Just now, quantumpion said:

Does this fix the plane immediately veering hard left running off the runway even with full right rudder applied on takeoff? 😵

Your doing something wrong or using a wrong runway with a to strong crosswind.

If it did what you say all the time we would not get Vids like this.

Hope it help? 

 

Ah maybe it was the full hard right aileron that I was missing.

 

57 minutes ago, quantumpion said:

Does this fix the plane immediately veering hard left running off the runway even with full right rudder applied on takeoff? 😵

There was no fixing needed. The aircraft only suffered from some lateral instability when horizontal which has been mostly cured (what I call floating).

Taking off the Spit off the ground is a matter of practice, a lot or practice, and understanding what is going on. It is a delicate mix of several successive or simultaneous moves. You will learn faster if you understand what is going on. The powerful engine torque trying to roll the aircraft on herself from the start and the wind from the propeller (prop wash) pushing asymmetrically on the rudder when there is a little speed.. 

Do your practice without crosswind. And put the aircraft nose to face the wind.

Few tips :

You need to have the joystick full aft at the start of the roll and gently pushing it forward when you have a little speed to help the lift (the effect of the wind rolling over the wing).

Have the elevator trim nose up one notch (look at the gauge on the front panel, bottom left)

Trim the rudder to the right (6), and  be ready to dance on the rudder pedals when the aircraft starts to drift, gently but firmly. Careful not to overreact.

Be ready to keep the wing from dropping with the aileron, specially when the nose drops. Gently. No overreaction.

Apply  the power slowly but resolutely (a boost of 6 is generally enough, 8 when the runway is short, more is calling for trouble - I use 8). You never start with full power and the brakes on. 

The aircraft will fly off the ground at about 120 mph, do not try to force her in the air.

Practice, practice, practice. I am no pilot but this is what I've learned through tens of take off on this particular aircraft. 

 A last thing, your experience may vastly vary according to the controllers you have. I use a Warthog HOTAS and a pair of MFG pedals.  My tips may not work for another setup. Using a twisting joystick would be a nightmare I suppose.

 

 

 

Edited May 24, 20215 yr by Dominique_K

Flying these warbirds, pretty much any of them, is like riding a lively horse (happy days) you have to know what it's going to do before IT knows what it's going to do. Otherwise you're sitting in a puddle!

This Spitfire isn't bad. Not quite as dangerous as a DCS Spit. Nice sounds. Worth £19 of anyone's money.

EDIT: Like a horse, it appreciates 'soft hands'.

Edited May 24, 20215 yr by Ron Attwood

2 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

 

There was no fixing needed. The aircraft only suffered from some lateral instability when horizontal which has been mostly cured (what I call floating).

Taking off the Spit off the ground is a matter of practice, a lot or practice, and understanding what is going on. It is a delicate mix of several successive or simultaneous moves. You will learn faster if you understand what is going on. The powerful engine torque trying to roll the aircraft on herself from the start and the wind from the propeller (prop wash) pushing asymmetrically on the rudder when there is a little speed.. 

Do your practice without crosswind. And put the aircraft nose to face the wind.

Few tips :

You need to have the joystick full aft at the start of the roll and gently pushing it forward when you have a little speed to help the lift (the effect of the wind rolling over the wing).

Have the elevator trim nose up one notch (look at the gauge on the front panel, bottom left)

Trim the rudder to the right (6), and  be ready to dance on the rudder pedals when the aircraft starts to drift, gently but firmly. Careful not to overreact.

Be ready to keep the wing from dropping with the aileron, specially when the nose drops. Gently. No overreaction.

Apply  the power slowly but resolutely (a boost of 6 is generally enough, 8 when the runway is short, more is calling for trouble - I use 8). You never start with full power and the brakes on. 

The aircraft will fly off the ground at about 120 mph, do not try to force her in the air.

Practice, practice, practice. I am no pilot but this is what I've learned through tens of take off on this particular aircraft. 

 A last thing, your experience may vastly vary according to the controllers you have. I use a Warthog HOTAS and a pair of MFG pedals.  My tips may not work for another setup. Using a twisting joystick would be a nightmare I suppose.

The only thing to add to that is make sure your dont have a strong crosswind.

Dont be put off if you crash a lot on takeoff at first. 

When you get it right its a wonderful feeling. Its also very addictive.

Landing.

She now bleeds off speed fast, target around 80-85 mph over the tresh hold, target landing speed 65-70, try your best to make a 3 point landing, once landed, pull full back on stick. Landing is really not that hard, unless your to fast.

Overall a much improved model, well done FlyingIron! :)

What I always wonder: with a behaviour like this on take off and landing - and I dont doubt it is rather well modelled - didn't they trash their planes by the dozen during training flights?

But then even the greenest recruite has probably a deeper understanding of such planes than I do...

Cheers!

Took her for a spin tonight and it’s now much easier to land but still tricky unless you do your homework!

2 hours ago, Sailor512 said:

What I always wonder: with a behaviour like this on take off and landing - and I dont doubt it is rather well modelled - didn't they trash their planes by the dozen during training flights?

Not as many as you might suppose, and especially by the time the Mark IX was going into service, which was 1941, when there was less urgency in the training of pilots. And of course, pretty much everything was a taildragger in those days, so it was the norm to learn on them. There was a pretty good chance that you'd have about 100 or more hours on taildraggers, including some reasonably powerful ones by the time you got anywhere near a Spitfire cockpit.

