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Head-2-Head Feature XV: Small(er) Regional Jetliners By Ron Blehm (June 10, 2013) I have, as you may known, been simming for quite awhile. I got back into simming after a long absence so that I could fly the 727 but since 2003 and the inception of "The Flight of the Month Club" I have found myself flying everything under the sun. As we have noted in this Head-2-Head series, some of what I have flown I have really enjoyed, others not so much but over the past two years I have really focused on and loved flying the EMB-190s. I think, after fifteen years, I can say that this has become MY AIRCRAFT of choice for almost any sim occasion. So there I was on a warm June afternoon, happily flying my E190 around New Zealand, when I heard/saw a Frontier A318 fly overhead followed by a Southwest 737; both on downwind for KPDX. I got to wondering how the 4-abreast Embraer compared into smaller airports to the typical 6-abreast airliners and this new Head-2-Head Challenge was born. The first stop was the internet (does anyone remember when we didn't have that?). Embraer says that they are a "niche producer" providing modern jetliner capacity in a lighter, more fuel-efficient, fly-by-wire aircraft. "Our aircraft can operate at airports where even the smaller Boeing and Airbus planes are just too heavy." So I was off to do some research, by the numbers: E190 A318 737-700 737-500 Empty 55,500 84,600 84,100 68,860 Full 108,000 130,100 154,500 133,210 Capacity 52,500 44,500 70,400 64,350 Pax 98 107 138+ 125 Length 119' 103'2 110'4 101'8 Span 94'3 111'10 112'7 94'9 So indeed the E-190 is the lightest of all its competitors but it also hauls the fewest passengers (more weight than the A318 however). Its wingspan is the smallest but it is the longest on the list. (My wife calls it, and the Q400, a "pencil plane"). If we were to look strictly at weight and span certainly the Embraer company argument would seem valid. I figured we should look a bit deeper into the statistics of these aircraft. E190 A318 737-700 737-500 Range 1,800-2,300 1,500-3,200 3,000-5,700ER 2,400 Lbs x range/100k 1050 1023.5 1408-3872 1544 1st Flight 2004 2002 1997 1989 Deliveries 459 78 1,100 389 The newer E-190 has less range than the Airbus but still wins the efficiency score - maybe that's why Airbus has sold less than 100 of the version? Nothing compares to Boeing however! (The 737-700 sports a range comparable to the 757 but there is a nine-fuel-tank version that flies over 5,500 miles! Is there anyone out there who really wants to spend 11 hours in the back of a Boeing Cattlecar?) Well, what better way to compare aircraft than a Flightsim Head-to-Head Challenge? Challenge One = Range Into A Short Runway For this challenge I took an empty aircraft and loaded full fuel tanks. Then I set in a 930-mile route to Santa Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles where we'd face a 2,971-foot landing. I used 80% N1 for the TOGA setting and set cruise for an unrealistic 19,000 feet. Take-Off: The A318 used all 6,500 feet to get to 120 knots. The 737 used about 5,000 feet. The 735 used about 4,500 feet. The E190 used about 4,000 feet. Time to Cruise: The 737 took 18 minutes. The 735 took 17.8 minutes. The A318 took 17.5 minutes. The E190 took 17 minutes flat. Fuel Burned: The 735 burned 24,287 pounds which is 68.2% The A318 burned 18.955 which was 44.8% The 737 burned 18,572 which was 40.7% The E190 burned 14,828 which was 50.1% Range at FL190: The 735 would have been 1,364 The A318 would have been 2,076 The 737 would have been 2,285 The E190 would have been 1,856 The Landing: The 737 failed to stop even with autobrakes and full reverse; it continued off the end of the runway and down the cliff (picture above, left)! The A318 stopped with the nose wheel off the pavement (picture above, right) The 735 stopped just beyond the last turn off and had to taxi to the end (picture below, left). The E190 stopped just at the last turn off and was able to taxi to parking (picture below, right). Time: The 737-700 held its fast speed during descent and crashed at 19:08 The 737-500 arrived at 19:18 The A318 and E190 both arrived at 19:20 