INTRODUCTION:
This manual explains how to extract each 'realism' that is
embedded in the supplied three dimensional crew environment,
sounds, gauges and flight dynamics of this FS9 release. It
expands the content of Regia Aeronautica technical manuals and
operating manuals to explain in detail things that Regia
Aeronautica, and Luftwaffe, instructors of 1940 - 1945 were
expected to teach. Nevertheless advanced familiarity with the
2008 Propliner Tutorial from;
Calclassic.com/tutorials
is assumed throughout. That tutorial's generic content is
barely touched upon below.
This
is a demanding 'maximum realism' simulation of a training
aeroplane highly specialised for the purpose of deselecting
potential pilots if they could not cope with the most basic
elements of pilotage. The contextual history of the L.3, (also
in this 'read before flight' folder), should ideally be
studied before reading this student training manual.
Issues explained in the supplied contextual history are barely
touched upon here. Within this student training manual some
values are estimated. The symbol ~ means 'approximately'.
LOAD THE OPEN COCKPIT LOMBARDI - MOVE TO VOSLAU (LOAV)
RUNWAY 26:
This student training manual will teach you to replicate
Regia Aeronautica and Luftwaffe 'lead in' pilot selection and
training procedures for the A.V.I.A. L.3 1940 - 1945 in
detail. Only the most difficult to understand concepts are
illustrated later. The illustrations assume use of the
Luftwaffe training facilities at Voslau (LOAV) and Klagenfurt
(LOWK), and in particular assume use of the FS9 default BGLs
for those locations, including realistic surface friction
versus runway type, that sadly may be absent from third party
sceneries, which should be disabled during Lombardi L3
training. Your lead in training aircrew specialisation
selection begins at Voslau and proceeds to Klagenfurt. You can
carry out your training using any livery, but the supplied
1944 Luftwaffe livery is the most appropriate. Remember during
WW2 Italian aeroplanes didn't serve only in the Regia
Aeronautica.
Even though 'lead in' training in the cockpit of Lombardi
was quite brief it was associated with many ground school
classes that covered the knowledge base required. You will
need to work harder than the real student pilots, because you
will need to teach yourself the required knowledge base and
skills using only this tutorial / manual, as you practice each
skill detailed below within your desk top flight simulator.
This training manual will not say, 'here is a specific skill
that you must practice inside your flight simulator, each time
it introduces a new compliance procedure that the real student
was required to learn, understand and demonstrate, but you
should practice each and every skill anyway.
Only concepts that are especially difficult to understand
or learn as skills are described in detail, but to extract the
realism this release delivers you must make the effort to
understand and demonstrate each compliance and many of them
are much easier to understand while using the L3 in your
simulator, while cross referring to this text, as you learn to
achieve each compliance that will allow you to proceed beyond
'lead in aircrew role selection training' to 'pilot training'
during WW2. This will be very demanding because it assumes
that you have what it takes to pass that selection process.
Because early aircrew role suitability selection revolves
around head up parallax compliance skills, and understanding
how fundamental they are to the safe VFR operation of real
aeroplanes, within or outside a combat environment, this
tutorial / manual will eventually address those skills in
greater detail than any other that is freely available to the
FS community. Many flight simulation enthusiasts even struggle
to configure their desk top flight simulator compliantly, so
that it allows those essential skills to be learned. That very
basic necessity will also be explained.
PURE 3D SIMULATION:
Back in the 1990s, when the best desk top flight simulator
was FS98, we were all forced to use fixed format windows
containing an image that was a bitmap of fixed field of view
(FoV), usually based on a photograph taken from a random
eyepoint down a random eyeline at a random zoom.
In consequence the bitmap imposed was usually wholly out of
scale with everything else in the simulation. It blocked sight
lines and real world head up parallax compliances could not be
learned or used. Parallax compliance and perspective were lost
every time the outside scenery in the back window was zoomed
and the fixed bitmap in the front window failed to zoom with
it. Nobody could judge azimuth or range or glideslope unless
zoom was always 1.0, and the developer actually understood
that he was the scenery projectionist and bothered to learn
how to project more or less the real slice of scenery into the
random size out of scale apertures of the fixed FoV bitmap.
Few third party developers ever understood, or ever learned
how to project the real slice of scenery. 2D panels were
awful, but 20 years ago we had no choice. We also had no
choice concerning our display. It was 8:6 aspect ratio,
miserably small size, with miserable resolution rarely
exceeding 600p.
It is now 2015 and there is no way for software developers
to know the shape of your screen, the size of your screen (17
inch or 57 inch), the definition (600p / 720p / 1080p / 1200p
/ or much more) of your screen, or the acuity of your
corrected vision. 3D computing is the solution. These days we
are each required to configure our personal display device to
match not only the acuity of our personal eyesight, but also
to understand why some aspects of desk top flight simulation
require display devices to be configured to deliver Human Fied
of View (FoV) while other aspects of flight simulation require
the ability to switch the display to match Human Acuity. No
developer can do that for you.
When using the display we purchased with *any* software it
is our job to create a window whose aspect ratio and microzoom
in combination is 'fit for purpose'. Software developers have
no idea whether we use a real 16:10 computer monitor, or only
a 16:9 television (TV), or what type of digital cinematic
projector we may own. A 16:9 TV (often misdescribed as a
computer monitor) shows at least 11% less of every kind of
file compared to a real modern era 16:10 computer monitor.
Whether we are loading a spreadsheet, a database, or just a
pdf document, it is our job to create a WINDOW of appropriate
shape and then impose a microzoom of the file in that window
that is 'fit for purpose' using our prior personal hardware
choices.
Many flight simulation enthusiasts still fail to understand
the difference between a virtual window and a real window. The
difference is critical. If we make a real window wider our
lateral FOV increases and our vertical FoV is undiminished. If
instead (at constant ZOOM) we make a virtual window wider our
lateral FoV reduces slightly and our vertical FoV reduces
rapidly. Using a computer with MS windows we see more of the
VC in a narrower window. The wider the consumer runs the
window versus its depth the more they reduce their FoV (at
constant ZOOM). This becomes a significant problem if the
consumer is trying to use a 16:9 widescreen TV as a computer
monitor. These days most of you are, but don't realise that
you are. 11% of the vertical FoV that would be present on a
real computer monitor will be missing.
This 'maximum realism' simulation runs in 3D to impose real
world scenery projection, sight line blocking, and parallax
compliance cues in all directions, from the student and
instructor variable eyepoints at all times, at any zoom, in
any simulation window of any aspect ratio. During 3D computing
the 'inside view' and the 'outside view' share the same aspect
ratio, and then they pan, and scroll and zoom together. That
is a necessity during desk top flight simulation, if we hope
to learn and impose real world head up parallax compliances,
rather than just watch a distorted cartoon with random scenery
placement.
DISPLAY AND CONFIGURE THE VC TO MATCH YOUR HARDWARE
PURCHASE NOW:
If necessary autostart the engine (CTRL+E). You currently
occupy the default student (dual and solo flight) parallax
compliance eyepoint, which will be occupied for most of the
simulation, but it is only one of two mandatory parallax
compliance eyepoints (for the student) in this 3D vintage era
workspace. There are two more for the instructor which are of
course also available in this maximum realism simulation.
Remember if you use a startup.flt that you created, you
randomised what will be open or closed, what will be on or
off, how full anything is, what has already failed, and the
huge weight of ice from the last flight that you never
removed. Many consumers develop the belief that 'MSFS is
broken' based only on the crazy content of their randomised
self created start up files.
Configuring a window whose aspect ratio you personally
believe approximates Human Field of View (FoV) is your job.
You choose what aspect ratio that is, not a developer, not a
hardware manufacturer. You choose how much of the file content
you want to see, laterally and vertically, by varying WINDOW
aspect ratio and microzoom at will, and no scenery will ever
be misprojected. During this simulation you can configure how
much of any file you want to see, the way you want to see it,
and still be guaranteed the parallax compliance that is
necessary to impose range and azimuth and glideslope using
real head up flight parallax compliance procedures, as more
than one crew member.
Now *microzoom* the inside and outside of the simulation
together, using (SHIFT and + else SHIFT and -), *not just +
and -*, until you personally perceive that the window you
created within your screen, and the zoom you have micro
imposed within that window, delivers human FoV in that window.
Else if your corrected vision is poor, or you use a display
with low definition (resolution), then instead the higher
microzoom you will need to read the gauges using your personal
hardware choice. You must learn to impose both human FoV (at a
ZOOM peculiar to your display device). and the acuity of
vision that was required to become an air force pilot in WW2.
That happens only at ZOOM = 1, because all BGLs are designed
to deliver real 'Level of Detail' (LOD), for target
identification / recognition at ZOOM = 1, and not at the ZOOM
that instead delivers human FoV on your personal hardware
display purchase.
THE ENTIRE WINDSCREEN IN FRONT OF YOU IS YOUR AIMING
RETICLE:
Later sections of this manual will illuminate the skills of
head up flight parallax compliance using the forward
windscreen, whose frames are your parallax compliance reticle.
The compliant microzoom you must impose, must always reveal
the upper frame of your aiming reticle, where it passes above
your current eyepoint, thus allowing you to determine where
the vertical centre of that reticle is located. In some real
aircraft real human FoV from the real parallax compliance
eyepoint may extend beyond the top and sides of the parallax
compliance aiming reticle, but the top and bottom of the head
up parallax compliance aiming reticle must always be visible
on your personal hardware while learning the relevant real
world skills. If you cannot see the top and bottom of the head
up parallax compliance aiming reticle, (in this case the
windscreen), in front of your current eyepoint, you cannot
possibly position the target of external parallax compliance
in the vertical centre of that reticle and you have not
microzoomed out far enough versus your personal purchase of
display hardware.
All versions of MSFS have poorly designed consumer
simulation control interfaces. Some are just worse than
others. None allow microzoom to be assigned to a button, and
none allow microzoom to be recoded as a single finger press.
The Microsoft design error requiring multi finger pressing is
hard coded.
However once you have co-adjusted the aspect ratio of
the WINDOW to approximate human FoV, and the microzoom to
approximate Human FoV, FS9 will retain your personal setting
throughout the simulation session. FS9 is a well designed desk
top flight simulator that delivers realistic head up parallax
compliance cues in 3D mode. The problem is that many flight
simulation enthusiasts have never learned how to make their
personal choice of hardware display 'fit for purpose' because
they imagine someone else can still do it for them.

Your perception of Human FoV may differ slightly from mine.
That is irrelevant. The microzoom you need to use, versus the
WINDOW aspect ratio you decide to use, may need to be
different using your hardware. Regardless you must
operate the Lombardi from the mandatory compliance eyepoint
and you must adjust microzoom to deliver the VERTICAL FoV
that incorporates the upper bound of the aiming reticle, in
front of the compliance eyepoint, while being able to see all
the most important gauges used to impose compliant operation
of the Lombardi. In FS9 pressing the SPACEBAR will return you
to *your* definition of forward arc human FoV on *your*
hardware.
Flight simulation enthusiasts must learn to do with a
flight simulation product what we must all learn to do with a
pdf document or a spreadsheet. We must control how much of the
embedded file content we see at any one time, in both the X
and Y directions, and if what we see is not fit for purpose,
we must change what we see, by variation of WINDOW aspect
ratio and microzoom, until what is visible, is fit for
purpose. For any type of file. Adjust your default definition
of Human FoV until you do not need to pan and scroll, to see
anything needed to impose and sustain compliant operation of
the aeroplane. We shall examine when it is inappropriate to
view the simulation using Human FoV later.
INHABIT THE REAL WORKSPACE:
The whole point of modern desk top flight simulation is to
deliver a real 3D workspace that we can inhabit, looking in
any direction, from every real world eyepoint, down every real
world eyeline, at any microzoom, using any hardware. We must
learn how to vary eyepoint and eyeline realistically while
'inhabiting' that virtual workspace. That self training is all
about learning how to look in the next compliant direction
from the next compliant eyepoint, in 3D, using your chosen
hardware, including your personal joystick buttons, and your
personal keyboard control assignments.
A developer 2D manual does not address that. The whole
point is that you must learn to inhabit the real workspace
while you learn where to look and you personally decide *how
to look*. Sometimes panning, or scrolling, with your hat
switch to control the Field of View (FoV) will be optimal,
sometimes just microzooming to reveal more of the file, just
like using a spreadsheet or a database proficiently, but with
the added complication of needing to view the data used to
make decisions from more than one real world eyepoint. The
virtual 3D workspace is your training environment. Like the
real Lombardi student pilot you must inhabit the workspace and
learn to use it in 3D.
As you vary and control your FoV at will become obvious
that every 2D panel that could possibly exist has been
provided, and every 'fixed window' in every direction that
could possibly exist has also been provided. It is 2015 and
you are required to learn how to extract any FoV, or any ZOOM.
you need to progress the captaincy decision making cycle,
or to control the simulation. Because this is a pure 3D
simulation where you need to look, and where you need to look
from, as different members of the crew, will vary with
external environmental conditions just like the real cockpit.
Sun glare, gloom, and shadows from sun glare will render
gauges unreadable from specific directions just like real life
as real weather varies.
That level of operating realism is possible only after we
learn to really inhabit a 3D workspace with its real sight
line blocking, reflections, gloom and glare. It's not the
1990s any more, but some flight simulation enthusiasts are
struggling to keep up with progress and so this training
manual explains how to use FS9 to full advantage. Using FS9
(or FSX) as though they were only FS98 is a great shame.
HOW AND WHERE TO LEAN YOUR HEAD:
Because this simulation deliberately has realistic blocking
and revelation of sight lines we must emulate the real student
in the left hand seat (else the mirror image as instructor in
the right hand seat) and we must lean our head to unblock
sight lines as necessary. When operating the tail dragging
Lombardi as a student pilot, from the left hand seat, that we
will continue to occupy when we qualify to fly solo, we must
lean our head to the left to unblock our forward sight line,
during ground handling, take off and approach.
If you lack the joystick buttons to assign one to 'lean
left' and another to 'lean right' I strongly advise that you
assign those actions to the numpad 4 and numpad 6 keys so that
they become a single finger operation. In FS9 the real P1 in
flight parallax compliance eyepoint is regained simply by
pressing the SPACEBAR. The FSX consumer simulation interface
is poorly designed by comparison. If you attempt to emulate
FS9 capability in FSX and 'jump back' to the default eyepoint
FSX will impose an unwanted developer zoom that may be wholly
inappropriate for your hardware or corrected vision, as well
as a random developer imposed eyeline. If using the still
broken FSX/FSXA/FSXG consumer simulation control interface you
may need to lean your head back to the P1 parallax compliance
eyepoint after moving it, using your lean right gradually
command, always avoiding a 'regain eyepoint' 'jump to'
command.
As we gradually move our EYEPOINT left the 'tail down'
parallax compliance eyepoint is recognised and imposed by two
means.
1) The two bars of the somersault cage merge ahead of the
'tail down' compliance eyepoint so that the nearer hoop covers
the grey rubber insert of the more distant hoop immediately
ahead of the new compliance eyepoint. This keeps the real
pilots head just out of the propwash, and does not require the
real student to go goggles down, while delivering a 'fit for
purpose'' view ahead. At least it was deemed to be 'fit for
purpose' by the relevant chain of command at the time (see
supplied contextual history).
2) Both the exposed cylinder head and the edge of the black
engine block are revealed.
If your earlier management of microzoom and window aspect
ratio was compliant the ASI, the master magnetic compass, the
slip ball, and the GIRI gauge, all remain visible inside
your FoV without panning or scrolling. Alter your keyboard
assignments so that this head leaning is a single key press
while you monitor progression to the tail down head up
parallax compliance eyepoint.

