I find the Cessna 208 Caravan in MSFS has a very wide turning radius compared to other planes of its size: even using differential braking, it is impossible to do a 180-degree turn at the end of many runways.  Since this is a bush plane, this seems odd.  Anyone know if this is realistic, and if so, is there a particular trick to turning this plane?

I don't know how Caravan turns on the ground in real life,  but 172 turning technique with differential breaking and power adjustments  seems work for me

I agree, I've wondered the same with the C208. 

I've noticed that the turning radius of ALL the a/c is very dependent on speed. The slower you go the sharper you can turn. But the slow speed restriction is a bit too slow, IMHO. Also it takes more power than it should to make a sharp turn

Vic

Turning radius (or lack thereof) is an old FS issue.. but fortunately one that can be easily addressed!

1. Go the folder for the aircraft and open flight_model.cfg.

2. Go to the [Contact Points] section

3. point.0= line contains the nose wheel steering/rotation angle. (It's the 7th value, you can easily spot it because it's usually a number between 20-60)

4. For the C208, the default line is:

point.0 = 1, -2.3, 0, -4.18, 750, 0, 0.5, 22, 0.21, 3, 0.5, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

Change the 22 to whatever works best for you. I have gone up to 80 on some planes, but try 60 and see how that feels.

5. Save the file and it'll stay until the next time there is a patch and it gets overwritten, or create a community item for it.

 

Edited October 7, 20205 yr by Uwajimaya

I read somewhere that 10knots is the threshold of effectiveness for differential braking in the sim.    I know I can turn tight below 10 knots,  but turns are super wide above 10.

/On a side note,  the 208 has a spoileron bug that gives the 208 an invisible speed brake it's not supposed to have.   The real aircraft has spoilerons that assist in turns.

 

4 hours ago, Uwajimaya said:

Turning radius (or lack thereof) is an old FS issue.. but fortunately one that can be easily addressed!

1. Go the folder for the aircraft and open flight_model.cfg.

...

Thanks for the tip - this made it a lot easier.

I also found the POH at https://www.redskyventures.org/doc/cessna-poh/Cessna_208_C208B-G1000_Grandcaravan_POH-PIM_2008.pdf, which states a radius of 67 feet with inboard wheel brake locked and power (page 7-23).  I'm not sure why, but I never tried steering with the brake fully locked before; always thought you should brake slightly and not increase the power (I'm quite new to simming!).  You need a lot of power (around 50% throttle) with the brake fully depressed, but it does actually work, and gives a radius close to 67ft in the sim (maybe even slightly less) without adjusting the flight_model.cfg.  Maybe that's the correct way to do it.

The sharper you set the turning circle the more you will get twitchy steering with smaller aircraft that have a nose wheel linked to the rudder. There are convoluted ways around this but it takes a lot of time and experimentation. The parameters controlling the steering sensitivity are poorly done and clearly not quality tested too well, otherwise they would have been changed. At the moment the feet-per-second-linked value that controls the gradual easing of nose steering doesn't work according to the available values. A combination of low speed and steering PLUS differential braking helps.

According to this:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/38465219.pdf

Quote

Occasional use of the Beta range to reverse propeller pitch keeps the taxi speed to a manageable clip and helps save the brakes, which are very effective. Mash either pedal, and the Grand Caravan will pivot on a main tire.

 

 

 

I've found out the hard way not having a rudder axis also affect ground turning.  Originally I had no problems taxiing the TBM.  Upgraded from my X52 to a Honeycomb but don't have rudder pedals yet.  TBM now turns like a 747!

Flyinion, I also have a X52 & the Honeycomb, So I use the X52 for throttle and have mapped a rotary axis on the X52 to control the Rudder/steering, works good on the ground.

13 hours ago, Waldo Pepper said:

the 208 has a spoileron bug that gives the 208 an invisible speed brake it's not supposed to have

My gosh, that was introduced in FSX if not FS2004!!

Try bring yoke aft. Then hold left/right toe brake, then momentary apply power. It should turn very easy

7 hours ago, bloxboy said:

Flyinion, I also have a X52 & the Honeycomb, So I use the X52 for throttle and have mapped a rotary axis on the X52 to control the Rudder/steering, works good on the ground.

Yeah I have thought about doing that as well.  I think I forgot because I got sidetracked trying to map the rotary axes to the left/right brake axes.  It didn't work very well, and I forgot to try putting it to rudder.  My worry though is if I actually map something to the rudder then "autorudder" won't work (assuming it even does now) and I don't see that rotary being a very good idea to use in flight.