On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 01:27:39 -0800, "Peter Duniho"
wrote:

"Lars Møllebjerg" wrote in message
...
I can't say much about the max speed at different altitudes, but I did
notice one point where you are probably not maintaining the correct climb
method.
You should NEVER EVER allow the SR-71 to slow down to 200 doing a climb.

This part might be true. Not having flown either the real or simulated
SR-71, I don't know. The rest of the post leaves a lot to be desired.

Actually, I wasn't even climbing at that speed. I'd get it to
around 65,000, level off, and see how fast it would fly. 200kts was
about average. Even with "true airspeed" selected, I wasn't coming
near Mach 1 in a plane that should pull Mach 3.3 at 80,000 feet. I
had similar speed issues with most fighter aircraft, as well -- the
F-16 barely chugging along at 400 kts at 50,000 feet. This is a plane
that has enough thrust to climb from takeoff to 20,000 feet at a *90
degree angle*.

With the SR-71, I mostly climb with the autopilot. Granted, I
usually set at the default 1,100 fpm climb rate, but I didn't think
that would be too much of a problem for the fastest (known) plane in
the world, a plane that pulls Mach 3.3 at 80,000 feet. At some point
well before 80,000 feet, the autopilot more or less fails, pulling the
nose up into a stall.

I don't have stalling problems with fighter aircraft, but they don't
go anywhere near their advertised speed capability at high altitude.
Oddly, they come closer to approaching their max speed at low
altitude, which is kind of silly, as a plane flying mach 2 at 500 feet
would promptly break apart or begin to melt.

I did find one interesting speed glitch in the game. With the
air-stress option untoggled, it is possible to get nearly any jet
aircraft out of the sim reality's "envelope" and send it into a
hyperspeed journey. Take any jet aircraft (fighters work well) up to
a high altitude, say, 65,000 feet. Bring the nose to 90 degrees down.
Do some barrel rolls on the way down. At some point, your plane gets
a tremendous speed boost, up to around mach 5. Pull out of it.
Better have your wing leveler on, as, at this speed, the plane bounces
all over the place with turblence. Once you do this, it is impossible
to slow down. Cut the throttle, turn the engines off, it doesn't
matter. You are now God's guided missile. I made a trip from Seattle
to LAX in around 15 minutes this way.

I never owned FS2002. Did supersonic aircraft perform correctly in
that package? I'm tempted to think that most of the 2004 planes are
just 2002 conversions, and that perhaps the two versions handle high
speed dynamics differently. If the developers didn't change anything
before porting to 2004 (or, in the case where I just load 2002 planes,
like the SR-71), the planes may perform incorrectly.

-R