’t happen, but if you are following those steps then this a potential bug.
I think I may have found an A/P bug: ALT (or ALT/SEL) work normally up until when you activate V/S mode. After that (with V/S turned off), ALT mode can’t be re-enabled - even after turning the A/P on and off.
The a/p does seem to be quite buggy. On a good flight the most that’ll happen will be the light for the FLC mode staying on while on another mode like V/S. Sometimes (especially on consecutive legs), the a/p might either refuse to engage any modes, leaving me to use my HC Bravo to control the a/p, or it’ll sometimes do some other crazy thing like having FLC, V/S, AND APP mode enabled at the same time. That’s THREE different altitude control modes “enabled” at the same time lol
I am not familiar with this aircraft but can anyone help me.
Each time i land and engage the reverse thrust if i made yoke or rudder inputs the reversers sort of cancels itself. is there any configuration i need to do with my controls?
Which controller/throttle/yoke do you have?
Honeycomb A+B? Read a lot of binding problems on these…make sure there are no double bindings etc.
Reversers shouldnt snap off with rudder inputs etc…
Regarding reversers. I have a mediocre Velocity 1. But it is very easy to program.
U can setup reversers 3 ways afaik:
-
My throttles have a reverse detent. But its only a keypress, so u get max reverse right away - no beta range.
The keypress has to be set to ‘hold reverse thrust’ AND ‘decrease throttle’ (I believe). -
I believe this is what Jaydee’s mod (see far above) does, and its the same FSReborn M500 advice to use to get full beta range:
Set ‘throttle axis 0-100%’(for eng 1+2+3+4).
Problem with this setup is that you get idle somewhere in the middle of the throttle axis(full beta below idle).
The good=full beta range.
Bad=its awkward to know where idle is imho. -
The best solution to get full beta and idle imho:
Set throttle to ‘throttle axis’ (NOT 0-100%) for engines.
I personally have 1 axis for eng1+2 and another for eng3+4. Now idle is at idle position.
On my system I have 3 additional vernier (TPM) levers (you can probably program a keypress too-but easier to see ‘status’(ie reverse or forward ‘mode’ with a pullout lever)).
Program 1 of the vernier controls to ‘hold reverse thrust’.
When you pull that lever the throttle will now work in full beta → reverse range seamlessly/analog range.
Push it back in and throttle has full forward range (with idle at idle).
Thats my preferred method to get full beta range + idle at idle. The negative is you have to remember to pull vernier to get beta/reverse(quickly get used to it) - but its the best setup imho, and works for ‘all’ aircraft.
I use it on FSReborn 500, Kodiak, Dash7 etc.
1 Like
I think the AP works fine. Some of the mode-lights seem to be buggy. As I posted ealier: The IAS light never switches off again once you activated IAS mode. But it is only the lights. The mode itself switches fine.
There are some of this small lighting issues, like the pilot map light. Without bus power the dimmer works fine. When you switch on the batteries or external power, the pilot map light switches to 0 %. FO side map light works fine.
Im sure pilots will iron this little things out over time. Flown it now for many hours from GB over Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Canada all the way down to south Texas in all kinds of weather. The British Arctic Survey Route to Antarctica.
It’s a good airplane.
3 Likes
I don’t know, the original flight dynamics seems quite fine to me but I’m no real Dash 7 pilot. I’ve just taken off from TLPC which has about 6,000 ft long runway and with 50% fuel and 90% payload it took me about 2,500 ft to reach 90 kts and get airborne. Right now I’m climbing on 1,500 ft/min at 130 kts and 1070 rpm. I love this airplane.
1 Like
With the original flight dynamics I felt that it was missing a lot of lift. I struggled to get it off some shorter runways in greenland even with flaps at 25, it needed a lot of back pressure on the yoke to even get off the runway at about 90 kts and struggled quite a bit to climb for me after that, with the AOA indicator telling me I was close to stalling without climbing much.
With flaps 25 the rotation speed at MTOW is around 78 kts according to JD’s checklist, and that’s about what I can achieve with my mod. With it, the plane also flies a lot more comfortably below 100 kts which is about where the AOA indicator was uncomfortably close to stall with the original flight dynamics. The videos online of the real plane show it taking off with minimal effort at lower speeds, so I wanted the plane in the sim to be able to do that.
Flight Idle Gate seems to use GEAR IS ON GROUND to determine if the aircraft is in contact with the ground, but with this, it seems that the reverser cannot be used until the nose gear touches the ground during landing.
If you watch a video of an actual airplane landing, it looks like the reverser is being used from the moment the main gear touches down.
I’m guessing from a YouTube video, so I might be wrong.
If you use GEAR IS ON GROUND:0, GEAR IS ON GROUND:1, or GEAR IS ON GROUND:2 as a condition, you can judge the ground contact of each gear, so I think it can be improved by changing the conditional statement.
1 Like
I have the most basic logitech extreme pro stick. No reversers map into it. Reliant on the my keyboards “f2”.
The annoyance i am having is when landing on short runway it is difficult to engage the reverse thrust either it is not responding to my f2 input or it engages but the moment i put rudder correction to keep the plane centerline the reversers cancels itself.
Just asked an old dash 7 first officer. It seems the Dash 7 would rotate at around 80knots mtow flaps 25 and it is very floaty without much trimming needed. The plane on the sim on the other hand even with correct trimming would need quite a big margin of runway length and rotation speed is at 90knots and even at this speed is very nose heavy that requires trimming out of the white band limit.
1 Like