Ground taxiing

[Guest wtsapchy]

Hi all,Wondered if you have difficulty taxiing the Queen. I mean, it's very difficult to maintain a stable ground speed. It's either increasing or decreasing, and especially making 90 degree turning, the speed decreases rapidly and the Queen comes to a halt very quickly. Is this the real situation in a 747 ?DanielVHHH

[markadeane 272]

This has been extensively discussed in the forum, but very briefly, the ground handling is the best-possible representation of the real handling. I suggest a forum search if you're interested in the why's and wherefore's.The real thing needs a bit of power to get it going too, and in the PMDG model, consistent speed control does admittedly require some practice. As a rule of thumb, it WON'T roll on with the power at idle, expect to keep a fair bit of power on. If you're making a turn, enter it with as much speed as you can (below 10 knots obviously), apply a bit more power as you commence the turn and try not to use full left/right if you can help it. The more 'turn' you apply the higher the ground friction, so try not to let the taxi speed go below 3 knots as it's hard to get it back up again. It's tricky but with practice you can do it without thinking.

[Guest]

I had zero problems taxing the -400 pax but the freighter seems a whole lot harder. not sure why. harder to make turns, harder to keep up speed, etc

[Guest D17S]

I don't get to fly em, but I've spent lots of hours driving 'em around. I really don't find the model that far off. Plenty close enough for a person to get a feel for the real thing. It's not easy. You are 3 stories up, the nose wheel is 15 feet behind you and it's half a million pounds to get rolling. You get into a corner at anything above 15 knots, and it quits turning. Really. Look at that itti-bitti nose wheel and that tonnage that it's trying to change the direction of. I got into a nose wheel skid once . . . just once . . . rainy day, the ground said "Transition to the outer", I said "What is this B.S." (to myself!) So I was a kid "hot-rodding" the big machine through a couple of hard 90 degree turns. Turned the tiller and nothing happened. Here came the grass. Brakes! Deaf rabbits going every which way. Running for their lives. I learned from that. Try it in the sim. Go fast (20 kts) then turn. That's for real. Does anyone remember the rig Boeing setup to train the initial set of pilots how to taxi this monster? There was no experience base. There was no one to train anyone. No one had ever seen anything like it.

[Guest pellelil]

I haven't purchased the Freighter yet, so I can only speak of the PAX-version (sorry to admit here that I am currently in "BF2 Mode"), but with a little training its not that hard. You have to remember that the engine takes time spooling up/down so try to avoid increasing/reducing your thrust too much.To assist and make it even easier I have made a special configuration for my CH Products Yoke and Throttle. When I enter a special mode (the CH Throttle can operate in 3 modes) my throttle input is divided by (as I recall) 6 hence even though I move my throttle to its full extend it will only produce a 6th of the full throttle. This way it is VERY easy to input just the right amont of thrust - I leave it up to you to guess whether I have ever forgot to exit this "mode" before trying to Take-Off :-)http://jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannerbeta.jpgPelle F. S. Liljendal

[Guest Boaz]

I think it was a compensation to aviod loosing some other effect on the aircraft.But to me the F also taxiis much more unpredictable.Boaz.