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Old 21st Mar 2013, 13:54
  #145 (permalink)  
rlsbutler
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Axminster Devon
Age: 84
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@rich slater

My experience of the Canberra ended in 1978, so I will not be able to produce answers for you. Most of us may be in the same boat. May I however remind you of interesting features that will distinguish your Canberra simulation from that of (say) a Hunter.

I assume that you will be modelling those marks (the B2, the T4 and the B15 that I flew, among others) with a dome canopy. How to give the client pilot the distorted reference given by the curved dashboard and by the optics that varied as you moved your head ?

Are you going to simulate the runway approach when the entire canopy is frosted up and when you can just see enough by peeking through the Clear Vision porthole ?

Will you convey a sense of the unergonomic layout of the cockpit instruments and controls, oblige the client pilot to manage the fuel correctly and give him only a second or two to find the Stores Jettison button before it is too late ?

Do not forget the engine management, particularly the RPM bracket within which the swirl vanes move (5800-6200 ? - mentioned a lot when Icing procedure was discussed earlier in the thread) and the RPM where the bleed valves shut (or embarassingly do not) as the engines accelerate. You will need to build in that charming throbbing sensation by which the offending engine signals that it is no longer at your service.

You might give your client pilot the thrill of a LABS weapon delivery - the half-loop, the roll-off-the-top and the escape dive done entirely on the finely calibrated artificial horizon. In reality it was most satisfying at night, but perhaps you will want to simulate the gyrating landscape.

You know about (and cannot properly simulate) the knee-trembling of asymmetric flight. If you have simulated the Meteor already, you have faced up to the problem in its extreme case. You have the chance to simulate the extreme gyrations that arise when the pilot loses control. All Canberra pilots know what these might be, but maybe all who can describe them at first hand will have to use the Ouija board to do so.
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