HiI have been flying flight Sims ever since they were invented, way back when?? I had always prided myself on being able to land my aircraft very well, UNTIL!! I stated to try and land Tail Dragger’s in MS Flight, I was getting very annoyed with all the bouncing on down the runway with passengers grunting and groaning, cargo damaged etc. I thought to myself there has got to be a way to land these @#**#@ softly.After reading about Tail Dragger’s on this forum I realized that it is possible.I decided then I needed practice; practice and more practice landing them, after doing touch and goes, which take up a bit of time, I went to the map view moved my little yellow airplane to a good sized airport, zoomed in and placed it in line with a runway at good distance out for an approach preferably into the wind, then hit the fly button, then if I was to close or to far from the runway I adjusted the little yellow airplane on the map until I was happy with that approach distance. I then hit the esc button, saved that position as “Maule practice landings” or whatever. Then it was easy to load in again after each landing. After over 50 landings or so, I can now land the Maule and any tail dragger very softly indeed. And that makes me very happy :yahoo:Now I’d like to share “my method” of landing Tail Dragger’s, especially the Maule:-I find the best way for me is to approach the runway at a steeper glide slope, flaps fully down, speed at around 70 knots heading for the threshold, when at about 100 feet above the start of the runway I slowly bring the nose up ever so gently then at about 50 to 60 feet I try to fly as level as possible watching the attitude gauge to make sure the nose is level over the runway, throttle back a bit keep speed above 60 knots, very gently ease the nose up throttle back a bit nose up very gently keep checking the attitude gauge and ever so slowly touch those big wheels down as soon as they touch throttle back to 0, brake and the rear wheel will gently touch the runway. The secret is to keep the airplane level on touch down, I don’t trim the airplane, I find the trim works better left in neutral, also try using the brake when the wheels first hit the runway, be careful as to much brake may make you might nose dive, a little brake keeps the tail up. The biggest challenge is getting the timing right, speed, nose up, attitude level and a slow decent, but once perfected it is very rewarding. Keep practicing and in a short time you "will" land softly.I prefer to use the mouse in this “Sim/Game” in my opinion it has more control, especially with a gaming mouse where sensitivity can be adjusted on the mouse itself.I hope this helps improve your “Tail Dragger Landings” I am enjoying my jobs a lot more now and no winging passengers . :Talking Ear Off:Happy landings ….. Gary

Thank you Gary.For me, it’s back to Kona or Hilo and keep practicing; with all-weather settings.

Thanks Gary......i am sure going to give your landing method a try......i most generally......land way to hard and after a few awful ((((Bounces)))) i settle done.....and then i always hope that i am still on the center line. I love the Stearman ......and really i think the engine sounds could be improved to be like Dave Echerts PT-17 !

The Maule is just a pig for me, from takeoff to landing no matter what I try and do. If its not veering left or right like drunk on ice skates during taxi and takeoff its dropping like a rock on landing and even though I dont seem to get any bouncing the landing is obviously hard. Note I do play with no hud and no assists so flying by instruments only and I do know this will make things more challenging. Gave your tips a few tries Gary but no luck in cracking this nut just yet.

Yeah the Maule is a pig to fly, no doubt.Certainly my least favorite of them so far - unfortunately have to fly it for certain jobs and missions though...I find more power on landing with a gentle glide slope to help with the Maule, and let her settle to just inches above the runway - just have to get a feel for that, before throttling down... I can really grease one in with the Stearman, however that Maule is a whole new ballgame.

The Maule is just a pig for me, from takeoff to landing no matter what I try and do. If its not veering left or right like drunk on ice skates during taxi and takeoff its dropping like a rock on landing and even though I dont seem to get any bouncing the landing is obviously hard. Note I do play with no hud and no assists so flying by instruments only and I do know this will make things more challenging. Gave your tips a few tries Gary but no luck in cracking this nut just yet.

