Aircraft dropping from the sky

[dtrfish]

Hi guys - hopefully you can sort a small problem I've been having...

When using a couple of my addon aircraft - specifically the UKMIL Harrier and the Aero L39 - the start of the flight is announced by them dropping onto their parking place from a few feet in the air. With the Harrier, it's not such a problem - presumably thanks to its tougher undercarriage, all that happens is a thud and screech of tyres. The L39 isn't quite as durable, though - the impact collapses either one of the mainwheels or the nosewheel unless I turn all damage off!

I've scoured info on contact points, but without extending the wheel contact points downwards so the aircraft looks like it's hovering, I haven't found any solutions. Any ideas? I should say that this happens no matter which airport I start from (some of my terrain is nonstandard) so the problem seems to be aircraft-related.

Actually, while I think about it, is there any way to increase the power of an aircraft's wheelbrakes? I also have a few aircraft whose brakes aren't powerful enough to hold them stationary even when the throttle is at idle. It makes queuing for takeoff kind of interesting...

Thanks in advance!

[Apex]

I seem to recall having this floating drop thing with FS2002, but it was a long time back, so don't remember any real details.

[JerryH]

I'm quite sure you can fix the crashing problem by revising one or two values in the aircraft.cfg file. Under the section named Contact_Points, the following need attention:

static_cg_height =
static_pitch =

The current values are where the aircraft is initially positioned before any of the contact points are used. Experiment first with the height value -- later you can fine tune both numbers until you're satisfied.

Please let us know if this was helpful

Regards,
JerryH

[dtrfish]

Thanks JerryH, that was spot on!

I dropped the Harrier by 0.5 and the L39 by 1.0 - now the Harrier sits flush and the L39 just bobs its nose slightly. Now I can live out the fantasy of back when I saw actual L39s for sale on iwantoneofthose.com!

[Apex]

And thanks from me too, I've always wondered what those two lines were about.