Miles M.57 Aerovan
The Aerovan was developed towards the end of WW2 and was intended to be low-cost aircraft that could transport cargo and passengers over short distances and land and take off from rough airstrips. It was suited to austere operations, and possessed an atypically high payload capacity for its power output. Relatively large payloads, including a single car, could be transported by the aircraft, being loaded via its large clamshell freight door.
Aerovan Mark 4 version has round windows and slightly longer fuselage than the Mark 1.
📌 Cargo space is 4 m long, 1.75 m wide and 2 m high. Cargo door opens as clamshell to the right and cargo ramp and winch are present. Passenger seats can be folded.
📌 Fuel hose anchors are under the wing roots but you can fill both tanks from either of them if you enable fuel crossfeed which is located above the pilot seat.
📌 Flight controls are similar to my previous airplanes: Altitude and direction hold, mouse control, "trim level flight" (I used to call it as "stabilizer" before), ground effect..etc
📌 Carefully located the fuel tanks to prevent moving center of mass based on fuel level since rear wheels are very close to CoM. Actually I had to move the rear wheels 1 block backwards than it was originally placed.
📌 Flight performance varies depend on cargo and ropes usually generate a lot of drag.
📌 When altitude or direction hold is enabled, stabilizer automatically activates. Free Look disables mouse control when pushed.
📌 Holding the Down key while on ground will put the aircraft on reverse mode.
📌 Flaps cause slight pitch up, useful when takeoff and landing. Also you can take advantage of flaps when compensating heavy cargo as well as pitch trim.
📌 Rear wheels are edited in XML file to give higher suspension stiffness and tyre pressure than vanilla. Selecting wheels in editor would mess with those settings.
Crew : 2 (6 kg) Capacity : 10 passenger (30 kg) Fuel capacity : 253 imp gal or 1150 L (230 kg) Cargo capacity : 800 kg Empty weight : 1670 kg MTOW : 2700 kg Dimensions (LWH): 11 m – 15.25 m – 4.25 m Wing area : 298 rsa Wing loading : 9.06 kg/rsa Propellers : 2-bladed variable-pitch Powerplant : Two 4-cylinder naturally aspirated, producing 1180 kg of thrust each @ 1000 RPM
Maximum speed : 157 MPH (140 MPH with 470kg car in the cargo) Cruise speed : 137 MPH (114 MPH with 470kg car in the cargo) Range : 400 Miles with no cargo at cruise speed Thrust-to-weight: 0.87 with MTOW rsa: Total rudder_surface_area of horizontal lifting surfaces
I uploaded a small car, Flying Eight, 3 years ago. I built it specifically for this cargo plane. Width of that car is only 1.5 meters which can fit 1.75 wide cargo space of the Aerovan. That small car got an update as well.