To stop the Maule veering left or right, try using the A and D keys to adjust the rudder, I use these 2 keys to steer while taxiing i find that much easier than using the ailerons to steer.Gary

I agree with all except not trimming out your aircraft. The Maule itself is the reason part of my takeoff, climb out, flight, and approach, final, and landing all involve trimming out the aircraft now. It's one thing I educated myself on my own. It's something the game doesn't touch on at all in any of its checklists and it should. It's become just as important to me as the throttle and yoke now and has improved my flying and handling of the aircraft tremendously in all aspects of flight. If you're on approach and have a lot of back pressure on the yoke not only are you causing more drag, you're also leaving yourself with a lot less legroom in elevator control and increase your chances of stalling and not being able to recover. (depending on altitude). I don't use trim in place of full elevator input I use trim to compliment the changes I make with the elevator or flaps or my flight in general so any pressure on the yoke is by my own doing and not a requirement just to keep my angle of attack/attitude or maintain proper flight. It really prevents sloppy flying and decreases your work load.Look at this.http://www.mauleflig...patt_mx_160.pdfNotice a reoccurring theme?

And for me this thread pretty much exhibits how good FLIGHT can be at teaching proper landing techniques on a taildragger, like the Maule, which is exactly the same problem RL pilots have when learning to operate such an airpplane.Isn't FLIGHT a sim????? Oh, yes IT IS!!! :-)

Yes, in real life you always trim your aircraft, all the time. The planes I fly only have elevator trim (since most of them have no engines, there's no need for rudder or aileron trim :)), but as soon as I change my speed the slightest bit, my left hand instinctively trims to eliminate the stick forces. Who wants to push or pull the stick when you don't have to? It's just tiring for no reason.I've found that speed is the most important thing on final. Well, that and making sure that you'll actually hit where you intend to :). If you maintain the correct speed and then flare gradually (like the OP describes) you'll touch down smoothly every time. The problem with flight sims is that there's really nothing to judge height by when you're right above the runway; for all practical purposes, 1 ft and 15 ft look exactly the same in the game. This actually makes flaring correctly harder than real life (although IRL you have a lot of other things to worry about as well :)). But it's still doable with practice, you just have to learn to "feel" when you're at the correct height and practice until you can stall in a tree-point attitude, half an inch above the tarmac :).

And for me this thread pretty much exhibits how good FLIGHT can be at teaching proper landing techniques on a taildragger, like the Maule, which is exactly the same problem RL pilots have when learning to operate such an airpplane.Isn't FLIGHT a sim????? Oh, yes IT IS!!! :-)

You're right about the landings. Even though it's MUCH easier to judge height in real life, I've lost count of all the bounces I had when learning to land taildraggers. The main problem is that if you come in just a LITTLE too fast, and bounce, the plane is then in climbing attitude, so it goes up again, only now your'e too slow, so you fall down nose high, bounce again etc etc. :)I wish it would let you TURN the taildraggers on the ground, though. If you look at the wheels when taxiing, you can see that the tail wheel doesn't actually steer the airplane, it just sort of suggests a direction to go, like a tiny, tiny water rudder on a boat. IRL there are other problems (don't taxi in a strong tailwind in a taildragger, it's "interesting" :)), but steering is generally a LOT more effective and positive feeling than in Flight.

Yep, although I haven't given it a real try, it can be related to the faulty toe brakes in the present version, but also, I fear, to that bug introduced by FSX when the records in the airfile - still present in fs9 - that control propwash over the tail and stabilizer got truncated :-(One thing I wasn't able to test until now is the propwash on the horizontal stab/elevator, because I am unable to properly stop/parkbrake the Maule, or the Stearman and give throttle just to check for the effect.I don't know if those typical (on taildraggers) little throttle pushes to assist ground control, are correctly replicated in FLIGHT....Or... maybe it has a poor castoring tailwheel.... (?)

I wish it would let you TURN the taildraggers on the ground, though. If you look at the wheels when taxiing, you can see that the tail wheel doesn't actually steer the airplane, it just sort of suggests a direction to go, like a tiny, tiny water rudder on a boat. IRL there are other problems (don't taxi in a strong tailwind in a taildragger, it's "interesting" :)), but steering is generally a LOT more effective and positive feeling than in Flight.

