With the new ability for X-Plane
to model
a free turbine engine, I decided to 'upgrade' my old
PC-6C
Air America to the more powerful PC-6/B2. I have used the
HB-FLI
paint job from the Swiss company
Flying
Devil SA. The B2 is the only remaining variant of the PC-6
series
that is
still
in production today. It uses the Pratt & Whitney PT-6A-27
engine
delivering whopping 620 shaft horsepower. The high power loading
combined
with the low wing loading give the B2 very
short
take off and landing runs (646ft & 417ft respectively).
This
is one of the few aircraft certified to use beta (flat propeller pitch)
in
the air, inducing a very steep dive angle. This feature is
greatly admired
by skydive operators because the aircraft can beat the skydivers to the
ground!
This model is an absolute joy to fly, as long as you have rudders...
I have used two external fuel tanks that can be removed in the weapons
menu.
The fuel will flow out of these first and switch to the wing tanks when
empty.
Dec 20, '03 - The v7.15 package was updated to reduce the file name
lengths
so the ends of the file names wouldn't be cut off by the Mac OS.
Dec 20, '03 - The v7.30 package is added to address the new 'feature'
of rotating
full-moving surfaces around the 50% chord instead of the 25%
chord.
The control horns on the stabilizers had to be resized and
re-positioned to
look right. The are sized more realistically but we builders are
still
limited because we cannot specify the rotation chord in Plane Maker.
F.Y.I. There will not be a B2 variant for version 6. Check out my
Air
America PC-6C for v5 and v6 PC-6s.
