Herc79 Posted September 24, 2021 Share Posted September 24, 2021 Just thought these unique aircraft might be of interest to virtual pilots. Both are used as forrest fire water bomber aircraft in Canada and other nations. The PBY has a somewhat unique flight characteristic: since it doesn't have flaps, landing with some precision on a runway (it's amphibious) takes a little thinking, I discovered in FS2004 with Mike Stone's freeware PBY. Sometimes you just have too much speed and lift, and thus make a very long landing before touchdown, or maybe even miss the opportunity to land... not a disaster in a game, but in the real world would be risking lives. And since this is a simulation, I fly as if my life depended on it! So what to do? I hadn't read up about it or found the POH, but I decided that maybe I could use the wing, or more accurately, the aircraft's angle of attack, as a huge giant hybrid of flaps and wing! Basically, at a lower altitude, maybe say 1 to 2000 ft AGL, I would get into level flight, and throttle back, until I was at a moderate angle of attack, and then hand fly it down. The result? Lots of lift at slow speed, lots of drag to enable a slow approach speed, and a relatively modest rollout was the result! The downside... gotta watch your airspeed like a hawk to avoid stalling on final, don't be afraid to suddenly add power or go around. It creates a lot of drag, so going full power to recover is probably a must, and I wouldn't pitch up much or at all, just let the power give your wing more lift. The upside? Less complexity in making the plane, and for flight simmers, an interesting lesson in how to fly a unique aircraft, and actually think about the aerodynamic principles! That and it was a blast to fly! Anyway, apparently a PBY is under development, though I haven't found anything more recent than Feburary: https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/some-projects-that-i-will-upgrade-from-fsx-to-p3d-and-msfs.451373/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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