FSD T-38 Talon

By Andrew Herd (24 July 2002)

magine an aircraft weighing 12,000 pounds, powered by twin GE J85-GE-5As pumping out nearly 8000 pounds of thrust with afterburners lit. Imagine being able to cruise at over 500 knots, and climb to 30,000 feet in one minute. Imagine that this plane was delivered in GMax and that it didn't cost you anything at all to download and install it. Imagine that one of the leading edge development teams was behind it - and you have FSD's Northrop T-38a for FS2002. Pure energy.

The T-38 Talon has the the distinction of being the world's first supersonic aircraft to be built as a trainer. The first hull was delivered to the US air force in '61 and Northrop were able to claim that every single plane in the F5/T-38 series was delivered not only on time, but at or below target cost, which must make the line pretty much unique. Ultimately the series went on to become the most widely deployed American built supersonic aircraft ever, with hulls being delivered to over thirty countries. Cross licensing meant that the F-5 variant was also built in Canada, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland; and in some more unusual places, like the Republics of China and Korea.

Despite its excellent production and delivery record, the T-38 had a highly innovative airframe. For example, it was the first aircraft to make large scale use of aluminum honeycomb and heat resistant titanium, particularly in the areas of the fuselage surrounding the engines, which made for a light, yet immensely stong airframe. As the screen shots show, the T38 also took full advantage of then new area-rule aerodynamic theory, the outcome of which was the fuselage's strikingly waisted shape, which served the purpose of reducing drag and and of improving acceleration as the aircraft neared the speed of sound.

Part of the secret of the plane's success was that it was the first aircraft produced using an overhead assembly and installation line, a innovation introduced by Northrop and one which meant that production efficiency was vastly improved. The designer's forsight meant that although the final hull was delivered thirty years ago, the T-38 is likely to continue as a supersonic trainer for the US armed forces for at least another decade. Incredibly, the first production T-38 to be delivered is still flying - with NASA's astronaut training fleet.

When FSD made their move into commercial software, the team confirmed that they would not abandon freeware and their T-38a is a promise made good. The visual model was designed by Owen Hewitt and Jim Goldman, the flight model programming was by Steve Small and the panel artwork, gauge and utility programming was by Tim Dickens. Together, they have coded a fine package, which sets a new standard for freeware and introduces several innovations in FS design.

The download is just under 7 megs and unzips to reveal a self installing .exe and four other files - make sure that you check out the readme's. For early downloaders, there is also a small patch available that address a few small issues. In my eagerness to try the plane I missed out on the information contained in the text files that you need to run a program called "paint scheme manager" if you want to install all the liveries provided. If you don't do this after installation, you will end up with two variants, painted in a single NASA livery; but if you find the FSD T-38 program group, you gain another couple of liveries just by running the manager, and third party artists have already started to post add-on liveries on FlightSim.Com. Watch the file lists, because this is going to be a very popular aircraft for repaints.

I didn't have any problems with installation and after the wizard had done its job I checked out the aircraft list to find the Talon under the Northrop header. Selecting the NASA livery, I loaded the plane and set out to have some fun. Bear in mind that I rarely get to fly in anything faster than a 172 - the idea of being able to climb at over 40 times the rate I am used to had me sweating with anticipation. Of course, in reality, the tower would spoil my day by stopping me lighting the afterburners at 500 feet and going straight up to join the moon, but I would have my own back watching the guys running for cover when I rejoined and turned final the first time...

Although the visual model is built in GMax, FSD have kept it fairly simple which means that it loads quickly and the frame rates are kept up. I suspect that it should be possible to run this package on systems which can't cope with releases like Captain Simulations' MiG-21 and that alone should be enough to make the Talon popular with flight simmers.

The lines of the original plane have been captured very well and while it is clear that FSD haven't quite put as much effort into it as they might have done had it been payware, the T-38 is very realistic indeed, especially once you appreciate the level of detail in the animations. The wings are razor thin, the complex body lines are nicely captured and in my view the package sets a new standard for freeware visuals - the cockpit in particular being extremely well done. Much as I am loyal to the ideals behind FSDS (the classic design tool used for most FS2000 visual models), once again, looking at the canopy of the T-38 alone is enough to convince of the superiority of GMax.