Yep, although I haven't given it a real try, it can be related to the faulty toe brakes in the present version, but also, I fear, to that bug introduced by FSX when the records in the airfile - still present in fs9 - that control propwash over the tail and stabilizer got truncated :-(One thing I wasn't able to test until now is the propwash on the horizontal stab/elevator, because I am unable to properly stop the Maule, or the Stearman and give throttle just to check for the effect.I don't know if those typical (on taildraggers) little throttle pushes to assist ground control, are correctly simulated in FLIGHT....

Yep, we found this out in the RV the other night during a multiplayer session. I forget the name of the person who did the test intially and the rest of us confirmed it. (not taking credit is all).We were practicing strong crosswind landings in the RV and the topic came up about how as soon as we touched down, no matter how straight we had nearly no rudder control and kept veering right off the runway. So, it was determined a little throttle 5-10% to throw some propwash back across the stablizer gave us 100% control of the aircraft so we could then properly brake and reduce throttle back to zero without doing our best impression of smokey and the bandit down the runway. :)

Yep, we found this out in the RV the other night during a multiplayer session. I forget the name of the person who did the test intially and the rest of us confirmed it. (not taking credit is all).We were practicing strong crosswind landings in the RV and the topic came up about how as soon as we touched down, no matter how straight we had nearly no rudder control and kept veering right off the runway. So, it was determined a little throttle 5-10% to throw some propwash back across the stablizer gave us 100% control of the aircraft so we could then properly brake and reduce throttle back to zero without doing our best impression of smokey and the bandit down the runway. :)

That is indeed realistic, I've had to do that for real (not in an RV, though). A burst of throttle can help you turn on the ground if it's windy, by increasing the rudder effectiveness. My main beef, though, is how they tailwheels on the aircraft in Flight are clearly steered (they all turn with the rudder as far as I can see), yet seem to just float across the ground with almost no friction, which makes tight turns impossible as the tail (or nose) wheel just skids along sideways no matter what you do. It's been doing this since MS started making sims, though, so I don't think it'll be fixed anytime soon :).

Well, at least it's good news that they fixed the poor propwash in FSX, after being ok in fs9 and fs5.... as well as in CS2Regarding the castoring tailwheel not being simulated, we could probably ask MS's FLIGHT team to fix it (?).Looking forward to fly online one of this days... Looking forward for a 2nd hand pC a friend is willing to sell in order to buy a new Rig. It's an i5 of the 2000 series, with 4GB DDR3 and a Nvidia 193 GPUs graphics card (ASUS)... Then I will be able to properly "Fly" FLIGHT....

I always make 3 point power off landings in the Stearman. No bouncing at all if you have the correct 3 point attitude, which is quite easy to establish with high amount of window frames, wires etc... as an 'aiming' help.If you change planes often and hop from the Stearman to the Icon, Maule and RV it's of course more difficult.If you practise a LOT of landings exclusively in the Stearman you become proficient soon.Concerning the correct flare height you establish the correct 'feel' for that as well.It helps a lot if you perform the landing with wide angle view (I always fly with the widest possible view angle) as the peripheral vision helps to establish the correct attitude and height for the flare.In the real 767 you have exactly the same problem as the last radar altimeter callout happens at 10 feet.For the rest of the flare you have to develop the feel either in a Stearman or 767.In the end, a 3 point greaser in the Stearman is much more satisfying than simply 'rolling' her onto the runway at high speed in level attitude (not an option anyway on short dirt strips)

Tailwheel landings from a tailwheel pilot :)1. Three Point Landing - Just before touchdown, the stick should be full up deflection and you should be in a stall condition a split second before the wheels touch. Always keep full up deflection when taxiing. This is one thing no sim has accurately modeled IMO. The amount of concentration it takes to land a tailwheel aircraft is 20 times that of a tri-gear. The aircraft always wants to go tail first...I was always told, "You are not through flying a taildragger till you are parked and the engine is shutdown".2. Wheel Landing - Much harder in the sim because you cant judge depth very well. Just a split second before landing, input a little forward stick to keep the tail up and mains should youch first. Hold a bit of forward stick till the tail settles and look like a boss.