Zeppelin NT

Revision as of 18:57, 29 August 2008 by AndersG (talk | contribs) (Added dual control information and some other good to know things.)
Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik LZ N07
Zeppelin NT.jpg
Type Airship
Author(s) Anders Gidenstam
FDM JSBSim
--aircraft= /ZLT-NT
/ZLT-NT

/ZLT-NT

/ZLT-NT

/ZLT-NT

/ZLT-NT

/ZLT-NT

/ZLT-NT

/ZLT-NT

/ZLT-NT

/ZLT-NT
Status Development

Handling instructions

Important controls / keys

Flight controls

  • Rudder (Aileron input is transferred to the rudder for convenience.) At low speed the rudder is automatically augmented by a tail mounted side thruster controlled by the flight control system.
  • Elevator

Engines and thrust vectoring

The Zeppelin NT has a non-standard set of engine controls. The engines' throttles are controlled by govenors - the throttle levers select the desired RPM.

Engine controls

  • PgUp/PgDown - Increase/decrease selected engine RPM.
  • M/m - Leaner/richer mixture.

Thrust vectoring

  • [/] - Swivel side engines up/down. 0 - 120 degrees.
  • G/g - Swivel aft engine down/up. -90/0 degrees.
  • N/n - Decrease/increase thrust (i.e. propeller blade angle).

Take off/Landing: max RPM, use thrust levers for control.

Cruise: thrust levers for max thust, use engine RPM select for control.

Gas and Envelope

  • F/f - Open/close the gas valve.
  • Q/q - Inflate/deflate fore ballonet.
  • A/a - Inflate/deflate aft ballonet.

Note: On FlightGear startup the envelope unfortunately usually isn't pressurized so the pressure alarm will sound. The ballonet levers are set to maximum inflation so the operating pressure is usually reached within 60 seconds.

Ballast

The Zeppelin NT has no ballast approved for inflight adjustment.

  • w - Show current on-ground weight. Only works when on the ground.
  • W - Weigh off to 700lbs heavy by adding/removing ballast. Takes about 10 seconds and is only applicable when on the ground.
  • D/d - Drop ballast in 1%/0.1% decrements.

Ground crew / Mooring mast

  • Y - Release mooring mast connection or wire.
  • U - Attach mooring wire. Only possible when close to the mooring mast.
  • y/u - Play out/winch in mooring wire.
  • Alt + click on terrain - Place the mooring mast.

Landing short of the mast and taxing up to it allows precision control. Use the rear thruster to keep the tail wheel in the air while taxing.

Note: The mooring force calculations are sensitive to long frame times (i.e. very low fps). In particular this can cause instability during FlightGear startup. One workaround is to pause the simulation immediately on startup and continue when scenery objects and multiplayers have been loaded. A better option is to reduce /sim/max-simtime-per-frame to a sane number, e.g. 0.1 meaning that each frame is at most 0.1 simulated seconds (so if your fps drops below 10 the simulation will run slower than real-time). This can be done in preferences.xml by modifying the line

<max-simtime-per-frame>1.0</max-simtime-per-frame>

to

<max-simtime-per-frame>0.1</max-simtime-per-frame>

Cockpit and instruments

Multiplayer dual control

This aircraft equipped for dual control over the FLightGear multiplayer network.

To use this feature the pilot sets the property /sim/remote/pilot-callsign to the callsign of the prospective copilot. This property can be set in the property browser, on the command line or in fgrun. Command line example:

fgfs --aircraft=ZLT-NT --prop:/sim/remote/pilot-callsign="someone"

The copilot uses the copilot "aircraft" ZLT-NT-copilot and sets the property /sim/remote/pilot-callsign to the callsign of the pilot. Command line example:

fgfs --aircraft=ZLT-NT-copilot --prop:/sim/remote/pilot-callsign="anybody"

Note:

1. If the pilot sets /sim/remote/pilot-callsign at runtime the copilot needs to join MP after the pilot set /sim/remote/pilot-callsign or things won't work. This will be improved in a future version.

2. Using the ZLT-NT-copilot it is possible to hitch a ride with any ZLT-NT on MP. However, unless you are the pilot "approved" copilot you will only be an observer.

3. The radio displays are broken for the copilot, although the frequency settings are shared correctly.

External links