Taking a look around the exterior I couldn't see any gaps - which are the curse of poor GMax designs - and the control surface animations are very neat, particularly the all moving tailplane. The wheels rotate and the animation of the gear and the spoilers (slash key, you will need those things, believe me) was excellent. The nose wheel steers with the brakes and the oleos compress realistically, assuming you manage to land it properly - the one thing missing is a macro showing them punching up through the wing when you don't get it quite right on touchdown.

Being a GMax model, the landing lights actually shine on the runway, so you can see where you are about to crash, and the nav lights and beacon can be selected separately through a group at top left of the panel. Shift-e opens the canopies, using an extremely neat animation, which is also visible from inside the cockpit; a first, unless another team has already done the same thing, in which case I shall ritually fall on my keyboard, as usual.

One of the most impressive things about the T-38 is just about everything in the virtual cockpit (VC) works and that it also manages to introduce several firsts. My best advice is not to confirm this by switching to the VC immediately after a night take off, because the sensitivity to roll can have you inverted in the twinkling of an eye while you are busy checking out if you can see your feet. When I did exactly that I just happened to catch sight of the moon sliding around to one side of the screen, leaving me just enough time to avoid punching a hole in the middle of Darlington.

Even the rudder pedals move, by the way; but most of the goodies are up in front of you, the rest of the cockpit consisting of bitmaps. This is the first GMax model ever to have white backlighting of the gauges at night, abandoning the horrible pinky Microsoft wash. A great deal of effort has clearly gone into getting this feature right and while the feedback I get tells me that night flying is a minority interest among flight simmers, perhaps this will change as advances like this make FS panels easier to work with. The left, right and rearward views could have been sharper, but keep reminding yourself (because I did) that this is absolutely free, no strings attached, download it and fly it, no keys, no credit cards, and you will suddenly think, "Well, yeah, how often do you look behind anyway?"

Documentation is provided as an html file on disk, which provides a quick scoot through the panel. There isn't too much to learn, because this sim is designed to be turn and burn stuff and who wants to be fiddling around with procedures when you can be having fun? Nonetheless, there is a slightly simplified, but pleasing start sequence and the text covers everything from the angle of attack indicator to the engine start switch.

The 2D panel is neat - I guess that planes like this are the swansong of this great Flight Simulator institution and it seems possible that the VC will reign supreme in FS2004, but until Wilco release their promised A320 or FSD release their much anticipated new Porter, 2D is where it is at. The screen shot shows both the subsidiary panels popped up and no, I didn't slew the plane into that position. Hey man, how could you doubt my integrity like that? We reviewers have our code, you know. Standards have to be kept upside down and all.

The panel worked well during the beta test, although the afterburner control coupling with the throttle control was a little variable. More on the afterburner later... The only instruments with which you are unlikely to be familiar are the angle of attack indicator - that's the thing sticking up on top of the glare shield - and the G-meter. Basically, when the AOA meter goes into the red, you are overcooking the turn and a high speed stall is on the menu; sure enough, if you keep pulling back on the stick with the red arrow showing, sooner or later the plane becomes uncontrollable. The G-meter works too and tells you when you are about to exceed the design limits of the plane - but in FS you can just turn off "aircraft stress causes damage" in aircraft\realism settings on the menu and fly it just the way you always wanted. Another thing you may want to note is the separate trims for yaw and roll on the lower panel - you might need to adjust them to get the plane to fly right.

Flicking the emergency cut off switch leaves you with a dead engine, as does cutting out either of the fuel pumps and most of the other switches you can see work too. The radios are pretty basic, just a single COM and NAV, but you won't need anything else. The panel also offers DME and a transponder, so that ATC can warn all the poor GA guys that there is fast traffic descending rapidly in their nine o'clock at five miles... I wish. An autopilot is included, though I can't see why anyone would want to use it, and the sound set is aliased to the Lear. Oh, and I nearly forgot to add that clicking on the top of the glareshield brings up the almost traditional landing view.

