Not crashing the Piper Cub

[Guest JonP01]

I have to say that there is a chalk and cheese difference between the incredible feel of flying in FS2004 compared to earlier versions of the sim. Especially in the Piper Cub. I have to say that mastering this aircraft is about as difficult as it was learn how to drive a lap in Grand Prix Legends without crashing.I've been practicing all afternoon and I have lost count of the number of Cubs I've written off. So I'm just wondering how others are going with it, and what real pilots think of it.What I have found is that it seems necessary to be very agressive with the rudder pedal during takeoff. If you don't get a bootful of rudder in during take off, almost anticipating the torque effect, then you simply won't recover. It'salmost like applying opposite lock in a racing car. If your timing is not perfect, you'll crash. And it's no good being gentle on the rudder. You need bootfuls...and quickly.Then there are the crosswind landings, especially in light turbulence. After many attempts to avoid rolls overs, it seems that not only is it necessary to be just as alert with the rudder (and ready to put the pedal to the metal so to speak), but you need full opposite aileron as well, otherwise the plane just skids around.So far, I've found being agressive and very quick to react with the rudder and aileron during crosswind landings seems to work, but I'm still not teribly neat and straight, although I'm not writing off Cub after Cub off anymore. I just wonder if the real thing is this hard to fly? If it was, I think I would have rather jumped off a cliff than gone on my first solo on anything other than a perfectly calm day :-lolWhat would be the maximum crosswind component of this aircraft? Maybe I am also just trying to fly in unrealistic weather conditions.

[LAdamson 240]

>I just wonder>if the real thing is this hard to fly? I don't think so..It's as though my Cub has two different personalities. With settings at full realism, sometimes the takeoffs are un-eventful with just a normal amount of rudder use. Then at other times, it wants to skid & end with an un-recoverable ground loop/cart wheel. I've managed to get a real Maul and Pitts into the air without this much trouble, which makes me wonder why my FS2004 Cub acts differently from one day to the next----- even in no wind conditions.L.Adamson

[Guest JonP01]

Thanks Larry. Well your post makes me feel better. Mind you, when I am able to land the Cub, there is a feeling of real satisfaction that I have never had before in a flight sim.I might add that I am cheating a little bit at the moment. I have reduced the angle of movement of the tailwheel to only about 10 degrees, which is sufficient to taxi the aircraft (in all but the most confined spaces), but low enough that it makes the aircraft less inclined to spin around when the rudder is deflected when the tailwheel hits the ground on landing. I think some of the difficulty is that the critical moment when the tail looses lift and the tailwheel hits the ground, the rudder is still slightly aerodynamic. btw, this aircraft does not seem to have a tailwheel lock??? I've also increased the lateral distance between the main gear wheels a tad, so that the aircraft is a little bit more stable on the ground in a crosswind.

[Naji 5]

Agree 100% :). Take-off is okay now, but landing is still a disaster. Still practising though.

[Guest SoarPics]

I've never flown a Cub, but have a few hours in Super Cubs. They've never been as nerve wracking as the FS Cub, even with a nasty cross wind componenet. I also spoke with a friend who is a Cub owner and who recently installed FS9 on his computer. Told me he'd rather have a root canal than land the FS Cub. :-) Some good info here about living with tail draggers:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...esg_id=20&page=The FS Cub is alot of fun... till you have to come down.

[Hornit 3]

I have found that f you put the sliders for realism about halfway its not bad at all. This sim still gets the crosswind stuff wrong by a good margin. Im a real pilot by the way. Light crosswinds just make the airplane behave badly as soon as you touchdown and that just aint right.Hornit

[Guest]

Looking over the FS9 key commands, I noticed SHIFT+G for locking the tailwheel.I'm not sure if it's my imagination, but I seem to land better after hitting this key combo, than not.It would be nice if there was some feedback in the sim about the status of the tailwheel...

[Guest JonP01]

> I have found that f you put the sliders for realism about>halfway its not bad at all. This sim still gets the crosswind>stuff wrong by a good margin. Im a real pilot by the way.>Light crosswinds just make the airplane behave badly as soon>as you touchdown and that just aint right.>>HornitWell I got up this morning thinking I'd be crashing the Cub every crosswind landing again, but my crash rate has improved since yesterday. Hopefully after a couple of weeks practice I might get proficient with it. It does make a joke of real aviation rules in Australia where you only have to fly once a month to maintain your licence currency. If that rule applied to the FS9 Piper Cub, virtual pilots would be "dying" every time they came back to land. This aircraft needs constant practice to keep on top of it.As for tailwheel lock, I agree with SWMHS 70 that there doesn't seem to be any feedback that the wheel is locked or unlocked, or whether it locks at all. I would have hoped that you'd get that green message with the red text, like you get when using the exits. So far, I haven't seen any indication from the sim that a tailwheel is locked or not (no red message, no green message, no cockpit messages and no change to the model animations, at least in the Cub and Trimotor). As far as any change in ground behaviour, I haven't noticed any either way.One thign I am defintely sure of and that is the advice given in the Learning Centre about how to fly these aircraft does not necessarily apply. That advice seems to be based on the easier flight model settings, not with everything maxed out which is the only way I fly.