Here we are compliantly lined up QFU 26 LOAV. We
leaned our EYEPOINT left, with no change of EYELINE, to this
tail down head up parallax compliance eyepoint before we began
to taxi. This EYEPOINT is also used to impose approach
head up parallax compliance which we shall study later. Our
lateral and vertical FoV is unchanged, we have only leaned
EYEPOINT to where it needs to be for this phase of the sortie.
As in all taildragging aeroplanes it is necessary to weave
the nose with rudder as we taxi, to reveal what lies dead
ahead and behind the nose. When we need to line up on the
runway this second mandatory 'tail down' head up parallax
compliance eyepoint reveals the dead ahead external objects of
parallax compliance = targets, which may include surface
markings at the far end of the runway, and anyway whatever
taller object may be available to monitor and remedy 'torque
yaw' during the brief take off roll, and that will become
threats after we take off and accelerate to IAS = Vy before
initiating climb . We shall study those issues later.
Remember during 3D simulation you may also need to lean
your head to eliminate real 3D shadows, other gloom and glare.
We will study circuit pattern and approach parallax
compliances in detail later, but you should practice moving to
the tail down eyepoint and back to the default parallax
compliance eyepoint now.
NO WHEEL BRAKES:
Notice that the Lombardi has no brakes, and since you had
no chocks in front of the mainwheels, it rolled forward during
engine starting. You never will have chocks in MSFS. Inside
MSFS the Lombardi must be started on grass or dirt. Smooth
surfaces, such as concrete and tarmac, have a co-efficient of
friction too low to be compatible with the safe operation of
taildragging aeroplanes with tail skids. The skid has too
little grip.
MSFS has many bugs and one of them relates to the
'spawning' of brakeless aeroplanes. It takes MSFS a moment to
impose the low engine torque associated with a (nearly) closed
throttle and the Lombardi will both move forward and 'torque
yaw' when spawned with the engine running, or upon engine
start. On grass or dirt where it belongs the motion is slight
and can easily be corrected afterwards from the mandatory VC
ground handling, tail down, eyepoint described above.
Despite the low static thrust and low torque of the engine,
the inertia of the Lombardi is so low at most weights that it
will 'edge' forward in idle thrust on smooth surfaces where it
does not belong. This is *not* an error. Aeroplanes with
tailskids and no wheel brakes do not belong on smooth
surfaces. Taking them there is just one more pilot error.
NO ELECTRONICS - NO VACUUM SYSTEM - NO LIGHTING:
Apart from its magneto ignition system the Lombardi has no
electrical system, hydraulic system, pneumatic system, or
anything technical of any kind. It cannot have a gyroscopic
compass or a turn rate gauge. It has a spirit level in a bent
glass tube to function as a slip gauge. There is no battery.
There is no master switch. There is no windmill generator.
There is no lighting of any kind and flight during darkness is
prohibited. Flight outside the circuit pattern in a visibility
of less than 5 miles ~ 8 kilometres is prohibited. Thus
entering cloud even briefly is prohibited. This may determine
our operational ceiling during a particular sortie. Obviously
there was no way to communicate with anybody outside the
aeroplane.
NO IN FLIGHT TRIM SYSTEM:
The fact that the Lombardi has only pioneer era technology
with no cockpit TRIM controls is a major factor in its
compliant operation. Those of you who have learned to fly the
(earlier MVG FS9) Ansaldo SVA 5 compliantly, will already have
understood that most WW1 aeroplanes were TRIMMED by the RIGGER
before flight to sustain any desired drag = IAS, and by
varying the RIGGED drag = IAS, the RIGGED operational ceiling
of the aeroplane was co-varied *before flight*.
The earlier MVG Ansaldo FS9 release featured two RIGGING
STATES (Piave and Alpine) to match its two most common WW1
combat roles. The SVA 5 and its two seat version the SVA 9
went on to become standard inter war Regia Aeronautica
advanced and primary trainers. The Lombardi is by design very
much in that tradition, but in Regia Aeronautica service it
had only one RIGGING state, which was applied at the A.V.I.A.
factory.
The Lombardi is always and only RIGGED to autoseek a
profile drag of 150 KmIAS. With high GIRI it climbs at 150
KmIAS. With low GIRI it descends at 150 KmIAS. Somewhere in
between, for each weight and each weather, minute by minute,
there is a GIRI that imposes the compliant glideslope for
cruise which is zero degrees, by definition, causing Vertical
Speed Increment (VSI) = 0. When we reject climb we must
anticipate that need. The complaint inputs in an aeroplane
with no cockpit TRIM controls are explained later in the
cruise phase section of this manual.
There is of course a weather and weight dependent ceiling
above which the puny engine lacks the power to sustain cruise
with a factory rigged profile drag of 150 KmIAS. If
excessively cold air, poor visibility, or cloud are not
factors right here, right now, that is our operational
ceiling. The operational ceiling of the Lombardi is of course
far, far below the always irrelevant 'service ceiling' which
the Lombardi can reach while using the joystick to reduce
profile drag abuse that the engine has to overcome, far below
150 KmIAS.
Cruising below the engine output operational ceiling
squanders available velocity, but may be mandatory. If it is
not mandatory, and the sortie is a cross country sortie, in
the absence of a perceived significant headwind vector the
Lombardi should always climb to the maximum altitude at which
the puny engine will sustain the design cruise = factory
rigged profile drag of 150 KmIAS at current weight, in the
current weather. The concept 'perceived significant headwind'
is examined in detail within the 2008 Propliner Tutorial.
BUT *FAKE* RUDDER TRIM IS AVAILABLE IN MSFS:
The Lombardi has sufficient dihedral no have no net torque
yaw or roll consequence at design cruise drag = 150 KmIAS,
which its factory rigged trim autoseeks. With less profile
drag flowing over the aerofoil (dihedral) it is progressively
necessary to resist torque yaw and roll with rudder (not
aileron). With (properly calibrated) rudder pedals yaw
authority is more than adequate and pleasantly progressive.
However FS9 consumers without rudder pedals will wish to
use the (digital and fake) keyboard rudder trim to avoid the
need for tiring continuous manual input especially during
climb at Vx or Vy, or powered approach at Vref. As always I
strongly recommend that rudder trim be re-assigned to the Ins
and Enter keys of the keyboard numpad to facilitate one finger
yaw trimming. If you have pedals simply don't invoke the fake
in flight digital rudder trim in the Lombardi.
AVOID invoking AUTO RUDDER in the Lombardi, even if you
have no pedals, because ground handling, fishtail and urgent
rudder braking (see below) will become impossible.
IDENTIFY THE AIR SPEED INDICATOR (ASI): USING THE
ADVANCED WEATHER MENU:
The ASI is top left of the panel, because the Regia
Aeronautica flew left hand circuits by default. By 1940,
outside the Japanese Empire, everyone, (including even the
British), had by now agreed that fixed wing aeroplanes would
fly left hand instrument procedures, left hand visual pattens,
and had agreed to build left hand drive cockpits, looking
left, always keeping the dividing median of any two way route
to their left. Where the gauges are located depends on the
parochial or later international contemporary procedures they
are used to comply with.
This student training manual will make frequent references
to 'V speeds' which are really drag abuse targets or limits.
The supplied ASI is easier to read than the real one, but in
the vintage era of aviation history gauges were not marked
with aeroplane specific drag abuse limits, or applied drag
targets, by way of lines, bugs or coloured arcs.
Many flight simulation enthusiasts want to believe that the
ASI is a speedometer of some kind that can tell them the speed
of the vehicle that they are travelling in, just like an
automobile. A speedometer works by calculating how many times
per minute a wheel of known circumference revolves across a
terrain surface. That is not possible in aeroplanes. They have
no speedometer.
Look at the master magnetic compass to the right of the
ASI. Note and remember current aeroplane heading. Now open the
world\weather menu -- select user defined weather -- select
customise weather -- select advanced weather -- select wind --
now set speed to 34 knots (actually KIAS), else 65 kph
(actually 65 KmIAS) -- set gusts to zero. Now click around the
wind circle on the right until the wind is coming FROM the
direction the nose of the Lombardi is pointing (its current
heading on the compass). Make sure that the aeroplane icon is
within the blue box altitude band on the left. Now click OK
several times until the Lombardi VC re-appears.
Now with the Lombardi still static on the grass, read the
ASI. Use the mouse tool tip. Make sure the sim is unpaused.
The ASI now reads 65 KmIAS. The ASI needle is simply pushed
round by the force of the passing wind (air) impacting the
pitot tube. The same force (also know as profile drag) is
being applied to every other part of the airframe, and is
being applied to the projecting cylinders of the flat four
engine as cooling drag, and is being applied to the airscrew
as windmill drag.
It is called an AIR speed indicator for a reason! It is
*not* an aeroplane speed indicator. Our speed (measured in Kph
or KTS) is obviously zero. Our velocity (measured in KmTAS or
KTAS) is also obviously zero. Our applied profile = cooling =
windmill drag (abuse) is 65 KmIAS = 34 KIAS.
The drag = force now abusing the Lombardi is called 'Gale
Force' or 'Force 8'. The ASI is just an anemometer. It
measures the destructive force of passing air. It is not a
speedometer. It is a dragometer. Real meteorologists, and even
TV weather forecasters, understand this and so they say 'gale
force wind', not 'gale speed wind'. We have applied the
abusive drag = force of a gale = 34 KIAS = 65 KmIAS that can
destroy flimsy wooden objects. The Lombardi is not flimsy, but
it has drag abuse limits, and drag limitation targets,
(confusingly called Vspeeds by pilots), which vary with the
phase of the flight.
Once an aeroplane is in motion it has an additional
headwind chosen and imposed by Pilot Flying (PF) and the drag
abuse registered on the ASI rises quickly. For the members of
the crew known as pilots, type conversion training is in large
measure about learning the 'Vspeeds' = drag abuse targets or
limits for the new aeroplane type, learning which is
applicable to each phase of the flight, and learning to
progress the new aeroplane type from one 'Vspeed' = drag abuse
target to the next, using only compliant power inputs.
Different aeroplanes have highly variable drag abuse limits
and we must always worry how much profile drag (KmIAS) we are
abusing the airframe with, and how much windmill drag (KmIAS)
we are abusing the engine with, after it is being windmilled,
and how much lovely cooling drag (KmIAS) we are flowing over
the air cooled engine cylinders, (or radiator matrix). In
general the older the aeroplane the more we need to worry
about current profile = windmill = cooling drag (IAS) abuse as
shown on the ASI.
Make sure you know how to use the MSFS advanced weather
menu to control the local weather, whether or not you intend
to use real (stored seasonal) weather most of the time.
IDENTIFY THE P1 THROTTLE:
It is the lever near the left of the cockpit with a black
knob whose mechanism loops under the panel. It has an unusual
rise and fall motion, but as in all Italian cockpits full aft
(pull) is full throttle. In real life the Luftwaffe reversed
that motion until it was culturally Anglo Saxon, but all the
supplied VCs have Italian cultural motion. We shall use a
desktop joystick throttle instead. It does not need to be
reversed.
IDENTIFY THE P1 IGNITION ADVANCE (ANTICIPO) LEVER:
It is the lever on the left sidewall with the red knob that
actuates a simple push rod. MSFS cannot simulate the use of
ignition advance and retard levers for use with vintage era
reciprocating engines. In real life it played a part in engine
starting and idling, and later in maximisation of engine GIRI.
IDENTIFY THE ONLY MASTER FUEL COCK:
It is the brass push rod and lever that connects to the
fuel tank valve, under the only fuel tank, which is inside the
cockpit and behind the instrument panel. The open and closed
positions are shown on the right hand placard in the VC. By
default the Lombardi is flown solo from the left hand seat,
but solo operation from the right hand (instructor) seat was
'possible' and you should eventually learn to fly the Lombardi
from both seats.
IDENTIFY THE FUEL REMAINING GAUGE:
The fuel remaining float is inside the housing on top of
the single fuel tank and thus on the other side of the
windscreen. If you start to consume the fuel that you must
never plan to use it will enter a red arc. It is little more
than a simple damped float and so it indicates per cent
remaining. Fuel planning and the mandatory planning reserve
are explained at the end of this student training manual.
IDENTIFY THE VSI GAUGE - LOMBARDI COMPLIANT TURN PROCEDURE:
The Lombardi has no vacuum system, no gyroscopes, no
artificial horizon to help us to limit bank angle, and no turn
gauge to limit turn rate to safe compliance. Turn compliance
is simplified in simple aeroplanes. No turns are allowed with
profile drag over the aerofoils below 90 KmIAS. During level
turns bank angle must (by definition) be limited to impose VSI
= 0 on the Vertical Speed Indicator (VSI) gauge. Identify the
VSI gauge now. During climbing turns bank angle must by
definition be further limited to allow VSI > 0, especially
during the climbing turn to the crosswind leg of the circuit
pattern after take off.
The Lombardi is carefully simple so that the student pilot
soon understands that moving the JOYSTICK fore and aft,
(moving the elevators), controls profile DRAG depicted on the
ASI (dragometer), and that instead moving the JOYSTICK left
and right controls current WEIGHT. As soon as the student uses
the JOYSTICK to increase current WEIGHT with aileron he sees
VSI from constant power, diminish at every bank angle.
In all cases rudder must be used to centre the slip ball in
the spirit level below the wet magnetic compass, else
available turn rate is squandered. Identify those gauges now.
Practice those concurrent compliances during early circuit
pattern compliance training sorties until they are second
nature. Teach yourself to never confuse the use of the
JOYSTICK to control DRAG and WEIGHT, with the use of the
THROTTLE to control GLIDESLOPE = VSI as drag and weight are
varied with the joystick.
IDENTIFY THE OLIO PRESSURE AND OLIO TEMPERATURE GAUGES:
The pressure gauge is on the left, the temperature gauge is
on the right. In practical terms oil pressure will vary
realistically inside MSFS, but you will not need to control
it. There are however two olio temperature compliances and two
remedial actions. Olio temperature must not exceed 100 Celsius
during take off or subsequent climb. If it does, in the
absence of pilot error, it indicates an engine malfunction and
must be followed by an emergency return.
At any other time, Olio temperature must not exceed 85
Celsius. Remember inside the engine itself the oil is hotter
than it is at the point where its outflow temperature is later
measured. The limits for a particular aeroplane depend mostly
on where those temperature sensors are mounted.
If those limits are exceeded, GIRI (rate of injection of
fuel into the engine) must be reduced immediately to prevent
the oil from burning away. However primitive aero engines that
lack both an automixture control and a rostered human Flight
Engineer to emulate compliant automixture control via human
micromanagement, may also overheat due to pilot error in
mixture selection. The immediate action is to reduce GIRI with
the THROTTLE, but then we must review our choice of MIXTURE.
IDENTIFY THE MIXTURE CONTROL:
This very simple 'lead in' trainer is powered by a 'fool
proof' flat four cylinder C.N.A. D4 air cooled engine driving
a single pitch airscrew, and in all out flight, with windmill
drag maximised, it is rated 60 CV (BHP) at 2100 GIRI (RPM), in
full rich mixture, at sea level. Never deliberately exceed
2250 GIRI in a dive. Mixture must be controlled manually.
The MIXTURE control is the rotating knob with a red TERRA -
QUOTA dial at the bottom right of the shared panel. It can be
rotated, using mouse hot spots within the gauge, above its
base. Those mouse hot spots will become obstructed by the
rotating lever as you turn it. It is necessary to relocate the
mouse outside the lever to continue motion of the lever.
Else MIXTURE can be controlled using the keyboard, or if
you have enough joystick buttons by assigning the three finger
presses to two single buttons.
**AUTOMIXTURE MUST BE OFF IN THE REALISM SCREEN WHEN FLYING
THE LOMBARDI**
Open your options\controls\assignments menu now and check
that *you* have assigned inputs for *incremental* increase,
and incremental decrease, of mixture. *Do not use other rates
of mixture control while flying the Lombardi*.
CTRL+SHIFT+F2 = DECREASE MIXTURE INCREMENTALLY
CTRL+SHIFT+F3 = INCREASE MIXTURE INCREMENTALLY
As in all such aircraft selecting a very lean mixture will
cause a lean cut stopping the engine. Do that now using the
keyboard or joystick buttons with the assignments above. After
imposing an engine lean cut, restore 100% mixture (TERRA)
using your mouse.
PURPOSE OF MIXTURE CONTROL:
Imposing a richer mixture injects AVGAS that has no oxygen
to combine with. In a very hot engine it evaporates
immediately, but cannot burn. Like perspiration cooling the
skin, as it evaporates the excess evaporating AVGAS cools the
engine. It exits the exhaust ports as a white vapour. We have
that choice. The question is whether we should use more AVGAS,
or less AVGAS, per minute to cool the engine back into
temperature compliance.
The THROTTLE is used to decide how much air (oxygen) to
admit to the engine. The MIXTURE control is used to decide how
much AVGAS to admit. If we decide to use less AVGAS to cool
the engine we must impose that choice with the THROTTLE.
Instead if we decide to use more AVGAS to cool the engine we
must impose that choice with the MIXTURE control, leaving the
mass of oxygen entering the engine unchanged. Which of those
choices is the compliant choice within the captaincy decision
making cycle is a complex issue that we will return to later.
LUBRICATION AND PLUG FOULING:
The C.N.A. D4 engine was designed to be compatible with
pioneer era technology flapless aeroplanes that routinely
flew GLIDE APPROACHES at constant IAS, with the
throttle closed, while below approach Minimum Descent Height,
usually the compliant visual pattern height. In flight, with
the screw being windmilled by windmill drag never less than
Vref = 75 KmIAS, lubrication was adequate at throttle closed
GIRI, and plug fouling was not a problem with the unleaded
fuel this low compression engine utilised.
VERY HIGH SPECIFIC FUEL CONSUMPTION:
The cylinders of the C.N.A. D4 were poorly exposed and
suffered very poor air cooling compared to a radial engine.
C.N.A. had to set up the mixture control at the factory so
that the engine had a very, very rich mixture by default. A
lot of extra AVGAS was always being injected for cooling,
until very low per cent mixture values were selected by the
pilot. This engine is exceptionally uneconomical by any
standards and that impacts the route length we can flight plan
safely in a Lombardi. We shall study that in detail later.
EXTRACTING REALISM:
Even though this is a simple aeroplane with only pioneer
era technology, this MSFS release has high levels of embedded
dynamic realism. The knowledge base required during type
conversion training in this simulation will as usual relate to
learning;
1) the compliant target 'Vspeeds'
2) the associated compliant target engine inputs.
3) the aeroplane and engine specific limits that must be
avoided.
4) the head up parallax compliances of this VFR only
aeroplane
and understanding that each 'Vspeed' is really a profile =
windmill = cooling drag target, else a profile or windmill
drag unsafe abuse limit. Realistic vintage era simulation is
in large measure about the precise control of windmill drag on
the airscrew(s) to windmill the engine to the desired and
compliant GIRI = RPM to deliver the desired power (CV = BHP)
without ever overspeeding the engine.
However you cannot extract the rest of the embedded realism
from this maximum realism simulation if you have no idea how
to use the gauges, and you cannot experience the different
aircraft operating procedures, from different eras of aviation
history, without studying what they were, and then learning to
include them in a timeframe appropriate context within your
simulation experience.
KOHLSMANN VARIABLE ALTIMETRY:
Although the Lombardi engine and airframe has no technology
more complex than a pioneer era aeroplane, it is from the
following vintage era of aviation history, and it has some
operating procedures from that later era. If you have already
learned to fly a pioneer era aeroplane with realistic gauges,
realistic parallax compliance procedures, and realistic flight
dynamics, using the earlier MVG Ansaldo SVA 5 FS9 release you
will know that the Ansaldo had no ASI. You will know that if
the specific sortie required an altimeter the pilot had to go
to the quartermaster and get one from stores to clip to the
panel. Only if the sortie had a very long over water leg the
pilot might also draw a pocket magnetic compass from stores
and glance at it once or twice while over water and out of
sight of land.
One of the differences between the pioneer era, and the
following vintage era of aviation history, was the doctrinal
assumption that powered aeroplanes would have a magnetic
compass, an ASI, and an altimeter by default, even though
gliders still often had none of those inessential luxuries.
During the vintage era variable altimetry procedures were
invented and imposed on trainee pilots who were required to
demonstrate variable altimetry procedure compliance.
Before that could happen aneroid barometers for use in
aeroplanes (altimeters) had to acquire the means to have a
variable scale so that they could either display HEIGHT, which
is displacement above the LOCAL TERRAIN, else ALTITUDE which
is displacement above (often far away and less relevant) MEAN
SEA LEVEL. The necessary mechanism was invented by Kohlsmann,
and so the new knob under the barometer became a Kohlsmann
knob and the new window used to read the barometer setting
scale became a Kohlsmann window.
THE Q CODE:
By 1912 Royal Mail Ships like the R.M.S Titanic were
navigated using GPS which delivered accurate track keeping
along the always bending great circle, always travelling far
too fast in fog to deliver the mail on time, using a GPS plot
which could not display drifting icebergs that had no fog horn
to provide audio conflict collision alerts to the crew on the
open bridge of the too fast mail ships.
International Maritime Law, which for more than a century
had been mostly decided and dictated by the British, had been
much amended to include the necessary Wireless Telegraphy
(W/T) procedures, including a 'Q code' used by all Wireless
Operators as they used that Morse Code to obtain the GPS data
that had replaced wildly inaccurate astronavigational data
wherever the GPS signal was good enough to be superior. By
1912 that was anywhere the British Empire really cared about,
and absolutely everywhere in the northern North Atlantic while
any valuable ship was below cloud or in low visibility, for
days and nights on end.
Every lighthouse in the British Empire, originally just
burning fires called beacons, already had the necessary
electronics. The purpose of lighthouses did not change, but
the range at which they could provide navigational data
increased hugely once they also transmitted outside the video
spectrum.
Importantly nobody had to learn English to use the new
British (Marconi) electronic navigation systems. Wireless
operators of any nationality only had to lean identical Morse
Code and identical Maritime Q Code. Marconi had already
invented Radio Telephony (R/T) of course, but radio would have
required language compatibility, and so radio was irrelevant.
Airships were already subject to those laws and procedures.
They were legally defined as ships, Once mere aeroplanes
acquired some actual utility, beyond the brief amusement of
the very wealthy, they were also made subject to the same
international laws.
QFE versus QNH:
In most cases when the concept 'Aviation Law' was
eventually invoked, it was just a cut and paste from long pre
existing 'Maritime Law'. However aviation required some
additions and modifications to the 'Q code'. Unlike Royal Mail
Ships, or even the Zeppelin airships of the German Army and
Navy, many aeroplanes never went anywhere near the sea. The
pilot of a mere aeroplane hardly had the ability to stray from
the airfield he took off from and what he wanted to know was
his displacement above that grass field. Displacement from the
terrain below is HEIGHT.
One of the key differences between the pioneer era and the
vintage era of aviation history was the introduction of
wireless, (not nationalistic language compatibility dependent
radio), to larger aircraft, and the mandatory imposition of
ATC wireless navigation procedures, (in North west Europe from
1919 onwards). The world suddenly needed Q codes that related
only to aircraft. While in flight towards their destination
aeroplanes needed a Q code that allowed the pilot to use the
new Kohlsmann knob, while looking at the new Kohlsmann window,
to set the simple insensitive single needle aneroid barometer
so that it indicated current height above that destination
airfield.
Height above mean sea level (ALTITUDE) was now deemed
irrelevant in proximity to intended places of (take off and)
landing. What the inbound pilot needed to know was how to
measure displacement above destination FIELD ELEVATION. The
new W/T Q code which asked, and answered, that question in the
international Q code, was QFE (Question Field Elevation). The
answer is a pressure setting to be set in the new Kohlsmann
window using the new Kohlsmann knob of your insensitive,
single needle, aneroid barometer, which in Europe in 1940 was
calibrated in millibars. When the aeroplane touches down that
altimeter will read ZERO (feet or metres), *everywhere*,
because it has been adjusted to display HEIGHT, not altitude.
Logically the alternative which allowed inbound pilots to
question and display altitude (Not Height), might have been
QSL or QAA, but it was decided that it would emphasise that
the altimeter was not displaying height above the local
terrain and so the Q code question became QNH (NOT HEIGHT).
Aircrew must know whether the altimeter in front of them is
displaying QFE = HEIGHT or QNH not height = ALTITUDE, because
they must understand that being 1000 metres above the distant
sea is not useful approaching a 1200 metre high mountain in
cloud or poor visibility in the middle of a continent. Failing
to understand the difference between height and altitude, or
failing to impose altimetry compliance procedures and skills
to display the one required to sustain safety, has killed many
real aircrew, and many real passengers.
Even vintage era aeroplanes, that had no wireless to ask
such questions, were required to comply with the new vintage
era variable altimetry procedures. When such a (trainee) pilot
intended to land back at point of departure, having no
intention to undertake a cross country flight to a different
destination, he was required to measure vertical displacement
from the Field Elevation using HEIGHT, using QFE, throughout
the sortie. In principle all he has to do to set QFE is wind
the Kohlsmann knob, looking at the Altimeter, not the
Kohlsmann window, until the altimeter reads ZERO (feet or
metres) above Field Elevation. Importantly the concept ZERO is
independent from parochial and nationalistic cultural
assumptions about how displacement should be measured.
In practice the Kohlsmann mechanism may not provide
sufficient variation in relation to very high altitude Field
Elevations to allow that altitude to be decremented to Field
Elevation = Zero for circuit pattern flying and local area
training. This is a real life issue, not a bug in MSFS.
However inside MSFS we shall deem that circumstance to require
use of QNH where QFE would be the complaint choice. There are
other remedies (QNE = Not Elevation) in the real world.
However in real life the Lombardi never operated from
airfields so far above sea level that this was ever a problem
and so we will always set the altimeter to QFE = FIELD
ELEVATION = ZERO HEIGHT, before we even start the engine of
the Lombardi.
Because MSFS always imposes modern era American cultural
assumptions, it will have spawned the Lombardi with the
Altimeter set to a value close to current QNH. Inside MSFS we
can set accurate current QNH in the Kohlsmann window by
pressing the Barometer (B) key. Having already invoked the L3,
using a Microsoft default STARTUP.FLT, and having already
moved QFU (Field Using) 26 LOAV (Voslau), use the Altimeter
tooltip to discover the altitude of Voslau (LOAV) airfield.
*YOU MUST WRITE THAT ALTITUDE DOWN*.
Now use the Kohlsmann knob to instead set current QFE at
Voslau. Turn the Kohlsman knob with you mouse until the
Altimeter reads zero. In an aeroplane with neither radio nor
wireless you must always write down the number you subtracted,
which is the altitude the altimeter is at, while its height is
zero. You may need to reset the altimeter to QNH (Not Height)
later, and although we can cheat and do that with the
B(arometer) key in MSFS, we should instead learn to use the
prototypical method that real aircrew of non radio aeroplanes
had to use in the vintage era of aviation history.
CIRCUIT PATTERN HEIGHT IS INVARIANT USING QFE:
This may all seem to be pointless complication, but it
isn't. By using HEIGHT above the FIELD ELEVATION, by using
QFE, we render local 3D navigation invariant at EVERY
AIRFIELD.
Regardless of which airfield we fly around in a Lombardi
our PATTERN HEIGHT is 250M QFE. We have no idea what altitude
that is in coastal Italy, or alpine Italy, or Alpine Austria,
and we have no longer have any reason to care. We simply
displace the aeroplane 250M above the runway we intend to land
on *everywhere*. We turn base leg at 250M QFE everywhere.
Downwind we never need to maintain a difficult to remember
altitude, while using a vintage era single needle insensitive
barometer. Having pointed the needle at 0 on the ground, we
always point the needle at 250M QFE downwind, everywhere.
BUT QNH IS MANDATORY FOR CROSS COUNTRY FLYING:
Each relevant airfield has a 'local area' larger than the
circuit pattern for 'arrival', 'approach' and 'local
training'. For instance to practice compliant turn procedures,
or stall onset recognition, outside the circuit pattern. The
size of the 'local area' depends on proximity of 'threats' of
many kinds. In MSFS terms we either intend to go somewhere
else to land, or we don't. If we don't we retain QFE
throughout the sortie. If we leave the 'local area' and we
intend to land elsewhere we must reject QFE and set QNH so
that our altimeter displays altitude, Not Height.
MAP makers have no idea what airfield we intend to fly from
today. The coloured contours, sometimes with embedded numbers,
and the peaks with numbers beside them, are all shaded and
numbered by ALTITUDE. Outside the local (approach) area we do
not have access to LOCAL AREA APPROACH CHARTS that have
HEIGHTS on them. APPROACH CHARTS show both HEIGHT and ALTITUDE
since it is lawful to use either QNH or QFE (altitude or
height) to measure and impose our vertical displacement while
in the 'approach area' of the relevant airfield. The choice we
make inside MSFS is based on both the regional cultural
assumptions and the date we are simulating.
As soon as we are outside the area of the real world
approach CHART, we must instead use a generic regional MAP,
for 3D navigation compliance. Since the MAP displays only
ALTITUDES we must set the altimeter to QNH = Not Height
outside the area depicted on the real approach CHART,
everywhere at every date.
In a Lombardi we have neither radio nor wireless. During
cross country flight we climb to a compliant HEIGHT and then
we must level off and impose temporary cruise. In the Lombardi
that compliant height is 400M QFE. Then we read the number we
wrote down earlier. In this case the altitude of Voslau
airfield, and we now turn the Kohlsmann knob while looking the
altimeter while we add the altitude we subtracted earlier, to
our current height of 400 QFE.
After we have 'added back' the altitude that we subtracted
earlier on the ground, before engine start, we have set QNH
and our altimeter displays an altitude (Not Height) 400M above
the altitude (Not Height) of Voslau Airfield. We can now
compare that altitude to our regional MAP with contours cited
as altitude (Not Height) and the altitude of terrain around us
now and down route. We can also ensure that we remain below
our forecast carb ice risk ceiling which is an altitude, not
height, (see below).
In MSFS we could cheat and just press the aneroid
B(arometer key), to impose Not Height, but we won't.
BUT QFE IS MANDATORY IN THE (DESTINATION) CIRCUIT PATTERN.
Our destination will usually be at a different
altitude to our point of departure. The number that we must
subtract to set QFE at Voslau, (the altitude of Voslau), will
not match the altitude of a different destination. It should
however be obvious that what we must do instead is subtract
the altitude of our destination (runway) while we ARRIVE, and
before we APPROACH that airfield. If due to low cloud we were
forced to cruise at (say) 1000M QNH and our destination runway
is at 230M QNH, then BEFORE we enter the circuit pattern for
that runway we must wind the altimeter down by 230M until
it displays 770M QFE, so that it will read (about) ZERO QFE as
we land, and will read exactly 250M QFE downwind in the
circuit pattern at every destination, because we will impose
that compliance.
As we land the exact altimeter value may not be ZERO since
the weather, including the implied sea level barometric
pressure at destination, may now be different to when we took
off, even where we took off. In a Lombardi we have no means to
update the forecast we procured before take off. It is of
course also impossible to actually set 770M accurately on an
insensitive single needle barometer. These are all reasons
that these procedures did not persist widely into the modern
era. They were nevertheless real across Europe in the 1940s.
Whenever we fly in MSFS (or of course real life) we must
FLIGHT PLAN. We must use our flight planning tool to discover
the runway length, surface friction type, and altitude at
destination, in order to fly a compliant approach, to a runway
of compliant length, and adequate friction, even if we
approach using QNH, but it is much easier to approach using
QFE since the pattern height, (which is our VFR minimum
descent height = MDH), is then invariant everywhere.
It is of course our HEIGHT above the runway, not our
altitude above sea level, that is the vertical of the
Pythagorean triangle that we must use to impose downwind
lateral offset head up parallax compliance to ensure we fly
the real world pattern from real world baseline range. We
shall learn the head up parallax compliances of the Lomabardi
later, but we can only impose real world lateral circuit
pattern baseline range compliance from real world circuit
pattern vertical compliance, and that depends on HEIGHT, using
QFE to measure vertical displacement from the runway (FIELD
ELEVATION) in question, and not vertical displacement from
some irrelevant and distant sea.
Remember for a Lombardi hard smooth (runway) surfaces are
not compliant. They have too little friction and the skid will
not dig in. We have no wheel brakes and no chocks. With no
chocks the L.3 will edge forward in throttle closed static
thrust on any flat excessively smooth surface. FLIGHT PLAN
accordingly.
NO ANTI ICE OR DE-ICE SYSTEM OF ANY KIND:
This primitive aeroplane has no way to prevent carb ice, or
remove carb ice. It must never be flown in air colder than
PLUS 7 CELSIUS. This primitive aeroplane has no OAT gauge.
*You* are responsible for both forecasting the local carb ice
risk ceiling at all times, and for then operating below the
self forecast carb ice risk ceiling at all times. You are
simulating the role of an ab initio student.
The gauge needed to monitor Outside Air Temperature (an OAT
= Aria Esterna gauge) is deliberately withheld from you.
Thermometers of many kinds were cheap and plentiful by 1940.
The point is that you must learn how temperature varies with
altitude over planet Earth, so that you never need to rely on
an OAT gauge, and so that you can demonstrate to your
instructor, (to yourself in this case), that you have indeed
understood how to calculate the forecast temperature for any
altitude in the tropopause, and the altitude at which the
temperature is forecast to fall to any particular value. If
you do not want to learn these basic skills of pilotage then
you should avoid simulating the use of basic trainers within
which the answer is carefully withheld, requiring you to
demonstrate a basic knowledge base of aircraft operation and
associated skills.
Before flight you must determine the local surface
temperature at point of departure (and destination if
different) and calculate the carb ice risk ceiling for both as
follows in a two part process that requires knowledge of the
altitude of those airfields. The first part of this process is
to calculate the implied temperature at sea level underneath
each airfield.
The adiabatic temperature lapse rate, in the part of the
atmosphere known as the tropopause, immediately above planet
Earth is ~ 2 degrees Celsius per flight level = 1000 feet ~
300M.
Consequently if our departure airfield is at an ALTITUDE ~
300 metres ~ 1000 feet QNH the implied temperature down at at
sea level in the current weather will be higher by
Altitude in feet divided by 500, and also altitude in
metres divided by 150;
If it is 20C on our airfield at ~ 300M altitude it would be
20C + 300/150 ~ 22C at sea level (here in this weather)
Having calculated the implied temperature at sea level in
this weather we can calculate the ALTITUDE (NOT
HEIGHT) of the 7C thermocline in this weather.
Carb ice risk ceiling in feet = 500 * (sea level
temperature - 7)
Carb ice risk ceiling in meters = 150 * (sea level
temperature - 7)
Example;
Surface temperature = 15C on an airfield at 500M altitude.
Temperature at sea level = 15 + 500/150 = 18.33
Carb ice risk ceiling = (18.33 - 7) * 150 = 1700M QNH
We
have no wireless or radio in a Lombardi, making audio weather
updates unavailable. We must use FSMETAR or another software
tool to obtain the weather in textual (on screen) form before
every flight.
In a Lombardi, or other basic trainers and microlights with
no carb heat, when the cloud is higher, or non existent, the
carb ice risk ceiling often becomes our operational ceiling.
Within central mainland Italy by day it will only rarely be
necessary to ground the Lombardi due to the carb ice threat,
but of course it depends on the altitude of the point of
departure, the destination, and the terrain in between. Cross
country training and qualification must be routed around high
terrain, else delayed accordingly. The captaincy decision
making cycle begins before engine start.
This primitive aeroplane also has no pitot heat, but since
the carb ice threat is always much worse, the lack of pitot
heat has no relevance. Instructional sorties remaining within
the circuit pattern down to a visibility of 5Km are permitted
provided the ragged cloud base exceeds 250M AGL = QFE *and the
temperature on the ground exceeds +9 Celsius*. Climbing 250M
above the airfield will not cause carb ice to form in the
choke tube of the inlet if it is 9C only 250M lower down.
Again using QFE for local flying around airfields turns a
variable into a constant. The minimum airfield temperature for
Lombardi circuit pattern flying is PLUS 9C *everywhere*.
The local area sortie must be delayed until all those local
weather criteria are met.
BEFORE and AFTER START PROCEDURES:
We have reached the point where we can begin to associate
the content of this student training manual with the
abbreviated content of the on screen handling notes which it
explains. In accordance with what we have already learned,
within MSFS there are several things we should do before we
even start the engine, (else in MSFS immediately after the L.3
is spawned with engine already running).
Before Start:
AUTO
RUDDER = OFF IN REALISM
SCREEN AUTOMIXTURE = OFF
IN REALISM SCREEN WEATHER =
OBTAIN (e.g. FSMETAR) CARB ICE CEILING = ALT FOR +7C
CALCULATE ALTIMETER =
0 (KOHLSMANN KNOB TO QFE)
After Start:
IF AIRFIELD
BELOW 500M QNH
MIXTURE = 100%
ELSE
THROTTLE =
CLOSED GIRI = MAXIMISE
(tooltip) MIXTURE = TO COMPLY MIXTURE = ADD
15% (max 100%)
Before moving:
EYEPOINT =
JUST EXPOSE ENGINE BLOCK
To simulate ground handling of this tailskid, tail down,
trainer we need AUTORUDDER to be OFF so that we can steer
using propwash over the rudder. Propwash does not flow over
the ailerons.
To simulate the primitive CNA D4 engine we must encounter
the inefficiencies that arise when primitive engines have no
automixture control available. We must use a wildly rich
mixture until we establish cruise. With less cooling drag than
design cruise drag Vdc = 150 KmIAS the air cooled engine will
tend to overheat. In principle 100% mixture is optimal, but on
airfields above 500M QNH we need more power for take off than
a fully (wildly) rich mixture will permit and so we must take
the time to set MIXTURE 15% RICH FROM PEAK POWER carefully
when operating from high altitude airfields, (mostly in
Austria - see supplied contextual history).
For brevity, and to fit inside the width of the stupidly
fixed size Microsoft text box, the handling notes, whose use
is explained in this manual, say MIXTURE = nn%, but in fact
the FS parameter, and in practice the real life input
parameter, is really MIXTURE LEVER nn%, which isn't always the
same thing. There is no legal requirement for real mixture
lever motion to be linear to mixture applied. Bear that in
mind.
Since we have no OAT gauge we must calculate the altitude (
Q Not Height) at which carb ice may form and we must
remain below that altitude. This may require us to FLIGHT PLAN
around high terrain during cross country flights. We need to
know what our safe operational ceiling is today. We have no
wireless, and no radio. We cannot obtain audio weather
information by those means. We must learn to rely on our own
knowledge base and skills. We obtain the necessary local and
destination weather BEFORE FLIGHT in text form using software
such as freeware FSMETAR. We do all of this long before we are
blocking access to the runway, and much of it before we start
the engine.
Even if we intend to leave the circuit pattern and local
approach area, (as depicted on the real approach CHART), we
must set QFE since we may need to make an emergency return,
and the ATC mandatory procedures are based on HEIGHT, not
altitude, while we are still (laterally and vertically) within
the 'local approach area'. Just because ATC cannot communicate
with us using audio means does not mean we are not subject to
both published ATC procedures, and ATC light or other visual
signals, (which are not simulated in MSFS).
As we shall see when we study the climb phase later;
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Only
if leaving circuit HEIGHT = 400M
QFE ALTIMETER = QNH (B key) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Remaining
in circuit RETAIN = QFE PATTERN HEIGHT = 250M
QFE >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
But we will use the real procedure we just studied, not the
B(arometer) key cheat mode. When we make a cross country
training flight we will normally leave the local area by
climbing above it, long before we reach its lateral boundary.
We will reset the altimeter from QFE to QNH before we climb
through a HEIGHT of 400M QFE. If we encounter cloud before we
reach 400M QFE we must abort the sortie and return to base. We
will have delayed the flight if we forecast the +7 Celsius
thermocline to be lower, *before we occupy the aircraft*.
These altimeter procedures also apply to combat aircraft of
European air forces you simulate operating later in WW2 after
you become a qualified (virtual) pilot. In more complex
aircraft, instead of avoiding the carb heat ceiling, you will
impose carb heat above that ceiling, but only as cited in the
relevant on screen handling notes or crew training manual.
Continuous use of carb heat is non compliant in many
aeroplanes. By 1940 most combat and transport aircraft needed
and had automixture control available, else a dedicated Flight
Engineer to emulate that automation.
TAKE OFF:
We cannot TRIM this primitive aeroplane. It was instead
RIGGED at the factory. We must have a self imposed compliance
EYEPOINT from which we can see the far end of the runway when
we line up. We must pick the object of external parallax
compliance that we will use to monitor and remedy torque yaw,
or p-factor, or gyroscopic precession, or all three, with
rudder. We retain the mixture we set carefully and earlier. We
line up our object of external parallax compliance and we
impose compliance with rudder before and during the always
very brief take off roll. We have little power and thrust, but
we always use full throttle and the L.3 is an exceptionally
light aeroplane.
Take Off:
EYEPOINT =
JUST EXPOSE ENGINE BLOCK MIXTURE = RETAIN MIXTURE
ABOVE LINE = UP THROTTLE =
FULL JOYSTICK = NEUTRAL YAW
= REMEDY WITH RUDDER AWAIT = TAIL UP TAIL
UP = ROTATE ROLL = REMEDY
WITH AILERON CLIMB = PREVENT JOYSTICK
= 90 KmIAS (ACCELERATE) EYEPOINT = DEFAULT
(SPACEBAR) YAW = REMEDY WITH
AILERON OLIO < 100C ELSE ABORT
SORTIE WHEN = TURNS ON COURSE
COMPLETED

