posted 05-23- 01:02 AM
Spanky here... Ok I know this can get heated, The only reason I bring this up is cause I'm reading a book that talks about taking off and landing some of the major warbirds.
Ok This is about the Bf109e.
"The Bf 109s narrow stalky undercarriage was the feature that incurred critisism of the aircraft throughtout its life. The toe-out of the mainwheels gave rise to some instability while taxying and the fishtailing necesary for the pilot to see forward ovver and round the nose imposed a heavy strain on the oleos leg. The marked outward cant of these oleos demanded a finely judged kick-off of drift during landing, other wise the Bf 109 was liable to ground loop and almost certainly an oleo would shear."
What do they mean by kick-off while landing?
"taxying, like so many other wartime fighters, necessitated contant fishtailing (a rather awkward manuvery in the fb109 owing to that stalky undercarriage) using the powerful toe operated differential wheelbrakes.
Take-off was brisk and , owing to the tendency to swing to port, it was customary to raise the tail as quickly as posssible, not only to gain rudder effect but so as to see the runway over the long nose. It was also advisable to allow the Bf 109 to fly itself off the ground, as attempting to pull it up too early might result in the wing slats opening unevenly,. At about 100mph the wheels would be retracted"
So as I see it part of our problems with ground handeling is that we need intependent brakes. Don't brush this off please. Cause almost all the other planes used this too for ground handleing, How can we expect to taxi our planes like they did in the war without the steering we need? That tail wheel or rudder never has enough bite.
Onto landing.
"Unfortunatly on touchdown the lift did not spill quickly and it was fairly difficult to avoid some ballooning, particularly on uneven groud. However once the tail wheeel was firmly on the ground it was possible to brake quite hardshly without fear of nosign over. Once again it was essential to start fishtailing at the end of the landing round in order to see beyond the nose. As previosusly remarked the undercarriage was not exactly robust and many aircraft came to grief during landing."
So as you can see the bounce on landing ISN'T exactly non-realistic. And having independend wheel brakes could help us avoid the run off to the runway and into the buildings on landing. after slowing down to the point where the rudder lost its effect.
So , all that bouncing did happen on landing. And we need independent brakes.
One more thought on this subject.
Some times people have problems taking off because of wind. Well what do you do when your taking off for real?
You fly INTO the wind. In some of the missions we play the maker hasn't done that. they have the aircraft take off from the wrong runway. Pick a wind direction and then pick the closest runway for all the planes to take off from. That could help alot. I'm not saying they always had a runway to do that but it could really help out online.
Lastly I think we need to edit a couple airfields.
those ones with buildings not even a fighters wingspan away from the runway are just plain dumb. I don't think any real airstrips where like that (correct me if i'm wrong) and it just adds to the hassle of taking off.
Anyway just some thoughts.
Lets add some independent wheel brakes and start desiging missions with the wind in mind instead of just an after thought.
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posted 05-23- 01:02 AM
posted 05-23- 01:08 AM
posted 05-23- 02:42 AM
Thank you again Spanky ! See you on the runway.
