F3 & F8 Meteors and AH Spitfire Mk1

[investdude]

A big thank you to Morton for uploading the recent Meteor F3 & F8 and the AH Spitfire Mk 1 packages.

[ozzy72]

Are you locking the tail-wheel before landing and take-off in the Spit? That does make things a lot easier and prevent ground looping quite a bit

[Hagar]

Are you locking the tail-wheel before landing and take-off in the Spit? That does make things a lot easier and prevent ground looping quite a bit

I didn't know the Spitfire had a lockable tailwheel. :-/

I've not read that the Spitfire was prone to ground looping on landing. At least, no more so than any other taildragger.

[ozzy72]

Real Spitfires don't Doug, however in CFS I found this seemed to work and smooth out take-off and landings. I discovered it by accident way back in FS2k2 when I was trying to improve my carrier landings without a hook.

[investdude]

Oz, how do you lock the tail wheel?  There's no option under Assignments for that.  And nothing on the panel to enable you to do that.  I remember on the DC-3 (I have 1200 hours on the real airplane, last flight was in 1970) when you lined up on the runway you would let the airplane roll ahead a few feet to straighten out the tail wheel then use the lever underneath the pedestal, I can't remember if you pulled it back or pushed it forward to lock the tail wheel, one or the other.  It certainly helped to keep the aircraft straight (until the tail came up).

[ozzy72]

Maybe I'm mixing up my CFSs. I was sure there was a setting in CFS2 for it. I'll re-install and take a look. Maybe I'm being blonde...

[investdude]

I've sort of fixed the problem.  Under section 1004 in the air file I changed Landing Gear to steerable - true and this helps quite a bit.  I can now land and come to a stop usually, without ground looping.

[investdude]

Found the definitive answer on the CFS2 Common Problems sticky thread.  Reduced the tail wheel swivel angle under Contact Points in the aircraft.cfg file and now the aircraft can be kept straight on landing without excessive swinging.