While the tail is down, we do *not* apply pressure to the
joystick. The aeroplane will tell us when it is safe to rotate
with the power available, at this altitude, with this mixture
setting, in today's weather.
Only when the tail is (soon) fully up we rotate gently with
back pressure, but then we prevent climb and relax the back
pressure to impose profile drag increase over the aerofoils to
90 KmIAS before we then initiate climb at 90 KmIAS with just
sufficient re-applied joystick back pressure. After the wheels
are off the ground we maintain directional head up parallax
compliance with aileron instead of rudder. The ailerons still
have no propwash augmentation, but there is now sufficient
profile drag flowing over them, and the outer aerofoil whose
camber they vary, for the ailerons to be useful and safe to
use.
Inside MSFS depending on the AUTOGEN density in use there
may be oversize out of scale trees at the end of the runway.
We may need to avoid them using aileron soon after unstick. We
have no turn gauge. We have no attitude indicator. Our bank
limit is the bank that causes profile drag over the aerofoils
to fall to 90 KmIAS with full throttle at current VSI.
Practice turns at exactly 90 KmIAS with different bank angles
= different weights via different G load. Note the VSI
consequence. During outbound turns at low level VSI must not
become negative, and VSI may need to be positive versus
obstructions ahead. The compliant bank limit varies
accordingly and is measured and imposed with the VSI.
Maximum sustainable turn rate in the Lombardi, is at 90
KmIAS at VSI = 0. Available bank angle and turn rate vary with
altitude, because power available to sustain VSI = 0 at any
weight (G load) varies with altitude. The bank limit for VSI =
0 at 90 KmIAS will be zero far below the always irrelevant
'service ceiling' which can only be reached wings level with
much less profile drag than 90 KmIAS applied for the engine to
overcome.
After you have avoided all obstacles close to the runway
with aileron, never allowing VSI to sink below zero, return to
the in flight parallax compliance eyepoint (SPACEBAR in FS9).
If Olio temperature reaches 100C reduce power and perform an
emergency return. Otherwise in such primitive aeroplanes the
TAKE OFF phase lasts until all turns on course are completed,
whether the compliant course is downwind in the circuit
pattern during early training, or en route to the first
waypoint of a cross country training sortie after all circuit
pattern compliances have been mastered.
For reasons which will become obvious only later when we
study downwind parallax compliance we are in no hurry to turn
to the crosswind leg of the circuit pattern. *We will continue
on runway track until we reach a height of 100M QFE*, and only
then turn crosswind at Vy = 90 KmIAS. On the crosswing leg we
climb from 100M QFE to 250M QFE, then we turn downwind with
VSI = 0 maintaining 250M QFE. We will be using the JOYSTICK to
increase windmill drag to Vdc = 150 KmIAS, to windmill the
engine up to 1950 GIRI, in that level turn which ends
with the downwind baseline range head up parallax compliance
that we shall study in detail later.
THE CLIMB PHASE:
The real manual for the L.3 does not forbid prolonged
operation of the C.N.A. D3 engine with RPM exceeding 1950
GIRI, or Olio temperature exceeding 85 Celsius, *provided a
wildly RICH mixture is in use*. However it promulgates 1950
GIRI as the upper end of the normal operating range, and while
adopting the role of a Regia Aeronautica, or Luftwaffe,
student pilot we will take care to climb with the engine GIRI
restrained to the normal operating range, even though we have
applied very rich mixture, not least because doing so
maximises climb gradient.
For underpowered aeroplanes, after achieving wings level
climb en route, maximising climb gradient at Vx = 85 KmIAS, is
more important than maximising climb rate at Vy = 90 KmIAS. We
may struggle to climb over obstacles. Proceeding towards them
at higher IAS = Vy is not beneficial, even though it would
maximise climb rate. It is the gradient over the down route
obstacle that matters. Consequently once our wings are level
(all turns on course completed), in any climb we reduce our
profile drag and increase Angle of Attack (AoA), imposed via
reduction of IAS to Vx = 85 KmIAS, via extra back pressure on
the JOYSTICK. This reduces windmill drag on the screw, causing
GIRI to reduce at constant THROTTLE. We do not wish to
restrain GIRI to 1950 using THROTTLE. We must restrain GIRI
less than 1950 using JOYSTICK.
In a less primitive aeroplane, with vintage era technology,
we would TRIM for IAS = Vx, and we would have no need to
sustain back pressure on the joystick to sustain the low
windmill and profile drag = Vx. However the L.3 deliberately
has only pioneer era technology. Climbing with the wings
level, we use the JOYSTICK to impose Vx, partly to impose less
than 1950 GIRI, always with full throttle. In turns we apply
Vy = 90 KmIAS instead and vary bank angle = weight = G load to
impose required VSI.
In the unlikely event that we climb above 2000M QNH to
cross very high terrain, only after we are above 2000M QNH we
will use the joystick to reduce our profile drag further to 80
KmIAS, again to increase AoA, during 'high level' climb. When
the air is hot enough (> 7C) to prevent carb ice formation
in the constricted choke tube of the air inlet at such
altitudes the service ceiling of the Lombardi is 5000 metres
and it will happily reach 6000 metres in favourable weather.
Yet, such climb is forbidden if the carb ice ceiling is lower,
or the cloud base is lower, or the visibility is so poor that
we cannot navigate by pioneer era pilotage, (comparing the
passing MSFS scenery to our Google or paper map), as we
proceed from waypoint to waypoint.
Climb:
NEVER MORE
THAN 1950 GIRI NEVER LESS THAN +7 CELSIUS
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Only
if leaving circuit HEIGHT = 400M
QFE ALTIMETER = QNH (B key) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Remaining
in circuit RETAIN = QFE PATTERN HEIGHT = 250M
QFE >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
THROTTLE =
FULL JOYSTICK = 90 KmIAS in turns JOYSTICK = 85 KmIAS <
2000M JOYSTICK = 80 KmIAS > 2000M YAW = REMEDY WITH
RUDDER MIXTURE = 75% passing 1000M QNH MIXTURE
= 60% passing 1500M QNH MIXTURE = 50% passing 2000M
QNH MIXTURE = 45% passing 2500M QNH MIXTURE
= 40% passing 3000M QNH MIXTURE = 35% passing 3500M
QNH MIXTURE = 30% passing 4000M QNH
REJECT before
+7 CELSIUS
Even though the C.N.A. D4 engine delivers very little
torque or p-factor the roll inertia of this tiny aeroplane is
so low that it has been designed so that it will be 'torque
rolled' at low IAS in full throttle at low altitude where the
engine still has sufficient mass air flow. It will be
necessary to prevent roll with RUDDER if you have pedals, else
with FAKE RUDDER TRIM if you do not.
Throughout the climb we have inadequate cooling drag (IAS)
over an air cooled engine, that is inadequately exposed, and
we need a RICH MIXTURE. We use the mixture control to impose
the values above as we climb through the relevant altitudes.
Failure to reduce MIXTURE above 1000M QNH will cause loss of
climb gradient, which may then require diversion around high
terrain en route. Failure to impose compliant MIXTURE as above
will cause significant loss of operational ceiling.
The intention is *not* to maximise power. The intention is
to prevent premature detonation of the fuel, via a compliantly
RICH mixture, accepting that power will be lost while
delivering the necessary AVGAS evaporative cooling.
Note that MIXTURE is never varied from the carefully
imposed AFTER START MIXTURE unless we climb above an ALTITUDE
(Not Height) of 1000M QNH during the sortie. MIXTURE is also
*not* varied if we never leave a circuit pattern at a height
of 250M QFE, whose altitude is above 1000M QNH.
MANUAL MIXTURE COMPLEXITY POTENTIALLY DURING CLIMB - ALWAYS
DURING CRUISE:
Pioneer era and Vintage era aero engines were RATED using a
FULL RICH MIXTURE for necessary cooling. All pioneer era aero
engines, and cheap vintage era aero engines, had MANUAL
MIXTURE CONTROLS. For each such aeroplane with a normally
aspirated engine, driving only a single pitch screw, the
technical or operating manual usually defines an RPM = GIRI
(rate of fuel injection into the furnace) below which it is
permissible to LEAN the MIXTURE manually, *provided the
current activity is neither take off, nor 'low altitude
climb'*.
Since the act of climbing reduces cooling drag (IAS) over
the exposed cylinders of any air cooled engine it is usually
mandatory to retain a very rich mixture for cooling at 'low'
altitude (by implication in warm air) while climbing,
regardless of current cooling drag (IAS), or current GIRI. For
the Lombardi low altitude is defined as 'below 1000 metres
QNH'.
As soon as climb proceeds above the circuit pattern height
*and* above 1000M QNH compliant leaning is expected, but is
not mandatory, since continued use of a very (potentially
100%) rich mixture may be necessary to restrain Olio
temperature below 100C, while imposing full throttle and
climbing at reduced profile = cooling drag in hot air on a hot
day in a hot place. However failure to impose cited manual
leaning, if applicable after start, and then again above 1000M
QNH, causes loss of climb gradient, and significant loss of
range, which in a Lombardi is always very slight.
After the earliest part of the Pioneer era all relevant
aeroplanes were designed to cruise above 1000 metres QNH with
compliant leaning applied. Failure to climb above 1000M QNH,
followed by compliant leaning, significantly reduced both
velocity *and range* during cross country navigation
(training).
In the later classic era of aviation history it became
normal to fit Cylinder Head Temperature (CHT) gauges, and for
leaning to be applied based on CHT, usually with the objective
of maximising engine life. That was *not* the compliant
doctrine in the earlier pioneer and vintage eras of aviation
history.
During the vintage era of aviation history aero engines
were normally either run RICH to maximise engine life, else
they were LEANED TO IMPOSE PEAK POWER from the (any) current
throttle setting. The gauge used to monitor whether manual
leaning was imposing peak power from the current throttle
setting could only be the engine RPM (GIRI) gauge. Lubricating
fluid or liquid coolant temperatures respond far too slowly to
be useful during manual leaning. During the vintage era of
aviation history the intention was to use the MIXTURE CONTROL
to maximise GIRI, from the current throttle %, but explicitly
to also maximise fuel injection rate, not just power from each
injection.
During both CRUISE, (regardless of current throttle
position), and CLIMB *above low level*, however that was
defined in the operating manual of a particular aeroplane,
vintage era aero engines were by default leaned manually *to
peak GIRI*. This process was inaccurate because the GIRI
gauges provided in the vintage era were difficult to read
accurately, (unlike most later classic era CHT gauges).
In many cases when pilots flew the same (type of) single
engine aeroplane day in and day out they could determine peak
power, (from current throttle %), more accurately by listening
to the engine. Inside MSFS we must emulate that skill, and day
in day out experience, by using the GIRI gauge tooltip to
maximise GIRI with the mixture control instead, during cruise
outside the circuit pattern.
In all phases of flight in very simple aeroplanes whose
technology dates from the pioneer era, even in later eras, the
sole power reference in each case is engine GIRI, (rate of
fuel injection into the furnace).
Under certain circumstances workload may be high during
climb. If so frequent / near continuous application of peak
GIRI, using the mixture control, while HEAD DOWN looking at a
GIRI gauge is inappropriate. Then we will vary mixture only at
the altitude intervals specified and in an inefficient and
uneconomical way.
>>>>>>>>
THROTTLE =
FULL JOYSTICK = 90 KmIAS in turns JOYSTICK = 85 KmIAS <
2000M JOYSTICK = 80 KmIAS > 2000M YAW = REMEDY WITH
RUDDER MIXTURE = 75% passing 1000M QNH MIXTURE = 60%
passing 1500M QNH MIXTURE = 50% passing 2000M QNH MIXTURE
= 45% passing 2500M QNH MIXTURE = 40% passing 3000M
QNH MIXTURE = 35% passing 3500M QNH MIXTURE = 30%
passing 4000M QNH
REJECT before
+7 CELSIUS
Safety is always paramount. Only if workload permits we
will adjust mixture more perfectly and more frequently to
maximise GIRI to maximise climb power to maximise climb
gradient, always using the JOYSTICK to impose the variably
compliant profile drag = IAS = Angle of Attack of the
aerofoil.
We must also remember that more careful leaning to peak
power to maximise climb gradient is only allowed while GIRI
are in the NORMAL operating range of the engine, and in this
case <= 1950 GIRI.
Climb:
NEVER MORE
THAN 1950 GIRI NEVER LESS THAN +7 CELSIUS
>>>>>>>>>>>>
It follows that if we are using the joystick to impose a
windmill drag of Vx = 85 KmIAS, above 1000M QNH and below
2000M QNH, and we have the time to use MIXTURE to optimise
GIRI while climbing with wings level, we will never lean the
mixture so much that GIRI rise above 1950 GIRI, since that is
the compliant peak power for leaning below the RICH MIXTURE
specified for each altitude band above.
REJECT CLIMB WITH JOYSTICK :
As we approach our current operational ceiling, else visual
pattern height, we must *anticipate* the need to cruise and in
consequence we must *gradually* reduce back pressure on the
JOYSTICK causing our profile and windmill drag to rise in a
controlled to design cruise profile drag Vdc = 150
KmIAS.
For the moment suppose the cruise phase is to be downwind
in the visual circuit pattern. We climb from 100M QFE to 250M
QFE on the crosswind leg. As we approach 250M QFE we relax
back pressure on the JOYSTICK gradually so that we never
cause a Pilot Induced Oscillation (PIO) aloso known as
porpoising. We reach 250M QFE before we are able to increase
our windmill drag to Vdc = 150 KmIAS, and before we are able
to use that windmill drag to spool the engine up to 1950 GIRI.
We begin the turn to the downwind leg on reaching 250M QFE
while we relax baxk pressue and increase IAS in the turn.
During the turn to downwind, or upon any climb rejection, we
briefly impose GLIDESLOPE = VSI = 0 with our JOYSTICK.
The important thing to grasp is that at first the THROTTLE
is *not* involved in rejection of climb for cruise. We will
only retard THROTTLE when GIRI reach 1950 GIRI, to sustain
1950 GIRI. The first action is to increase windmill drag with
the JOYSTICK, by reduction of back pressure, to increase
windmill drag on the screw, to windmill the engine to more
GIRI and more BHP with the THROTTLE ALREADY FULL OPEN in
climb. We start to retard the throttle only after we have
windmilled the engine up to 1950 GIRI with the JOYSTICK, while
using the JOYSTICK to reach Vdc = 150 KIAS, with VSI
=0, (at 250M QFE).
Climb rejection ends after our profile, and cooling, and
windmill, drag reaches Vdc = 150 KmIAS. There will then be no
pressure on the JOYSTICK. We have rejected climb, but we have
not quite achieved cruise.
CRUISE WITH THROTTLE:
During cruise the elevators are not deflected, because we
impose no fore or aft pressure on the JOYSTRICK. To establish
cruise we transition to using THROTTLE to impose VSI=0
(at 250M QFE) having relinquished all back pressure on the
JOYSTICK. After we have relinquished back pressure on the
JOYSTICK we do not need to look at the ASI (dragometer). If
you have learned to fly the earlier Ansaldo SVA 5 MVG release
you will remember that in common with many WW1 aeroplanes it
had no ASI. Such things were wholly irrelevant luxuries in the
pioneer era of aviation history. In the Lombardi during cruise
we ignore the ASI and we look only at the VSI gauge. Now
intending to cruise, we use THROTTLE to impose GLIDESLOPE =
VSI = ZERO.
We must not suddenly reduce back pressure on the JOYSTICK,
or make sudden movements of THROTTLE, because in the absence
of a pilot controlled longitudinal trim system in the
Lombardi, any sudden change will always invoke a pilot induced
oscillation (PIO) in a very low inertia aeroplane. We must
learn to avoid inducing PIOs by unrushed management of each
input, including both the JOYSTICK and the THROTTLE. We must
*anticipate* the need to cruise, and we must reject climb
gradually using the JOYSTICK, and then transition to sustained
cruise instead imposing VSI = 0 only with THROTTLE. Our
attention is focussed on the ASI during climb rejection, until
windmill drag reaches Vdc = 150 KmIAS. Then we relax all
pressure on the JOYSTICK. Then we look at the VSI instead
and use THROTTLE to impose VSI =0.
By 1940, even at training airfields, nobody in major air
forces wanted any aeroplanes present that flew the downwind
leg of any circuit pattern with drag reduced below 150 KmIAS =
81 KIAS, because the velocity (KTAS) consequence was
incompatible with too many other aircraft that used the same
low performance circuit pattern.
We should emulate the Regia Aeronautica and Luftwaffe
training syllabus, and our first goal in the Lombardi is to
learn how to fly a compliant circuit pattern. We must learn to
achieve safe climb with Vy = 90 KmIAS and RPM < 1950 GIRI
in full throttle, by manually varying JOYSTICK back pressure,
until we reach pattern HEIGHT = 250M QFE, *while still on the
crosswind leg*, followed only then by imposition of GLIDESLOPE
= VSI = 0 during the turn at 250M QFE to the downwind leg and
while downwind. We must of course also learn to achieve and
impose head up parallax compliance in all directions
throughout and concurrently (see later). The downwind leg of
the pattern is a cruise phase and so we must learn to maintain
cruise, (learn to use THROTTLE to impose GLIDESLOPE = VSI =
0), before we ever leave the pattern to begin cross country
training.
MAXIMUM = DESIGN CRUISE:
In this very slow aeroplane design cruise is maximum
cruise. It occurs at the design operational ceiling. En route
cruise takes place lower, in nasty thicker air, with
lesser GIRI, only if there is a need to cruise below the carb
icing layer, or to remain below cloud, or to retain a view of
the scenery waypoints and line features in bad visibility, or
to minimise a perceived significant headwind vector. Only
adverse weather causes cruise below design operational ceiling
in a Lombardi.
Cruise phase:
NEVER MORE
THAN 1950 GIRI NEVER LESS THAN +7 CELSIUS
JOYSTICK =
NEUTRAL CAUSES = 150 KmIAS (slowly) VSI
= 0 GIRI < 1950 THROTTLE =
REDUCE TO COMPLY GIRI = MAXIMISE
with MIXTURE VSI = 0 GIRI
< 1950 THROTTLE = REDUCE TO COMPLY YIELD
= 86 KTAS at 1000M QNH PLAN =
12 Kg/hr
The L.3 is factory rigged to autoseek a profile drag of 150
KmIAS which is the design = max cruise and arrival phase
profile drag target compliance. The Lombardi was RIGGED at the
factory to autoseek 150 KmIAS as soon as we stop making an
elevator input with our joystick. If we are 'heavy with fuel'
the cruise equilibrium profile drag over the aerofoils will be
higher to produce the extra LIFT needed to balance the extra
fuel WEIGHT. At 'low weights' Vdc will be just less than 150
KmIAS. The factory imposed rigging imposes this without pilot
intervention. The sequencing of the patiently imposed pilot
inputs as we seek to impose CRUISE is mandatory. At first we
leave the MIXTURE alone and use only THROTTLE to impose
GLIDESLOPE = VSI = 0.
However after we stop using the joystick to deflect the
elevators to impose climb, and after we are using the throttle
to impose VSI=0, the engine still has the very RICH mixture
that was needed to cool it with extra AVGAS while the en route
climb cooling drag was only Vx = 85 KmIAS. Only after cooling
drag has settled at 150 KmIAS, and only if we have vacated the
circuit pattern on a cross country flight, the student (we)
must (only now) carry out the vintage era procedure of LEANING
TO PEAK POWER.
When we vary MIXTURE to impose RICH mixture we look at the
TERRA / QUOTA tooltip, but when we impose LEAN MIXTURE we look
at the GIRI gauge, not the MIXTURE control. As soon as careful
and progressive leaning causes GIRI to reduce even 1 GIRI
below the maximum reached during the leaning process, we
restore the maximum GIRI available from the current throttle
position by reversing the last mixture leaning input to add
richness.
Now, (especially if you are a qualified modern era pilot),
remember that the mixture leaning that delivers PEAK CYLINDER
HEAD TEMPERATURE (CHT), which became the initial mixture
control parameter in the later classic and modern eras of
aviation history, is a very lean mixture, far leaner than the
mixture that delivers PEAK GIRI and PEAK POWER.
The MIXTURE that delivers PEAK GIRI is very RICH FROM PEAK
TEMPERATURE. Indeed it is (and had to be) further rich from
peak engine temperature, than is compliant after a CHT gauge
is provided to monitor CHT directly in later eras of aviation
history. The vintage era compliant military and productivity
maximising technique of leaning to peak GIRI = power is not at
all the same thing as leaning to peak temperature (and backing
off a little from there). The vintage era pilot had no
relevant temperature reference and could never lean by
reference to an engine temperature. In the pioneer and vintage
eras of aviation history aero engines were run significantly
richer than in the later classic and modern eras of aviation
history, even though they were leaned to peak power during
cruise.
After setting mixture compliantly on the ground after
start, we do not use the mixture control at all if we remain
in the circuit pattern, or before we reach 400M QFE climbing
out of the local area, and we do not (need to) use it at all
below 1000M QNH in climb after setting QNH if workload is
high. We do lean to peak GIRI if we CRUISE below 1000M QNH,
which we will do only due to adverse weather.
Cooling drag will rise to 150 KmIAS *at every altitude*
soon after we impose CRUISE = GLIDESLOPE = VSI = 0 with the
THROTTLE. That cooling = windmill = profile drag input and
output were RIGGED at the factory. All we have to do is stop
making inputs to the elevators with the JOYSTICK during
cruise, and instead impose CRUISE = GLIDESLOPE = VSI = 0 with
the THROTTLE, then maximise the fuel injection rate with the
TERRA - QUOTA MIXTURE CONTROL.
Depending on the weather today the GIRI increase from that
CRUISE LEANING may cause GIRI to exceed 1950 with a windmill
drag that is always Vdc ~ 150Km IAS. Only if it does, we must
begin stage three of the process which is retarding the
THROTTLE until GIRI do not exceed 1950. We have already
imposed MIXTURE for PEAK POWER at *any* throttle setting at
current altitude. That is now safe and compliant only because
the poorly exposed air cooled engine now has 150 KmIAS of
cooling drag, and no longer needs lots of extra evaporating
AVGAS as coolant.
During cross country cruise MIXTURE is always reduced until
it imposes PEAK GIRI = PEAK POWER subject to running the
engine in its normal operating range. If that causes GIRI >
1950 we do not select a less powerful mixture, we instead
reduce throttle until GIRI = 1950. We then have a small BHP
reserve to prevent sink in turns if we need to increase weight
with aileron to impose bank, to impose G, to impose turn.
This is a military aeroplane. The operating goal is neither
maximisation of profit, nor maximisation of economy. The
operating goal is maximisation of productivity. After
accepting that safety is always paramount, each cross country
flight needs to be conducted along a 'minimum time path', to
maximise productivity of the military equipment and the
military student pilot must be indoctrinated into that
cultural belief system.
OPERATIONAL CEILING:
Depending on current weight and current weather, there is
right here, right now, an altitude at which the puny CNA D4
engine can barely sustain VSI = 0 at Vdc = 150 KmIAS. If
adverse weather does not enforce a lower operational ceiling
that is our operational ceiling and it delivers the maximum =
design cruise condition. Weather permitting we will always
climb to our full throttle operational ceiling to maximise our
velocity in the thinnest possible air while sustaining a
profile drag of Vdc ~ 150 KmIAS. At the relevant temperature
Latitudes in Italy and Austria, on most days the carb ice
ceiling will be high enough to allow cruise above 1000M QNH,
but unless the weather is very favourable, (meaning unusually
high air (oxygen) pressure of course), the CNA D3 will be too
puny to sustain VSI = 0 and Vdc = 150 KmIAS in full throttle
as high as 1500M QNH.
The DESIGN CRUISE CONDITION (IAS = Vdc = 150 KmIAS) of the
Lombardi is imposed (rigged) at the factory and is designed to
maximises PRODUCTIVITY. That does not mean that military
organisations have no cost controls. It means that the cost of
maximising productivity, not economy, not profit, is built
into first the specification, and then the design of the
military equipment. In this case a basic military flying
trainer. The engine is tiny and cheap to buy and maintain, and
it can never consume huge quantities of fuel. The military
student pilot is then indoctrinated to maximise productivity,
'regardless of cost'. In an aviation context this requires the
student to seek and impose the minimum time path consistent
with safe accomplishment of the mission. The cost was limited
elsewhere and earlier.
In order to maximise productivity the student must learn to
maximise velocity (TAS). Because the design drag Vdc is
imposed at the factory, and the student has no means to retrim
the Lombardi to seek a different drag, it quickly becomes
clear to the student that he can only maximise velocity by
seeking the thinnest possible air, with the least resistance
to passage of the Lombardi, while using exactly the allowed
continuous cruise GIRI = 1950. having no constant speed
airscrew, and hoping to use full throttle to cruise, to
maximise productivity, the student quickly grasps that they
must control GIRI with ALTITUDE.
Right here, right now, in the current ever changing
weather, there is only one ALTITUDE where a CNA D4 engine,
LEANED to peak GIRI, with a windmill drag = Vdc = 150 Km IAS,
in full throttle, produces 1950 = max cruise GIRI. The student
must seek and recognise that compliant altitude, which
maximises vehicle velocity and thus productivity from the
allowed inputs. Other weather factors aside that is the
Operational Ceiling of a Lombardi. However on many days the
weather may prevent 1950 GIRI at the altitude with the
thinnest air while sustaining VSI = 0 with full throttle and
GIRI maximised using the TERRA - QUOTA MIXTURE control.
Perfection is often unachievable, but we must nevertheless
learn and understand the 'perfect' operating targets we are
required to seek.
The military ab initio student learns that to maximise the
altitude at which the engine can possibly be windmilled to
1950 GIRI, with the throttle full open, to minimise air
resistance, to maximise velocity, with drag constant at Vdc =
150 KmIAS, the student must learn to control MIXTURE manually
to maximise GIRI = power.
During climb we prevent production of full power (full
GIRI), from full throttle, with the JOYSTICK by imposing low
windmill drag = Vy in turns, or Vx with wings level. Imposing
low windmill drag on the screw brakes the engine below 1950
GIRI and we do that with the JOYSTICK.
However in cruise (outside the circuit pattern) we maximise
the altitude at which we can sustain maximum compliant GIRI =
1950, still with full throttle, but then also with the manual
MIXTURE leaning that imposes PEAK GIRI = PEAK POWER to
maximise cruise velocity to maximise productivity, (not
profit, not economy).
COMPLIANCE VARIES WITH ASSIGNED ROLE and DOCTRINE:
Watching aeroplanes randomly under perform via random
inputs is not the purpose of flight simulators. They exist to
teach real world compliance in a virtual environment, but
compliance is not a simple concept. For a private owner pilot
compliance may require imposition of maximum economy, for an
airline pilot it requires imposition of maximum profit, and
for a combat pilot it requires imposition of maximum
productivity. Each has different input compliances to achieve
those different output compliances, in the same aeroplane. In
each case selection of the compliant ALTITUDE to maximise the
particular output that must be maximised, is critical in the
repeating captaincy decision making cycle, as the weather
keeps changing as we fly along.
The most common cases are;
MAXIMISE
ECONOMY = low power
- low profile drag - low velocity
- low altitude
MAXIMISE
PRODUCTIVITYY = high power - high profile
drag - high velocity - medium altitude
MAXIMISE
PROFIT = medium
power - low profile drag - medium velocity
- high altitude
As soon as the role and operating doctrine requires
operation above low altitude, the compliant altitude for any
individual aeroplane is a function of its operational ceiling,
which is the highest altitude at which it can develop the
power mandated to deliver the operating doctrine. The more
primitive the aeroplane the more likely it is that weather
will impose operation below the desired altitude. The L.3 was
highly optimised for high productivity, but was so primitive
and so underpowered that it always struggled to reach 'medium
altitude'.
TERRAIN AVOIDANCE - SAFETY IS NO ACCIDENT:
In Italy mountains were a huge threat to pioneer and
vintage era aircrew. Even in much higher performance
aeroplanes than the Lombardi it was often necessary to flight
plan around, not over, high terrain. For the Regia Aeronautica
this had also become a huge problem in the hot highlands of
Italian East Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia). Simply
flight planning to fly from A to B around the ever bending
great circle, regardless of what was in the way, was often
fatal. The Lombardi was designed to make student pilots think
very hard about terrain avoidance from the outset. The minimum
time path around the bending great circle is highly
productive, but safety is paramount. This was a time when
pilots had to obtain weather forecasts before take off, that
they could not update using electronics in flight.
The RA took care to locate the Lombardi pilot selection and
basic training schools mostly on the east coast of Italy at
low level, but with another inland on the other side of the
inland mountains, (see supplied contextual history). Each
triangular cross country required two crossings of the
mountains wherever it started. By using a basic trainer that
was little more than a microlight they indoctrinated the
students fom the very outset into the idea that they must not
assume that flight plans proceed directly from departure to
destination. The student was required to consider and plan for
the threats in between. The student learned quickly that they
must use pilotage to navigate, following line features, to
avoid threats en route, in order to transit safely through the
mountains, deviating along the route they must follow to fly
through the mountain passes above the line features that were
located in the relevant river (or glacial) valleys.
The student learned that the forecast cloud base versus the
altitude of the mountain pass was critical. The student
learned from the outset that threat envelopes have a vertical
as well as a lateral component and that they must decide if
the forecast weather was compatible with vertical avoidance of
the threat. The student learned from the outset that they must
delay sorties of the weather was incompatible with the planned
sortie. To experience this in a desk top flight simulator it
is necessary to base aircraft where they were based in real
life, to fly them between the points they really flew between,
and to do that in variable real weather for that region as the
seasons vary. You will learn very little about aeroplanes, or
aviation history, by using flight simulators as radio control
model simulators operating aeroplanes randomly only in lovely
weather, only in random locations.
A Lombardi sortie as an RA student pilot is all about
pilotage using a MAP and a weather forecast, even to decide if
the sortie is viable before walking out to the aeroplane. This
had several consequences. RA pilots and unit commanders became
much more likely to refuse to fly in bad weather, than for
instance RAF aircrew, and much less likely to die in their
hundreds during avoidable controlled flight into terrain
(CFIT). They 'probably' became better at threat identification
and avoidance, of all kinds, during both planning and during
execution. They were better trained to evaluate and avoid
threats from the very start of their indoctrination as
military aircrew. Much of the rest of this student training
manual will explain that complex concept.
Flight simulation is the demonstration of all real world
compliances in a virtual environment. It matters what the real
environment was. It has to be replicated. The threats have to
be replicated, whether they are terrain, or enemy airspace and
enemy electronic warfare capability, or just reserved ATC
airspace and military danger areas in the modern era. The real
challenge has to be replicated, else the reason for the
individual aeroplane type to exist, and its real varying
operating doctrine, cannot be understood, or even witnessed.
To have any hope of achieving relevant levels of understanding
you need contextual histories with basing and target
information, and you need training manuals that explain the
doctrines, the required knowledge base, and the skills to be
mastered, in considerable detail, else you cannot hope to
achieve and demonstrate all real world compliances in a
virtual environment.
THE ARRIVAL PHASE:
In a Lombardi we will normally cruise at operational
ceiling with our altimeter set to QNH until our destination
airfield is in sight. We have neither wireless nor radio and
so *we will enter the circuit pattern from directly overhead
that airfield* then discovered the landing runway by
viewing the ATC signal square from directly above. Audio isn't
the only way to receive instructions from ATC. In MSFS we will
instead use weather software such as FSMATAR to determine the
complaint into wind runway landing direction.
Arrival phase:
GIRI <
1950 THROTTLE = TO COMPLY JOYSTICK = NEUTRAL CAUSES =
150 KmIAS (retained)
MIXTURE
= 30% passing 4000M QNH MIXTURE = 35% passing
3500M QNH MIXTURE = 40% passing 3000M
QNH MIXTURE = 50% passing 2500M QNH MIXTURE
= 65% passing 2000M QNH MIXTURE = 80% passing
1500M QNH MIXTURE = 100% passing 1000M
QNH ALTIMETER = SET QFE MIXTURE = 100%
before circuit
We did not impose non compliant productivity reducing
drag with the joystick in cruise and we have no reason to do
so in descent during the arrival phase. We simply moderate
throttle to impose compliant glideslope as always. Throttle
closed is acceptable if intervening terrain permits.
In the unlikely event that we were cruising above 1500M QNH
for terrain avoidance, needing to reduce drag continuously
with the joystick to achieve that, we will increase MIXTURE %
at intervals in descent. Else in almost all cases as we pass
1000M QNH in descent, else having cruised below 1000M QNH due
to bad weather, we impose 100% MIXTURE and destination QFE
*before* (further) descent.
Most flight simulation enthusiasts fail to differentiate
the ARRIVAL phase from the APPROACH phase and have every
aeroplane in the wrong configuration failing to achieve any
relevant compliance targets during both muddled phases. We
will descend from cruise only after we have visually
identified our destination, but before we are overhead. We
intend to arrive overhead at 400 to 500M QFE. Revise the WW2
non radio altimeter setting procedures cited above now if you
need to.
THE APPROACH PHASE:
In the vintage era of aviation history we have a MINIMUM
DESCENT HEIGHT (MDH), instead of a minimum descent altitude
(MDA). For a Lombardi that MDH is 250M QFE *everywhere*. The
fact that we are flying VFR is of no consequence. We are
required to join the RA or Luftwaffe VISUAL circuit pattern at
a HEIGHT of 250M QFE = MDH, *from directly overhead at greater
height*.
We must not barge into the circuit pattern 'sideways' at
250M QFE. We must arrive overhead, and circle overhead, to
insert ourselves into the downwind leg of the circuit traffic
*from above*, with appropriate spacing to minimise the safe
landing interval, having studied the 'ATC signals square' to
obtain our ATC instructions (using e.g. FSMETAR in FS9). We
must join the circuit pattern *with compliant downwind lateral
offset from the landing runway* for the 'performance class' of
aeroplane we are flying.
In MSFS there will rarely be local circuit traffic we can
watch and follow, and if present it will be at random unsafe
location anyway, and so we must learn the parallax compliance
that delivers the compliant downwind lateral offset at
destination, which may be somewhere we have never been before.
We can only impose it from a known HEIGHT above that runway,
and that HEIGHT is 250M QFE *everywhere*.
A much faster (not larger) aeroplane, when ARRIVING VFR,
will have a higher MDH, and the same parallax compliance would
place it at greater lateral displacement *on the same
glideslope* to the same landing runway, even while downwind.
Pilots flying faster aeroplanes need just as much TIME to
perform a compliant approach and so they need more DISTANCE,
even though they may use the SAME GLIDESLOPE, intercepted at
greater distance to allow the same TIME to achieve human skill
compliance. They must fly a wider, higher circuit that takes
the same TIME. Busy airfields with highly variable traffic
have high and low performance circuit patterns accordingly.
They often terminate at different (parallel) runways. This was
true during WW2 at both Voslau and Klagenfurt and we shall
study the implications in detail later.
Because the low performance aircraft pattern HEIGHT is
invariant, and for the slow Lombardi is only 250M QFE, there
will be locations where terrain in or adjacent to the standard
left hand pattern prevents use of that standard pattern. At
some locations the circuit will be on the same side of the
runway, whichever runway direction is in use, but VFR MDH =
visual pattern height is 250M QFE regardless.
In MSFS *you* are required to determine whether there is
terrain *at the real baseline range parallax compliance*, not
some ridiculous randomly allowed greater baseline range, in
the standard left hand pattern, that will then require you to
fly a non standard right hand pattern at 250M QFE. The real
student obtained his clearance from the ATC signal square
while overhead the pattern above the pattern. In many cases
once *you* are descending compliantly in the overhead to MDH =
250M QFE it will become obvious by inspection that there is
terrain, or a mast, that precludes use of a standard left hand
pattern at the real world parallax compliance vertical and
lateral offsets. *You* are responsible for the captaincy
decision making cycle, having understood how to impose the
real invariant parallax compliance vertical and lateral
pattern offset which we shall study in detail shortly.
Circuit: 250M
AGL = QFE
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> If
remaining in circuit DO NOT set QNH DO NOT alter
MIXTURE >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Climb and
downwind as above
All turns:
JOYSTICK
= 90 KmIAS (Vy) GLIDESLOPE = PARALLAX COMPLIANT THROTTLE
= TO COMPLY
Established
final approach:
EYEPOINT =
JUST EXPOSE ENGINE BLOCK JOYSTICK = 75 KmIAS
(Vref) PARALLAX = COMPLIANT THROTTLE = TO COMPLY
About 3 metres
FLARE TO 3
POINT LANDING
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In a non radio aeroplane *you* must not clear yourself to
exit the arrival phase, into the approach phase, by descending
into the pattern from above, to the compliant pattern height,
in the compliant direction, on the compliant side of the
landing runway, at the compliant head up parallax compliance
baseline range, already on the time path compliant runway
landing interval glideslope for your class of aeroplane, until
*you* have performed the relevant captaincy decision making
cycle.
Flying non radio is more complex because *you* must acquire
the skill to make the decisions otherwise made for you and
imposed by an air traffic controller, with which you only need
to comply.
The circuit phase abbreviated notes above, begin with climb
into the circuit, but the rest applies during every approach
phase, which begins as soon as you give yourself clearance to
enter the visual pattern compliantly *from directly above*. We
examined earlier why all turns must have a profile drag of Vy
= 90 KmIAS imposed with the joystick.
It is permissible to adopt the final approach and ground
handling EYEPOINT on base leg, but not earlier, since downwind
parallax compliance is imposed from the default in flight
parallax compliance EYEPOINT (SPACEBAR). We shall study those
head up flight compliances with illustrations later.
RUNWAY REQUIRED:
Despite its very low power the Lombardi is so light that it
is suitable for TAKE OFF FROM OBSTRUCTED 300 metre grass or
dirt runways in nil wind below 600M QNH. It is underpowered,
which is defined as the ability to land on any runway it can
depart with the same headwind. In the hands of a qualified
pilot it is very underpowered and its nil wind landing
distance is much shorter than the 300 metre ~ 1000 foot grass
runway required for a safe nil wind take off. It *is*
therefore compatible with nil wind LANDING ON 300 metre
OBSTRUCTED RUNWAYS, (such as 10R STOL at Klagenfurt where we
shall carry out our STOL training). Most flight simulation
enthusiasts never develop the skill needed to operate from
runways that short.
The Lombardi has no wheel brakes or steering, but thanks to
its exceptionally low yaw inertia, it is very easy to yaw the
spoon shaped skid across grass or dirt, and too easy on
tarmac.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Always
grass or dirt:
THROTTLE =
CLOSED STICK = FULL AFT RUDDER
= FISHTAIL (20 deg arc)
Only if
necessary:
IAS < 70
KmIAS RUDDER = HARD OVER HARD STOP
In the event of a (too) deep landing an EMERGENCY
TURN to avoid the upwind boundary may be performed as soon as
the tail is firmly down. Simply hold the joystick full aft and
the rudder hard over and the Lombardi will yaw hard away from
the obstacle into an aggressive STOP. Otherwise only
fishtailing is necessary during into wind forced landings,
onto the open MSFS mesh, into any unobstucted field with a
modest slope and with more than 150M between the walls or
hedges.
With logical consumer choice of landclass, imposed via
third party developer landclass, many relevant 'meadows'
suitable for practice forced landings (potentially with an
actual engine off landing) will exist in the relevant
locations. Just remember that you need a greater distance
(level or downslope field diagonal) to take off again!
Complete your obstructed STOL runway training at Klagenfurt
before attempting safe engine off forced landings into
'meadows' whose boundaries are defined on the MSFS mesh.
EMERGENCY TAIL BRAKING FORK:
As explained in the contextual history the real open
cockpit L.3 also had an emergency braking fork for use only
during forced landings. For the reasons explained therein it
is not present (or needed) in MSFS.
OVERSPEED LIMITS:
The Lombardi is aerobatic and so the profile drag abuse
normal operating limit (Vno) is exceptionally high at 300
KmIAS and cannot be measured with the real ASI since engine
overspeed prior to structural overspeed is certain. The dive
limit is instead the *engine* never exceed overspeed limit at
2250 GIRI.
AEROBATICS:
The L.3 was intended to deliver all of the Regia
Aeronautica basic flying training syllabus including basic
aerobatic training. It was wildly over engineered with a
promulgated limit of plus 8G. However it cannot reach the
necessary IAS to deliver eight times as much LIFT to counter
eight times as much weight, without overspeeding the engine.
Fortunately it does not take 8G to perform basic training
syllabus aerobatics. Its negative G structural limit was 'more
than adequate' given that the carburettor reduces fuel supply
to the engine as soon as G fall below plus 1.
There is some anecdotal evidence that roll authority was
poorly harmonised to pitch authority, but the real issue was
engine overspeed, not other factors. Prior to a loop we must
increase IAS rapidly diving in full throttle. The limit of
that accelerating dive is 2250 GIRI, not an IAS value. We hope
to reach a profile drag over the aerofoils of 225 KmIAS so
that they can generate the extra LIFT needed to counter the
increase in WEIGHT we will impose as we pull the joystick full
aft at < 2250 GIRI and ~ 225 KmIAS. In any event we must
not continue a *throttle open* dive beyond a windmill drag of
~ 225 KmIAS since that may cause engine failure > 2250
GIRI.
Of course longer and steeper throttle closed dives are
possible, and to higher IAS, without overspeeding the engine,
or the Lombardi. but that is no use during aerobatics
training.
Even at maximum gross weight the Lombardi will just about
get around that loop. No moderation of back pressure was
required to avoid stall provided entry was < 2250 GIRI and
~ 225 KmIAS. There was also no possibility of reaching human
upright seated posture with no G suit GLOC from such low entry
momentum, again requiring no moderation of joystick back
pressure.
Consequently both RA, and later Luftwaffe, instructors
considered the process far too simple, and functionally
useless for training combat pilots who must learn to moderate
back pressure compliantly to avoid both types of pilot error.
The L.3 simply could not demonstrate those pilot errors from
compliant entry and could not complete a loop from non
compliant < 225 KmIAS entry.
A 'roll off the top' was 'just about possible' from entry
at < 2250 GIRI ~ 225 KmIAS, but a significant inverted dive
angle must be achieved before 'checking' descent to an
inverted dive, with the fuel flow faltering under less than
one G as you push to hold the inverted dive angle, while
continuing increase of IAS to that needed to achieve the
necessary roll acceleration to roll through 180 degrees in a
reasonably short time. All significant rolling manoeuvres seem
like hard work, and with the puny CNA D4 engine rolling
aerobatics almost always requires loss of altitude unless
entry IAS is very high and pushing the puny engine to its very
modest 2250 GIRI overspeed limit.
The Lombardi delivers excessively easy loops, from 225
KmIAS, provided the engine is not overspeeded > 2250 GIRI,
but while inverted in looping or rolling manoeuvres, that fail
to sustain => 1G pull while inverted, the further loss of
power, causes loss of height between entry and exit. *In post
war civilian use aerobatics were forbidden*. The Lombardi was
'barely aerobatic', yet 'too easy' to loop without stalling or
encountering GLOC. That wasn't the real problem.
STALL - WING DROP - INCIPIENT SPIN - HANDS OFF RECOVERY TO
WINGS LEVEL DIVE:
The Regia Aeronautica (and civilian flying schools) needed
their basic trainer to be compatible with teaching the skill
of impending stall recognition, and stall avoidance. The
Lombardi was well designed for that purpose. Breakdown of
attached airflow can be heard (as a loud burbling sound in
MSFS) in the open cockpit. The sudden audible separation of
flow, over only the inboard wing, happens 3 degrees Angle of
Attack (AoA) before loss of aileron control and the student
pilot (we) have sufficient time to diagnose excess AoA and
take immediate remedial action with both joystick and
throttle.
In MSFS most aircraft releases have their flight dynamics
miscoded so that what should be an audio warning that AoA is
approaching stall AoA, giving time to react and take remedial
action, are instead only notification that stall has already
occurred. The supplied Lombardi flight dynamics are
compliantly coded giving you a further 3 dAOA to react before
the outboard aerofoil stalls and the L.3 departs controlled
flight.
The problem was that, unlike civilian flying schools, the
Regia Aeronautica needed their basic trainer to be compatible
with teaching post stall recovery, and post spin recovery. The
Lombardi was badly designed for that purpose.
Three degrees AoA after the onset of loud burbling inboard
flow separation the Lombardi exhibits wing drop, then nose
drop, into more than a quarter of a turn of incipient spin,
but it was factory rigged to seek 150 KmIAS, which it does
quickly. Autorotation stops and the dihedral imposes wings
level dive quickly. Even if the student pilot freezes and does
nothing at all. Lombardi and his design team thought this was
a major safety feature, and so did post war aero clubs who
were not required to teach spin recovery to amateur pilots,
but it rendered the Lombardi unfit for purpose in the Regia
Aeronautica, with a swift consequential two stage relegation,
(see supplied contextual history).
Discover for yourself how little height is lost and how
easy it is to begin simple pull up recovery from an
unrecognised stall, that invokes incipient spin, that auto
corrects to straight dive. Never deliberately invoke stall or
incipient spin below 1000M AGL in the Lombardi. Surviving
unrecognised stall from 250M QFE (or less after turning base)
in the circuit pattern is much less likely. You have been
warned!
STALL *WARNING* DURING FLARE:
Brief onset of audible inboard flow separation is not
unusual as we flare a Lombardi to the compliant 'tail down
three point attitude' for landing. However the whole wing is
not stalled. You are only receiving the necessary warning,
that you have slightly over rotated beyond the three point
attitude into the last 3 degrees of safe AoA. Never allow the
loud sound of buffeting flow separation to persist, but slight
and brief over rotation into the last three degrees of safe
AoA, causing stall *warning* during flare is acceptable.
Despite claims on various web sites, and in many FS forums,
aeroplanes are *not* stalled onto the ground during landing.
Those who believe they are have confused a controlled sink
rate with the aeroplane under full control, with stall in
which the aeroplane would drop a wing, or its nose, suddenly.
Aeroplanes are caused to sink onto a runway at high unstalled
AoA. They must not be stalled at low level. Some real amateur
pilots make the mistake of thinking that the real audio stall
warning is notification of stall, but it is not. It is a
warning that the aerofoil has entered the last few safe
degrees of AoA.
PROFILE DRAG AUDIO:
Stall warning buffet prior to the flare is unacceptable. In
an open cockpit you can hear your decaying profile drag (IAS).
You do not need an ASI. If under conditions close to 1G
(during any approach) you can no longer hear the slight
whistle of the profile drag your IAS is too low and your AoA
is too high. Soon after the windscreen has too little profile
drag (IAS) to be audible, louder buffeting flow separation
from the aerofoil will begin. In an open cockpit you have a
whole sound track to listen to and that sound track is an
aeroplane control parameter. When we are looking sideways and
have no sight of the ASI, or we are in a pioneer era aeroplane
like the Ansaldo scout that has no ASI, the sound track is the
ASI. Learn to use the decaying sound of the profile drag as
both your ASI, and your Angle of Attack Indicator, as you look
in all directions, especially when looking at the target of
external parallax compliance, which in a Lombardi will usually
be the intended point of landing.
*You* must learn how to use desired decay of profile drag
audio, and unwanted onset of flow separation buffet, to
measure Angle of Attack, and to keep AoA in the safe range
while looking at targets of external head up parallax
compliance, *with no gauges in your FoV*. Learning those open
cockpit skills of AoA monitoring and control via audio
monitoring must be a major component of your Lombardi basic
training and type conversion training. If you are struggling
to hear the profile drag (IAS) you are imposing, you must
adjust the settings in your personal MSFS
Options\settings\sounds menu.
Expect to spend up to an hour learning how to impose Vy =
90 KmIAS and Vref = 75 KmIAS just by listening to the profile
drag over your open cockpit, so that you understand that you
are free to look at the scenery while turning, or turning and
descending to close range to the target, using your ears to
control IAS and AoA, not your eyes. You need your eyes to
impose target parallax compliance, even when the current
target of head up external parallax compliance in the forward
arc of Human FoV, is nowhere near the aeroplane datum line.
After you have learned that skill you will understand better
why the Regia Aeronautica instructors of 1939, (and many other
pilots of that timeframe), refused to accept enclosed
cockpits. Enclosed cockpits make interpretation of the audio
cues more difficult, or even impossible.
HEAD UP PARALLAX COMPLIANCES:
Most flight simulation enthusiasts never learn to get any
aeroplane under control. If tasked to position the
aeroplane 1Km from a mast, or to avoid a given
airfield by exactly three miles, so they do not waste fuel or
time by wider avoidance, or the notified location of a 20mm
AAA battery by 4Km, around 95% of all flight simulation users
have no idea what real pilots do, or how to simulate what real
pilots do. They have no idea how to position any aeroplane
versus any scenery without using electronic computer gadgets.
Most flight simulation enthusiasts just pretend they can
fly complex aeroplanes, but never learn the most basic skills
of pilotage. Random progression from one random location to
another is not demonstrating that the aeroplane is under
control. Pilotage of any vessel is the skill of positioning it
visually and compliantly in real time versus any visible
scenery. Potentially to follow a safe winding channel, or
approach path, to a place of disembarkation. Potentially to
avoid (or prosecute from a safe distance) a threat while en
route.
In aeroplanes the skill of also placing the aeroplane on
any desired GLIDESLOPE to any target of external head up
parallax compliance is a very basic skill, yet most flight
simulation enthusiasts never attempt to learn that very basic
skill. They just wander randomly exerting no control. The
glideslope to any target is the angle subtended by the
hypotenuse of a Pythagorean right angle triangle and the slant
range to the target is the length of that hypotenuse. For
gunnery and rocketry (in either direction) control of the
length of the hypotenuse is critical. Penetration of allied
and enemy threat envelopes must be controlled and timed in 4D
with precision and skill. Outside combat the student pilot
begins acquisition of that basic pilotage skill using the
landing runway as the target of external head up parallax
compliance.
In the vintage era of aviation history the pilot has a
default head position in the aeroplane which is mandatory when
seeking those head up parallax compliances. In real life that
may be imposed via a headrest or via use of more than one
object of parallax compliance between the pilot and the
target, both of which must be aligned with the target. e.g.
ring and bead (or Vane) sight. Other members of a crew may
also need to achieve head up parallax compliances from a
mandatory eyepoint by the same means, e.g. an IOZZA bomb and
reconnaissance camera sight. The angle subtended by the
hypotenuse when bombing at estimated speed of progression, and
when using a camera at the speed of light must differ. I have
addressed all of these issues in detail in earlier individual
flight simulation training manuals and tutorials.
If you have never learned how real pilots keep aeroplanes
under control, achieving multiple external head up parallax
compliances to place threats and targets at whatever stand off
slant, or baseline, range may be needed, or how real pilots
locate any desired glideslope to any scenery, then you should
eventually and later learn those flight simulation skills via
my training manual for the Breda Ba 65bis tactical bomber
where those issues and the necessary self training are
addressed in detail and with many illustrations. This student
training manual assumes you have never bothered to learn even
basic aircraft positioning skills. Very few flight simulation
enthusiasts ever have.
HEAD UP PARALLAX COMPLIANCES IN THE LOMBARDI:
In a vintage era lead in trainer like the Lombardi we
always have an open cockpit and in part we use our ears to
monitor and impose the 'V speeds' that are the mandated safe
profile drag = AoA = IAS. We use our right hand to impose the
compliant audio profile drag with JOYSTICK BACK PRESSURE. We
instead use our eyes to monitor external parallax compliance
in any and every direction. We use our left hand to impose
GLIDESLOPE compliance, in any and every direction, via the
THROTTLE. As the student pilot we will also use right handed
left and right motion of the JOYSTICK to increase and reduce
baseline range from the target of external head up parallax
compliance until we achieve compliance. As we learned in the
Z.1007bis simulation the Air Gunner who is also the bomb aimer
must instead use rudder trim to impose baseline range
compliance.
These are very basic flight simulation (pilotage) skills.
Each requires imposition of a Pythagorean right angle triangle
with the target at the far end of the compliant baseline. By
imposing compliant HEIGHT (not altitude) above the target with
the THROTTLE, by using the KOHLLSMAN KNOB of our ALTIMETER to
impose QFE forecast barometric pressure in millibars *at the
target* - (visible in the KOHLMANN WINDOW via the tooltip),
when we achieve baseline range compliance by left or right
motion of the JOYSTICK a pilot automatically causes the
hypotenuse to subtend the angle that is the compliant
glideslope to the current target of head up external parallax
compliance.
We studied earlier how we set QFE for any distant location
(threat or target) whose altitude we researched before take
off, or which is cited on any MAP we are using with ALTITUDE
(Not Height) CONTOURS, or on any CHART we are using, instead
with SPOT HEIGHTS above Field Elevation. We discovered earlier
that the compliant HEIGHT for the Lombardi is always 250M QFE
if the object of external head up parallax compliance is the
authorised landing runway on an airfield. That runway is just
some grass with no electronic emitters that gauges could use
to display glideslope or range. You must learn the procedures
and the skill needed to position the aeroplane at the
compliant HEIGHT using real world variable altimetry, You must
also learn the skill of positioning the aeroplane at the
compliant baseline range from the target, to thereby impose
the compliant glideslope to the target down the hypotenuse you
must learn to recognise and impose.
The lateral baseline range you must learn to recognise and
impose in the Regia Aeronautica or Luftwaffe low performance
circuit pattern is 2000 metres (2Km) baseline range .... from
a HEIGHT (not altitude) of 250M. The compliant baseline range
is not a random number. It matters whether high terrain
penetrates close to 250M above the landing runway at a
distance only slightly more than 2Km from that runway. As
we noted earlier that would cause the pattern to become right
hand instead of left hand. High terrain more than 2.2Km from
the runway is irrelevant.
Now think about why the mandatory downwind baseline range
has to be limited to 2Km, with a longer hypotenuse slant range
to the target, to allow circuit pattern training to proceed in
low visibility. The RA and Luftwaffe minimum visibility for
low performance circuit pattern training is accordingly 5Km.
Those values are the consequence of planning by the command
chain. They are not random wandering about anywhere you like,
only pretending to be a pilot, numbers. You are required to
know them. You are required to practice and develop the skill
to impose the mandatory head up target parallax compliances in
real time, in a virtual environment, even when the visibility
is only 5Km. While you also impose all the 'V speed' and GIRI
limit compliances, to qualify to proceed beyond basic role
selection training in a very basic 'lead in' trainer that is
being used to weed out those who cannot learn the basic V
speed, engine limit, and 4D head up parallax compliance
pilotage skills required.
So what we need to know is how to recognise and impose the
real lateral baseline range downwind compliance of 2Km in a
Lombardi, that we have already positioned 250M QFE above the
target to our beam. In the earlier pioneer era of avaition
history almost all aircraft, for every combat role, placed the
pilot on the datum line and all trainers were identical. Head
up parallax compliance to left and right was therefore
identical. However by 1940 many larger aircraft placed the
pilot off the datum line on one side of the cockpit, with some
other crew member on the other side. By 1940 basic trainers
needed to teach variable head up parallax compliance from
seats positioned off the datum line.
Since left hand drive cockpits and left handed procedures,
always keeping right of the median, always passing other
vehicles port to port, had become mandatory international
compliance outside the Japanese Empire, the RA and LW pilot
candidate begins by learning the head up parallax compliance
for left hand landing, and left hand combat pattern
prosecution of targets, and left hand avoidance of threats,
from a seat left of datum.
The mandatory head up parallax compliance eyepoint is set,
versus the airframe in use, so that parallax compliance from
that mandatory eyepoint is easy to monitor, whether or not it
is easy to impose. P1 left hand pattern parallax compliance in
the Lombardi is pictured below and we see that head up
compliance, from the mandatory compliance eyepoint, requires
us to place the landing runway just inside the wing tip and to
sustain that relationship as we proceed downwind at 250M QFE.
Our baseline range is then the compliant 2000M.

