This Flight Simulator 2002 aircraft was produced with Abacus FS Design Studio, Aircraft Animator, SDLEdit and Paint Shop Pro.
=============
Installation FS2002:
-Extract the contents of the main zip file s38cvara.zip into FS2002's Aircraft folder. This should create a structure something like the following:
- c:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2002
--- Aircraft
----- Sikorsky S-38C VarA
-------- Model
-------- Panel
-------- Sound
-------- Texture.C-6A
-------- Texture.Carnauba
-------- Gauges
-Copy the contents of the Gauges folder into the FS2002 gauges folder.
-Once these files are extracted, Flight Simulator 2002 should exhibit 2 new entries under Aircraft/Select Aircraft on the menu bar:
--Sikorsky / USAAF C-6A
--Sikorsky / S-38 Spirit of Carnauba
The plane is an amphibian in FS2002. You can take off from either water or land, and land on either with one model.
================
Flying the S-38/C-6A:
The S-38 had only a tail skid, so handling on the ground is best accomplished with both differential thrust (select left engine with E-1, right engine E-2, both engines E-1-2) and differential braking (F11 and F12). Using brakes only, it takes a long time to turn the plane around, in many short stop-and-start segments.
When on the ground, use the flap controls (F8 open, F5 close) to open the cockpit windows, passenger hatch, cabin access ladder, and passenger hand hold post.
From the virtual cockpit, use Ctrl-Enter and Ctrl-Backspace to move from the cockpit back to the passenger compartment to do sightseeing out the passenger windows.
=============
Known issues:
-Gear retract struts do not remain in contact with wheel hub during travel. I do not know how to accomplish that, so instead the retract struts roughly follow along during the retract cycle and catch up at the end.
-These aircraft are repaints of an earlier upload file, s38nc4v.zip. The aircraft model and virtual cockpit are duplicates of Sikorsky S-38 NC4V "Molokai" and do not attempt to recreate C-6A or Carnauba interiors.
-Panel. The panel by Eliezer Rice is a nice compromise between and old-style look and modern functionality. Real S-38 panels were pretty sparse in 1929. This panel adds some radio and other modern features to make your life easier.
There are 3 light switches from the Mooney Bravo in this panel. If your version of FS2002 does not have the Mooney, and you need light switches, you can change those lines in the panel.cfg file to point to similar switches from the Cessna 208 panel.cfg:
for instance, you can change - gauge12=mooney_bravo!Navigation Lights, 404,709,31,47
to read - gauge12=Cessna208!Nav-Lights, 404,709,31,47
-FS2002 night textures. Virtual cockpit instruments do not show up at night. Various discussion groups were consulted, and no one has a fix for this yet. Several people say that the instruments show up if there is external light, such as the moon, and the instrument panel is facing that direction.
-Sound. To save space, this model comes with a sound.cfg file that points to a default sound package.
If you can, alias your sound file to one of the nice radial twin packages available. I like the nice DC-3 sounds by Mike Hambly of Blue Arrow. That file can be found on SurClaro as daksnd2k.zip.
Other good twin radial sound packages are: Aaron Swindle's Twin Beech, tbchsnz.zip (and the patch file d18sndfx.zip) from Skysong; and Trev Morson's DC-3 sounds fs2k2dc3.zip, or dc3-snd.zip.
You can let a lot of planes share the same sound files by creating a dummy folder under your FS2002\aircraft\ folder. For instance, I created a folder called FS2002\aircraft\Sounds Blue Arrow DC-3\sound, and I extracted Mike Hambly's file into that. Then in all my S-38 models, the sound.cfg file reads:
[fltsim]
alias=Sounds Blue Arrow DC-3\sound
This saves a lot of space, compared to putting all the sound files in every plane, and it doesn't tie any one plane to a specific sound package.
====
Authorship:
The visual model is completely original. It is based on plans obtained from Cleveland Model and Supply, Cleveland, OH.
The flight model was originally on a model by Alexander Belov, with S-38 characteristics derived from "Sea Wings" (Doubleday, 1972) by Edward Jablonski. Since then there have been modifications, including some by Eliezer Rice (erice264@netvision.net.il).
The textures are by Eliezer Rice.
The panel is by Eliezer Rice, who has also helped with many suggestions for features and detailing in this and other S-38 models.
I consulted many tutorials in building this model. David Eckert provides tutorials on almost every facet of FSDS development at www.daviator.com. Jerry Beckwith explains .air file parameters at the 714th flight test center. Tom Goodrick explains flight dynamics at http://www.flightsimdownloads.com/pub/FlightDynamics.pdf. Marcelo Canovas Vera and Felix J Rodriguez explain how to make a prop disk at http://www.freeflightdesign.com. Erick Cantu provided helpful textures in aluminum.zip. Mike Crosthwaite's SDLEdit was used for many of the animations. I am grateful to the many people who give so much of their time to provide tools and guidance for us.
====
Background:
The Sikorsky S-38 was called "Conqueror of the Caribbean" as it served the rapidly expanding Pan American routes from 1929 into the 1930s.
Charles Lindbergh flew the S-38 in surveying the Caribbean routes for Juan Trippe. The S-38 was purchased by many other airlines, including Inter-Island Airways of Hawaii, Northwest Airways of Minnesota, Colonial Western, and Canadian Airways, as well as the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marines.
The U.S. Army bought 11 S-38s and designated the first one C-6 and the rest of them C-6A, intending to use them as coastal patrol aircraft. The original C-6 was used mostly as a VIP transport. They served from 1931 to 1933, the short service period resulting from structural failures experienced after a pattern of too many hard landings at the hands of Army pilots. You can see documentation of this plane at www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/cargo/c1/c6a.htm.
Inter-Island Airways (later Hawaiian Air) started out with two S-38s (NC111M "Hawaii" and NC112M "Maui") on November 11, 1929. The pilots were Carl Cover and Charles I. Elliott. Two more S-38s were introduced in 1930 and 1931, the NC305N "Kauai" and NC4V "Molokai". NC4V was in use up to 1947.
An S-38 owned by Papua Oil Development Company was sunk by a crocodile in New Guinea in 1937. The plane collided with the reptile while landing on the Kikori River.
The S.C. Johnson Company (Johnson's Wax) had an S-38 replica built which duplicated H.F. Johnson's pioneering expedition to Brazil in 1935. The "Carnauba" was flown from Racine, WI to Fortaleza, Brazil and back in October and November of 1998. You can see a lot of nice documentation of this plane and its adventures at www.scjcarnauba.com/carnauba.htm. There is also an article at http://sobering.terracom.net/eaa99/Carnuba/index.html.
====
References:
Joseph Juptner, 'US Civil Aircraft Vol. 2', Aero Publishers 1964
Edward Jablonski, 'Sea Wings - The Romance of the Flying Boats', Doubleday 1972
William J. Horvat, 'Above the Pacific', Aero Publishers 1966
Boris Sergievsky, 'Airplanes, Women, and Song', Syracuse University Press 1999
John W. R. Taylor, 'Sikorsky', Tempus 1998
Richard C. Knott, 'The American Flying Boat', Naval Institute Press 1979
"Spirit of Adventure" http://www.scjcarnauba.com/plane.htm - The S-38 reproduction of 1998.
====
This model is freeware. The gauges are copyrighted and are the property of the gauge designers.
All comments and suggestions welcome.
E-mail: george_diemer@msn.com
