The REAL F-4 has a huge DELTA wing and DELTA horizontal stabilizer. The reason? The OLD X-Plane flight model was treating the wings of the F-4 like any normal airplane wings, limited to 15 or 20 degrees to avoid the stall, and with a flight control computer limiting the airplane to nice, safe, low angles of attack to prevent that stall. The FIRST major issue we noticed was that the simulated F-4 was just not flying dangerous enough: It was limiting the angle of attack to safe values, not pitching that nose quickly and aggressively into the target, not going to huge angles of attack and lift and drag to CLAW at its’ target. I wanted to enter this bird ACCURATELY, and then get perfect results. EVERY VARIABLE is entered as accurately as could be in Plane-Maker, and the flight model is now improved and refined to represent this model perfectly.In the past, people would sometimes have to put fake values in the airplane file in Plane-Maker to get realistic performance, but that is NOT the right solution.
Supersonic airfoil code#
It’s perfect.Īnd now, with an Israeli Air Force F-4 flight instructor putting in 12 hours days for five days or so with CONSTANT emails and iterations, we have this airplane DIALED IN TO FLIGHT PERFECTION.Īnd here is where it gets REALLY FUN: We did this not just by perfecting the ACF file (which we surely did) but ALSO by perfecting the flight model code in X-Plane, rolling in refinements that will subtly benefit ALL airplanes. So the F-4 Phantom has always been my dream airplane, and it exposes any error in the X-Plane code. If it’s wrong in the X-Plane flight model, the pilot of the sim will NOTICE it! There are no flight control computers to hide the errors, and across this huge envelope, any shortcoming in the flight model will stick out like a sore thumb at SOME portion of the operating envelope! So, with these huge ranges of speed and angle of attack, hugely-detailed requirements for performance, maneuvering, and handling, this airplane makes the ULTIMATE airplane to test the X-Plane flight model.
So here is the thing about the F-4: It has a HUGE speed envelope, going from 150 knots to… 1,500 knots.And a HUGE angle of attack envelope, going from zero to… 25 or 30 degrees AOA without losing control, as that huge delta wing rolls up a giant vortex to maintain low pressure above it, without stalling, up to absurdly-high angles of attack.Īnd it does this with almost no flight computer to speak of at all… just a rate-damper, nothing else! We have been doing DOZENS of changes of EXEs and ACFs to get the F-4 in X-Plane flying PERFECTLY.Īnd the success we’ve realized is beyond my wildest expectations.įirst off, thanks to this intensive, minimum-sleep, once-in-a-lifetime week, we now have an F-4 flight model that is accurate enough to be used for actual F-4 flight instruction: It flies JUST like the real plane through its’ huge flight envelope, from dirty, low-speed approaches, to high-G maneuvering, to Mach 2.2 travel at FL500, to the ceiling of FL600, with acceleration, deceleration, gliding, all representing the real plane as close as an instructor pilot can tell by flying it. I’ve been exchanging emails with him about every 30 minutes or so, on average, for 12-hour-long days, for the past 5 days or so. And one of our alpha testers recently casually mentioned that he was an Israeli Air Force F-4 Phantom flight instructor. One of my favorite planes the F-4 Phantom.
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