The airfield at Voslau consists of two runways with
agricultural land between them. The training runway is QFU
08/26 GRASS. Here we have imposed wings level head up downwind
parallax compliance at 2Km baseline range. The amount by which
the wing overlaps the runway is not random. You must learn to
impose and sustain that slight overlap, with precision, from
the default in flight EYEPOINT (SPACEBAR in FS9) . That
parallax compliance does not depend on your preceise EYELINE
from that head up compliance eyepoint. You can look in any
direction (EYELINE) from the compliance EYEPOINT. To achieve
the required precision, and to differentiate the grass runway
from the grass of the airfield in general it is necessary to
alter ZOOM to HUMAN ACUITY = 1 during circuit (attack)
pattern compliance demonstration.
We use the THROTTLE to position the Lombardi 250M QFE above
the runway and then we use the JOYSTICK to position the
compliant part of wing (the aiming bead) over the target,
running that part of the wing along the runway as we proceed
*wings level* downwind in the 2Km baseline range low
performance pattern, that has no threatening terrain including
masts, closer than 2200 metres from the runway.
International law only requires us to avoid terrain, or other
obstructions, including any type of stationary or moving
vehicle by 500 feet or 150M, and that means laterally,
vertically. or diagonally.
Before you move on study the displayed *perspective* of the
picture above. According to the displayed *perspective* how
easy will it be to lose the height to be lost?
HUMAN FIELD OF VIEW (FoV) versus HUMAN ACUITY:
Throughout our use of MSFS we must be free to vary ZOOM to
achieve timely compliance. The display hardware we purchased,
unlike a professional flight simulator for an airline or air
force, will almost always preclude display of HUMAN FoV at
ZOOM = 1 = HUMAN ACUITY = REAL LEVEL OF DETAIL = REAL
PERSPECTIVE, but that is irrelevant at various times during
our demonstration of learned compliance in a virtual
environment. There are times when Human FoV is necessary to
impose head up parallax compliance within a large aiming
reticle, and at those times Human FoV must be present on our
personal hardware display choice. We must MICROZOOM
accordingly.
Yet, there are instead times when we need to see the target
or the threat (the scenery) and the contours (the mesh) with
real perspective, and the LEVEL OF DETAIL (LOD) that the two
different types of scenery designers intended and coded
carefully within the relevant BGLs, and that are visible to
real humans, only at ZOOM = 1 inside MSFS.