Let's start with the failure. The -700 was the heaviest at departure, 128,565. It had a screaming fast descent and failed to stop at all even with autobrakes. The A318 was the next heaviest at 126,822 and really it would have needed a TUG to get back onto the pavement after landing. The A318 also took a ridiculous amount of time to reach 120 knots at 80% N1. The 735 and E190 were closely matched but I may have give the nod to the Embraer. (Remember, I've been flying that a lot over the past two years so I may be a bit biased as to the feel and timing of things.) Challenge Two = Short Runway Take-Off I loaded each aircraft to 80% MTOW. Lined up on the threshold and locked the brakes. I throttled to 60% N1 before releasing the brakes and then set N1 to 100% and looked for 120 knots. The A318 failed to make it - ever (picture above, left). The 737 reached that speed just at the end of the runway (picture above, right). The 735 was able to get airborne just before the numbers at the far end (picture below, left). The E190 was comfortably airborne at the end of the runway (picture below, right). The E190 wins with the 735 a very close second, again. Challenge Three = RNP Through Winding Alpine Valleys For this challenge I set in a very specific Required Navigation Performance route through the Alps from Payerne to Sion, Switzerland. Low-level, follow the terrain, F-111-style flying. For this challenge I did 35% fuel and the rest pax/cargo up to MTOW. Cruise altitude was 3,000 to 7,500 feet ASL to match the terrain. I had some real fun watching Otto dodge and weave around the mountains and valleys. All four aircraft survived the flight and landing so really this challenge is about the "feel" of the flight. The A318 did not hold the Lateral or Vertical Tracks very well. A modern jetliner should be RNP equipped and should have an accurate autopilot but I even had to disengage the A/P at one point to manually avoid terrain off the right wing because we were 300 feet off the track: The 737 did a better job - plausible. Both the 737 and A318 used the entire runway at Sion to get slowed and pull onto the taxiway: Even though a bit old/outdated for RNP flying the 735 held the tracks nicely and gave a top-rate performance as did the E190. Both aircraft made a mid-field turn-off to the taxiway: Conclusions If you want to be able to take 90 of your closest friends around the world and need to be able to land at most "reasonable" airports the 735 would give you more range and more cabin room (picture below, left). If you have fewer friends or need to be able to land at any "reasonable" airport the E190 is a better all-round performer (picture above, right). If you want maximum range and don't care about weight restrictions the 737 is your choice but you'll have to pick airports more carefully (picture below, left). You really wouldn't want the A318 for this kind of flying (picture above, right). Aircraft Used: E-190 by AI Aardvark with significant tweaking by me. 735 by FFX/Erick Cantu. 737 by POSKY. A318 by iFDG. Ron Blehm pretendpilot@yahoo.com

Head-2-Head Feature XIV: PAD vs Mike Stone By Ron Blehm (December 27, 2012) Welcome to what may be the final installment of "Head-2-Head". The reason to end is only because I've pretty much ran through most of my hangar and I'm not sure I want to download every version of every plane out there simply to compare them. Like most of us, I have a hangar stocked with what I like to fly most. It was in early October 2012 that I learned of the passing of flightsim icon Barry Blaisdell; an event that I'm sure we all felt with sadness. In two previous Head-2-Head features I tested Premier Aircraft Design products against other sim models and in both cases the PAD-versions failed to meet my expectations for performance. To be honest, I am still loving to fly the AI Aardvark EMB-190/5s; I have tweaked the performance and added panels and sounds to enhance my experience. This fact however shows that for me, my simming experience is far more than exterior looks! In both of the previous reviews, I have liked the PAD visuals but the handling has left a lot to be desired. (I do have one or two other PAD models in my