WORD WRAP ON...

The Talent Company Limited 'AS-1' Gentleman's Touring Airship.


Replica of Peregine Talent's first airship design circa 1900. Although quite primitive compared to his AS-2 "Enterprise" of ten years later, she is no less capable and this replica has the advantage of twin ballonets to give some crude control over pitch and overall bouyancy, compensating nicely for the loss of the trail rope (the CAA were quite adament about this and besides, people get really miffed if you keep knocking their chimneys off).

FS can't really simulate airships (or anything other than a Cessna or silver tube TBH) but this gets pretty close with a little help from a sneaky little application of auto flaps from time to time. She won't loop, roll, or stall either, which is half way to reality. She also reacts to gusts in a most realistic way.


Installing:

Easy, just drop AS1 folder into your main Aircraft folder and the Unreal folder (in the aircraft's Panel folder) into your Gauges folder. Manufacturer is listed as Unreal Aviation rather than 'The Talent Company Limited' as I wouldn't want to confuse you, besides which, I haven't finished the novel.


Flying:

Start your engine with CTRL E. There is a nice air-cooled flat-twin engine sound, that is in keeping with the spirit of the thing. The engine is actually modern but as she is filled with Helium instead of hydrogen, the 250Lbs LESS weight means you can still get off the ground after a good dinner.

On the command "Up Ship" 4-6 of the ground crew would heave the aircraft bodily into the air and duck away from the propellers as you firewalled the throttle and climbed away smartly. To simulate this, a special gauge automatically deploys high-lift flaps (you will hear a hissing sound as the forward ballonet is emptied and the rear one filled with air) when close to the ground, provided you have installed the aircraft properly.

Best cruise is at 20kts. Rate of climb is very good but for realism you would stay below 2000 feet and normal operational height would be 1000-1500 depending upon the barometric pressure, gas temperature and whether you are carrying a second occupant (and whether or not it's a child).

She will cruise all day at 20kts or you can slow right down to 7-5kts and hover in a light breeze. Try landing on top of a building (M$ ones are hardened for this - crash-detection must be switched on), it's fun.

Auto-rudder /ON is fine if you don't want to make rudder-only turns. The ailerons are there, this being FS you can't remove 'em, but they are not effective at turning the airship at all s'there.

Elevator control is virtually non-existant (I have given FS9 users a little more control here, in keeping with that sim's dumbed-down behaviour) but the trim works well.

In turbulence, she will pitch and roll and generally gets chucked about. Just like the real thing. :-)

On cross-countries, it helps if the wind is going your way.

To land, slowly close the throttle and she will come down. Cut the engine when you get to apx. 10 feet above the ground.

Note: As always, I have included an autopilot so that the aircraft will follow FSNavigator tracks as I like to sit in the tower and watch her drifting around above my head etc.

If the aircraft seems to have a mind of its own, check that you haven't left the AP on from a previous aircraft. Press Z to toggle the AP. The same applies to Autothrottle. If the engines won't respond press CTRL R to toggle the AT.

If you hate the AP then edit the Aircraft.cfg file to remove it.

That's it. I'm quite pleased with it but I'm open to comments.


Kevin Bryan
Unreal Aviation
kevin.bryan@bootstrap.org.uk