Stinson L-5 Sentinel - Any Improvements?
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I had purchased this very interesting Aeroplane Heaven creation in Sep. 2018. While the looks are great and the flight characteristics are promising, I found this addon to be crippled by several annoying bugs. Consequently, I had opened a thread in the (now inactive) Justflight forum, which led to a constructive discussion with the developer. Unfortunately, this contact died and, according to my knowledge, the Stinson never got any improvements/ bug corrections. Does anybody in this forum have this airplane or can give me a hint how to proceed? I still think it‘s a pity to leave such buggy product untouched but keep offering it on Justflight‘s website.
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I have the latest version installed, but my main requests were not taken into account. This is what I had mentioned in an e-mail to developer Barry Bromley in Sep. 2018:
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Yes, I fully agree that at this price point we cannot expect “study sim” quality, whatever this means. But your products absolutely have the potential to be purchased by “serious” simmers and the Stinson is certainly not a typical gamer’s addon. Those usually prefer the big and/or fast aircraft. I am still convinced that your L-5 could be a really attractive airplane for many simmers, as it is an icon and nowadays still widely used for bush flying and spectacular short-field operation. So, in case you are willing and have the capacity to create a service pack for your Stinson, you might take some of my findings into account:
FDE
We talked about this already. Based on pilot reports (including the one you quoted in the user manual about “near vertical approaches are not uncommon…), the Stinson is really able to perform impressively steep approaches. In order to do so and also to help performing effective side-slips I modified the aircraft.cfg and the air file according to my understanding and observations. Also, the airplane seems overpowered and the max. speed is significantly higher than what is specified and mentioned in reports. Most of my mods are in the aircraft.cfg and clearly marked as such. In addition, I slightly modified the panel.cfg in order to have a more convenient size of the popup GPS.Magneto Switch
First off: The rotating direction is reversed, i.e. left mouse button turn right and right button turns left. This is quite annoying, even more because it is correct on the fuel selector. This type of magneto switch has 4 positions: OFF, L, R and BOTH. Unfortunately, in this addon those 4 positions are not synchronized with the mouse clicks and the knob animation. This is really annoying when doing a correct engine start and run-up with magneto check. Again and again, if you do not click an additional time (or click the wrong mouse button), the engine just stops for no obvious reason. Even default airplanes can do better in this respect.Tachometer
As described earlier it does not match the engine at all: According to my knowledge and from the pictures I found the RPM limit should be 2550 rather than 2350 RPM. Also, the RED max. limit at 3850 is in contradiction with the plate below the instrument and against every rule (would not be accepted by the FAA). I have not found such picture of a RW L-5s.In addition, the RPM seems to be almost frozen at the (current) limit of 2350 during the flight. This is far from realistic; the RPM depends on the actual speed on every airplane with fixed pitch propeller. E.g. in a dive the pilot has to reduce the throttle in order not to exceed the specified RPM limit of, in this case, 2550.
Altimeter
Unfortunately, the currently used altimeter is a hPa type rather than (for this very American airplane!) inHg. It looks as if you had used the one from your (also great!) DHC-1 Chipmunk, which is a typical European airplane.Oil Temp. Gauge
Again, like the altimeter, this gauge seems to better fit into a European airplane as the range obviously shows degrees C rather than Fahrenheit. In its current version it does not function properly anyway; it should at least show the outside temp. with cold engine.Should you plan to issue an SP or an updated version sooner or later I will be delighted. Otherwise, I will of course respect your decision and concentrate on other sim aircraft.
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