How does it fly? Best I can say is that it does kind of give me the urge to turn my hat backwards and hunch over the screen. Given a choice of several engines, Steve Small chose the punchiest on offer, with the the result that this is one of the raunchiest planes available for Flight Simulator. The handling is as twitchy as you would expect of an aircraft in this class, but you will get used to it, so don't worry about it. Roll rates of 720 degrees a second are achievable at 350-400 kias, just like the original, which had placards to limit control input percentage values at certain speeds - this is a highly manoueverable ship.

The two really striking things about the flight model are firstly that idle thrust actually works, which means that you can taxi at under Mach 0.5, and secondly, to my immense gratification, so does the afterburner.

Looking at the handling, once in a turn, the T-38 has no tendency to roll out of it. If you wind up the turn too much it does a reasonable impression a high speed stall, with the nose falling off and general mushiness of the controls. The stall itself is nothing to write home about, the nose drops and the controls mush again, which is near enough to what the original does, I assume - this is a trainer after all. Part of the reason why the flight model is so good is that FSD had advice from Dudley Henriques of the Naval test pilot school at Pax River - among other things, he advised that transitioning Mach is only detectable by a momentary jump on the VSI caused by the pressure wave; no effect on controls, trim, or stability being felt. Which is exactly how it is modelled in the sim. Elsewhere, Dudley's advice is reflected in the way the moving horizontal tail surface is mechanically linked to the flaps and changes incidence with flap extension to preserve pitch and trim. If you look closely, with the plane on the ground, you will notice how the tailplane changes in incidence with flap extension. Now that is something.

It is always good to see a well rounded flight model; I was playing around with the excellent IL-2 game the other day (just can't stop myself) and despite a series of patches, they still haven't got the 109G handling right; the real thing is said to have been an extraordinarily forgiving plane. Inattention to flight dynamics in flight and combat sims has meant that many planes exhibit really weird stalls and otherwise unrealistic handling, which has led to a group of talented players acquiring sim piloting skills that would be of absolutely zilch use to them in a real plane. Does it matter? I don't know, but maybe it would make a good subject to kick around the forums. Stalls, spiral dives and spins were the one really good feature of Fly! and something that the FS2004 could well pay some attention to, not to mention the turboprop model and tail dragger handling and weather transitions and... [FX: dragged away by Hal Bryan]

Back to the T-38. The high wing loading means that this is a reasonably demanding plane to fly and that is reflected in the sim. With 60 degrees of flap, the plane rotates at 145 kias and doesn't unstick until it reaches 160, which will give you an idea of the speeds involved. All the instructions you are going to get on flying the T-38 are in the checklists (available from the kneeboard), so study them carefully. The main problem isn't going fast - for that you just click in the afterburner area on the quadrant with the throttle fully forward - it is slowing the bird down. You should aim to enter the circuit at 300 kias, roughly three times the speed of most GA planes, which will involve a carefully planned descent at near idle and almost certainly some use of the spoilers. You can drop the gear at 240 and the flaps at 200; turning final needs fuel on minimum - just imagine, you actually have to empty the tank on this babe before you consider landing it, and the taxpayer shells out for the gas. Turn final at 175, slowing to 155 and aim to touch down at 130 kias, which is right on the stall, so you have to be careful and ride the throttle a little all the way down. Landing in a gusty quartering wind is best described as exciting.

Did I like the T-38? Of course I did; and so have at least 20,000 other flight simmers. Unless I am completely wrong, this package will prove even more popular than FSD's FS2000 Pilatus Porter, which holds the crown as the most downloaded freeware of all time. So raise a glass to the developers, because not only do they seem to have flight simulation's best interests at heart, but they keep their promises.

Download the Northrop T-38 Talon.