Range is *always* measured and imposed with head up
parallax compliance. The baseline range and TIME to TARGET is
identical in this (microzoomed out) jpg. That requires 3D
simulation so that parallax compliance never varies with zoom.
The issues are ability to identify targets and threats in the
absence of human acuity, the false perception of distance
(false displayed perspective) in the absence of human
acuity, and the pointless waste of scenery and mesh LOD
in the absence of human acuity. The goal of desk top flight
simulation is *not* to discard human acuity = LOD, or to
discard real perspective, from real range through lazy use of
the ZOOM factor. The goal is *not* to impose upon yourself the
false perception of distance that arises from failure to
impose human acuity = LOD. When manoeuvring in close proximity
to objects of external importance, The requirement
during desk top simulation, is to reveal to yourself the
real LOD coded by the two types of BGL author, and true
distance *perspective*.
*Humans use parallax compliance, and perspective, and
LOD to decide how far away an object is*.
A trained pilot has no difficulty understanding that the
parallax compliance is mandatory and always delivers real
RANGE, real GLIDESLOPE and REAL TIME to TARGET, regardless of
how distorted other range cues may be by incompetent use of a
desk top flight simulator. Look carefully at the two jpgs
above until you understand that the real pilot, with real
human acuity, sees the LOD and perspective of distance, in the
first of these two jpgs, when he is 2000 metres baseline range
from the runway. Even though compliant operation of the
aeroplane is always conducted in accordance with
mandatory head up parallax compliance, to subtend the
hypotenuse angle that is the compliant GLIDESLOPE, the real
pilot *unconsciously* also uses perspective and LOD to decide
whether he has enough TIME to lose the HEIGHT that must be
lost.
Video game designers know that children will be exited by
'video game rush'. They may impose the zoomed out picture
above, which confuses children who do not understand parallax
compliance, into believing that the target (in this case
the touchdown zone) is 'far away'. Consequently when they roll
in to the target it arrives in much less time than they
expect, and it is more difficult to lose height without diving
to high velocity than they childishly expect, because false
ZOOM, different to HUMAN ACUITY, imposed false
perspective, and 'persuaded' their brains to misinterpret
range. and glideslope, and time to target. Children enjoy the
rush, and in many video games imposing too little time to
complete easy tasks is the only thing the video game has to
offer. MSFS is a simulator, not a video game. If you intend to
use it as a simulator you must learn how to control and impose
Human FoV versus Human Acuity, and when each is compliant. All
other ZOOM factors just add childish confusion that has no
place in a simulation and demonstration of real world
compliances.
This is why many real aircrew, while using desk top flight
simulators, struggle to identify small grass airfields that do
not have a childish green rectangle imposed under them, or
ridiculously vibrant coloured runways, at the TIME they would
manage to differentiate them from the background in real life.
ZOOM = 1 = HUMAN ACUITY is actually necessary to the process
of timely target or threat identification, from the compliant
real world baseline range. There is no point learning the
compliant operation of any of the VFR aeroplanes you have
downloaded if you never learn to achieve compliant VFR =
COMBAT operation of your *desk top* flight simulator. Which is
why even real world aircrew need more than the real world
manual for each aeroplane to be simulated.
In both jpgs above, the glideslope, and TIME to TARGET, are
identical. Only one of them depicts competent use of a desk
top simulator to impose HUMAN ACUITY at ZOOM =1 during
manoeuvring in close proximity to objects of external
importance. Incompetent flight simulation users who are too
lazy to learn to vary ZOOM compliantly, constantly deliver
false and conflicting range and TIME to TARGET cues to
their brain, by randomising ZOOM. There are only two ZOOM
compliances during competent use of desk top simulators. They
are HUMAN FoV and HUMAN ACUITY.
During 3D computing, when we microzoom out to (say) ZOOM =
0.7, because for the time being we need that ZOOM factor to
display human FoV on the hardware we personally decided to
purchase, the number of pixels used to display the object of
external parallax compliance (target or threat) is only 0.7 *
0.7 = 49% of the pixels used at ZOOM = 1 x 1 = 100% LOD. In
practice MSFS has its own internal rules for the LOD it will
deliver to the consumer, but when using the virtual
environment with ZOOM well below 1.0, you will not have access
to the LOD that the BGL author coded at ZOOM = 1 = Human
Acuity *from the real world fully compliant slant range you
have just imposed*, and very importantly nor will you see the
real *perspective*.
Nobody needs to know exactly how the internal Microsfoft
rules for LOD delivery work. Whet everybody needs to
understand is that human acuity = LOD, and real
perspective, are replicated only at ZOOM = 1. The
LOD you see will also vary with the resolution of your
personal hardware of course. The perspective you see
will not. The compliance requirement during competent desk top
flight simulation is to eliminate false perspective of
distance, and to impose sufficient LOD for real time target
and threat identification versus the background. In various
flight simulation circumstances realistic mesh contours with
realistic distance perspective are critical to human judgement
in the captaincy decision making cycle. The mesh BGLs also
need to be displayed at ZOOM =1 when manoevering in
close proximity to objects of external importance.
Only 3D consumer simulation interfaces (VCs) deliver the
invariant parallax compliance needed for head up parallax
complaint VFR (combat) aircraft operation, but in *desk top*
flight simulator environments even 3D computing cannot deliver
human ACUITY and human FoV at the same time. Throughout desk
top flight simulation, the different limitations of different
display hardware, none of it designed with flight simulation
in mind, require us to vary ZOOM between real HUMAN FoV and
real HUMAN ACUITY according to the compliance we must achieve
and demonstrate next. During desk top simulation you must
learn to switch between ZOOM = 1 = HUMAN ACUITY for real time
target and threat identification, versus ZOOM = Human FoV for
most other tasks, *on the display hardware you personally
decided to purchase*.
REAL TIME (RE)ACTION:
While imposing the compliant attack or landing pattern
approach to any target in a desk top flight simulator we need
realistic LEVEL OF DETAIL to IDENTIFY the TARGET at the same
range and the same TIME as a real human can IDENTIFY it in
real life. VFR = COMBAT flight simulation is all about REAL
TIME reaction to external scenery, (or sometimes mesh contours
and peresepctive proximity). If you prevent yourself from
having HUMAN ACUITY when you need it, never seeing the real
LEVEL OF DETAIL that is needed, *from any and every real
world compliant range*, that the scenery and mesh BGL authors
carefully coded to happen as your received LOD, only at ZOOM =
1, then you will never allow yourself the TIME that real
humans have to react, after successful identification of the
next target or threat, versus the confusing background.
During target identification and acquisition realistic
HUMAN ACUITY must take precedence over realistic HUMAN FoV.
However when we must position that already identified target,
while monitoring all sorts of wider and surrounding threats,
into a large radius aiming reticle, then realistic HUMAN
FoV must sometimes take priority over realistic HUMAN ACUITY.
Most desk top flight simulation enthusiasts never manage to
understand this, or achieve this, and so they have a miserable
rushed experience, having never learned how to use a desk top
flight simulator. To succeed in the hobby of (combat = VFR)
desk top flight simulation it is necessary to know when and
how to switch between HUMAN ACUITY for target and threat
identification, versus HUMAN FoV for multiple target and
threat monitoring, or placement of the already identified
target at a specific offset from the centre of a large aiming
reticle, *which is often the entire windscreen*, especially in
'non combat' VFR aircraft.
The first illustration in this student training manual, now
repeated immediately below, depicted that necessary
vertical FoV, allied to adequate lateral FoV,= Human FoV, from
the mandatory compliance eyepoint (SPACEBAR). During IFR
simulation, which is almost entirely about head down use of
gauges to monitor and impose real world compliance, we will
always favour display of Human FoV over Human Acuity, else we
end up constantly panning and scrolling to see the gauge we
need to use next. Most FS enthusiasts fail to grasp that
during VFR = COMBAT simulation far fewer compliances are
head down using gauges, and far more are head up parallax
compliances that require Human Acuity, including real world
distance perspective.

