My tires are too flat!

[homebrewer]

Below is a picture of the wheels on the Stratojet Merlin. How do I raise them up a bit so they look better? The front one is OK with me, so I have not included it. If you could, would you please exactly point out the coordinates or whatever it is I manipulate to do what I desire, like make bold the one in question, et cetera? Thank you very much.

[Hagar]

You need to tweak the vertical position of the main wheels. Open any default Aircraft.cfg in Notepad to see a key to what the [contact_points] entries do.

       //0  Class
       //1  Longitudinal Position        (feet)
       //2  Lateral Position             (feet)
       //3  Vertical Position            (feet)
       //4  Impact Damage Threshold      (Feet Per Minute)
       //5  Brake Map                   (0=None, 1=Left, 2=Right)
       //6  Wheel Radius                (feet)
       //7  Steer Angle                         (degrees)
       //8  Static Compression           (feet)  (0 if rigid)
       //9  Max/Static Compression Ratio
       //10 Damping Ratio               (0=Undamped, 1=Critically Damped)
       //11 Extension Time              (seconds)
       //12 Retraction Time             (seconds)
       //13 Sound Type

point.0 will usually be the nose or tail wheel. point.1 & 2 will be the mains. The entries are counted from the = sign starting from 0. Class 1 is a wheel. The vertical position entry in the example below will be the one shown in Bold. The negative value defines the position of the wheel below the reference point or virtual C of G. To raise the aircraft try increasing the value by small increments until you get it how you want it. 0.1 is roughly 1 inch.

[contact_points]
point.0 = 1,  0.48,  0.00, -3.58, 1500, 0, 0.5, 22.0, 0.3, 2.5, 0.7, 0.0, 0.0, 0
point.1 = 1, -5.02, -4.50, -3.33, 2500, 1, 0.5,  0.0, 0.3, 2.5, 0.7, 0.0, 0.0, 2
point.2 = 1, -5.02,  4.50, -3.33, 2500, 2, 0.5,  0.0, 0.3, 2.5, 0.7, 0.0, 0.0, 3

[Brett_Henderson]

**this started out as a simple response.. but one thing lead to another, and I got carried away ...lol

[homebrewer]

Thank You to both Hagar and Brett for helping me adjust the contact points of the Merlin's landing gear. The default for all three points was -6.55. I changed the mains to -6.78 and the nose to -6.65 and now my tires look really good. I'm almost inclined to go around and change others as my time permits.



I really enjoy the Merlin. It is one fast machine, both vertically and horizontally. What I need to know now is how to pop the engine hatches. The instructions say to do a Shift+E+2, but that does not work for me for some reason. It opens the canopy, but not the engine bays. Any ideas, anyone?

[Hagar]

I'm downloading the Merlin now to check it out. To open those hatches try pressing Shift + E first, then release & quickly press 2. That's the 2 on the keyboard, not the Num Pad.

Brett posted a nice little tute there. I didn't cover all that as I didn't want to complicate things too much to start with. I used to do a lot of this at one time but I've forgotten most of it now. One little tip on those static_pitch & static_cg_height entries he mentioned. These define the ground position of the aircraft when it first loads & also in Slew Mode. To check if they need tweaking toggle to Slew mode with the Y key.

[commoner]

Hi HB...as Hagar says it's Shift+E first for the canopy, then release those and press 2 to toggle the engine bay covers...BUT don't rush pressing 2, just give it a second or two........2 will continue to toggle these engine canopies until you use the keyboard for something else...then you have to do the Shift +E again to get the engines open...

Hope that helps...commoner



...SEE my flat tyres........not had chance to do that yet..

[homebrewer]

Thanks, gents!