Does this look right? - Carenado 206 Stationair Capacity

[Hubb 0]

Carenado 185F Skywagon Tundra - 1360 Cargo Capacity

Carenado 206H Stationair - 751 Cargo Capacity

 

I'm lost, i thought the 206 was closer to 1000lbs. . . . .

 

 

 

Can anyone shed some light?

 

-Chris

[allardjd 1,853]

Post the Weight and Balance section and the Fuel section of the aircraft.cfg file.

 

John

[britfrog 180]

i think you may be confusing the maximum take off weight of the 185 with the maximum load of the 206

the 185 can certainly carry more weight than the 206 that is why it is so popular in places like alaska and africa

from memory the 185 has a capacity inc fuel of around 750 kgs

and the 206 around 650 kgs

however both can carry substantially more when necessary as long as the c of g is in the right area and the runway is long enough.

I have flown a 207  (stretched 206) 1000 lbs over max gross with no problem but there was only a small margin from stall to maximum powered speed and neither the prop speed nor heart rate slowed down until some fuel had been burnt off and I had a couple of thousand feet underneath me

[allardjd 1,853]

@ BF - I think he's referring to the "Cargo Capacity" statistic in AirHauler, which is calculated as...

 

Cargo Capacity = MTOW - (Empty Weight + Weight of full fuel)

 

It can be problematic in AH and sometimes the developers leave some really bone-headed things in the aircraft.cfg file that don't make a lot of sense. It's usually an easy fix.

 

John

[Hubb 0]

[weight_and_balance]
max_gross_weight =         3617
empty_weight =             2314

reference_datum_position = 12.0, 0, 0      
empty_weight_CG_position = -9.7, 0, 0   

max_number_of_stations =      7

station_load.0 = 190,  -9.7, -0.5, 0.5
station_load.1 = 190,  -9.7,  0.5, 0.5
station_load.2 =   0, -10.5, -0.5,   0
station_load.3 =   0, -10.5,  0.5,   0
station_load.4 =   0, -11.0, -0.5,   0
station_load.5 =   0, -11.0,  0.5,   0
station_load.6 =   0, -11.5,  0.0,   0


station_name.0 = "pilot"     
station_name.1 = "pax fwd"  
station_name.2 = "pax 2nd row"
station_name.3 = "pax 2nd row"
station_name.4 = "pax 3rd row"
station_name.5 = "pax 3rd row"
station_name.6 = "bag max 180lbs"

empty_weight_pitch_MOI =   2500
empty_weight_roll_MOI =    1700
empty_weight_yaw_MOI =     3500
empty_weight_coupled_MOI =    0
 

 

[fuel]
//Longitudinal (feet), Lateral (feet), Vertical (feet), Usable(gallons), Unusable (gallons)
LeftMain  = -8.5, -2.5, 2.5, 46, 2.5
RightMain = -8.5,  2.5, 2.5, 46, 2.5
fuel_type = 1
number_of_tank_selectors = 1
electric_pump=1

 

Many Thanks!

 

-Chris

 

 

[Quickmarch 488]

Hi Chris,

 

Slopey, John, Joe and others have posted some really useful info on the AH Forum - see: http://forum.justflight.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=5706&title=useful-info-top-tips

 

Also see: http://www.free-online-private-pilot-ground-school.com/weight_and_balance.html - and: http://www.pilotfriend.com/training/flight_training/wt_bal.htm, among many others.

 

For now, let John pick up your thread and give you the skinny on maximising your cargo capacity with AI pilots. Unfortunately this must be done BEFORE importing the aircraft to AH. If John is busy, get back to me and I'll try to explain the process of adjusting your airplane.cfg file to optimise capacity.

 

Interestingly, the whole RW (real world) certification process is being adjusted to reflect the growing weight of our population. When I flew GA aircraft 180lb was the going rate for a male passenger and (memory is dim) 120Lb for a female. 

 

The new figures are:

(Summer): 182Lb for a male and 135Lb for a female

(Winter): 188Lb for a male and 141Lb for a female (additional weight of winter clothing)

 

As I see it, you can pick up 350Lb (or more) of carrying capacity by;

 

1. Put you AI pilot on a diet or fly the aircraft with female AI pilots only.

2. Remove the seats from the airplane - they only get in the way of cargo and the goats will eat the upholstery.

3. You're not hauling passengers, so you only need a single pilot - get rid of the co-pilot.

 

These figures may vary in Europe, but it looks like you're flying in the USA so they'll be applicable there even if my spelling isn't.

[allardjd 1,853]

There are no obvious errors in the aircraft.cfg data. Sometimes they mess up with the commas and decimal points in the fuel tank data in particular but in this case they look OK.