These are very basic desk top flight simulation skills.
They do not involve video game cheating, gauges or
electronics. ZOOM > 1 is invoked only when simulating
aircrew who had binoculars, or some other image magnifier, in
real life. ZOOM < Human FoV (fish eye display) is just
naive lack of control over the desk top simulation
environment. Invoking real HUMAN ACUITY at ZOOM = 1 = DESIGNED
BGL LOD, and REAL PERSPECTIVE, *for that range according
to the internal rules of MSFS* of the external objects of
parallax compliance (targets or threats) is *mandatory* in
order to impose the learned compliance with the ACUITY and
PERSPECTIVE that real humans have in real life *from that real
baseline range*.
It is *mandatory* in order to achieve
target and threat identification at a REALISTIC TIME during
closure of the threat or target. REAL TIME simulation requires
HUMAN LEVEL OF DETAIL to be available at ZOOM = 1 during all
tasks that require TIMELY IDENTIFICATION of an object of
external parallax compliance. Depending on the target / threat
type, its camouflage, and how confusing the background may be,
the ability to impose realistic continuing precision of that
mandatory baseline parallax compliance may also require HUMAN
ACUITY = LOD at ZOOM = 1 to be retained, until the next
compliance to be demonstrated instead requires HUMAN FoV.
Users of DESK TOP flight simulators must stop pretending
that they have the luxury of a commercial simulator whose wrap
around screen apertures are real size, at real distance from
user eyepoint, and by that means allow scenery and mesh
to be projected constantly at ZOOM = 1 = REAL LOD = REAL
PERSPECTIVE, versus real current range, from that commercial
simulator eyepoint.
IFR SIMULAYION IS DIFFERENT:
During IFR simulation a constant ZOOM, = Human FoV, as
depicted in the jpg above, which never delivers HUMAN ACUITY =
LOD, or real perspective versus current range, imposes no
practical IFR compliance difficulty. During IFR simulation
there is no equivalent requirement to achieve early *visual*
identification of targets or threats. The IFR approach
normally transitions to using lights as approach slope
indicators. That is a *head up parallax compliance*. The
glideslope they depict is real, The glideslope the ILS gauge
depicts is real. The perspective and LOD displayed in the
windscreen is random nonsense, but real aircrew will
automatically reject the false visual cues and will use
only the gauges, and then only the mandatory real head up
parallax compliance light beams. Unfortunately most flight
simulation enthusiasts have no concept of parallax compliance
and never manage to impose it during VFR flight. The relevant
runways have no parallax compliance approach lights, and most
consumers have no idea how to impose any compliant baseline
range, or any compliant glideslope. Most desk top flight
simulation consumers are easily and immediately confused by
the false perepctive and LOD that they impose upon themselves,
by never learning how to use a desk top simulator to
impose REAL PERSPECTIVE and LOD = HUMAN ACUITY at
ZOOM = 1.
Random ZOOM makes VFR = COMBAT simulation impossible
for most FS consumers, yet they will not abandon random ZOOM
for compliant ZOOM. FS forums are full of consumers claiming
that third party developers deliver broken content, but most
of the time the problem is refusal by consumers to make the
effort to learn how to use the underlying retail software
compliantly, on the hardware they personally choose to display
it on. Of course Microsoft could have done a lot more to first
understand this issue, and then explain it.
6DOF HEAD TRACKING SOFTWARE:
Remember this 'applies' even if you use 6DOF head tracking
software. 6DOF hardware must be configured to deliver HUMAN
FoV from the consumer eyepoint. Then forward motion of the
head must be coded (geared) to deliver ZOOM = 1 = HUMAN ACUITY
with contracated FoV. 6DOF harware does not avoid the primary
limitation that desk top VFR = COMBAT simulation must always
be configured with the MICROZOOM that delivers HUMAN FoV by
default. Users of 6DOF hardware are just more likely to
understand the need to achieve HUMAN ACUITY for target
identification and accurate tracking of the achieved doctrinal
parallax compliance, by moving the display type to HUMAN
ACUITY at will, and only via forward motion of their head.
Absence of 6DOF hardware does not alter the need for
IDENTIFICATION to be achieved with HUMAN ACUITY at the
REALISTIC TIME, upon imposing the real world baseline range
compliance versus the threat or target, followed by realistic
accuracy of the continuing imposed target parallax compliance.
DESK TOP flight simulation users must learn to vary ZOOM
between HUMAN FoV and HUMAN ACUITY, with or without 6DOF
hardware. That learning process begins with understanding why
it is necessary. Highly realistic products such as this
A.V.I.A. L.3 downloadable content, with all the real parallax
compliances both encoded and explained, are no use to
consumers who never learn how to impose realism during *desk
top* simulation.
Stop being a flight simulation enthusiast who always
identifies everything too late, and who becomes confused
concerning TIME to TARGET, while viewing false displayed
perspective and LOD. Stop pretending that desk top VFR =
COMBAT simulators can be used in singular, or random, ZOOM,
never displaying human acuity and and never achieving timely
identification of real targets and threats. Abandon the
pretence that 2D consumer control interfaces with two windows
of differing ZOOM, and different scale, one on top of the
other, can be used to achieve parallax compliance versus mesh
or scenery. They are only usable (and are perfectly adequate)
for IFR simulation. Remember approach slope light
objects are neither scenery not mesh. They are coded by BGL
authors to deliver one specific *projected beam parallax
compliance*, versus real range.
ROLL IN TO TARGET HEAD UP PARALLAX COMPLIANCE:
Imposing constant head up parallax compliance versus a
straight line target or threat, such as a runway, is easier
than versus a winding river / road / coastline target, but
both skills must be learned eventually. The student who cannot
slide the compliant part of the wing down the runway with
wings level while concurrently imposing the mandatory HEIGHT
above the target will not cope with more complex head up
threat avoidance, let alone selected weapon type versus target
fire control solutions, later. Both are enduring types of
parallax compliance that are designed to have easy
*recognition* of success or failure, with the benefit of HUMAN
ACUITY, whether or not they are easy to impose.
Every flight, however basic, has mandatory phases that have
singular or multiple mandatory exit (rejection) criteria.
Sustaining an aircraft or engine operating compliance already
achieved is usually simple. The human error that often kills
people in real aeroplanes is failing to reject that compliance
at the appropriate TIME. We need to know when to reject
downwind parallax compliance and turn base leg, (when to roll
in to the target). There are two really bad human errors
available. The first is turning so soon that we cannot lose
250M of height in the TIME available in the headwind along the
runway today. We will need to invoke a humiliating, but
safe, GO AROUND.
The second which is more likely to kill us is continuing
with the current compliance for so long that we lose sight of
the runway, (any target or threat). The complication is that
the headwind along the landing runway (over any target) is
different every day and there is no fixed location for 'roll
in' that is perfect or constant. The goal is to extend
downwind in the circuit or attack pattern by just enough, to
have enough TIME to fly an unrushed and stable approach to the
target, *given our current personal level of skill*, without
struggling to lose 250M of height, while imposing the mandated
V speeds, while never proceeding so far downwind that we lose
sight of the target, which for the time being is always the
touchdown zone of the landing runway.
In low visibility we may lose sight of a target by means
other than airframe sight line blocking from the mandated
parallax compliance eyepoint. However for the time being you
should train in good user imposed visibility.

In the vintage era of aviation history all IFR approaches
involved TIMED (4D navigation) legs outbound from an
Initial Approach Fix (IAF). If a VFR = COMBAT monoplane has a
canopy it may be possible to impose a specific parallax
compliance for roll in to the target, versus the target, (in
this case versus the touch down zone QFU 26 LOAV), using a
particular conjunction of window frames in the complex canopy.
In open cockpit aeroplanes there will be no such convenient
conjunction to use as an aiming 'bead'. The compliant VFR
approach is therefore flown using the same technique as an IFR
approach. The aeroplane is flown to an easy to identify IAF,
at the compliant height, and then a timed outbound leg
(with no change of heading) is flown beyond the IAF.
The jpg above depicts the open cockpit Lombardi left
hand pattern IAF for every runway. From a height of 250M QFE,
from a baseline range of 2000 metres, we recognise the IAF as
the moment when the target appears just behind the wing tip
that we carefully used to obscure it. Of course the jpg above
imposes HUMAN ACUITY. We need human acuity @ ZOOM = 1 to
ensure that we have sufficient LOD for the target (the white
numbers 26) to be visible and identified, not just the whole
'target area'. Many runways have a displaced target =
touchdown zone. The edge of the airfield is irrelevant. We
should also avoid confusing our brain with false distance
perspective.
In all such VFR approaches we then wait (go outbound for)
a compliant TIME, beyond the IAF, before we roll in to
the target. We can use a clock head down, or more usefully we
can 'count elephants', as we continue to look where we need to
look while head up. The number of elephants that are compliant
depends on the headwind down the runway today. The greater the
headwind we expect to battle on the VFR Final Approach Track
(FAT) to the target the fewer elephants we count. On a day
with no wind at all we will need to count, one elephant, two
elephant, .... three elephant, .... all the way to
nine elephants. The procedure is to navigate to the IAF in 3D.
That compliance is depicted and explained immediately above.
Then we commence 4D navigation, outbound from the IAF,
counting elephants until it is TIME to roll in to the target.
Turning base QFU 26 GRASS at LOAV earlier than nine
elephants after the IAF (nil wind) is pilot error. We
need all of the remaining pattern distance to lose 250M of
height with no headwind down the runway. How much earlier we
should ROLL IN TO THE TARGET when there is a wind depends
on the headwind over the target today *and our current skill
level*.
In good visibility (with the engine running) it is better
to delay a 'few extra elephants' and allow ourselves more TIME
to achieve all the following head up parallax compliances that
we must demonstrate. However during fully competent desk top
flight simulation the requirement is to demonstrate each
compliance down to the real approach minimum visibility which
in this case is 5Km. It should be obvious that we must not
proceed more than 5Km from the touchdown zone QFU 26 GRASS,
but in practice we need to see (tally) the target well enough
to manoeuvre continuously versus the target, and that is not
possible versus 'some grass' at a distance of 5Km when the
visibility is 5Km. Below is the same compliance in
Luftwaffe visual circuit pattern minimum weather.

When the target of external head up parallax compliance is
not lit up like a Christmas tree, we do not have the luxury of
flying this downwind leg, more than 2Km abeam the landing
runway (the target) , and we do not have the luxury of
proceeding anything like 5Km away from the target. Of course
the jpg above again uses HUMAN ACUITY @ ZOOM = 1. The worse
the visibility the more important imposing HUMAN ACUITY
becomes.
Most flight simulation enthusiasts never manage to
demonstrate compliant flight in low visibility because they
wander random distances from targets and impose only random
ZOOM. They plan to fail. Compliance is not a series of
random childish nonsense choices. It is a learned skill. The
good news is that the real world compliances are, what they
are, because they impose very little extra difficulty in the
weather minima for any compliance. The learned skill is
identical in either visibility. Compliance is only a little
harder to *monitor* from 2000 metres when visibility is
only 5000 metres. Provided the FS consumer understands
the need to impose HUMAN ACUITY, and learns to impose human
acuity, when the next compliance requires real human acuity,
to replicate on screen, what the real Luftwaffe student pilot
saw during a VFR approach in a Lombardi, the difficulty is
barely different in critically low visibility (real world
approach minima). Sufficient visibility, equal to the real
world minimum, is enough visibility for FS consumers who have
understood, and then learned, the basic skill of downwind head
up parallax compliance.
Up to this point during circuit pattern training, you have
never been more than 3Km from the runway, at the far corner
when we turned downwind already at 250M QFE, ready ti impose
baseline range parallax compliance, and provided you impose
human acuity you will be able to identify the runway, and will
be able to impose the skill of downwind parallax compliance,
and IAF identification, in a visibility of 50 Km or 5 Km (~ 3
miles). After you have counted nine elephants, in the timed
outbound leg from the IAF, you will still be less than 3 Km
from the target.
TURNING BASE - - INVOKE GLIDE APPROCH = TAILDOWN EYEPOINT:
In nil wind, once we have become proficient, after nine
elephants we intend to roll in left to TRACK 'roughly' at
right angles to the target. As we reach nine elephants,
we CLOSE THE THROTTLE, go head down, look at
the ASI and the compass as we turn left through 90
degrees while applying enough back pressure on the
JOYSTICK to reduce profile drag from Vdc = 150 KmIAS to
Vy = 90 KmIAS. We do not apply enough back pressure to raise
the nose. We allow the nose to fall. With the throttle closed
the Lombardi will dive to bring the profile drag up to even 90
KmIAS. We intend to lose height (quickly). We impose Vy = 90
KmIAS with the JOYSTICK, losing height.
*It is at this time that we lean our head back to the tail
down EYEPOINT that we used to taxi, and for take off*.
Having imposed Vy = 90 KmIAS you must learn what Vy *sounds
like*. In your open cockpit you must learn to recognise the
sound of a profile drag = Vy = 90 KmIAS over the windscreen,
by LISTENING to it, while you look where you need to look. The
goal is only to sustain the profile drag sound you have
now imposed at Vy = 90 KmIAS, while you were only briefly head
down looking at the ASI. The goal is to use the JOYSTICK to
keep the sound of the profile drag constant because we are
about to come head up and stop looking at the ASI
(dragometer) which reads 90 KmIAS.
Having imposed those base leg flight dynamic compliances,
we come head up, and monitor our drag compliance using
audio means. We look left and we re-acquire the target. By the
time we have established GLIDE at Vy = 90 KmIAS, roughly
at right angles to 26 GRASS LOAV, we are usually less than
2000 metres baseline range from the target. In 'nil wind' we
are 'nine elephants' plus the radius of the base turn beyond
the target. With HUMAN ACUITY competently applied, perspective
is real, and LOD is real. We still have the target itself
identified (the numbers at the threshold) not just the general
target area, not just the airfield boundary. Since there
will normally be a headwind down the runway, our turn through
90 degrees will establish a track slightly diverging from a
right angle track. We have no particular desire to achieve
right angle perfection. To the contrary we must now use
perspective and LOD in combination, to judge whether we
are above or below the GLIDE APPROACH GLIDESLOPE. In a perfect
Lombardi circuit pattern we close the throttle after nine
elephants and we never use it again. Our goal is to adjust
this base leg, outwards or inwards, with AILERON, so that our
GLIDE terminates over the target, never using the throttle. We
use ELEVATOR only to impose Vy = 90 KmIAS continuously.
As a bonus of our learned competence, and intention to
witness and use real perspective to impose the real GLIDE
APPROACH GLIDESLOPE, we are seeing all the scenery and mesh in
real LOD with real perspective contours, the way real humans
in and around Voslau see them. If we were using real weather
with a headwind down this runway we would have turned base
after fewer elephants and our base leg would be closer to the
target. These skills are no more difficult in a visibility of
only 5Km, but the hills will be invisible in the mist.

This requires us to be HEAD UP looking at the target, not
HEAD DOWN, looking at gauges. We do *not* use the elevators to
vary glideslope. We use AILERON to vary glideslope. If we seem
low we 'roll in' further towards the target to regain the
GLIDE APPROACH GLIDESLOPE. While we do this we listen to our
profile drag and we sustain constant profile drag noise over
the windshield as we descend (glide) more or less wings level
at Vy = 90 KmIAS. The really dangerous case is no sound
of profile drag. If you cannot hear the drag of the passing
air, then you are applying too much back pressure on the
JOYSTICK. You must apply less back pressure to impose
more profile drag until you can hear it. We want to lose
height, in a controlled way at Vy = 90 KmIAS, while imposing
compliant glideslope with AILERON with adequate 'roll in'.
At first you will be very tempted to reject this base leg
and 'roll in' to the Final Approach Track (FAT) far too
soon. You must gradually teach yourself to wait until it seems
too late, and only then go head down with your hatswitch as
you pan your view back to the gauges while you fly the turn to
the FAT at Vy = 90 KmIAS. Throughout we have demonstrated very
high levels of situational awareness. Even while we are
briefly head down again as we fly the turn to the FAT gliding
at 90 KmIAS we know where the runway is. We know roughly
what heading on the wet compass will roll it into view in the
forward arc and it will anyway appear as we 'roll in'.
Base leg compliance is by far the most challenging
compliance in (open cockpit) monoplanes. The biplanes
that the instructors of the vintage era were loathe to give up
often / usually had bracing struts, a maze of criss crossing
bracing wires and other objects in the left and right diagonal
FoV which, from the instructor and solo flight rear
seat, overlaid the runway during base leg parallax compliance,
and which had natural parallax compliance features on
them, or which could have markings painted on them for that
explicit purpose. Below we see what exactly the same
compliance looked like to an RAF student pilot in a Tiger
Moth. The horribly high co-efficient of profile drag, 130 BHP
Tiger Moth, under performs versus the 60 BHP Lombardi in most
respects, but it has many advantages if the goal is to make
learning to be a pilot easy. In a Tiger Moth the additional
longitudinal bracing for the flying wires renders precise
parallax compliance easy, so that the student does not need to
learn to use perspective and LOD to control baseline range and
GLIDE APPROACH GLIDESLOPE compliance on base leg. Of
course for that to also be true in MSFS the air file in use
must be realistic.
Open cockpit monoplanes like the Lombardi imposed upon the
student in the left hand seat, while dual or solo, no parallax
compliance aiming mark on base leg and so he was (we are)
excessively reliant on perspective and LOD while we judge
whether we need to 'roll in' further, or not. Imposition of
HUMAN ACUITY is necessary. The difficult human judgement
required in the Lombardi was learned by repeating circuit
pattern, after circuit pattern, until the L.3 student could
judge GLIDE APPROACH GLIDESLOPE base leg compliance without
using parallax compliance, but unlike the real student you
will not have an instructor beside you to warn when you are
failing. This makes learning circuit / attack pattern
compliances, and fire control solution compliances, more
difficult in MSFS, than in real life. It requires more
rigour to operate the desk top simulator virtual environment
compliantly, and more effort and more practice during self
training.

The arrival of monoplanes made GLIDE APPROACH base leg
compliance more and more difficult to learn and impose. They
slowly killed more and more pilots, and other aircrew, as
monoplane pilots allowed their IAS to bleed to stall while
over concentrated on judging GLIDE APPROACH GLIDESLOPE
compliance using mostly perspective, with no readily
available parallax compliance 'aiming bead'. The consequence
was that the steep, throttle closed throughput, GLIDE
APPROACHES of the vintage era of aviation history soon gave
way to the powered approaches along shallow glideslopes of the
following classic era of aviation history. No dictator woke
up one morning and decided to impose powered shallow
glideslopes during VFR. They were the necessary solution to
the sudden absence of bracing struts and conjunctions of
bracing wires that could be used for parallax compliance from
the aft seating position of biplanes on base leg. Desk
top flight simulators can help us to understand a great deal
about aviation history, but only if we achieve learned
competent use of our desk top simulator environment, and then
also learn to demonstrate real world compliance skills.
During WW2 both runways at Voslau were grass, and both were
compatible with the largest Luftwaffe transport aircraft.
Consequently in FS9, during your self training try to be high,
always favouring slightly early roll in to the target from
this base leg, never low, at first intending to land deep into
26 GRASS, intending to never touch the THROTTLE, after closing
it as you roll in to the base leg of the circuit / attack
pattern. Only later slowly teach yourself the
slightly wider base leg track, or later roll in to
final, GLIDE APPROACH GLIDESLOPE that terminates exactly on
the numbers. Remember your personal 'landclass' scenery tiles,
your autogen objects, and your personal mesh, may look
different to mine, but they are not involved in this training.
Even having the airfield at a different altitude on different
mesh is irrelevant because VFR is a head up concept during
which everything depends on HEIGHT.
TURNING FINAL - SMALLER RETICLE:
The decision to turn final from base has no constant
compliance. If you seem low, turn earlier with reduced bank to
reduce distance to target and sink rate. If you seem high,
turn later with more bank to increase WEIGHT and sink rate.
Remember the WEIGHT of any aeroplane is just its MASS
multiplied by the current G load, which is a function of its
current bank angle. More bank .... more weight .... more sink
rate, (at constant IAS = Vy = 90 KmIAS). For any headwind
today, there is a perfect sweet spot for final 'roll in' to
the target, but we will rarely achieve perfection and in
monoplanes we must develop the skill to use perspective, with
human acuity imposed, to monitor and adjust our
final approach (roll in) to the target (any target)
accordingly. Look at the target. Listen to your profile drag
as you descend wings level on base leg.
Leaning our head left to the tail down eyepoint, which
we learned to recognise and impose near the top of this
training manual, (see also jpg below) creates the constricted
aiming reticle needed on final approach and that we will
continue to use as we flare to the tree point landing aerofoil
Angle of Attack, and throughout ground handling with that
three point tail down AoA auto retained, never losing sight of
what is in front of us on the surface at high AoA in the three
point attitude. We cannot achieve that from the mandatory in
flight head up parallax compliance eyepoint.
On final approach track if we are low, (if the target is in
the upper half of our carefully constricted aiming reticle),
we use THROTTLE to place the target in the vertical centre of
the windscreen *exactly in front of our new mandatory approach
and ground handling eyepoint*. Creating this 'smaller' aiming
reticle helps us to judge the 'centre of aim' better and to
recognise deviation from the Lombardi specific design
glideslope. Any runway lighting specific to shallow
glideslope IFR traffic is irrelevant, but there will
rarely be any on grass runways where the Lombardi belongs.

