The 1947 Hughes H-4 Hercules

The plane looks and feels still truly awesome. I was just wondering, would it be possible to do a prestine state cockpitenviroment? I have no clue how much work this would be, but thought I just toss the idea out here. As of now, the paint at some points is chiooed away and there is wear and tare sprinkeled here and there (Cockpitglasses and so on) I just thought, would it not be cool to have a version of the cockpit the way it probably looked back in the 40 on the test flight, when all was still fresh, untouched and clean?

Most of the video shots are from October 2022, I reused them to make a tribute video . ^^
The introduction scene is rendered with Blender EEVEE

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Did somebody already spot that the copilots yoke doesnĀ“t hide 100%? Some elements floated in mid air when I hid the yoke:

Of course it looks funny, but I found it quite practical to have a sens of the yoke movement while it is hidden. So from my point of view it would be great if in general (for all planes) the stick/yoke could not only be hidden completely, but made transparent (something like 80-90%). So you could still see the yoke a little but also the instruments behind itā€¦ :slightly_smiling_face:

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I will add this to the list of bugs to solve

Please donā€™t interpret this as me ā€œbird doggingā€ you about this, but this didnā€™t end up being rectified before final release:

I just wanted to give you a heads-up.

Cheers!

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I was thinking about taking this wonderful bird out for a proper flight some time soon,
If you guys have some good flight plan suggestions I would be more than happy to hear them. :slight_smile:
Iā€™m trying to figure out as much as possible in the meantime, cheers!

Do what it was designed for and fly massive cargo from the US across the Pacific

Not a bad idea, any specific origins and destinations I should use?

Iā€™ve often thought San Diego to Honolulu. The naval base there can take supplies and raw recruits to the main Pacific base. If you wanted to beyond that pick a date and fly Hawaii to wherever the Marines just took. I also enjoy Long Beach to San Fransisco for a shorter hop.

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This is excellent, thank you.

I would like to second that thought. We expect more historical accuracy. It really threw me off the first time I read that because in 1927 things were not so advanced.

So whoā€™s still flying the Hercules and taking notes? I have a wishlist that Iā€™ll put through official channels this week sometime but I know the developer is aware of my notes. I think #1 right now is prop rpm change availability. The propeller sync, that is changing pitch on all eight engines at once is really holding the range back on the aircraft. Iā€™ll add in second position the need to implement the mixture controls. Much like the DC-3 itā€™s cutoff, auto lean and auto rich. Again to maximize the range of the aircraft by increasing efficiency. Both of these would have been available on the November flight which is how the default aircraft is modeled.

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Not a huge update, but cool things and fixes.
You can find the list on the SU13 release notes page.


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@SeverusAviaton
First of all thank you. Iā€™ve only begun to dig into whatā€™s been done and itā€™s wonderful. I too see the throttle issue with my Honeycomb Bravo. I only have four throttle axisā€™s to bind it seems so testing is on hold for the moment. But starting each engine one at a time was so cool and I hope to soon be able to dig into more of you wonderful work.

@BlueMesh3192 That tug is outstanding. Any tips on controlling eight engines with four controls? I have a single throttle axis mapped for the time being. I also noticed the working momentary switch for the props and Iā€™m over the moon. Great work.

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I see a fix was put in about the use of engines 5-8 with a game pad. Any news or thoughts on the same engines using other perphials? The game only maps up to four throttles that I can see. Even if we use multiple engines per throttle we can still only map four throttles. Does anyone know a way around this save only using a single throttle axis which defeats the purpose of eight controllable engines? Iā€™m tagging @BlueMesh3192 just to see if there is something under the hood Iā€™m missing. I did some testing and was hoping in pilot control the throttles would mirror their historical counterparts and control two engines a throttle but that does not appear to be the case.

This plane has turned out to be really quite nice! Butā€¦

I donā€™t suppose we could get some kind of meter for measuring flight time? Maybe on the notebook or something. I donā€™t want to ruin realism for others, but somewhere out of the way like FlyingIron or Inibuild has done would be great.

On the LatĆ©coĆØre 631 thread, users gave alternative methods for using each engine separately. I donā€™t know when this will be added natively to the simā€¦

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@BlueMesh3192 Thanks the reply. My current work around on my Honeycomb is to use a single throttle as a master and then use my mouse to tweak engines as needed for maneuvering. With the tug getting into position is much easier and I donā€™t need to rely on my engines to get back to dock. That I can use only the inboard two now to move about slowly. As a side note I did notice in the 631 you mentioned it had an auto lean function. The Hercules is so equipped as well, any chance we may see that in the future for the sim version?

Hey all,

is the radio compass gauge working (the one with red and green needles)? Now when we can actually tune VORs on the GPS it is a pity it seems to be non operational.

Just a thoughtā€¦