 

MTOW: 3617

Empty Wt: 2314

Fuel: 46 X 2 X 6 = 552 (apparently AH uses the Usable fuel value)

Cargo Cap'y = MTOW - (Empty Wt. + Weight of full fuel)

Cargo Cap'y = 3617 - (2314 + 552) = 751

 

There are some things you can do...

 

1) in Station_load.1, there's a default weight of 190. It isn't included in the cargo cap'y calcs but FS will load it by default. Change the "190" immediately after the equal sign to "0". That's the co-pilot weight. By the way, the lateral offset of the loading stations are only 0.5 (feet) from the CL - seems too small a value but that's not really germane to this issue.

 

2) The 206 is a 6-seat airplane. You may remove five of them. I use a nominal weight of 19# per seat. Just reduce the Empty Weight figure by that much. Pick your own value, but keep it reasonable.

 

3) Wiki lists the MTOW and Empty Weight as 3,600 and 2,176. The MTOW is pretty close but the empty weight is about 135 lbs. less than the aircraft.cfg value. You could plausibly reduce the empty weight figure in aircraft.cfg to 2,176 and still be in synch with real world values.

 

Cautions:

 

A) As March notes, you must sell the plane and remove it from AH and then re-import it for changes to aircraft.cfg to take effect. AH maintains its own database of aircraft stats and reads them from aircraft.cfg at the time the aircraft is imported into AH. Subsequent changes to the aircraft.cfg values will be unknown to AH unless you re-import.

 

B) After making those changes, test fly the aircraft in FS, outside AH, and make sure it's stable in all phases of flight, at all weights and with CG anywhere between the limits. If all is OK, then import it back into AH. Finding you can't trim to a reasonable airspeed on final after a 3-hour flight with a paying load aboard is not the best time.

 

C) When making changes to aircraft.cfg, most recommend making a copy first. I find managing multiple copies of aircraft.cfg files to be problematic. Instead, working entirely within the original aircraft.cfg file, I make a second copy of the line I'm going to change immediately below the original line, put a semicolon in front of the original line and change the other.

 

It may look like this....

 

;empty_weight = 2314

empty_weight = 2250

 

FS will ignore the line with the semicolon but you'll have a handy record of what you did and it's easy to undo if things go south on you.

 

John

[Kasper 14]

Just as point of reference the U206G from Carenado has an AH cargo capacity of 1059. Looks like the CT206H traded capacity for performance?

[Hubb 0]

Awesome replies guys, much appreciated.

 

I guess I didn't do a very good job of shopping, the 206G is probably a more "realistic" plane for what Mountain Air would consider purchasing.

 

The good news is that I haven't purchased the plane in AH yet, so I can make some of the aircraft.cfg edits before purchasing.

 

I may consider grabbing the 206G in addition, it looks a bit more appropriate.  Perhaps we'll buy then 206H if we start doing passenger hauling around Idaho/Oregon/Montana.

 

Thanks again!  The newbie support / acceptance here is appreciated.

[allardjd 1,853]

Quote

The newbie support / acceptance here is appreciated.

 

We're all newbies at some things, Chris. Welcome aboard.

 

John

[Hubb 0]

Gents,

 

Last night I was able to purchase the Carenado 206G and Kasper is 100% correct . . . the usable cargo is 1059.  I ended up buying the one with the cargo pod and no wheel covers (due to my bush landings).

 

I'll post some screen shots from its maiden voyage over the weekend, however i'm not so sure about this plane. . . . it keeps stalling out on the ground and the flaps failed on the 2nd leg of my first trip.  It wasn't due to overspeed, they just failed . . . . I guess this is to be expected from a 35 year old plane. 

The failure gave me a chance to fly into Spokane International to get it repaired.  Nice airport, there was a caravan and a mooney parked in the GA lot and a few heavies over at the gates.  Must have been a busy day.

 

Oddly enough (or perhaps not) i found it a bit more forgiving, easier to fly than the 206H.  *shrug*  While the cargo capacity isn't as good as the 185, I do enjoy landing and taxiing a bit more with a non-taildragger.  It's a good addition to the fleet.

 

-Chris

[ehunyadi 0]

I liked the 185 and used 5 of them at one time in my company and then went to the DC-3, another taildragger. I can't wait to get into the jets soon to get back to being able to see the runway/taxiways again! lol

 

In one of my past companies, we flew the 208G and the B1900C/D. Those were great planes to fly! I may get a few 1900's once we move into the bigger jets for whenever I want to do shorter hauls. With that said, I think I have more 208G hours than anything else in FSX.