hangar that I do like and haven't bothered to challenge those with anything else.) Anyway, back to Barry: So there I was flying a Jetstream-31 (Mike Stone's version from years ago) around Southern California when the call about his death reached me; it was indeed a sad day. The Jetstream-31s I have been using are old and they are showing their age with some (glaring) lack of detail but they handle great (image below, left). As I set up to land in Camarillo I got to wondering if Premier Aircraft Designs had a JS-31? I went to their web site and sure enough, there it was. I downloaded and installed it copying the panel and sound over from the KA-350. I then flew it from Camarillo to Santa Barbara and was not displeased (image above, right) One of the tests I like to do is with the autopilot engaged I pull off the throttle and watch as the trim tabs roll in and the nose pitches up. As my speed slipped below 100 knots I firewalled the throttle and watched the plane climb and then correct itself. Pretty fun stuff and all with visual details the Mike Stone version lacked (image below, left). Part of the problem with challenging a long-standing member of the hangar is the memories a pilot has with his old plane; the past flights and self-done repaints all make parting such sweet sorrow (below, center). None-the-less I took my Flight Club JS-31 over to Santa Barbara as well and for the record, despite the lack of details, it also performed very well on the autopilot/stall challenge (below, right)! Challenge One: I set in a 172 mile route from Santa Barbara to Palm Springs. Full fuel, max take-off weight, 5000 foot cruise and 250 knots. Here are the highlights: The Premier model's numbers match the real-world aircraft almost exactly. The speed of both aircraft are within a few seconds for the same route. Given our shorter flight with max weight, the PAD model's range is about 860 miles. Again, spot-on for the published numbers. The Mike Stone range would be about 50% of the published numbers. As we've seen before, that's an easy fix, just adjust the fuel flow numbers in the CFG. Premier = image below left and middle Stone = image below right The visual details of the two are generations apart (image below, left)!. Challenge Two: A bit of a longer flight, Palm Springs to Paso Robles, 270 miles this time. Full fuel tanks and only the pilot, 170 pounds. Cruise at 6500 feet but still 250 knots (images above center and right). First off I note that the Mike Stone version has about 10 load stations and all of them have 170 pounds; I guess I'm hauling a bunch of clones with no bags! Time-wise it's a dead-heat, the same for both aircraft. Fuel-wise, the Mike Stone model is still off quite a bit but the PAD-version is still showing a range of 865 miles. It's perfect! Previously, when I tested the Do-328 I noted that the PAD model required 140+ knots to maintain a smooth rate of descent on finals - too fast for that aircraft. I had a similar experience with this one in that the Mike Stone version flies in very nicely at 100 knots and touches down just under 90. That seemed reasonable but the Premier version required 120 knots or an extreme nose-up attitude which makes it very tough to see the runway! (Notice the change in attitude in the image below.) Obviously the visual model is greatly updated over the Mike Stone version and the performance is "by-the-book" so my only "issue" is the handling on final. So this time, I went into the CFG and changed the "lift value" under the flaps settings. (It was at 0.00 so I changed it to 1.00). That didn't change the drag or amount of throttle I'd need but did make things "floatier". This bit of LIFT allowed the nose to come down, allowing me to see! I wonder if that would have worked on the other PAD models we tested and threw out? I was now quite happy with the PAD model but for two things: No Flight Club liveries. It needed to pass the biggest test of a small(er) aircraft. St Bartholomy! Returning to the Premier Aircraft Design web site I downloaded and installed about twenty liveries and then re-worked one into something for TooMuchFS. Next, I flew the St Bart's approach. There is no hillside in my scenery but there is a nicely-placed building in the way. You can watch the video here: I was still too fast but that was my fault and regardless, I managed to get stopped just before the end and that is good enough for me! So, after all these years, the Mike Stone version of the Jetstream-31 went away and I now have the Premier Aircraft Design's version, slightly tweaked, in my hangar. Thank you to Barry and his team for all of the years of service. Your legacy lives on in our hangars. Ron Blehm pretendpilot@yahoo.com

