TCA Aircraft Testing Department.

Small single & twin prop aircraft test report.

Date of Report: 2-19-99
Tested by: Mike Carvelas

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SECTION A: (Original FSFS aircraft details.)

        a) Aircraft name:
        b) Aircraft registration:
        c) Aircraft Filename:


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SECTION B: (FS98 only aircraft file details.)

        a) Aircraft name: Piper Seneca V
        b) Aircraft registration: F-OLEC (TCA Pacific)
                                  F-OKSC (TDM Pacific)
        c) Aircraft filename: five files are necessary, all from the
           TCA Pacific page.
           TCAPSVA.ZIP, TCAPSVB.ZIP, TCAPSVC.ZIP, TCAPSVD.ZIP,
           TCAPSVE.ZIP
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SECTION C: (Criteria Tested)


***                     TAKE OFF PARAMETERS

1)      Take-off distance: 480 m

2)      Rotation speed (Vr):    (max fuel) KIAS.
                a) Educated guess: 75 KIAS
                b) Calculated:  (Vstall dirty x 1.3 KIAS) 71 KIAS

4)      Climb:                  Airspeed & feet per minute. KIAS/fpm
                a) Initial Climb: (Under 3000') 100 KIAS / 1200 fpm
                b) Under 10000' climb: 110 / 1000
                c) Over 10000'climb: 120 / 800


***                     CRUISE PARAMETERS

5)      Endurance (range): 1108 nm

6)      Overspeed clacker: Mach number/KIAS maximum speed 180 KIAS, no
        clacker

7)      Speed @ 80% power:  120 KIAS.

8)      power at recommended economic cruise speed: 2500 rpm


***                     LANDING PARAMETERS

9)      Descent: 120 KIAS / 500 fpm


10)     Approach speed 30% fuel (KIAS): 68 KIAS


11)     Landing speed (KIAS):
                a)  30% fuel: 68
                b)  15% fuel: 66

12)     Landing distance: 273 m


***                     HANDLING PARAMETERS


13)     Behavior under AP: (OK or not)!
        a) Speed AP.           OK
        b) Altitude AP.        OK
        c) Heading AP.         OK
        d) NAV1 AP.            OK
        e) Back course AP.     OK
        f) Approach AP.        OK
        g) Autoland.           N/A


14)     Stall speed: (KIAS)
        a) 100% fuel - 60 / 55
        b)  30% fuel - 55 / 45


15)     Turns AP ON - (OK or not?)
        a) Level turns         OK
        b) Climbing turns.     OK
        c) Descending turns.   OK

16)     Turns AP OFF - (OK or not?)
        a) Level turns         OK
        b) Climbing turns.     OK
        c) Descending turns.   OK


***                     EMERGENCY SITUATIONS


17)     Take-off with some engines out of service: With one engine cut
        at 65 KIAS, there is an almost impossible to control pull.  But
        once in the air, the aircraft is quite easy to control and land
        on one engine

SECTION D:      NOTES/COMMENTS:

        1. The aircraft model is magnificent.  One can see the pilot in
           the cockpit, propellers idling, landing gear slowly
           extending and retracting, etc.  The detailing is much better
           than most other FS aircraft.  This was expected as there are
           five files to unzip and the plane takes up much more disk
           space than other planes.

        2. The aircraft comes with a very nice panel, although not
           without installation problems to be addressed below.

        3. The aircraft handles very nicely, quite easy to fly.

        4. There was an installation problem.  According to the docs,
           all 5 files are to be unzipped directly to the
           FS98\aircraft\seneca directory.  The files then create gauge
           and panel files within this subdirectory.  However, the
           gauges must be copied from there to the FS98\gauges
           directory or the aircraft will load with only a minimal set
           of gauges.  After moving these files, the panel is very,
           very nice.

        5. There is a panel available for this aircraft on the TCA
           hanger, panel page (Senecv2.zip).  It is placed in a
           separate panel.x folder and the aircraft.cfg is altered.
           However, even after several attempts and reinstalls, this
           panel locks the computer so that only a cold start and
           running of scandisk will work.  My computer is a Pentium II
           with am Intergraph Intense Voodoo card, Soundblaster Pro,
           and CH flightstick.  My FS98 is a full install which does
           not require the CDrom.  It is possible that this lockup
           problem is peculiar to my setup, but be advised that a
           lockup is possible with this add on panel.  With the stock
           panel, there was no lockup problem.