People still don't understand how to fly tail draggers

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

Must say, for a tail dragger, the Aircraft Heaven C140 is surprisingly easy to land compared to a lot of other tail draggers in the sim.

Does that  make it more realistic or just dumbed down ? Absolutely no idea - but it is fun to fly.

 

[mazex 419]

On 7/9/2021 at 2:12 PM, Ixoye said:

I have no major problems flying a taildragger, but I do not like them, mainly because they give such poor visibility at taxis and takeoffs.

Well - that's an important thing to simulate to get it right. It gets a lot more realistic in VR where you can lean to the side while zig zagging. 

I once flew with a very nice old ME 109 pilot in his own plane (a Grob 109). His heart was showing signs of age so the doctors had withdrawn his license. I did the takeoff and he flew in the air. When coming in to land he asked me to take the controls. I said why don't you do the landing? He laughed and said - no, after all these years I still get a tiny bit uneasy with landings and formally you have to do the landing as my license is void. Imagine that nose extending a couple of meters more ahead blocking all vision in landing attitude and 3 tonnes of weight with the same wing area... Then add some Mustangs and Spitfires that roam the airfield waiting for, slow landing aircraft. It got me thinking doing that landing with him smiling by my side. I don't think I ever concentrated more to get the perfect landing accept on my first solo 🙂

Having a beer with him in the evening he told me he started flying operationally in late 1944 as an 18 year old. He had a bit more than 100 hours in the book when going on his first combat mission. Did you get any kills I asked and he laughed quite long. No - I was in a number of dogfights that where totally confusing with aircraft everywhere but most of the time nowhere. I did fire in the general direction of what I think was an enemy aircraft once but nowhere near. Most of us rookies used to fire the guns in the air as it would get noticed if you landed with full ammo load. We could not do a straight roll right and had full focus on how to fly those beasts... 

But the thing that scared us most and killed more than half of us rookies was taking off and landing those late war monster 109s, on airfields that where patched up every other day from bombing raids. Even on a perfect airfield it was a nightmare... 

[Dillon 2,197]

5 hours ago, mazex said:

Well - that's an important thing to simulate to get it right. It gets a lot more realistic in VR where you can lean to the side while zig zagging. 

I once flew with a very nice old ME 109 pilot in his own plane (a Grob 109). His heart was showing signs of age so the doctors had withdrawn his license. I did the takeoff and he flew in the air. When coming in to land he asked me to take the controls. I said why don't you do the landing? He laughed and said - no, after all these years I still get a tiny bit uneasy with landings and formally you have to do the landing as my license is void. Imagine that nose extending a couple of meters more ahead blocking all vision in landing attitude and 3 tonnes of weight with the same wing area... Then add some Mustangs and Spitfires that roam the airfield waiting for, slow landing aircraft. It got me thinking doing that landing with him smiling by my side. I don't think I ever concentrated more to get the perfect landing accept on my first solo 🙂

Having a beer with him in the evening he told me he started flying operationally in late 1944 as an 18 year old. He had a bit more than 100 hours in the book when going on his first combat mission. Did you get any kills I asked and he laughed quite long. No - I was in a number of dogfights that where totally confusing with aircraft everywhere but most of the time nowhere. I did fire in the general direction of what I think was an enemy aircraft once but nowhere near. Most of us rookies used to fire the guns in the air as it would get noticed if you landed with full ammo load. We could not do a straight roll right and had full focus on how to fly those beasts... 

But the thing that scared us most and killed more than half of us rookies was taking off and landing those late war monster 109s, on airfields that where patched up every other day from bombing raids. Even on a perfect airfield it was a nightmare... 

Thank you!  This is one of the many stories I've read/heard first hand that lead me to realize along time ago that operating these birds is not supposed to be easy.  Takeoffs and Landings alone was a challenge let alone the mission including bombing and dogfighting.  It's not supposed to be easy, it wasn't easy in the real world, and expectations around here need to be adjusted as such.  The same goes for any tail dragger.  Some are not as difficult as others but to expect no challenge in operation is unrealistic.  Although not perfect Asobo is on the right track here.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Dillon

[Bobsk8 12,745]

On 7/10/2021 at 2:40 AM, jcomm said:

Taildragger wise, I'm afraid both MSFS and XP still leave a LOT to be desired compared to their military counterparts, being it IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad or DCS...

There are obvious problems with the modelling of ground physics in MFS, and they've been addressed by the dev team, so we can at least hope there will be some fix one day... Meanwhile, try to do your best, but bear in mind it'll have a a lot less than expected to do with RL taildragger handling than we would like it to...

It's also true about other types of aircraft. IRL we really have to "dance" on the rudder at times, and on the stick too, specially in windy / gusting conditions. Do that in MFS and your aircraft will look like a "crazy snake" 🙂

From a glider pilot perspective I'd say control surfaces come alive a bit too early in MFS. IRL when taking off under windy conditions, or at the final stages of the rollout after landing, there will be a lot of lag and inefficiency in control response. Very wide control inputs ( dancing ) specially on rudder are sometimes required and if I try to mimic that in MFS, the result will be laughable because, at least the rudder, becomes very effective ( I'd say way too effective ) as soon as you move from standing still.

