USN Version UPDATED TO VERSION 1.22
RAF Version still VERSION 1.2
As Well as changes required by the latest version of Aerofly FS 4, there have been model improvements and Custom Sound files installed (Donated by Dan Hopgood) and the RAF package now includes as a bonus a Royal Navy version of the Buffalo.
Released at flight-sim.org
Release Notes for Brewster Buffalo B339E & F2A-2 Addon for Aerofly FS4
Disclaimer: This Freeware Aircraft Addon for Aerofly FS4, including all associated files and documentation are supplied as is with no guarantee of any kind. You use entirely at your own risk. Information is not intended for Real World Aviation.
Credits and Copyright Ownership:
3D External Model and Texture Art Matthew Ivey
3D Cockpit Internals and Texture Art Dom Henry
3D Pilot and Texture Art Bertrand Augras (beber)
TMD Coding Matthew Ivey & jet-pack (IPACS)
Custom Sounds Supplied by Dan Hopgood
Dom Henry and I have collaborated on quite a few aircraft projects for X-Plane11, where I created the external model and cockpit shell, and Dom created the cockpit, the sounds and physics. A special thank you to Dom for letting me use his cockpit work, without which it is unlikely the project would have ever been completed
A special thank you to Bertrand too, for the use of his pilot figures. It’s a difficult thing to create pilot figures that look human without using a lot of polys. He has created a number of these figures, that Dom and I have used in our aircraft and we’re very grateful to him for it.
Installation:
This assumes you’re familiar with basic file management tasks. If you need more help try asking for help on the IPACS Aerofly forum.
Extract the files from the zip file and copy the buffalo_usn or buffalo_raf folder into your user documents aircraft folder. The address will be something like below depending how your machine is set up (where dotdotdot….. will be the name of your computer)
C:\Users\............\Documents\Aerofly FS 4\aircraft
The Buffalo now has custom Sounds included Donated by Dan Hopgood
The Prototype:
The Brewster Buffalo was the first monoplane fighter ordered by the US Navy. It narrowly beat the Grumman Wildcat design. Indeed as the Wildcat design matured and the Buffalo’s shortcomings (weak undercarriage and engine overheating) became more apparent, the Wildcat superseded and replaced the Buffalo. By the time WWII broke out the aircraft was considered obsolete. It was used in combat by the US Marines at the battle of Midway, and by export customers Britain and Holland in the far-east with disastrous results when pitted against Japan’s Zero and Oscar fighters. The Finns where spectacularly successful with it in there conflict with the Russians. There were a number of reasons for that, such as the fact that their engineers came up with a solution to the engine overheating and the climate was cooler there anyway. Anyway none of that matters to us in Aerofly, which is not a combat simulator, but if you’re interested in the Historical context there’s plenty to be found on the Net.
Flying the Buffalo in AFS4:
In Aerofly the model flies quite nicely, no major dramas. The large area of glass of the cockpit allows a good view all round, the 1000 hp engine allows a reasonable turn of speed. With good energy management (speed for height, height for speed) you can do most aerobatics at low level.
The performance in climb is not stellar. On a test flight it took me about an hour to get to 20000 ft with 2000rpm, throttle at about half and mixture leaned off a couple of notches. Because of the limited modelling of the engine, you can run the engine flat out at 3000 RPM and full throttle, without the disastrous consequences it would have in real life. The settings I suggest are probably more realistic. I managed to climb to about 25000ft by upping the RPM’s to about 2500, increasing the throttle to about ¾ and putting down 10 degrees of flaps. The Buffalo had a two stage supercharger in real life, and that would have helped at height, but this is not modelled in Aerofly FS4. So I figured the above settings are a reasonable compensation / cheat. I did try bumping the aircraft up to 30000ft using the feature in aerofly that allows you to do that (F2A-3 max ceiling), but it can’t maintain that height… it just becomes a very heavy glider.
It should be mentioned the aircraft is a Tail Dragger, with all that implies for ground handling. If you can fly the F4u you should have no problem with the judicious use of Rudder required to keep the Buffalo tracking straight down the runway, and not getting in to a yaw Oscillation that will end badly. If you’re unfamiliar with this concept then do some ground school by looking on the Net. Then learn on a plane like the wonderful Piper Cub by Krzysztof Kaniewski (you can get access to that from flight-sim.org)… things happen a bit slower, so you can get used to the Rudder control that is needed.
Well I hope you enjoy using the Buffalo. It is what it is… many shortcomings and limitations, but a lot of work has gone into getting it to this level. If you like it that’s great, but if not keep that to yourself please. By all means report any bugs you find in the release thread on the IPACS forum... but don’t demand anything to be done about it… updates will be at my discretion. I’m not sure how it will perform in VR as I don’t use it, but hopefully it will be ok. Anyway I think all that remains is to take a look over the cockpit layout:
Front Panel:
1) Manifold Pressure 2) Altitude Indicator 3) Magnetos
4) Airspeed Indicator 5) MkII Gunsite 6)Side Slip/Turn Indicator
7) Artificial Horizon 
Starter Button 9) Climb Rate Indicator
10) Volt Meter 11) Backup Compass (Main to Right of Altimeter)
12) Fuel Primer 13) Fuel Pump 14) Flap Indicator
15) Gun Site On/Off 16) Hydraulic Pressure
Right Side Panel:
25) Canopy Open Lever 26) Battery Master ON/Off
27) Beacon Light, vertical off, right brighter version, left dimmer version
28) Beacon Red 29) Beacon Amber (these don’t seem to do a lot)
30) Nav Lights 31) Landing Lights 32) Landing Light Dimmer
33) Formation Lights On and Brightness adjust (Right Full Bright)
34) Panel Lights On and Adjust Brightness (Right Full Bright)
35) Arresting Hook(Navy Model only)
Left Side Panel:
17) RPM Gauge 18) Oil Pressure Gauge 19) Mixture Lever
20) Throttle 21) RPM Lever 22) Aileron Trim
23) Elevator Trim 24) Rudder Trim
Start up:
- Battery on
- Fuel Primer on
- Fuel Pump on
- Mixture Lever Full FWD
- Throttle slightly open
- Mags set to both
- Push starter button (goes green)
- After Engine start, push start button again to disengage starter (goes red).
- Primer off
10)Fuel pump off (Only needs to be on again above 20000ft)
Parking brake can be operated by a lever to the left and below the front panel. Twist vertical to release… this will be confirmed by a green light. Before landing check light is green.
Gear Up/Down Indicator: There is an indicator in the centre of the front panel that gives a visual confirmation that landing gear is up or down.
Gear & Flap Levers: There are two levers to the right of the pilots seat. The front one is the landing gear lever and the rear one is the flap lever. Ensure the Gear lever has full travel or you may end up with a partial Retraction/Extension of the Undercarriage.
Night Lighting:
I’ve added a red glow to all the instruments and controls for use when night flying. The look is aimed at giving the impression that all the controls have luminance created by luminescent paint and picked up by a low intensity red light in the cockpit. I don’t do a lot of night flying and it took a lot of work to implement this, so I hope it was worth it for those of you who enjoy night flying. The panel switch, controls on/off and adjustment of the brightness level. Panel Lights are Overridden by Battery Master Switch. The Gunsite ring for the MkII Gunsite (used on the RAF model) is not on this circuit but has its own independent control. The USN version has an Aldis Optical Site, and this has a site ring that is controlled by the instrument glow.
Update for Aerofly FS 4 May 24th 2023 Update.... Version 1.2
Thanks