Simviation Forums

Hi guys,

After a complete re-install last week I'm having some little problems controling aircraft. Most of them are already solved so no major problems. Only a tiny one with the DC-3. As it has a tailwheel it is hard to taxi, using only differential brakes to steer. I had something changed to the Aircraft.cfg before but I can't remember what. The DC-3 could be turned using rudder only. I have a third part C-47/DC-3 that can do this but I don't want to swap the cfg's if you know what I mean. Any ideas where I have to look and what I have to change to the original Aircraft.cfg?

Thanks in advance,

Crash

There's a fix for it ......... only problem is I can't remember where it is ....  ::)

Silly idea but have you tried unlocking the tailwheel in the Sim?

I did unlock the tailwheel and it's all over the place. Almost impossible to keep a straight line, turning results in a 360/540 degree turn (well almost). Locking the tailwheel results in not steering at all.

Crash

I've answered this question so many times that I've saved a text file so sorry about the 'style'

The main problem with tail draggers is that designers, in an attempt to be 'realistic' make the tail wheel castor through 360 deg.

This in fact is totally unrealistic for the sim which cannot handle it. Here's a snippet from the contact points section of a DC3 taken from my folder.

[contact_points]
point.0=1.000, -34.390, 0.000, -1.611, 1574.000, 0.000, 0.995, 90.000, 0.000, 0.000, 0.000, 0.000, 0.000, 0.000, 0.000, 0.000
point.1=1.000, 2.630...etc

The 90 in red is the steering angle. Some designers make this figure 180 for tail draggers and the plane is virtually uncontrollable on the ground.

Even 90 is quite a big figure. If you set it to 60 or 70 the plane will still turn very well and will be nicely steerable.

I've found that steering just using brakes is workable, if not a little more demanding.

Some taildraggers, like the new Beech D18S have to be steered with differential brakes as the tail-wheel castors freely, but can't be steered. I actually find it to be pretty easy steering like that.

Thanks Rollerball, it worked. Tacit, I don't mind using the diff. brakes to steer, the DC-3 was just out of control using them. Thanks to Rollerball's trick things are going smoothely again.

Crash

As far as I'm concerned; Rollerball's explanation should be stickied somewhere. BY FAR it's the most-used adjustment to the Aircraft.cfg file made.
Honestly; it's always confused me - the folks that produce all these magnificent aircraft (and the default DC-3 is one of the best, IMO; surpassing even a lot of the addons out there) do great work - but how do they miss the taxi characteristics? It happens so often - don't they test everything out before packaging the plane?

Not a beef; just  bit of confusion.

In the case of the excellent Beech 18, the designers have included a line in the Air.cfg file giving you this option.   From memory I think the relevant figure changes from 180 to 45, which is exactly the type of adjustment Rollerball was suggesting you make.    It makes a huge difference...

I think, however, that many simmers, especially newbies, wouldn't have a clue about whats in the Air.cfg file and it's probably just as well they don't.    I suspect that 80% of our readers wouldn't be seen dead in a taildragger anyway, while I have a huge collection of them.

A lot of old taildraggers like the DC3 have free-castering, non-steerable tailwheels in real life, as well as the sim. It's true that it doesn't work very well in FS (especially that damn Ford!!), but with very light tapping on the brakes and very careful use of the throttle, it's do-able. With the right setup, you could do as real-life DC3 and trimotor drivers do: use differential throttle as well as brakes.  But then there's the trouble of seeing where you're going...
I really don't find rudder very useful at all for steering the DC3 in FS until you're at an airspeed which allows the tail to come up...it's too heavy for a blast from the prop to force the tail around when that wheel is on the ground.

Also, there is a big difference when using different controls. I use a CH yoke and pedals; before I used a Sidewinder with twist-grip rudder. The CH pedals have (progressive) toebrakes and this makes it all so much easier.
With a lot of add-ons it is very easy to notice what the developers where using. Most of the time this seems to be a yoke and pedals/toebrakes so no problem here. Joysticks without rudder or pedals are really different.
We'll have to get used to this I guess, and apply e tweak every now and then.

Cheers
Arjan