Unreal Aviation Airgeep. The ultimate offroad vehicle inspired by the amazing work of helicopter pioneer Frank Piasecki. This is a smaller, lighter and faster development of the concept for civilian use. Although an Airgeep is nowhere near as efficient as a helicopter, there are some environments and situations where the shrouded fans make perfect sense; Forests for example, or when operating close to people. The vehicle is also relatively easy to fly compared to a helicopter.
(This flightsim model IS a helicopter but is very stable and does come with a very nice autopilot...)
The model features custom sounds and special gauges to enhance realism. You must cycle through the cockpit views at least once to activate the gauges.
The other gauges are all default M$ and are rudimentary (and not strictly accurate) with just an airspeed indicator, rpm gauge and the all-important fuel gauge - keep your eye on that because despite the helicopter flight dynamics, THIS machine is realistically incapable of auto-rotation so if you run out of fuel you will crash. The real thing would be fitted with a ballistic total-recovery parachute but that is not simulated here....
SHIFT 3 pops up a compass and SHIFT 4 a GPS.
Altitude? Look over the side. :-)
The VC features full animation of the controls and was made with Active Camera in mind.
The animation of the controls is not extended to the external model as I am unable to animate my pilot except for his head and it would have looked silly with the controls moving by themselves....
The vanes are also animated and the model features realistic, long-travel suspension.
Installing:
Unzip to a temporary folder then drag the Airgeep folder into your Aircraft folder. Move the fx_airgeep_exhaust.fx file into your Effects folder. Drag the entire Unreal folder from the Gauges folder into your main Gauges folder. If you already have the Unreal folder (thank you for taking an interest in my aircraft) then just overwrite it with this one, the contents will just be added. These gauges must remain in the Unreal folder to work.
Installing the other gauges: Unzip the AFCP.zip archive to a temporary folder and move the contents - AFCP folder, AS532AFCP.gau and HAP.gau into your Gauges folder. VERY IMPORTANT. if you get a requester saying that you already have the AFCP folder, the AS532AFCP.gau and the HAP.gau then answer NO if prompted to overwrite any of these. The gauges in THIS distribution are older versions and I will not take responsibility for you messing up your gauges...
AS532AFCP, the AFCP folder and HAP are FS2004 gauges that just happen to work perfectly with FS2002. If you already have these gauges then DO NOT overwrite yours with these versions. I will not take responsibility for you messing up your gauges...
Instructions on using this amazing helicopter autopilot by Antii Pankonen and Dirk Fassbender are in the AFCP folder and if used in conjunction with FSNavigator (all those of you lucky enough to have it) it is possible to take off, fly to your destination and make a perfect landing, all without touching the joystick. Better still is the ability to hold a fixed RADAR ALTITUDE for terrain-following, which looks really cool! Be warned though, this is NOT a true terrain-following autopilot and should a hill jump in front of you and its slope be steeper than your rate of climb, you will crash into it. 500 feet AGL is a good height to start with but over smooth terrain you can go right down to 10 feet.
Tip: Turn crash detection OFF while you learn to use the autopilot in Cruise-Height mode...
It's a helicopter, crash in the normal way. ;-)
You must cycle through the cockpit views (S key three times) to activate the gauges.
Start the engines with F1, CTRL-F4 then CTRL-SHIFT-F4.
The aircraft is stable and makes a good trainer. You can do run-on landings too due to the wheels but note that there are no brakes (it's a Micro$oft thing).
Max cruise is 50-60 knots (VNE 80 knots) and the range is approximately 100 miles depending upon how fast and how high you fly (the lower the better).
SHIFT-2 brings up the autopilot and the full instructions are in the AFCP folder and a summery of those instructions is on the simshed website above.
Thanks to Antii Pankonen and Dirk Fassbender for their kind permission to release this older version of their amazing helicopter autopilot.
That's it, have fun.
Feedback welcome.
Kevin Bryan
Unreal Aviation
kevin.bryan@bootstrap.org.uk
