As you all know, I have been improving on the Project X Airwolf project. Airwolf is NOT an easy aircraft to fly if you want to fly it right.
First lesson... Engine controls:
Airwolf has four engines and two types of engines... Now, if you are familiar with VTOL or STOL aircraft, it will help your cause. Airwolf has Rotor engines (standard helicopter) and "Turbo's" (Advanced Jet/Rocket engines). Obviously, you'll need to take off, land and hover with the rotors. When you start your simulation of Airwolf, the Turbo's are active... Don't try to take of full power with them, you WILL lose control! Rather dial down to rotors by simply lowering the RPM to 90% (keep in mind, at sea level 90% is still too powerfull, reduce to 80%). Anything more than 100% is Turbo's. Cannon speaking, Airwolf's top end in Rotors should only be 300knts. So try not go over that barrier. Once you moving forward, say around 30knts or more, feel free to hit the Turbo's (increase RPM to over 100%) but be careful, it takes Airwolf only 9sec to reach Mach 1 so expect extreme acceleration! Keep in mind, if you have set a short-cut key on your joystick to go to max RPM you need to minimize your thrust to engage turbo's (RPM and thrust ARE two different things!!!) Otherwise it will take a good 5sec for Turbo's to engage. Once Turbo's engage, push your stick forward and set thrust to around 75%. The helicopter physics still apply. Under 10000ft don't exceed Mach 1.6 for cannon purposes hence why 75% thrust is recommended. Once above 10000ft you can increase to Mach 2 and 100% thrust. For cannon purposes don't exceed Mach 2.1 and 100000ft.
Next lesson... Yaw and Roll:
Airwolf has vector thrust and all moving tail so expect hectic Yaw and Roll capabilities (greater than an F22). For the sake of minimizing g-force effects, yaw rather than roll. You'll see Airwolf can yaw far better than any aircraft! But again, be careful at LOW speeds with turbo's! You can easily loose control. Even with rotors, take it easy. Slowly test Airwolf's limits and soon you'll learn how to control The Lady!
Also remember that Airwolf has retractable gear so don't forget to use your gear appropriately.
More coming: stay tuned...