Head-2-Head Feature XIII: Full Versus Empty By Ron Blehm (November 20, 2012) Something a little different this time out: same plane, same model, same weather, same speed, same altitude, same flight, different weight. I got to wondering how much weight factors into aircraft performance, specifically mileage, when it comes to flightsim. So this month we are flying several different aircraft empty and at max take-off weight to see how they perform. As we have discovered in this series, FS modelers sometimes have their own ideas about how things work (like an L-1011 that ran out of gas after 750 miles). We've also learned that we can tweak the CFG files a bit to get some very different (perhaps more accurate?) numbers. But that was like comparing sim models to the real thing. We've also looked at various versions of the same airplane (like Premier Aircraft Designs versus AI Aardvark). This Head-to-Head Challenge pits several different aircraft against ... themselves. Set-Up: I loaded a flight plan from Beirut across the Mediterranean (one of my favorite places to fly) with several random waypoints along the way. Next I took a plane and loaded it with more cargo than gas. Then I flew at relatively low altitudes* and constant speed measuring mileage and fuel burn. Finally, I took the same aircraft, loaded the fuel previously burned and nothing else! Then I repeated the flight to compare efficiency. I would have thought that same weather, same altitude and same speed would give me the same times but I was in for some interesting data on that bit too. * A lot of a flight's efficiency can be gained or lost in how one climbs or descends as well as by what altitude you fly at. I wanted to nix all of those variables, so all flights were flown at 3,000 feet ASL. Mooney Acclaim Type-S: This is the default Mooney modified by Mark Rooks of RDG Aircraft to the specs of the Type-S turbo (a great little plane!). The MTOW listed is 12,100 pounds. I really don't care what the real-world aircraft's stats are because we are pitting this model against itself. In this case I loaded up 4,650 pounds of cargo and 450 pounds of gas. As noted above, cruise was at 3,000 feet and 200 knots. I flew 396 miles and burned 398 pounds of gas (about a pound per mile). So, next up I took an empty aircraft, that's 7,000 pounds, and added 398 pounds of gas. Then I flew the same 396 miles at the same 3,000 feet and 200 knots. I arrived two minutes faster. How is that possible? I had a whopping 20.2 pounds of gas left. Hmmmm, let's do it this way: Weight: 12,100 7398 61% Fuel Burned: 398 377.8 95% So, for the Acclaim Type-S, 61% of the weight still burns 95% of the gas. Not much savings for 396 miles! [Note: the weights for the Mooney Acclaim are obviously way off for a plane of this type. The Mooney web site gives Gross Weight as 3368 lb. However, the values used for this test are those actually found in the CFG file for this flightsim aircraft. Commando by Mike Stone: Weight: 44,000 34,000 77% Fuel Burned: 5798 5096 88% Distance: 523 miles DC-4 by Greg Pepper: Weight: 73,000 48,898 67% Fuel Burned: 5585 4900 88% Distance: 726 miles F-4 Phantom II by Kazunori Ito and reworked by Mark Rooks: Weight: 74,350 35,545 48% Fuel Burned: 5543 3017 54% Distance: 295 miles Dash-8 Q400 by Dreamwings: Weight: 64,800 41,500 64% Fuel Burned: 3782 3518 93% Distance: 473 miles AIA EMB-190 modified by me: Weight: 115,000 66,549 58% Fuel Burned: 10,475 9420 90% Distance: 691 miles A318 by iFDG: Weight: 146,400 98,864 68% Fuel Burned: 14,254 11,551 81% Distance: 639 miles B739 by Project Open Sky: Weight: 189,700 110,712 58% Fuel Burned: 15,432 13,117 85% Distance: 527 miles DC-10-30 by