Piper J3 & Groundloops

[thrakete 0]

We had a string going on this a day or two ago, but I lost it, so this is just to pass along some new information.I have a pretty good drawing of the J3 tailwheel assembly. It was a swiveled wheel controlled by a bungee cord on each side. Therefore it would normally return to the straight ahead alignment position on its own. However, if you loaded it too hard to one side, it could lock sideways. This might even require getting out and centering it manually in the real airplane.There was apparently no simple way to duplicate the self centering in flight sim, so they just gave it 60 degrees (to each side) of free swivel. This makes it pretty much uncontrollable in any wind. I found that by limiting this angle to about 10 to 15 degrees, I could handle it in a moderate (for a 1200 pound gross weight airplane), crosswind; not over about 5 knots, and still steer the airplane on the ground. To reset the tailwheel swivel angle to what works for you, make a backup copy of the aircraft.cfg file, then open the original and go to item 7 in line 1 of the contact points. You will see a number of 60. Just change this to 15 (or your preference) and save the file.Another note on handling the FSX J3 is that in any crosswind on the ground you have to use aileron as well as rudder input to hold your course, or it will drop a wing into the ground. Know your relative wind! As in any taildragger, when landing, once you have it on the ground with the tailwheel down, keep the stick back so it can't leave the ground again on it's own.Hope this helps, and enjoy the J3. I think it is one of the most fun planes to fly in FSX once you learn its peculiarities.Regards,Thrakete