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Showing content with the highest reputation on 12/30/2016 in all areas

  1. Glad some of my ramblings have been of assistance, chaps. Now for the hard part... LANDING Hands down the trickiest module to land cleanly in DCS, with the 109 coming in a VERY close 2nd. However it can be done, and done so consistently. Practise, practise, practise. However, you need to have the correct procedure to practise with and at the moment whilst you'll probably being doing the right things you'll be doing them at the wrong time (mostly too soon). I shall elaborate. Part 1: The Prep First off is the approach - the adage goes that a good landing always starts with a good approach. This is doubly true of the DCS Spitty. Coming straight in from a long way out is just making life difficult for yourself; the curved approach give you much better visibility of your runway positioning down to the point at which you flare and cut. Long straight approaches - if done correctly - will hide the runway under that honking great nose and could mean lots of last minute corrections if you find yourself off centreline, with all sorts of potential for over correction and spurious energy in the aeroplane as you try and pull her back to centreline which will only make the flare and cut a more hurried affair, increasing your workload and making an awkward landing all too likely. If on straight in approach you can see the runway all the way in you're coming in damn steep and will make judging the flare all the more difficult. There's a reason that real Spit pilots adopt the curved approach - I would suggest you adopt the same procedure as a matter of course. As shown here from 19:15: Part 2: Touchdown! Many of you will be getting down in one piece (mostly) but having a very alarming experience doing so. Wingtips slapping the tarmac, no particular bias, left or right, but either way you're off in the grass, generally facing the wrong way perhaps with a prop strike and maybe some clipped wings. Sound familiar? Me too. I was having exactly the same as you chaps, until I tried cutting later and flaring at a lower alt; I suspected the wing drop was coming from having too much sink on contact with terra firma and the energy from this, whilst not enough to cause a bounce, was still more than could be absorbed by the u/c. With no airspeed/lift to get back up it threw the load into momentum about the u/c contact points thus one of the wings is thrown down. All this behaviour will be exacerbated if you have any side-slip or side load on the a/c as you touch down. Bootfuls of rudder should not be required at this stage in low cross-wind conditions (check your crosswinds by the way; if you're in a mission where you're trying to land in heavy crosswinds then have a rethink. Trying to run before learning to walk is only going to frustrate you). If you're making large corrections in any plane to get on centreline then GO AROUND. Call it quits and try again. It's that simple. So what's the lesson? Cut later and flare lower. Keep rudder input to a minimum. By deliberately flaring at a lower altitude we reduce the height at which we drop from = less energy. By cutting power later the aircraft settles rather than stalls, thus again reducing sink rate = less energy. The flare itself I make very gently - hence the later power cut - as the low longitudinal stability of the spit and the stick sensitivity makes it easy for the nose to end up higher than desired. Get all this right and you should be rewarded with a gentle settle onto the ground and a satisfying squeal of rubber on asphalt. As you see in the video, my mains touched first followed by the tail wheel a fraction of a second later, so it does not have to be perfect three-point. It's just that the margins are narrow for getting it wrong. Currently your major issues will be flaring too high and cutting too early; just hold off a bit longer on both and it should make life easier. Part 3: The Straight and Narrow You've touched down with no wing drop! Hooray! However, the Spitfire is not yet done trying to find ways to embarrass you and inattentiveness at this stage will end up with you in the grass with some major airframe components likely scattered around you. FLY THE PLANE! You are not done till you're sitting back at the pan with the engine off! All those issues you had at takeoff with directional instability are just waiting to throw you off the runway. Stick back in your lap once you're sure she's down and staying so. Get on the rudder like Michael Flatley (Lord of the Dance/Riverdance for those who need a point of reference) - just avoid brakes! You'll have plenty of airspeed for the rudder to be effective during the early part of the ground roll. Just like takeoff, keep the inputs short and sharp! Adding brakes too soon will throw you into the grass. As you slow you'll start to feel that rudder alone isn't quite cutting the mustard; your inputs to keep her straight will become larger and longer; it's at this point you start bringing in a dab of brakes to help keep her in line. But keep dancing! Finally you'll come to a stop, engine still running, pointing the same way and with all major and minor structures still attached. And it's now that you are allowed to breathe! Congratulations! Flaps away and get out the god-damn way cos someone's likely to be making their final approach and could do without worrying about bumping into you! Getting this right takes practise - it took me a good number of attempts to hit the right formula and get it right more than I got it wrong. However, I'm able to do this consistently now - as long as I concentrate! - so I assure you it's not impossible.
    3 points
  2. Maybe I should 'accidentally' buy the Kurfürst too.. loving the Spitty and have the 190 and P51 already... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    1 point
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