SGA: Weight: 578,000 287,412 50% Fuel Burned: 74,631 70,783 95% Distance: 759 miles Boeing BWB by William Ortis: Weight: 748,240 300,785 40% Fuel Burned: 47,974 46,092 96% Distance: 883 miles Well, if I were an airline CEO I certainly would want those planes flying FULL because the fuel savings on an empty aircraft are less than I expected! (The exception to this was the F-4 and my only thought was that a loaded military plane has all that drag hanging off the wings and fuselage so the fuel savings on a clean aircraft are much more notable. The external size and drag of all the others is the same despite the weight so fuel savings are less noticeable.) "Pounds Per Mile" Winners And Losers: Well, pretty much the lighter planes burned fewer pounds per mile. The Mooney was in single digits. The C-46 did better than the Q400 or DC-4 but the DC-10 and Boeing BWB burned dozens of pounds of gas per mile; then again, their MTOWs are about three times more than the 739! Ron Blehm pretendpilot@yahoo.com

Head-2-Head Feature XII: Dash 8 Versus EMB-170 By Ron Blehm (October 8, 2012) I've heard it said that some of the modern turboprops (such as the Dash-8 series) are so fast that airlines may choose them over RJs like the CRJs or Ejets. In our last feature I set about to test that theory with some flights in the Philippines. Sure enough, although slower than the E170 or CRJ700 when the fuel-burn/efficiency scores are added in, the Dash-8 came out on top. Well, that may only be Dreamwings idea of things although a past feature showed the B-17 to be more efficient than the B-52 even on an hours-long flight. For one last fling with this thought I figured I'd go Head-to-Head with the two Dreamwings models from last time (both of these beat out the default CRJ for speed and fuel burn). If you have been following this series you'll know the drill. I took sixty-five, 210 pound passenger/bag combinations and loaded that into the Q400. Then I added another 4,500 pounds of cargo. Then I topped off the tanks (about 73% capacity I think) with 9,100 pounds of fuel. That was darn-near the MTOW. I marked the time at 9 AM in Chicago, and pushed back from the gate; Start-up, taxi and departure from runway 13C at Midway Airport headed to Boston Logan. Maintaining 250 knots below 10,000 feet and then climbing at 85% power I reached 25,000-foot cruise at 40 miles before the JXN VOR. Waypoints were DKK, ITH and EEN VORs along the way. Ground speed was 365 knots. TOD was 49 miles before EEN. I crossed over the SKR NDB and intercepted the ILS for 15R at 6 miles DME. I landed smoothly and taxied to the gate with shut down at 12:26. Then I moved to the Dreamwings EMB-170 and loaded in the same passenger/bag combinations plus the 4,500 pounds and about 80% fuel which was 17,692 pounds. For both aircraft then, this put take-off weight within 200 pounds or so of the MTOW! The Ejet can haul more but it's also heavier so there is a weight versus load trade-off there. I marked the time at 9 AM in Chicago, and pushed back from the gate; start-up, taxi and departure from runway 13C at Midway Airport headed to Boston Logan. Maintaining 250 knots below 10,000 feet and then climbing at 75% N1 I reached 25,000-foot cruise at 85 miles before the JXN VOR. Waypoints were DKK, ITH and EEN VORs along the way. Ground speed was 415 knots. TOD was 49 miles before EEN. Maintaining the 250 knot speed limit, I crossed over the SKR NDB and intercepted the ILS for 15R at 6 miles DME. I landed smoothly and taxied to the gate with shut down at 12:16. So, the jet is faster by 10 minutes; no shock there. But as you well know, we need to factor in fuel burn. What I've been doing is adding two seconds per pound of fuel burned. The Dash-8 (according to Dreamwings) burned 5,231 pounds versus the E170 which burned 7,242 pounds (remember both aircraft were near their respective MTOW for this flight). Two thousand pounds is four-thousand seconds which is over an hour which pretty much washes away the ten-minute time advantage. They say "time is money" and even if we factor just half-a-second per pound the Q400 still wins and I'm sure that gas is more expensive than that! Ron Blehm pretendpilot@yahoo.com