EuroCargo In Focus - The Shorts 360

[EHM-1465 Dominic]

[img=880x660]http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6416/ehcshortstitle01xi4.jpg[/img]

WELCOME TO EUROCARGO IN FOCUS !

In this series of articles I'll be focusing on our EuroCargo Division and pointing out some details about the planes, destinations and operations that you may not have known about

I hope that after reading these items many of you will be tempted to try out our newly repainted Cargo fleet which serves many unique locations. Without further ado therefore I'm going to look in this article at the smallest of our EuroCargo fleet - the Short Brothers 360-300F.

[img=880x660]http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/7623/ehcshortsair01zs8.jpg[/img]

It's a wonderful little plane, great for small airfields and an ideal first Cargo plane if you haven't flown with us before It has good STOL (short take-off and landing) capabilities which is why it's used for so many inaccessible and remote destinations and is aliased to the default Beech King Air panel so you won't have to learn a whole new set of instruments

The model is easy on frame rates but is still nicely detailed and has some animations like opening doors.

[img=880x660]http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/1135/ehcshortsgrnd09ko0.jpg[/img]

The best way to learn how she works is to try her out in the air So why not go on the "EuroCargo Tour of Greece" and start on flights C011 to C036 - a two day marathon covering many of the beautiful Greek Islands !

[img=880x660]http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/8169/ehcshortsair10bg7.jpg[/img]

There are lots of small airfields to try out and the Shorts 360 can handle them all. You'll be ferrying really essential cargo for all those sunseekers who visit during the summer months, boxes and boxes of suncream, lager and postcards

[img=880x660]http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/9823/ehcshortsair07yr1.jpg[/img]

The weather is generally good for VFR flight so you can enjoy the detailed scenery which you can download here

[img=880x660]http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/4007/ehcshortsfinal01wx1.jpg[/img]

If you'd like to know more about the aircraft, it's history and specifications, please have a look at the links below:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorts_360
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Brothers
http://www.airliners.net/info/stats.main?id=354

So, what are you waiting for ?? Grab yourself a Short 360 and try out some of these scenic 'short' hops There's no better way to introduce yourself to the varied world of Cargo flying...

[img=880x660]http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/5785/ehcshortstakeoff03em9.jpg[/img]

[EHM-1612 Paolo]

Great article Dom!! I'm definetly going to fly from Athens to Mikonos with the Shorts, I don't know when, but asap haha :8

[EHM-1953 Daniel]

i agree, great article! i have spent some time with the shorts in greece and it's great

[EHM-1500 Jim]

A few little bugs with this aircraft that i discovered:

1) There is no GPS display
2) The fuel flow seems to never get above 1 even on full throttle which seems a bit odd
3) Very bad climb in autopilot - have to have maximum up elevator trim

On the whole though, not a bad little aircraft!!

[EHM-0171 Miguel]

This aircraft is one of my personal favorites too. Nice article!

[EHM-1465 Dominic]

Jim,

About those 'bugs' you found...

1 - there is a GPS - it's the box under the weather display between the radios, it doesn't have the graphic display that the default FS9 one does but it is representative of a real world GPS unit (KLN90B or something like that)

2 - fuel flow is generally not well represented on many aircraft, apparently FS9 doesn't compute the variables with great accuracy according to a number of questions in other forums (and this is down to the panel designer)

3 - when loaded the aircraft is overweight - if you alter the weights before takeoff it climbs fine.

Not sure who made this panel (as the version I used for this article was aliased to the Beech King Air !) but if you search for Shorts panels on Avsim I'm sure there aren't many and I'll bet you can find a manual for the GPS unit...