Only when lined up on the final approach track (FAT), now
with the ASI visible in the forward arc, even at
ZOOM = 1 = HUMAN ACUITY, reduce *carefully* to Vref = 75
KmIAS, with significantly increased AoA, to put the Lombardi
firmly on the wrong side of the total drag curve, to greatly
increase its sink rate. Use your right hand on the JOYSTICK
only to impose Vref = 75 KmIAS which is now visible on the ASI
with the target in the forward arc. Like the real student
pilot you only need to move your eyes between the two means to
monitor the two real world compliances. Use your left hand on
the THROTTLE to position the target accurately in the vertical
middle of the reduced height more accurate aiming reticle. The
real ASI is in that real location, and not a random made up
location, for a reason.
You will probably find it congenial to wedge your right arm
against the top, or edge, of the desk to sustain the constant
back pressure that imposes Vref = 75 KmIAS with no joystick
motion. The real student pilot would have used his leg to
wedge his arm. All changes are made with the THROTTLE using
the left hand. The right hand and arm, lock profile drag at
Vref = 75 KmIAS, firmly on the wrong side of the total drag
curve, to impose the high sink rate down the compliant
Lombardi specific glideslope. With the THROTTLE CLOSED the
Lombardi specific GLIDESLOPE at Vref is MINUS 5.5 degrees NIL
WIND, and increases with the headwind today. The vintage era
L3 is *not* designed to fly the later very shallow classic era
IFR glideslope of only minus 3 degrees.
The perfect approach, after two perfect 'roll ins' requires
no throttle opening, with your arm locking profile drag over
the aerofoils at Vref = 75 KmIAS, but perfection is rare and
safety is paramount. If we end up low on approach we must
apply THROTTLE to sustain the compliant constricted
reticle glideslope, from an imperfect interception of the
final approach track, *with profile drag over the aerofoils
always locked at Vref = 75 KmIAS*.
Do *not* allow IAS to decay below Vref = 75 KmIAS until a
few metres above the runway. All of this approach should be
flown with HUMAN ACUITY @ ZOOM = 1 to reveal REALISTIC LOD and
REAL PERSPECTIVE from the BGLs. BGL designers, of both scenery
and mesh, spend a lot of time and effort imposing real HUMAN
LOD only at ZOOM = 1. Then most desk top flight simulation
enthusiasts refuse to use it. That is a huge desk top flight
simulator operating error, not just a waste of the LOD the
scenery and mesh designers intended you to enjoy.
The real windscreen (shape) forms a variabale aperture
aiming reticle that you are required to learn to use to impose
parallax compliance versus targets and threats in the forward
arc, after final roll in to the attack vector. Childishly
heading straight for a target, from a random direction, down a
random glideslope, at random velocity, having no idea what
your baseline range is, having no idea when to open fire,
having no idea when to cease fire, having no idea whether the
target is inside or outside weapon parameters, having made no
attempt at all to control how long you keep the target inside
your weapon parameters, is not what you joined the (virtual)
RA or (virtual) Luftwaffe to achieve. That childishness
belongs in video games. FS9 is a simulator. The purpose of
flight simulation is to demonstrate all real world compliances
in a virtual environment. To impose them you must first
understand them, then learn them.
The level of childishness that is normal in video games
will not allow you to proceed beyond 'lead in' = pilot
selection training in WW2. The real world of aviation has many
real compliances and doctrines to learn and impose, *but when
we use a DESK TOP simulator we must understand and learn how
to render it compliant too*.
DIVE VERSUS SINK:
Many flight simulation enthusiasts never learn their V
speeds. They approach with far too little Angle of Attack, on
the right side of the drag curve, with far too little induced
drag, far too much profile drag (IAS), far too much velocity
(TAS), along a random glideslope, using no aiming reticle to
control anything, and never manage to use short runways,
having always flown a random glideslope, at random velocity,
wholly inappropriate to the aeroplane in question, causing
rushed and unstable approaches that end far too fast.
Aeroplanes DIVE nose down at high IAS. Aeroplanes SINK nose
up at low IAS. Throughout the final approach in a *flapless*
aeroplane we must avoid diving because we need a steep
glideslope = gradient to the *place where the aeroplane comes
to a stop*. Of course we can descend with a steeper glideslope
while nose down and diving, but the velocity at the end of
that dive is never compatible with stopping quickly from the
end of the dive. In an aeroplane with no brakes that is even
more true, which is why WW2 basic trainers had no brakes. They
existed, but they were absent to enforce what needed to be
learned, for the same reason that the Lombardi had no cheap
thermometer to illuminate the probability of carb icing.
For any given aeroplane, at each specific weight, there is
a specific IAS, having regard to avoiding stall and spin, at
which the steepness of the glideslope and the 'slowness' of
the progress down that glideslope combine to deliver the
steepest gradient *from the start point, to where the
aeroplane stops moving*.
Many flight simulation enthusiasts never get their head
around the whole issue of *where it will stop*. They pat
themselves on the back for making a randomly steep dive, with
random velocity, to runway level, imposing only random
stopping distance from that random velocity. That is childish.
The real requirement is to arrive over the airfield boundary
steeply *at low velocity*, already with low IAS = high AoA =
high induced drag, so that the distance from the start of
descent to the point where the aeroplane *stops moving* is
minimised.
That compliant IAS is Vref. The flapless aeroplane must be
made to SINK down the glideslope, with a high Angle of Attack,
at low IAS = Vref, to *stop* as close to the original point of
descent as possible.
Flight simulation is the demonstration of all the real
world concurrent compliances in a virtual environment. The
knowledge base and skill requirements are real. Realism is the
consequence of tenure of that knowledge base and skill set.
Realism cannot be uploaded. Realism cannot be downloaded.
Realism has to be learned and imposed by the FS consumer. The
job of the FS developer is to explain each compliance, and
each phase rejection criterion, and to link real world
multiple concurrent input compliance, to the real multiple
compliant video and audio outcome, as well as linking
realistically awful simulation output to only random
uneducated consumer inputs.
We must learn which hardware control is used to control
which simulation output, and we never mix them up. In an open
cockpit we learn to LISTEN to our IAS = AoA = profile drag
over the open cockpit and we impose drag compliance using
audio while we look at the target and impose parallax
compliance, else perspective compliance combined with LOD
compliance, while looking in any direction at all.
EN ROUTE DISTANCE MEASURING (NO EQUIPMENT):
We have learned that when we place the compliant part of
the wing (the aiming bead) over any target or threat at a
height (not altitude) of 250M versus that target or threat,
our baseline range abeam the target or threat is 2Km. We
create a Pythagorean right angle triangle whose relationships
are a mathematical certainty. If instead we place the same
part of the wing (the aiming bead) over the target at a HEIGHT
(not altitude) of 500M our baseline range is 4Km because our
GLIDESLOPE (attack slope upon roll in) to the target is
constant. When we impose identical head up parallax compliance
from 1000M above the target our baseline range is 8Km, and so
on, and so on.

The jpg above depicts 4Km threat avoidance versus QFU 26
LOAV. Our height is 500M QFE to impose that lateral baseline
range on the SAME GLIDESLOPE. This constitutes compliant
lateral avoidance of the pattern at LOAV, including avoidance
of the threat from arriving aircraft descending through 500M
QFE overhead the LOAV circuit pattern. While
en route you should always avoid 'VFR only' airfields by at
least this baseline range. Of course it is legal to apply
larger avoidance, but that just wastes fuel, by adding track
miles. Remember the Lombardi crew have no means to communicate
with ATC, even if it exists at such airfields. You do not have
the right to blunder wherever you please. In real life threat
avoidance criteria are more complex. It is the concept and the
skill that must be learned and demonstrated while en route,
during every VFR flight in a desk top flight simulator.
The minimum in flight visibility for operating an RA or
Luftwaffe Lombardi that will never leave the circuit pattern
is 3 miles ~ 5 Km, but the minimum visibility for VFR en route
cross country flight is 5 miles ~ 8 Km. Even when the
visibility is only 8Km, you must demonstrate the ability to
identify the threat while it is still beyond 4Km and you must
demonstrate the ability to continue to avoid that threat by
4Km. During the vintage era of aviation history, that
was also the threat avoidance baseline range for 20mm
(light) AAA co-located with the target / threat. Wandering
about aimlessly, ignoring every threat that must be avoided in
real life is not flight simulation. You must learn to achieve
threat avoidance, in gradually reducing visibility, until you
can demonstrate compliant threat avoidance in a visibility of
5 miles ~ 8Km.
In principle we can place the target or threat to our beam
at any compliant baseline range, (that puts us outside its
threat envelope prior to roll in), just by varying the HEIGHT
(not altitude) we proceed at en route above that target or
threat. We must research the ALTITUDE of every such target or
threat during FLIGHT PLANNING using a database, or a chart, or
just a (Google) map with contours. Then we displace our
aeroplane by (at least) the compliant height above that target
altitude so that when we slide the relevant part of the wing
over the target (wings level of course) we know and impose
compliant baseline range. No childish video game cheating, no
gauges, no electronics are required. Just learned competent
use of a desk top flight simulator.
Now remember aiming (parallax compliance imposition) does
not always require a surrounding reticle. The need for a
surrounding reticle depends on whether objects of external
parallax compliance must be positioned differently in the
reticle according to different cases. If the parallax
compliance doctrine is constant, from the compliant mandatory
EYEPOINT, (SPACEBAR in FS9), we can aim with only a
'bead', versus any target. of any shape. The practical
issue in real life, and in a desk top flight simulator, is the
ability to identify the target or threat from compliant
baseline range. That requires us to learn to use the compliant
ZOOM that delivers HUMAN ACUITY from current baseline range.
However in real life and during desk top simulation the
current visibility may be too low to see the target or threat
from the complaint baseline range for use of the our aiming
mark.
INTERCEPTION POINTs (IP) and VISUAL REPORTING POINTs (VRP):
When we know we will need to position our aeroplane
compliantly versus scenery, or mesh, (any target or any
threat), we must plan to impose that compliance in any
visibility. We may need to position via an object we know will
be easier to see and identify as we approach the target, (any
type of target or threat). That easy to identify (precursor)
object becomes the Interception Point (IP) for the target and
we actually FLIGHT PLAN to the IP expecting to identify and
position versus the target ot threat, only after positioning
versus the earlier and EASIER TO IDENTIFY IP. In real civilian
aviation that military IP becomes a Visual Reporting Point
(VRP) mandated by ATC. They also apply to aeroplanes that
cannot communicate.
If we do not know the real VRPs for Voslau (or anywhere
else) we must use a (Google) MAP, else MSFS scenery, to
establish our own suitable IPs as the precursor waypoints to
which we will proceed visually, or avoid visually by the
logical baseline range, given that we really wish to reach the
target, not the IP, expecting to identify and manoeuvre versus
the target or threat, only after we achieve parallax compliant
baseline range versus our precursor IP. In other cases the IP
is used to avoid a threat that will be hard to tally, or that
we may never tally, but we will avoid by the required margin
regardless.

In the jpg above we are looking at the Lombardi from the
direction of LOAV. Avoiding LOAV by exactly 4000 metres placed
us just inside a whole cluster of line feature crossing
points. Such locations make good VRPs, or IPs. This is not
only because those conjunctions are unique and easy to
recognise, it is because each of the line features provides
the easy means to locate the VRP or IP. First we locate a line
feature that leads to the IP, then we follw the line feature
to locate the IP. Then we locate the target from the IP, else
avoid the threat without ever identifying the threat. We do
not need to see the threat (LOAV) to avoid LOAV. We only need
to proceed to the VRP or IP which ensures we comply, by
following a line feature that is itself compliant. Then
proceed outbound from the VRP or IP along a potentially
different line feature that is also compliant.
Now remember we may need to make this cross country flight
in a visibility of 15Km, but with a cloudbase below 500M above
LOAV. We must not abort the (training or combat) sortie
because the cloud is only 400M above LOAV, but we cannot
proceed 500M above LOAV and identify LOAV from 4Km, if
the cloud base is at 400M QFE. The cloud cover over LOAV may
be forecast to be at 600M QFE, but it may turn out to be
at 400M QFE when we arrive in the area of the threat. We must
have a PLAN B for threat avoidance that we PLANNED before we
took off. We must understand how to create PLAN A and how to
create PLAN B, and we must bother to plan both, for every
threat along our planned VFR route. In consequence our
planned route will be nothing like the boring straight line
progression from from departure to destination that most
flight simulation enthusiasts only pretend is realistic.
Wandering around, even in straight lines, only ever in
lovely weather, ignoring every threat that must be avoided in
real life is not flight simulation. Demonstrating real world
skills of VFR compliance in a desk top flight simulator is
much more interesting than that unrealistic straight line
progression.
These are basic and essential skills of VFR = combat
pilotage. The student pilot begins to learn them, and master
them, during 'lead in' training, in very basic
aeroplanes, that proceed slowly around the scenery and mesh,
giving the student TIME to achieve his multiple concurrent
compliance tasks in an unrushed way. The student must
understand the knowledge base, and acquire the skills in slow
basic aeroplanes before replicating the skills with less TIME
to achieve the same compliance skills in faster aeroplanes.
But almost every flight simulation enthusiast, who has no
real world aircrew training, omits basic training and never
acquires the most basic skills of (combat or VFR) pilotage.
Real pilots must learn how to measure and impose baseline
range compliance, and hypotenuse = gunnery open fire and cease
fire doctrine range compliance, and hypotenuse glideslope to
target compliance *without using gauges or electronic gadgets*
In real life the current target or threat is rarely an
electronic emitter sending DME and glideslope data to
electronic gadgets. In real life compliant baseline range,
complaint slant (weapon) range, and compliant glideslope to
target, are always measured and imposed, not guessed, not
ignored, not randomised. Range and glideslope are measured and
imposed *in every direction*, versus multiple threats, using
head up parallax compliance skills, from the relevant
parallax compliance eyepoint, using the compliant
reticle, or aiming marks, from the complaint HEIGHT above
the IP, threat or target.
If the target is at an ALTITUDE of 500M QNH and we cruise
at an ALTITUDE of 1000M QNH then our HEIGHT above the target
is 500M. If (wings level) we run the the compliant aiming mark
over the target, as we proceed abeam that target or IP, our
baseline range is 4Km, which is well inside the 75mm AAA
envelope, but just outside the vintage era 20mm AAA envelope.
It matters. Student pilots must learn to measure and impose
baseline range *and the associated glideslope* without using
gauges or electronics, very early in basic (lead in = pilot
selection) training. The vast majority of flight simulation
users never even get that far into understanding how to use a
desk top flight flight simulator to position aircraft
compliantly versus any scenery they can see, (*or not see*).
It is a very basic skill.
In real life, even in peacetime, pilots are not allowed to
wander wherever they please, through any airspace they please.
Lots of things (threats) must be avoided by compliant and
varying baseline ranges. The modern era of real time moving
electronic maps, (actually introduced by the Royal Navy in
June 1944 for the invasion of Normandy), is not the only era
desk top flight simulators exist to replicate. Most of the
aeroplanes used by flight simulation enthusiasts never had DME
or any kind, or any glideslope indicator gauge, never mind
real time moving map GPS. It is possible to stop pretending
that they did and to use a desk top flight simulator to learn
the simple real world skills instead.
It is possible to use a desk top flight simulator to become
a virtual practitioner of aviation, imposing real world
compliances with real world understanding and skill, but first
use of the desk top simulator itself must be compliant. Are
you ready to learn some more real world basic compliance
skills?
KEEP IT SIMPLE - STUPID (THE KISS PRINCIPLE):
The KISS principle should lie behind all your self
training. Don't try to learn many compliances at once. Don't
impose TIME pressure on yourself. When learning to impose a
2Km baseline to target offset from 250M QFE allow yourself to
start from a few miles away from the airfield, (slew there if
necessary), and set up the downwind tracking of the
aiming mark down the landing runway carefully in an unrushed
way. Learn to achieve that more quickly, and from high
overhead your destination airfield (see arrival phase
discussed earlier), gradually and later. Learn to achieve that
in bad weather and 5Km visibility only later. Learn to impose
that compliance during very high workload after take off when
remaining in the pattern only much later. Revise the HEIGHTS
at which turns are flown in the pattern.
When learning to impose GLIDESLOPE with THROTTLE while
using JOYSTICK to impose => Vy = 90 KmIAS in turns, and
Vref = 75 KmIAS only wings level on the final approach track,
impose the 'no weather' option and again start several miles
from the runway almost in line with the runway. Then practice
flying an unrushed, stable approach at Vref, from the narrow
reticle approach compliance eyepoint, over several minutes, so
that you understand that even very low inertia aeroplanes like
the Lombardi can fly very stable, safe, unrushed approaches
and that any randomness in the flightpath, not due to weather
turbulence, is entirely due to randomness of pilot = consumer
inputs (PIO) instead. During that exercise you will need to
use THROTTLE to impose the compliant glideslope in the
constrained tail down reticle.
Learn to use the JOYSTICK to lock total drag at Vref to
promote (throttle closed) high rates of sink with low rates of
progress, whenever you need them. Learn to achieve the
unrushed and stable approach at Vref from downwind in the
pattern with less distance and with two turns to go to the
target, only later.
Learn to vary WEIGHT with AILERON. Fly many turns at Vy =
90 KmIAS. Watch the VSI. Learn the bank angles (alieron inputs
= aircraft weights) that allow climbing turns. Learn the bank
angle = aileron input that instead imposes the weight that
causes VSI = 0 = maximum sustainable turn rate. Learn to use
the ailerons to vary weight to impose compliant (ant desired)
VSI at constant IAS = 90 KmIAS in turns.
Practice. practice, practice.
STOL (OBSTRUCTED RUNWAY) GLIDE APPROACH TRAINING IN THE
LOMBARD - 10R STOL LOWK:
For this training we move to the real Luftwaffe Lombardi
training school at Klagenfurt (LOWK). This STOL training
tutorial assumes use of the default FS9 BGLs and *maximum
density autogen objects* to cause an obstructed approach. In
the airfield diagram below 28R is the modern era hard runway.
28C is the wartime grass transport aircraft runway. 28L is the
wartime Lombardi school runway which is only 300 metres long
and in the modern era serves as a microlight runway. It is not
selectable in FS9 and so we have provided the necessary
STARTUP.FLT in the Lombardi folder that you installed earlier.
Remember you have no chocks. Expect roll forward and torque
yaw on spawning witw the engine running, or during later
engine starting. Remedy that situation before take off.
Due to the military and commercial activity to the north
the pattern on the short flying school (now microlight) runway
is always south of the short school runway and so the pattern
QFU 10R LOWK depicted below is non standard right hand and
proceeds towards high ground south west of the airfield,
inside high ground not far to the south. In this diagram the
Lombardi is downwind 10R right hand at a baseline range of 2Km
at a height of 250M QFE. From the cockpit, even with that
tight baseline range it is easy to confuse the 'long' grass
transport runway 10C, with the short training grass runway
10R, because 10R set within the southern exclave of Klagenfurt
airfield is very short and obstructed.

In a side by side seat trainer the student must learn two
sets of parallax compliances from the same mandated left seat
EYEPOINT (SPACEBAR in FS9). We must now learn to fly right
hand patterns from the left hand seat. The 2Km downwind
compliance has a slightly different aiming mark on the right
wing. In the jpg below the obstructed STOL runway 10R is
visible just inside the airfield boundary. Now we
encounter an example of markings being used for VFR / COMBAT
parallax compliance. The parallax is slightly different now
and we must now run the outside of the Luftwaffe cross
over the target or threat, to place the target or threat
2000 metres away from our invariant pattern height of 250M.
The modern era tarmac runway 10L is much more than 2Km
distant. 10C GRASS is also visible and much more than 2000
metres baseline range. Note that 10R STOL has no white
threshold or touchdown markings (in FS9).

Only in theory recognition of the IAF has also altered. In
practice it cannot since low wing monoplanes leave us with no
choice. We reach the right hand circuit / attack pattern
IAF, when the target reappears behind the right
wing. What may need to differ is the default number
of elephants that we must count in a right hand pattern as we
proceed outbound from that IAF.
A runway is obstructed either if it has obstacles very
close to the airfield, or if there are obstacles such as a
hill or mast on the approach. The target may also be
obstructed by trees or buildings from the compliant
baseline range in the circuit or attack pattern. We must brief
ourselves where the obscured target is using a briefing
diagram of the type above, or just a (Google) map, which
shows the spatial relationship of 10R versus 10C. In the
jpg immediately above, having imposed human acuity, we
can see the touchdown markings for more distant 10C GRASS
LOWK. We must interpolate target location and use the line
feature of the STOL runway to place the aiming bead over, and
then ahead of the interpolated target, with the target just
behind the wing. When we fly solo in the left hand seat that
location is not obscured by an instructor, or other crew
member. whom we would order to call target compliance achieved
if our sightline was thus obstructed. In a large aeroplane we
would need to open an FS9 camera to represent the crew member
we ordered to the compliant location, that has the necessary
parallax compliance sightline, to call out parallax
compliance. We learned to do that in the CRDA Z.1007bis
release. Bomb aimers are not the only crew members who can be
ordered to call parallax compliance achieved, for action by
others.
Cases like this, arise from an ATC mandatory procedure to
fly a non standard right hand circuit from a left hand
seat, or from a Flak zone threat within a left hand
attack pattern in combat. Despite the change of parallax, in
practice in the Lombardi 'nine elephants' are still compliant
in nil wind. Each elephant is only a small adjustment to how
much we roll in (or out) on base leg to reduce (or increase)
track distance to the target, after we re-acquire the
(potentially visually obstructed and interpolated) target
location on right base. Now remember compliant human acuity
perspective to the target, or LOD of the target, cannot
be different to the left and to the right, even though
parallax versus the airframe is different when we sit off the
datum line. If we really have learned left hand perspective
and LOD compliance before proceeding from LOAV to LOWK we have
also learned right hand human acuity perspective compliance.
While right base, with a high autogen density imposed in
MSFS, the target may remain obstructed by trees, but we
must identify the southern exclave of the airfield, and
prepare to turn final at Vy = 90 KmIAS accordingly. In
practice at LOWK the target comes into view on right base. The
parallax bears no resemblance to left base, and there is still
no really useful aiming bead. However even with human
acuity at ZOOM = 1 imposed, the ASI is visible and we can
impose Vy without resorting to audio means to monitor IAS.
On base leg QFU 10R STOL LOWK there is rising ground (with
buildings on top) ahead and (if necessary) we must pan with
our hatswitch to ensure that we can see the high ground ahead,
and our target. *We have already leaned our head left to
the tail down parallax compliance eyepoint*. This makes it
possible to have the obstruction ahead, the target, and the
ASI, all visible at the same time during a right base, even
with HUMAN ACUITY @ ZOOM = 1. In some very obstructed
runway cases we may need to roll in to a slightly diagonal
approach to pass inside high obstructions on the compliant
base leg. Safety is paramount and so if necessary we will add
THROTTLE to avoid obstrcutions and if that places us too high
to land from the approach we must GO AROUND.

We are of course gliding at Vy = 90 KmIAS and our height
has diminished below 250M QFE. Gliding at Vy, on the 'right
side' of the total drag curve, our Angle of Attack is slight,
our induced drag is modest, and our rate of descent (negative
VSI) towards the high ground ahead is modest. We do not
reduce to Vref = 75 KMIAS at much higher AoA, on the 'wrong'
side of the total drag curve, with much more induced drag, to
promote high rates of SINK, until we are lined up with
the runway.
When flying a right hand circuit or attack pattern from the
tail down eyepoint of the left hand (student and solo) seat we
have some potential parallax compliance aiming marks to
evaluate whether we are high or low versus the complaint
glideslope to the target and (ideally) we employ aileron to
control glideslope. However when approaching an obstructed
runway we my need to use THROTTLE to avoid an obstacle on the
approach instead, never allowing the joystick to move, or
our profile drag over the aerofoils to fall below Vy = 90
KmIAS. We also judge whether to roll in to the target early
with slight bank at a low sink rate, or late with high bank,
high weight, and a high sink rate, at Vy = 90 KmIAS in all
cases.
When approaching an obstructed runway do not expect to land
at the threshold of the runway. In a flapless aeroplane it
will be necessary to land deep. The new skill required is
recognising how deep it is safe to land on a 300 metre runway
with no headwind in a Lombardi. If necessary we will use the
after landing EMERGENCY TURN procedure.
POWERED FINAL APPROACH QFU 10R LOWK (SHORT AND OBSTUCTED
RUNWAY TRAINING):
The standard GLIDE APPROACH of the vintage era of aviation
history tended to cause (student) pilots to become overloaded,
especially in monoplanes. That flawed doctrine would soon be
replaced by powered approaches, which were conducted along a
much shallower minus 3 degree glideslope, provided terrain and
obstructions permitted a shallow glideslope. For the STOL
training runway at LOWK they do not. The safe way to approach
this runway, in an aeroplane with or without flaps, is to
extend the downwind leg to a position that will require a
powered approach to get back to the target. That extended
outbound leg is incompatible with the vintage era pattern
minimum of 5Km and requires 8Km visibility.
Timing of the turn to base leg becomes much less critical
if we intend to meddle with power during the approach below
MDH, using THROTTLE to impose any glideslope we need to pass
above obstructions below MDH out along the FAT. Depending on
the location of obstructions we may even maintain MDH = 250M
QFE until we turn LONG FINAL at a location from which we have
no hope of reaching the runway if the engine fails.

