Original cockpit design by Peter Pellionis, Modified panel and added a new air file by Duward BIxler
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Hi Habu fans,
Thanks to David Allison (www.habu.org) for the original pictures, and
to Mike Weerasinghe for panel switching gauges (ident-button.xx.gau).
And Thanks to Phoenix simulation software for the excellent visual model.
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Notes on SR-71A from the book "Sled Driver" by Brian Shul:
HABU-Okinawa is the first stop for a new crew, and when the SR-71 first came to the island it did not go unnoticed by the locals. Intrigued by the ominous shape of the aircraft, Okinawans began calling it "Habu." The Habu was a poisonous black viper indigenous to the island, and residents felt the jet resembled the deadly snake. Squadron members adopted the nickname,and it stuck.
Cockpit glass is 4 inches thick and gets to 600 deg.f at cruising speed, you can see this on the IOAT that I put into the panel.
At full throttle the 71 uses 2000 pounds of fuel per minute, so in 40 minutes at full throttle you can empty your tank. Keep in mind while flying that the best fuel effiency is 55000 ft or above and back off on the throttle to 95% on N1 to maintain mach 3, also at slower speeds you can see the fuel flow decrease. you can maintain airborne for up to 7 hours at slower speeds.
Take off - in less than 5000 ft. you are airborne at 200 knots and by the end of the runway 350-400 knots if the gear is up.
less than 3 minutes after releasing the brakes for takeoff the sled is leveling off at 25000 feet.
Landing is around 200 knots, and if on a short runway use the parachute to slow down. And dont be afraid to dump some fuel to lighten the sled before landing it happens for real quite often.
The helmet that the pilots wear is 12 pounds and thair is a periscope in the top of the pilot canopy so that the pilot can see to taxi.
Mach 3 is equil to 2121 miles per hour/ Mach 1 is equil to 614 knots which is 707 miles per hour. Dont forget that the higher you are the less dense the air is so the indicated speed in knots is not accurate
so you can display true air speed under realism on your aircraft menu.
AIR FILE- this new air file was made by inputting exact measurements and specs, where they could be found and others like the position of the engines and things were input by measureing an exact scaled model, and of course thair is no horizontal stabilizer on the sled so the input for the lift on that I put to 0
RUNWAY INFO- The RSO cockpit has a runway info button and if you click on it you will get a screen and if you input the airport call sign it will display the runway info for that airport, Then if you double click the runway that you want, it will automatically set your OBS and VOR1 for you. I got this little extra from Ernie Alston.
HOUR METER- I have added to this panel an hour meter in both cockpits to record actual hours by useing Scott Macmillans gauge generating program. the hourmeters will generate a file into the main folder of fs2000 and everytime you start in the plane it will read the file, if you want to start at .1 again then just delete the files named(SR-71hmd.DT3 for the RSO cockpit and 71phrmet.DT1 for the pilot cockpit) then the next time you get in the plane it will generate new files beginning at .1
Do not use shift + keys to switch between cockpits or to bring up auto pilot. Use the buttons on the panel.
To sit into the aft cockpit press the red "RSO ejected" sign. Your RSO
will not eject of course :-)
You can sit back the same way: press the "Pilot ejected" sign.
Changing will take a few seconds when you switch for the first time, so
press switches before you take off.
AUTO PILOT- Avoid sudden control movements at high speed and altitude. While turning, Also watch your speed!, FAA regualtions do not allow supper sonic speed below 30000 ft. And auto pilot has a hard time holding if your going too fast at low altitudes so learn to feather the throttle.
If at high altitude the auto pilot wants to oscilate the force feedback joystick then goto options-controls-forces and disable the control surface forces, after all your on auto pilot and you dont need the force feed back.
Use instruments at final approach. Since the aircraft has a nose-high pitch
attitude in the last moments, it's rather difficult to align with the runway
(as with the real Sr-71).
PARACHUTE- The aircraft has very little drag! Hit "/" key to deploy the big 13m big
orange chute to slow down on the runway. :-)
Or click the mouse obove the yellow chute handle and the yellow light will come on( NOTE: deploying the chute in flight will resault in dropping like a rock.)
to help slow down from supersonic speed In the real SR-71 they open the forward bypass doors.
In the Sr-71 they are in the special inlet system attached to J58-s. If you open
them, you can apply additional drag to slow down.
In the flight sim this can be accomplished by useing the flaps and pretending it is foward bypass doors( the flaps in this model only give drag and no lift.)
Spike position indicators, the radar and MFD are "dummy" they are only
moving. MFD works as a mock digital map display.
CIT gauge is a modified OAT gauge, and works quite real.
If you have problems, or have any idea, feel free to email me!
I like this aircraft, and I hope everyone else will to.