Typically, a prospective pilot would learn on the DH Tiger Moth, unless they were sent to the US or Canada to learn, in which case they'd most often use the Boeing Stearman, and this was essentially similar to a PPL course, so the vast majority of pilots would get at least 40 hours on these aeroplanes and often considerably more than that, usually more like 80 hours, especially if training in the US, since the weather was normally a lot better for flight training in the US than it was in the UK.

After that initial pilot training, if they were in North America, they would then train on the North American AT6 Texan (aka Harvard when in RAF usage), whereas in the UK other Commonwealth pilot training countries such as South Africa, they would use the Miles Magister and the Miles Master. If after passing on these, and they were deemed to be a suitable fighter pilot candidate, they would then be sent to an O.T.U. Typically, if your surname began with a letter from the first half of the alphabet, your were sent to a Spitfire O.T.U. and if your surname began with a letter from the last half of the alphabet, you went to Hurricanes, although in early 1941, regardless of this, you might learn on a Hurricane anyway even at a Spitfire O.T.U. because Spitfires were in fairly short supply, and then if you got posted to a Spitfire squadron, they'd give you a bit of practice on a Spitfire when you got there.

You might be surprised to know that lots of pilots actually preferred the Hurricane, one RAF Hurricane squadron's pilots even lodged an official protest when they learned that they were to be re-equipped with the Spitfire. The Hurricane was much better in ground handling, which is why it, rather than the Spitfire, was sent to France in 1940, and it had a better forward view when taxying since you could even stand up in the cockpit when doing so. For the most part it could hold its own against the bf109 and it actually had a better firing pattern than the Spitfire because unlike the Spitfires widely spaced guns, the Hurricane's guns were closely grouped together, which concentrated the damage it could do if your shots were on target. If it was shot at, it could usually withstand a lot more battle damage than a Spitfire as well, and it was usually a bit easier to repair too. It was also much better in a belly landing, offering far greater protection to the pilot in such circumstances.

At most O.T.U.s the Spitfires they had were somewhat war-weary Mark I and Mark IIs which had come from combat squadrons, and of course front line squadrons do not dispose of their best aeroplanes, so these were often a bit battered, but still serviceable. However, this meant they were not typically equipped with the most powerful Merlin engines, and the engines that they did have were probably not putting out the horsepower they had been doing when new. So for your first flights, you'd be in a Spitfire which exhibited a lot less prop torque than a Mark IX.

At the O.T.U.s, pilot trainees would be checked out on Magisters and Masters and after perhaps a couple of hours with an instructor, if they deemed the trainee okay, which they almost certainly would be since they'd already either trained on these or on the AT6, they'd get sent to have a go in a Spitfire. The Master had pretty similar flight characteristics to the Spitfire, so it was less of a shock than we might suppose. However, things were pretty strict at the training units, with most of the instructors having served in combat, so they didn't suffer fools gladly. There was a rigorous system of fines in place for infractions, such as taxying with your flaps down which would get you a Five Shillings fine, and overheating your engine, again a Five Shillings fine and so on. Since this fund of fines was shared out amongst the instructors and occasionally the ground crews too, they were all keen on making sure it was applied, so everyone was watching for such misdemeanours.

Prior to this first go in a Spitfire, trainees were taken over to a Spitfire up on trestles to be shown how to operate the landing gear, which might be powered or might possibly be one of the hand-pumped ones if it was a Mark I. After managing their first successful flight in a Spitfire, trainees were then given training on various things with a number of flights, such as R/T procedures for interceptions, navigation, gunnery and so on. After all that they would go into a pilot 'pool' to await posting, so whilst they were there awaiting that, they could practice more on some aeroplanes available at the pools. This meant that by late 1941 when the Mark IX was equipping most RAF squadrons, newly arrived pilots to squadrons were usually fairly decent flyers with quite a few hours on Spitfires and they would then be brought up to speed on improved tactics.

Thanks a lot @Chock
I was rather hoping you might see this.

Always amazing how much you know about this stuff! :)

I did know about the Tiger Moth for training, but not about all the rest. Sounds like a fairly well designed system to me.

 

HEADS UP

New email and a new version

1.0.2rc2

Edited May 25, 20215 yr by Nyxx

1 hour ago, Sailor512 said:

Thanks a lot @Chock
I was rather hoping you might see this.

Always amazing how much you know about this stuff! 🙂

I did know about the Tiger Moth for training, but not about all the rest. Sounds like a fairly well designed system to me.

 

If you want a really good book about the initial pilot training in the US, for a guy who actually ended up flying bombers and fighter bombers, I can recommend this book. It's a great read and very funny, he gets in loads of trouble, it's extremely entertaining.

Edited May 25, 20215 yr by Chock

1 hour ago, Nyxx said:

HEADS UP

New email and a new version

1.0.2rc2

I recieved an email last night, is this an update on yesterdays initial update..I had just ignored it as i thought it was just a late email.

Noticed yesterday the Gear wouldn't go up for some reason, maybe it's a Hotfix for that (unless i was doing something wrong)

Pretty sure that's a revised update. The file name is different. Probably a minor tweak.

If you find the gear won't travel, give the engine some revs to get the hydraulic pressure up.

Edited May 25, 20215 yr by Chock

Its a new version/HF

Just done a flight from Split to Tivat. 

We now have another fuel tank, Horrible looking, external belly tank. Take all the fuel out before flight.

Also I saw something that really make me smile. 

My Temps were getting hot so I opened my RAD FLAP, temps start to fall after a bit and I saw heat blur coming from the rad's. Wonderfull

Hard to see in a screenshot but when moving its easy to see.

I love this version so much.

 

Edited May 25, 20215 yr by Nyxx