X-Plane Extra N301WH-3D Harrier Action!!!!!!!!!

[TX-EcoDragon]

Well,

Over the last few days I have been working here and there on doing a repaint of someone elses version of an Extra 300L for X-Plane. Mine was of course N301WH. I soon ran into enough things about the model I was repainting that I would have done differently so I ended up more or less rebuilding the entire thing. I have most things situated now with respect to FM and paint, there are still some parts to work on in the exterior modeling, and the panel just doesn't impress  me yet. I have thus far been working on trying to get snap roll and tumble behavior out of the FM, which I have actually had some success with, torque rolls are semi possible, but the real kicker is what is my first encounter in a GA sim of true harrier style maneuvering!

While testing my FM changes in the torque rolls and pop-up departments I discovered that I could do an ugly "wall" or "parachute" type pop-up and with some practice controlling it I managed to stabilize it in a harrier. . . I can maintain this until the fuel runs out (in between pics 4 and 5 this happened. . .not pretty) and in the 350 horse, light weight version with an aerobatic fuel load I can climb, descend and cruise along just fine. I have three versions of this now, one stock 300L, one that has 30 added ponies up to 330 as well as 200 lbs of weight reduction to give the Extra 300L numbers more like a modified Edge 540, and then the one seen here that takes the previously mentioned model and adds another 15 horses as well as some larger control deflections to add a little more responsiveness at 3D speeds.

I wish I could record a track, the workload is a bit too high to be able to press the pause key when the really impressive shots present themselves, but here are a few I just grabbed!


Oh, and I have some flight data in the top left corner displayed, the first number indicates my speed over the ground in Knots the second number is the airspeed as seen by the wings of the aircraft in Knots indicated airspeed, and the fifth is a digital readout of my vertical speed at the time of the shot. You will see that I am usually a factor of 3 below the 1G stall speed, and despite the pictured vertical speed indications (constant throttle work is needed to maintain alt so reaching for the p key causes some deviation) I was usually more or less oscillating plus/minus a few feet per minute descent/climb rates!!  See for  yourself.




Harrier Hovering down a ruwnay at LAX at only 19 Knots indicated!!!

S!

TX-EcoDragon
Black 1
TX-Squadron XO

[TX-EcoDragon]

Getting lower. . .Hmm. . . this is pretty low. . . but. . .How about a bit lower!!What fun!!S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX-Squadron XO

[TX-EcoDragon]

Oh, the textures on the top and bottom of the wing are identical mirrors in X-Plane, so I could not recreate the actualy paint on  the bottom of the wings and horizontal stabilizers of 301WH.S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX-Squadron XO

[TX-FlightRisk]

Will it still pull out and climb?S~TX-FlightRisk "If my plane is smoking it can mean one thing...I have been hit in one of my ass cheeks and I am cauterizing my wound....."

[TX-EcoDragon]

Yep, well, kinda. . . it's not nearly as fast of a climb as one done at Vy but its nothing to scoff at given that the aircraft is only slightly modified. . .maybe 100-300 fpm. . .S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX-Squadron XO

[TX-FlightRisk]

Impresive. So it doesnt really stall then... low spped anyway...S~TX-FlightRisk "If my plane is smoking it can mean one thing...I have been hit in one of my ass cheeks and I am cauterizing my wound....."

[TX-EcoDragon]

Well, it does stall. . . the trick to getting a harrier type maneuver going is to transition the stall completely from below critical angle of attack to well beyond it. If you do a conventional stall it will behave as they normally do (well, normal for X-Plane). The way it's done is to do a rapid pop-up by quickly pulling the elevator back enough to generate some inertia to propagate the pitch increase beyond that which you can normally do, and once you have a very steep attitude the wing is not producing lift in the conventional way, now you are using engine thrust coupled with the what some would call newtonian lift (from the bottom surface of the wing as opposed to the lower pressure on the upper surfacec which is what you loose in a stall).If it didn't stall this wouldn't be very entertaining to me, this actually seems to fly a little bit like the real thing. . .well . . . it's still X-Plane. . but you know. . .S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX-Squadron XO