I find that many problems in flight control, can be managed by spending some time tweaking  things like sensitivity in MSFS 2020. For instance, I am flying the DC6 now and I have dialed the rudder sensitivity way down, to keep from S turning on the runway when landing. 

[jcomm 5,939]

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

I find that many problems in flight control, can be managed by spending some time tweaking  things like sensitivity in MSFS 2020. For instance, I am flying the DC6 now and I have dialed the rudder sensitivity way down, to keep from S turning on the runway when landing. 

Dear Bob,

unfortunately we will have to wait while ASOBO finds the time to address a problem with any aircraft in MFS - ground friction.

As it is right now the parameter that controls side friction is binary ( 0 / 1 ) and it commutes between these values for instance in the default Pitts at 30 knot gs... Bellow that your tail wheel is perfectly glued to the tarmac, above that it is eased... making that weird and sometimes uncontrollable veer to the left happen...

They say they inherited this from FSX, and I believe Sebastien commented in one of the online sessions that it will get addressed when possible in future updates, but not soon, I guess...

[mtr75 653]

The thing to remember about taildraggers is that the little wheel always wants to be in front. 

[tailspin45 20]

Perhaps this will help some of the folks here that struggle with reality.

https://tailspinstales.blogspot.com/2009/11/taming-taildragger.html

Edited July 13, 2021 by tailspin45

[Bosco19 198]

Most of my PP flying career was spent in tail draggers - both factory and home built. I can't honestly say they are well-implemented in MSFS. I doubt they ever could be. It's still satisfying to fly them in the sim though. In RL their "inconveniences" quirks, and difficulties are part of what makes you proud to be qualified to fly them. You either find them fascinating and challenging - or you don't. People who fly tail draggers aren't more macho. They're just well-trained in the type.

[Rumbler 0]

Are there any tail draggers that you can actually ground loop in the sim?  I can punch my rudders full deflection and can always bring it back in all the stock tail draggers and the Stearman - momentum and ground friction does not seem to be modeled very well.  

[Fielder 3,681]

On 7/10/2021 at 6:58 AM, Manny said:

Yes. I have 47 hours total in tailwheels. I have flown the Citabria, American decathlon and the  Stearman.  That's why I am confident when I say it doesn't taxi well.

Its not that hard.

I have not ever ground looped it.

In the sim, Its rare that I Taxi without ground looping it. 🙂

The Corsair would never have been approved for WWII duty if it was that difficult to take off and land like the MilViz version.

MilViz wanted to make a fun experience so they over did the characteristics reported by WWII flyers. It makes for more fun, a better game. But it is also less realistic, less like a sim. More like a game. Less like a simulation.

[Dillon 2,197]

4 hours ago, Fielder said:

The Corsair would never have been approved for WWII duty if it was that difficult to take off and land like the MilViz version.

MilViz wanted to make a fun experience so they over did the characteristics reported by WWII flyers. It makes for more fun, a better game. But it is also less realistic, less like a sim. More like a game. Less like a simulation.

Not sure what your talking about here but the Milviz Corsair is actually very easy to takeoff and land if you know what your doing.  Watch the real world videos I posted or the Milviz tutorials on YouTube.  People still making statements like this clearly aren’t paying attention and learning.  Concerning real world I’m not sure all I can say is applying real world techniques seems to work very well.  Go figure that one if the sim version is so far off base.

[Doug47 574]

On 7/11/2021 at 7:29 AM, Dillon said:

My comments are about all the Carenado haters who put down this developer when a new release hits the market and these people jump to criticize it before even trying it.  It's like the Arrow stigma and/or missteps in past versions of Flight Simulator can never be forgiven.  It was amazing to see the 180 degree turn many of them did in the forums with the Seneca as more people were getting it and commented how solid of a release it was.  Most of us are names in the forums and I haven't been watching you specifically to differentiate so sorry about the perceived generalization but the negativity towards Carenado is getting old. 

Easy to dislike them when the majority of their releases over the years are well below par. Everyone knows that. 

So your beef is with the carenado haters, not the fact the they can’t model a tail dragger well nor that MSFS is realistic in this area? 

[Bobsk8 12,745]

20 hours ago, Rumbler said:

Are there any tail draggers that you can actually ground loop in the sim?  I can punch my rudders full deflection and can always bring it back in all the stock tail draggers and the Stearman - momentum and ground friction does not seem to be modeled very well.  

If A2A ever releases the Texan for MSFS, you will see a ground loop for many landings.

[vgbaron 3,647]

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

If A2A ever releases the Texan for MSFS, you will see a ground loop for many landings.

Oh boy! I had less trouble in the real T6 many years ago. The A2A bird keeps you on your toes for sure!

[Bobsk8 12,745]

3 minutes ago, vgbaron said:

Oh boy! I had less trouble in the real T6 many years ago. The A2A bird keeps you on your toes for sure!

On half second after touchdown,, and  let the  nose shift 3  degrees, and you are in for a wild ride.