This is intended for Jan, but, any contribution or discussion would be greatly appreciated.
I have a renewed interest in exactly which B737 is included in our default airplane inventory. The only thing I think I know is that it is intended to be a Boeing model 735, usually referred to as a 737-500. I also think I know this is commonly called a "classic" which narrows it down to the 737-300, 400, and 500 group. The earlier ones are called Originals and the later ones NGs for New Generation.
My online research says the -500 was built for short haul routes for those airlines that were already using the B737, usually the -200 or -300 model. The 500 model was the smallest of the classics and the last member of that family A total of 389 were built and most have been retired. Probably all are retired from standard airline service. This is due to the newer purpose built commuter aircraft like the Q400, A318 family, or one of the Embraer direct competitors.
The -500 is easily recognized by the stubby and fat fuselage, large low slung engines forward of the wings with the flat bottom nacelle. I think this might make a nice 'private jet' ie, Boeing Private Jet with one of GACSavannah's special repaints, once IPACS gets around to releasing the paint kit. This is not a problem as we have a large number of default repaints to choose for our sim flying until then.
This renewed interest was generated by a post of a new AFS2 user asking if we had any flight tutorials. I answered that we did indeed and many were really good ones. But, the B737 is not among that group. I posted a "Familiarization flight pdf last February" but it was only intended as something to plug the hole as we waited for a real tutorial. That was 16 months ago - my how time flies when you are having fun.
I decided that it would be a good idea to update and clean up this intro for those that are still seeking some sort of flight tutorial. The first thing that popped up was the lack of a firm spec for the plane. I looked back at some of the posts and recalled that I quit asking when it was obvious there were no easy answers.
Notwithstanding the outstanding contributions of Jan, but I still do not know the specs for this airplane. While, I do already have a Masters Degree in Engineering from many, many years ago, and others are still seeking the same, that is not important to me. What I fail to accept is that the SI unit is the aviation standard of the world, just because it was chosen by IPACS for Aerofly FS2.
The standard is Length, Width, Height, Weight, and Thrust among others. These can be in feet or meters as long as they can be converted. Mass does not replace Weight in the context of MTOW, as this is a worldwide standard. Thrust may be a little different but, should be able to be converted to something related to pounds. See blue chart below. Fuel volume should be US Gallons for clarity and can be converted to metric as needed.
So to be crystal clear, as they say, could someone select one of the five specs from the bottom row as the "closest" or "intended" spec used by IPACS for the -500. I am fully aware that an upgrade or improved model could appear an any time, or never appear in our steam downloads.
To answer Jan's question of why is it even important to know little things like specific specs of an aircraft, how about a simple "why not"?
Assuming no one at IPACS is working on a flight tutorial for the 737-500, and provided I can narrow down the specs, I will update the 16 month old familiarization flight pdf and make it available at the Higgy site for downloads.
Regards,
Ray
Can sometime help me understand the following SI units used in the tmc files. I would like to see the numbers expressed as knots/hour for speed, and either stature miles or NM for distance, and feet for distance, and feet for width or wing span for the 737. It would be great if IPACS would use the // and tell us these simple things like they did for the cruise altitude line.
I think Jan told me once what the Q signifies but, I have forgotten. Anyone know what QSpan, QMass, QSpeed, QThrust and QRange relate to and how to express them in U.S. numbers?
Regards,
Ray
I found some of the answers in my archives. I now see why the specs are confusing and don't exactly match up with any existing models.
Regards,
Ray