Simviation Forums

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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..

Thanks, gents!