[Guest papatango]

Has anyone flown the Custom Classic Piper J-3C-65 Cub by Lynn and Bill Lyons? I recently downloaded all 5 of their historic planes. I wonder how it compares to the MS Cub.Microsoft said that one of the criteria for choosing the historic planes that they chose is that they could fly one in real life to get the flight dynamics correct. I wonder if the limitations that you are running into is a problem with the flight dynamics in general with the simulator.I also noticed with the Jenny and Vimy that I can't get either one to climb past 3000 feet, even with no weight for the pilot, and almost no fuel. The published ceiling for the Jenny is 11,000 feet, and for the Vimy it is 8,000 feet.Papatango

[Guest Ron Freimuth]

>I have to say that there is a chalk and cheese difference>between the incredible feel of flying in FS2004 compared to>..>What I have found is that it seems necessary to be very>agressive with the rudder pedal during takeoff. If you don't>get a bootful of rudder in during take off, almost>anticipating the torque effect, then you simply won't recover.>It'salmost like applying opposite lock in a racing car. If> .............. I've flow a J3 and a J4. Only problem is landing without 'ground looping'. I think I know why the tail draggers are so unstable on the ground in FS9. MS killed 'prop effect on rudder'. It worked in FS2K2. MS killed 'Prop effect on elevator' going from FS2K to FS2K2. So, you can no longer lift the tail with the prop blast. Both work in CFS2. I took a P-51 and tried it in FS2K2. It wouldn't lift the tail, and tended to want to turn in circles on the ground. However, I could use the rudder to stop the circling. If I got into a circle with the same AC in FS9, I couldn't stop it unless I stopped the AC. Note the tail wheel gives very little control, some tail draggers only have a skid. However, once you advance the throttle, there is a good wind over the tail in real AC. Full thottle and you have elevator and rudder control even at zero knots. What makes this worse is MS did fix the P-Factor and 'Torque'. However, with the prop effects on tail now gone, that increase in realisim isn't balanced by other prop effects as would be true in real AC. I am able to TO, but have to be careful not to get into the circling mode. However, I have crashed many times after touchdown, when speed had dropped to 10 kts. Perhaps a poor simulation of a ground loop, one wing sinks 5 feet into the ground. With rudder control they would be easier to avoid. Considering the large number of tail draggers in FS9, it doesn't say much for MS or the beta testers that they didn't see this bug. BTW, the C172SP is also unstable on the runway. Even though it has a nose wheel it's easy to end up off the runway. -RAF

[Guest Ron Freimuth]

My original comment on this was in "The AVSIM Flight School" Forum in 'The Hanger'. http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...esg_id=20&page=Ron

[Guest farmer]

Might want to try this one. http://www.netwings.org/dcforum/DCForumID3/1445.html

[Guest Hugo]

Hi all.After having installed COF, the Cub was one of the first I went for. I prefer vfr GAs :DAlthough she realy looks cool, I soon discovered she was quite illbehaved... to my taste! Too much sensible on the stick and rudders on approach not to talk about her ground looping tendency at low speed after landing in minimal crosswind conditions. I guess Greg's friend mention that he'd rather have a root canal than land the FS Cub pretty well describe her reality. I came to wish someone would come with a good tweek, particularely for its groung behavior. Well someone has. Farmer's link, below, leeds to a sublink where one can dwld new air/cfg file for the Cub and for the De Havilland Comet as well (2004FMs1.zip, 31K).With this mod the Cub is now much much more well behaved. After a couple trials I managed to put her down onto a 10kt/40deg crosswind. Mind you not a greasy one and not a wheeled one, I'm a bit rusted, but still. Still a little groundlooping tendency but manageable. A nearly impossible task with the native Cub's flight dynamics.I've got Bill Lyon's Cub as well as the Airhead's FS2002 ACA 8KCAB SUPER DECATHLON (ok for FS2004) (8kcab02a.zip, 14.9 Mb - a boosted Citabria!! well not that much boosted after all ). Both are well behaved under the above mentionned conditions.30 years ago I was a CFI for 3 years. I had the 'chance' to fly the RCAF Chipmunk training bird, a little bouncing beast in it's own (I greased her only once in maybe 30 trials) as well as the Citabria (became quite good at wheel landing) and few others including an homebuilt Jodel. Shure, taildragers are are a little more tricky than tricycle, maily in crosswinds, but not to the extent that native FS Cub seams to give. The worst crosswind I've been involved in was an about 80-90 deg at about 20 mph gusty as I recall in a C-172. Shouldn't have been in the air then (-:My 2 centsHugo

[Guest SoarPics]

Thanks, Farmer, these new files make a nice difference. I just shot 6 TNG's with different crosswind components up to 8kts/60 degrees, and actually lived to tell about them. Landings with the Cub aren't nearly as death defying now.I've also e-mailed the file to my friend with the Cub. Interested to get his feedback.

[robert young 2,897]

"it doesn't say much for MS or the beta testers that they didn't see this bug."As you will be aware Ron, bugs, or observations and reports of them, are not necessarily guaranteed to result in fixes, and are therefore no indication whatsoever of the quality of Beta testing on any piece of software.Cheers,Rob Young