DHC-2 Beaver maneuverability on water at very low speed.

[Danflo]

Hello everyone.
in the real world, a seaplane (or amphibian) begins to move slowly in the water as soon as the propeller starts to turn, and to stop it must imperatively stop the engine. This is not the case of the Beaver which also presents a very realistic behavior.

I'm looking for a solution to that, but I can not find it. This would make it possible to practice slow movements during the delicate docking maneuver.

I think lowering water resistance on the floats could be the solution. But what is the parameter to modify? Another possibility would be to increase the efficiency of the low speed propeller in the flightdynamic model (only for seaplane and amphib.) But the "record 511 and 512" are complex for me.
Does anyone have a suggestion?

[caleb]

I am also interested in any answers to this.

[Fliger747]

The modeling of water dynamics in FS has some issues! There is no setting for displacement per se of the floats as the plane is loaded, instead contact points with a compression factor are used to have the floats push further into the water surface. As and experienced float plane pilot and Beaver Driver I agree there are some shortcomings in the modeled water behavior. Amongst these are the on the step/not on the step hydrodynamics which are largely glossed over in the sim engine and water drag. Without some behind the scenes adjustment the landing run is far too long, float planes should stop pretty fast if you dig the heels of the floats in!

Additionally the water rudder manuverability is not as well modeled as it might be. Too much at speed and not enough at low speed.

It might be possible to improve the idle speed water taxiing in the straight floats aircraft but at the cost of introducing some really bad ground manners for the Amphib.

Skis in the mountains are another surface friction barrel of fun! The sim treats snow, such as on glaciers, where there is a slope as a an icy ski slope with not enough friction to get the airplane to even stop with the engine off. As a glacier pilot for a number of years there were only a few 'exciting" icy days like this, mostly the snow has a lot of resistance! The only way to stop was to raise the skis! Not fun!

Sadly there is not a table in say the .Air file where we could adjust the water drag and pitch moment at various speeds and power settings!

Certainly I understand your issue here, if we can come up with any workable, even if marginal, improvements we will implement them.

[Danflo]

After a lot of testing, I am noticeably improving my Amphibian Beaver in the water. Here is what I did:

1) change a bit on the efficiency of the propeller to give it greater efficiency at very low speed then resume the normal curve soon after.
For that I change two values ​​in the record 0511 of the file "air" (by using the software free 'AirUpdate'):

Record: 0511 Propeller Efficiency
columns: 13 rows: 7
0.000000 0.000000 0.200000 0.400000
15.000000 0.500000 0.550000 0.710000
20.000000 0.100000 0.300000 0.620000
25.000000 0.080000 0.230000 0.490000
30.000000 0.070000 0.180000 0.330000
35.000000 0.060000 0.160000 0.260000
40.000000 0.050000 0.120000 0.230000
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) lightly push the floats into the water, as the Beaver reel is so.

3) give more efficiency to water rudders. In reality, sea rudders are efficient even when they are up, but a little less.

For these points 2) and 3), I change some values in the file 'aircraft.cfg' like this:


[Contact_points]

point.0 = 4, 0.00, 4.80, -8.00, 2200, 0, 0, 0.0, 0.0, 2.5, 0.390, 0.0, 0.0, 3, 0, 0
point.1 = 4, 0.00, -4.80, -8.00, 2200, 0, 0, 0.0, 0.5, 2.5, 0.891, 0.0, 0.0, 2, 0, 0
point.2 = 4, -18.10, 4.80, -7.20, 2200, 0, 0, 70.0, 0.5, 2.5, 0.891, 0.0, 0.0, 3, 0, 0
point.3 = 4, -18.10, -4.80, -7.20, 2200, 0, 0, 70.0, 0.5, 2.5, 0.891, 0.0, 0.0, 2, 0, 0

point.4 = 5, -20.10, -4.80, -7.20, 1600, 0, 0, 70, 0, 0, 1.000, 1.0, 1.2, 0, 0, 0
point.5 = 5, -20.10, 4.80, -7.20, 1600, 0, 0, 70, 0, 0, 1.000, 1.0, 1.2, 0, 0, 0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4) and finally I replace the effect 'wake and spray' by this one: "FSX / P3D - McCoy Water Landing Effect v4" free at Perfect Flight.
This effect in fsx is much too strong.

[EFFECTS]
//wake=fx_wake
//water=fx_spray
wake=fx_dummy
water=fx_McCoy_Water_MIN
dirt=fx_None
concrete=fx_None
touchdown=fx_None
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WARNING !! do not forget to make backups before modifying a file.

If anyone tries this, I would like to share.

Cheers
Daniel