In the jpg above we extended downwind more than twice
as far, (more than twice as many elephants). The Visual
Approach Slope Indicators (VASIs) of modern era tarmac
10L tell us that the glideslope to it is the modern era minus
3 degree IFR parallax compliance. We maintained MDH and
we are still at MDH = 250M QFE, but we have lined up on the
FAT for 10R STOL, and we have compliantly reduced to Vref = 75
KmIAS. We are in level flight at 250M QFE at Vref. We now
intend to fly a Classic era stable powered approach at Vref
all the way from MDH down to the runway. We have reached the
position on the FAT which places the target in the vertical
centre of our constricted tail down aiming reticle at the
aerofoil Angle of Attack explicitly associated with Vref = 75
KmIAS. If this were an unobstructed approach we would now
reduce throttle to fly the unobstructed glideslope to the
runway, with our arm locked out, imposing Vref all the way
down to the runway, as we moved only the throttle.
However at LOWK we cannot do that because the approach to
10R STOL LOWK is obstructed by a hill with buildings (an
obstacle = threat) that penetrates the current
glideslope. We therefore intend to 'drag the Lombardi in
under power'. Having imposed the extra JOYSTICK back
pressure that increases aerofoil AoA until our profile drag is
only 75 KmIAS, our induced drag from the aerofoil is huge, and
if we remove all the power the L3 will sink down a minus
5.5 dgree GLIDE APPROACH. What we actually need to do is fly
level at MDH = 250M QFE until the target is in the lower half
of the constricted aiming reticle and the obstacle we must
pass above is far down in the compliant aiming reticle.

As we maintain MDH it slowly becomes apparent that, with my
personal installed mesh, and maximum FS9 autogen, the ruling
obstacle is in fact a tree beyond the hill and buildings on
the approach. We have placed the target in the lower half of
the tail down aiming reticle, but there is still an obstacle
to prevent landing on the threshold of 10R STOL. We intend to
land 'deep' into a 300 metre STOL runway. We continue to
approach above the glideslope to the runway threshold, aiming
fro a touchdown point beyond this end of the runway. We intend
to transition to a steep (potentially) minus 5.5
degree (nil wind) GLIDE APPROACH GLIDESLOPE over the tree
later. We may discover that less than minus 5.5 degrees will
be adequate as our baseline range from the ruling threat (the
tree) diminishes. We lock our arm, and the JOYSTICK, at Vref =
75 KmIAS to ensure that we have enough induced drag from our
high AoA to sink down that planned glideslope imposed with
THROTTLE.
We must never allow the ruling threat to rise to the
vertical centre of the aiming reticle. If we keep it low
enough in the compliant aiming reticle we will pass over
the threat.

Throughout this STOL approach we always have the option to
stay so high that we can eventually invoke the minus 5,5
degree (nil wind) THROTTLE CLOSED GLIDE APPROACH GLIDESLOPE at
Vref. With HUMAN ACUITY carefully imposed it becomes clear
that the ruling tree obstacle is indeed less than a wing span
away from the 10R STOL centreline, but with HUMAN ACUITY and
LOD and PERSPECTIVE, it becomes easier and easier to decide
where the target can be in the reticle, while also avoiding
the threat vertically. It becomes clear that we will be
able to pass our right wing over the tree and still touchdown
with at least half of 10R STOL LOWK remaining as stopping
distance. Imposing the high AoA associated with Vref allows
steep descent with slow forward progress. We can sink or climb
at Vref, or neither. We only need to move the THROTTLE as we
lock our drag at Vref. Now passing 65M QFE it is looking good
and we can easily sink harder or we can go around at any time,
if we don't like the 'parallax compliance picture' that we
have imposed. It is just a question of what we do with the
throttle. The JOYSTICK is *not* involved in managing a
glideslope. The joystick imposes Vref on the ASI.
As captain it is time to DECIDE whether to LAND or GO
AROUND with THROTTLE. The parallax compliance picture above
allows us to land, even on nil wind days. and on most days
there will be a headwind to make this much easier, since the
glideslope availble (upon throttle closure) is then steeper
than minus 5.5 degrees, and the climb slope upon full throttle
also improves with a headwind if we DECIDE to go around. This
approach must be flown at Vref. The issue is how quickly we
need to stop after touchdown, not diving to high velocity
regardless of the landing roll consequence in an aeroplane
with no brakes. Remember you need the high friction of grass.
or dirt, or gravel on STOL runways. Landing an L.3 on 300
metres of smooth tarmac may not be safe. We must SINK down the
approach at Vref, not DIVE down the approach with only
childish random drag.
We line up the runway laterally with JOYSTICK and we use
the JOYSTICK to impose Vref = 75 KmIAS to minimise distance
*to where the aeroplane will stop*. Then, because this is an
obstructed runway, initially we use THROTTLE to position the
target in the bottom half of the compliant tighter 'tail down'
aiming reticle, and so low in that reticle that the
obstructions are obviously below the GLIDESLOPE we are
imposing with THROTTLE. Later with human acuity we can reduce
the offset of the ruling threat in the compliant aiming
reticle using THROTTLE.
After we learn to impose real world parallax compliance
skills we no longer need crazy video game cheat mode high
braking scalars to always remove the consequence of our pilot
incompetence. We can adjust our point of aim USING THROTTLE.
The JOYSTICK is *not* involved in the control of glideslope.
When we perceive that we are about 3 metres above the runway
we use the JOYSTICK to FLARE to the three point landing
attitude.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
About 3 metres
FLARE TO 3
POINT LANDING
Always grass
or dirt:
THROTTLE =
CLOSED STICK = FULL AFT RUDDER
= FISHTAIL (20 deg arc)
Only if
necessary:
IAS
< 60 KmIAS RUDDER = HARD OVER HARD STOP
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Touchdown is at (not much) less than 75 KmIAS. As soon as
the ASI registers below 60 KmIAS with the tail held firmly
down via the JOYSTICK we are free to impose a sudden change of
direction to exit the runway at right angles with RUDDER.
However odd it may seem given that we wish to stop quickly,
having decided to turn on the ground in an aeroplane with no
brakes and no steering, we must blast some propwash over the
fin, as soon as we vary the lifting camber of the fin with
rudder. With very low profile drag over the fin, we must
energise the vertical lifting surface (the fin) with propwash,
to create the sideways lift that we must vector with rudder to
induce rapid yaw of the fixed skid. We use a sudden BURST OF
PROPWASH, to induce that yaw, as soon as we have fully
deflected the rudder. Those of you who have already trained in
the Ansaldo S.V.A.5 will be very familiar with the ground
operation of aeroplanes with no steering and no brakes in
constricted spaces, but most FS enthusiasts have never learned
the relevant real world skills.
Having imposed high Angle of Attack SINK at Vref, avoiding
low AoA DIVE, down the approach we land so slowly (even with
no headwind) that a deep landing into a 300 metre runway, over
tall MSFS autogen obstacles, is no problem.
The Lombardi is underpowered. That means explicitly that it
can land on a shorter runway than it needs to take off in the
same weather. Yet take off using only 1000 feet ~ 300 metres
towards tall obstructions QFU 10R STOL LOWK is 'just'
possible, even with no headwind at all. Remember we studied
take off compliances, and Lombardi turn compliance to avoid
after take off obstacles much earlier. Revise those parts of
this student training manual now if you need to. Make
especially sure you understand MIXTURE compliance from 'high'
altitude runways above 500M QNH.
After you have mastered the obstructed take off and
obstructed approach QFU 10R STOL LOWK it is time to begin
forced landing training into meadows in the FS mesh. You have
learned that those meadows can be much less than 300 metres
long, but when making a forced landing away from an airfield
never choose an obstructed approach, and always consider
whether you must land into wind, or instead up the slope
of the mesh, or preferably both, by choosing a meadow which
allows both.
Now let's try to understand what 'choosing a meadow to land
in after the single engine fails' actually means.
PLANNED GLIDE RATIO AND FORCED LANDINGS:
At a time when all cheap aero engines were very unreliable
the circuit pattern used by low performance training aircraft
did not extend to areas which made it impossible to glide back
to the airfield in the event of engine failure at pattern
height. If the pattern height was 250M the baseline range
downwind rarely exceeded 2000M imposing a glide ratio of 8 to
1 that any fixed gear basic trainer could achieve, *without
any difficulty*, when flown solo by a student of limited
ability.
Indeed, in the vintage era of aviation history, the
intention was to teach the student to fly 'glide approaches'
with the throttle closed at the moment the aeroplane 'rolled
in' to the target, providing a stable thrust approach in which
thrust never varied, because the throttle was never advanced
again. The whole point of the exercise at a time when engine
failures were common was to teach students how far the powered
aeroplane would glide after engine failure, *and still give
them time to achieve a parallax complaint approach to a
touchdown zone in a 'meadow'*.
In Europe, during WW2, a military training airfield might
be the size of several average meadows or pastures, each
divided by stone walls or ancient hedgerows that would wreck
an aeroplane. If the instructor imposed a practice forced
landing while downwind the ability to vary the glide approach
to land anywhere in the entire large airfield represented the
choice to land in any of those several meadows or pastures.
For the rurally challenged a pasture has animals grazing in it
and may be a poor choice for a forced landing, compared to the
the adjacent meadow which is growing winter fodder for those
animals.
In the vintage era of aviation history the powered
aeroplane student pilot was required to learn to judge the
zero power (glide) approach with the same skill as any glider
pilot. The powered aeroplane has a worse glide ratio, but that
is not the point (until you are learning to be an assault
glider pilot at Cameri, see supplied contextual history). The
point is knowing where you can make a forced landing from your
current height above the surrounding terrain, picking the
meadow to be used, while still at least 250M above that small
meadow, much smaller than an entire airfield, and knowing from
long experience how to vary the approach path versus the
headwind today, using parallax compliance monitoring to
determine the course of that approach path to the chosen
meadow, much smaller than an entire airfield, but with a
touchdown zone (target) that is no more demanding to recognise
and land on.
Most flight simulation enthusiasts have no relevant skills
at all and have no comprehension of the legal requirements
relating to the (peacetime) operation of single engine
aircraft (or indeed gliders). Recent versions of MSFS cover
the entire planet with many jurisdictions, and precise legal
compliance may differ, but there are generic rules to be
simulated to demonstrate operating compliance.
SINGLE ENGINE LAND CLEAR COMPLIANCE:
There are few, if any, jurisdictions within which the
reckless endangerment of others is lawful just because it is
convenient. There are few jurisdictions in which crashing the
vehicle you are operating into a stationary person causing
death, after losing control of the vehicle, is lawful, and
fewer in which the defence, ' I didn't allow myself the TIME
needed to avoid the collision; is a valid defence. Yet, most
flight simulation enthusiasts behave as though they had never
encountered those planet wide concepts. The captain of a
single engine aeroplane is required to operate it so that
failure of that single engine cannot result in the death of
innocent third parties outside the aeroplane unless a specific
legal exemption has been granted. Specific exemptions are
granted during take off and approach, and in certain cities
there are 'en route VFR corridors', usually along a river such
as the Hudson in New York, which allow the captain to order
ditching in the specified river as 'land clear' lawful
compliance.
Consequently operating a single engine aeroplane en route
across a 'built up area' below the altitude at which it is
possible to reach a landing location that will not involve
collision with people, buildings or vehicles constitutes
'reckless endangerment'. You must create and impose the TIME
needed, *having regard to your current level of skill*, to
'land clear' of those obstructions. The TIME available is a
function of current HEIGHT (not altitude) versus the threats
with which you may collide if you fail to impose sufficient
time to avoid collision in the event of losing one engine.
This is most of the reason that air taxi companies employ
singe engine aeroplanes only in 'bush' operations, while
carefully using twins for inter city and generally 'built up
area' minimum time path = straight line communication.
When (during flight planning) we encounter a 'potentially
built up area' as captain of a single engine aeroplane we are
required to determine, by inspection of a relevant map,
whether there are a sufficient number of meadow sized open
areas within the built up area that we could land on if we
need to. If the answer is yes, we have in fact determined that
it is not a 'built up area'. Having determined instead that
the scenery in front of us is indeed a built up area, while
operating a single engine aeroplane (or glider) we must not
penetrate that built up area by a larger margin than the
penetration that allows us to 'land clear' of that built up
area if the engine fails.
The vintage era pilot in a high co-efficient of drag fixed
gear basic trainer has already learned that if he proceeds at
a HEIGHT (not altitude) of 250M then the maximum lawful
penetration of the built up area is 2000 metres, or 4Km from a
HEIGHT of 500M, and so on. The captain of that aeroplane, who
may not be the current helmsman, is required to operate the
aeroplane at a HEIGHT that allows the helmsman enough TIME to
avoid the collisions that must be avoided in the event of
losing a single engine, to never risk reckless endangerment of
others outside the vehicle.
Of course, depending on higher levels of skill, and wind
direction and strength today. It 'may' be possible to reach
and approach a 'meadow' further away, from the necessary
final approach track, but that is not the point. 'I thought I
had enough time to avoid the collision', is not a valid
defence.
The TIME required = HEIGHT required to achieve and impose
legal compliance is measured using head up parallax compliance
exactly as illustrated far above in this student training
manual. It cannot be imposed using modern era real time moving
map GPS, because GPS does not display GLIDESLOPE data. This
gives rise to the concept of ..........
HEIGHT KEEPING:
Most flight simulation enthusiasts have only encountered
the classic and modern era IFR concept of 'altitude keeping'
proceeding in accordance with clearances to maintain an
ALTITUDE imposed by published ATC regulation, or real time ATC
control.
The difference between the vintage era, and the following
classic era, of aviation history is precisely the change in
the command and control framework of international law, and
the change from height keeping to altitude keeping, consequent
upon the possibility of transfer of responsibility for
calculation of safe progression from the cockpit, to a
published ATC procedure, or an air traffic controller with
greater legal discretion. Of course in many cases the captain
of the aeroplane could still reject ATC and IFR and proceed
VFR taking back responsibility for personally calculating 4D
compliant operation of the vehicle instead of dumping that
workload outside the cockpit.
Most flight simulation enthusiasts lack the head up skills
of height keeping. Unless proceeding over perfectly flat
terrain, or the altitude of a VFR flight is very high compared
to the altitude of the terrain, altitude keeping is non
compliant in single engine aircraft during VFR. Since VFR
requires avoidance of cloud VFR flights tend to become trapped
at low altitude. Most flight simulation enthusiasts who
attempt VFR never get single engine aeroplanes under control,
and only wander aimlessly versus all the threats they are
required to avoid in real life, just like glider pilots, just
pretending that they have an ATC IFR clearance to proceed at
constant low altitude regardless of the many threats they
encounter and ignore.
Built up areas are the most obvious example of terrain
where moving map GPS has little utility in single engine
aeroplanes. Of course in the modern era it can be used to
impose mandatory baseline compliance versus threats which
cover a very small area, and on that basis can also be used to
avoid a a Flak battery or a SAM site in military aviation, but
for single engine aeroplanes, versus large radius threat areas
that is not the only required compliance. Height (not
altitude) keeping is mandatory for several reasons. The
requirement to land clear of the threat explicitly requires
GLIDESLOPE compliance, which requires HEIGHT keeping
compliance.
In many / most jurisdictions non paying passengers inside
aeroplanes can be recklessly endangered if they agree to that
process, but it may not be the best flight plan anyway. The
reasons to height keep, at sufficient height to land clear
after a single engine failure, while flying over a forest, or
a lake, or some other terrain you would rather not impact, are
sometimes compelling. Even though no legal requirement exists,
there are good reasons to cross such terrain at a height that
allows you to reach a suitable 'meadow' in the event of losing
a single engine. That makes realistic simulation of the VFR
operation of gliders and single engine aeroplanes very
different to the waiver of that 'need' that is 'granted'
simply by having more than one engine.
If you desire realistic and demanding simulation you will
choose to simulate singe engine (else glider) VFR operations
because they impose many interesting extra demands of 4D
navigation compliance. The skill required is only the skill
that we have already studied. Height keeping is not just about
being 150 metres away from vehicles along a road that you are
following through a forest, or a mountain pass close to your
operational ceiling. As soon as you decide to stop just
pretending to fly (single engine) aeroplanes, and instead
decide to learn what is actually involved, you must develop
the intention to 'height keep'. You must operate at the
varying height that allows the single engine aeroplane or
glider to reach a 'meadow' to land in, and progressing the
captaincy decision making cycle so that choices are constantly
being made between only 2D variation of the flight path to
ensure that outcome, or instead 3D variation in height to keep
that 'meadow' or area of 'meadows' that we are constantly
ensuring are in head up parallax compliance with our aiming
mark.
Of course this may in practice mean using the aiming mark
to understand which 'meadows' 'to the beam' are within gliding
and approach baseline range, and then interpolating which
meadows ahead and behind are no further away. The issue is
understanding the need to do that continuously in single
engine aeroplanes and gliders, and not just childishly ignore
that height keeping, (really glideslope keeping), compliance
and the means to measure where you can glide to, and fly an
abbreviated (no engine glide) approach to, right now, every
minute of each flight.
You are of course required to calculate that, and know
that, for each type of glider and single engine aeroplane you
fly, or simulate flying. It depends on *your current level of
skill*. Different pilots of different skill levels have
different compliance minima. Within desk top flight simulators
it is your job to evaluate your current skill level, and to
impose compliance minima that match. Wandering in random
directions, at random altitudes, in single engine aeroplanes,
is not flight simulation. It's just untalented scenery
viewing.
This student training manual has explained the WW2 basic
training skill level required to continue pilot training,
instead of being diverted to e.g. wireless operator / flight
engineer etc, training. Air gunners and navigators who were
often also bomb aimers were not selected for poor head up
parallax compliance understanding and skills.
Remember the reason twin engine aeroplanes exist is not
just because they can achieve higher velocity. They exist
mostly because (in peace time) they make it safe and lawful to
flight plan in straight lines, right across various types of
'threats', that no longer need to be avoided, greatly reducing
track mileage and the increasing simplicity of the safe VFR
captaincy decision making cycle.
You can pretend that you know how to fly a very simple
aeroplane forever, but pretending isn't much of a hobby. The
hobby of flight simulation is about understanding, learning,
and eventually demonstrating, the compliant operation of a
desk top flight simulator, and the complaint operation of
different real aeroplanes, within that virtual environment.
Moving on from just pretending to fly aeroplanes, includes
understanding the difference between IFR compliant simulation,
head down using gauges within a 2D consumer interface, and VFR
= COMBAT compliance using multi direction and multi eyepoint
head up parallax, perspective and LOD compliances from a 3D
consumer interface.
Now remember, in a Lombardi, the IAF for every touchdown
zone (every target) on the planet is just behind the wing
tip. You can reach that location. If your height above that
target is large, then that location can be further away
as a baseline range, but all targets have identical
(glideslope) IAF parallax compliance from every height. You
can even proceed up to 'nine elephants' further downwind (nil
wind) while you get your act together, but no more! You
already know how to plan the attack pattern to that target.
The fact that the target is now in a 'meadow' only 150 metres
long (or diagonal), and is not half way down a marked 300
metre STOL runway on a marked airfield is irrelevant.
In a Lombardi, the meadow you have decided to land in must
always be less than one wing semi span away from you when the
engine fails. You do *not* need to know how far away it is.
You know the object just behind the wing, from any height, at
any distance, is within *normal* gliding range, because it is
on the normal glideslope to the target, and with a margin that
allows you to fly an unrushed base leg to a short final,
deciding whether to roll in, or out, a little, as you fly that
base leg at Vy = 90 KmIAS. If the base leg down that
complaint glideslope begins more than 250M above the target
you have more time to judge the later roll in to the FAT.
Of course you do not need to pick the object in the default
location (just behind the wing tip) to land on, as soon as the
engine fails. You may well pick a 'meadow' that is obviously
closer. Yet, at some point after the engine fails you must
manoeuvre to place the target 'just' behind the wing tip
*wings level* and then you only need to do what you have done
many times before in a Lombardi, before you attempted actual
forced landings in 'meadows' in the FS mesh. Do not pick
an obstructed meadow. You cannot fly a powered approach in a
Lombardi after one engine fails, but to vintage era pilots who
always flew GLIDE APPROACH GLIDESLOPES, a forced landing was a
non event, provided they had learned to height keep, to keep a
suitable meadow always within baseline gliding range. Of
course that is also a skill you must acquire before attempting
glider simulation in MSFS in any era of aviation history.
Now try to understand why, having suffered an engine
failure after take off, you must land, or 'crash land' in the
forward arc of Human FoV. You will instead need to use
real perspective at human acuity to pick the very nearby
location you can reach. The airfield you just departed is
already far too far behind the wingtip to ever get back to it
without power, and you must never attempt that impossibility.
First you must understand the need or multiple parallax
compliances, and then you must learn those multiple parallax
compliances. In a monoplane you will instead sometimes need to
use real perspective via hunan acuity at ZOOM = 1 to judge
(GLIDE APPROACH) GLIDESLOPE while flying the base leg of the
VFR approach (with or without power).
MANDATORY NON STANDARD FUEL PLANNING:
Maximum and standard fuel load of the L.3 is 44 Kg of very
low Octane, low density, low lead, AVGAS. All L.3 sorties are
simplistically planned at 12 Kg/hr at 86 KTAS from throttle up
to touchdown.
The Lombardi was very underpowered, and anyway designed to
max cruise as design cruise. It had no power reserve to battle
a headwind. Imposing GIRI beyond the 'normal range' which
terminates at 1950 GIRI requires a RICH MIXTURE, which is
incompatible with battling a headwind. The potential for fuel
exhaustion was very great. Fuel planning criteria in the 2008
Propliner Tutorial, or in my individual WW2 combat aircraft
tutorials do *not* apply. The later classic era and modern era
'assumption' that 30 minutes design cruiseot TOGA fuel
burn is a 'sufficient' VFR reserve also do *not* apply.
The Regia Aeronautica imposed a minimum reserve of 8.7 Kg.
which was 43.5 minutes in design cruise with the profile drag
ramped up to 150 KmIAS and imposed 'hands off' by the factory
rigging. However the 8.7Kg PLANNED RESERVE could be made to
last for around an hour if the need arose to use the joystick
to reduce profile drag far below 150 KmIAS, if the student
became 'temporarily uncertain of position'. If the student
needed to increase endurance while square searching for a
landmark or line feature that they could recognise, before
proceeding to destination, else diverting to a nearer
airfield, else aborting the sortie and returning to base,
depending on fuel remaining when the positional uncertainty
was resolved, then they could use the mandatory reserve of
8.7Kg to add an hour to planned endurance, first using the
joystick to reduce profile drag to Vy = 90 KmIAS, and only
then using the throttle to re-impose VSI = 0 with the much
reduced fuel burn needed to offset the much reduced profile
drag.
Cruise:
NEVER MORE
THAN 1950 GIRI NEVER LESS THAN +7 CELSIUS
JOYSTICK =
NEUTRAL CAUSES = 150 KmIAS (slowly) VSI
= 0 GIRI < 1950 THROTTLE =
REDUCE TO COMPLY GIRI = MAXIMISE
with MIXTURE VSI = 0 GIRI
< 1950 THROTTLE = REDUCE TO COMPLY YIELD
= 86 KTAS at 1000M QNH PLAN =
12 Kg/hr
Consequently planned usable fuel for flight planning
is always 44 - 8.7 = 35.3Kg, and its use must be planned at
12Kg/hour, whether the sortie(s) will remain in the circuit
pattern, or proceed cross country. It follows that the longest
pilotage route which may be planned (to an airfield with AVGAS
available!) is;
86 * 35.3 / 12 ~ 250 miles
Remember what we have just examined concerning pilotage and
the requirement for height keeping. This does *not* mean that
it is lawful to plan to an airfield 250 miles away in a
straight line. During single engine VFR operations, both the
scenery and the mesh will usually be too complicated for that
to be true, and the maximum safe straight line distance that
can be planned will almost always be less than 250 miles.
This was nevertheless compatible with the Regia Aeronautica
triangular cross country (two solo away landings and
refuellings), qualification requirement to proceed to
intermediate training in the SAIMAN 200 (see contextual
history and airfield substitution in MSFS). Indeed the
performance envelope of the Lombardi was deliberately very
restricted to impose on students the need to understand that
they must never assume that the safe flight plan path from A
to B was along the great circle. They were learning VFR =
COMBAT pilotage, which depends on the demonstration of
assorted head up skills, including avoidance of multiple
threats, both laterally and vertically, *both compliances
imposed by variable head up height keeping*, not head down IFR
electronic navigation and altitude keeping using gauges while
proceeding in straight lines.
To understand the Lombardi you need to fly it from, and
between its real bases, in varying weather, and put yourself
through an only slightly dumbed down, but nearly realistic,
WW2 lead in aircrew role selection training syllabus, to
experience how it measures you up.
FSAviator .... January 2015
|