Has anyone actually been able to take off?
Or are the Reno models only functional within the Reno Air Races.
It seems ok until around 30% throttle then insanely goes off to the left. No rudder input can correct.
Am I missing something?
(Besides skill, knowledge etc etc lol ).
I just want to know it isn’t a bug, before I keep trying.
Apologies if this has been asked. I did try searching couldn’t find a sausage. Nor a Goldfinger.
Moved to #self-service:aircraft-systems
Give yourself a break, and take off without Flaps… Makes it a lot less hard… Keep the stick back until you catch some speed and rudder effectiveness comes into play… untill that time, hold on and try to keep the stick back and use the toe brakes to keep that tail in check… i still weave, but alot less than with flaps down. that’s my trick, and well, it’s not working 100%, but hey, at least i can take off.
After you worked that out, you can tell me how to land without bouncing (much), as that’s pretty hard as well. I usually try to keep the airspeed at 110mph as i enter the threshold, then let it bleed off and try to touch the runway before the nose wants to drop on ya… best of luck, Capt’n.
keep any warbirds taildragger the tail is heavy till you feel reaction on ailerons. engine power is your enemy and your friend. first because of torque, recession and p-factor and second because the more power you got the more effective tail controls - elevator and rudder. based on this you can found when and how lift up in different situation weight, ac type, take off type(three legs, two legs after tail up first). practice and minimum knowledge. give some ailerons right it’s will not bad in any way with all that birds, and never lift up tail before you sure air speed and power is enough, you can intuitively drop power but if you drop it too much for lost tail control it will same bad as overpower and lift tail too early… just remember all that birds has to be with heavy tail at low ias. so pull the stick to the end and you will found when you can start to relax the joy to it go forward for tail or all ac(take off from 3 points) go up. and you will found with it how exactly do that
You’re not the only one having issues with it…
Thank you!!! After 20+ disasters! I got airborne, nearly got caught when he nose drops level it wants to steer left.
Seems zero flap makes it doable. Then once airborne had issues getting height. That’s another story.
So zero flaps
Really gentle with the throttle.
Very gentle rudder adjustments
An pray. Lol.
Thanks though that helped.
What a handful. This cant be right. Can it really be such a handful to take off with.
Thanks I’ll need time to digest that. I do want to master it though.
I enjoy it once it’s airborne.
I have P-51 ‘Bunny’ from the Reno pack and it’s also really hard to take off and land. It’s definitely something you have to learn. Hold the stick back, slowly increase throttle, and stay on top of the rudder. Take off gets much easier when you practice doing that. My take offs are solid now compared to when I first bought it. I always do 20% flaps, 20% trim. Flaps do seem a little strange in the p-51 though.
Landing, however, I’m terrible at. I’ve had a couple decent landings but usually I’m all over the place, or I’m short of the runway, or I bounce, or i’m so distracted by dealing with rudder that I hit the brakes too hard and nose over. It’s tough, really tough. But so fun to fly that I just deal with it and hope for the best.
It’s fun to try to master. Things that have helped me are being gentle with addition of power, hold the stick fully back - moving it forward will unlock the tail wheel.
Don’t forget the rudder trim also - it defaults to 5 deg right on takeoff, once you get airborne you will need to recenter it.
Landing is a bit easier in VR, because you can lean your head out the sided of the cockpit and watch the runway to the side instead of straight ahead - this helps a lot.
Keep at it - it’s rewarding when you start nailing them!
Ahhh unlocking the tail wheel is the issue for me I believe.
Just about getting airborne now with zero flaps and holding stick back.
Wonder if it really is so challenging in real life. By contrast other tail draggers are hard but not as bad as the F-51Ds.
Until I asked on here I was about to assume it was bugged and give up. Lol.
See if you can find a YouTube video of a real life take off in a mustang and watch the rudder deflections. You will see they are crazy. This is the same for all high-powered tail draggers. Watch videos of Pitts Specials etc.
I used to hire a Pitts with a friend who could fly it. He was a Hornet instructor in the RAAF. Every time we hired the Pitts he did a bunch of circuits with the instructor first to get his eye back in. I’ve been in it with a few different pilots, and they all brief me to put my feet nowhere near the rudders on take-off or landing. I love doing aerobatics, but the take-off and landing were always terrifying.
Yep, having seen quite a few warbirds take off, i can confirm it’s quite the pedal dance to keep them zooming straight down the runway… i have not been able to do this which such finesse so far myself.
From what i’ve read and heard, it seem that those powerful taildraggers of WW2 can easily twist themselves into the ground by sheer torque alone… Apparently, if you punch the throttle, all yer doing is apparently pushing the nose into the ground in a left downward motion… i’ve never seen this, but i’d take anyone’s word for it, it’s not something i’d want to even do, imagine the cost alone.
Glad to read you did a couple of successfull takeoffs.
Usually after takeoff i retrim the entire airplane whilst gaining more and more speed… the idea actually is to take off from the ground and NOT climb as a jetplane, gain some speed first whilst slowly climbing, trim it up, then pick a certain airspeed and raise the nose and keep that airspeed, making your climb gradual… then when you reached your desired altitude, just pull back the throttle a little, level out and trim out… then enjoy your flight.
Upon landing, the lowering of the gear and the flaps will cause the airplane to pitch down quite a lot, so trim backwards ALOT… even when nicely trimmed, it needs quite a bit of power to keep airspeed up, it will still lower quite alot with the nose upwards and airspeed correct, so the descend path to the airfield can be quite steep. Keeping a bit of throttle in, instead of cutting the throttle as you are about to touch the runway helps a bit in keeping it “within” parameters… close approach at approximately 110 MPH, then upon trying to set her down on the runway, close the throttle gently and let her settle… (which is the hard part, as yer trying to manage everything at once: Aileron, rudder, throttle, airspeed,altitude, attitude… once the nose dumps out of itself you’ve lost too much airspeed before touching down, which will only result in purpoising/ballooning… so up the throttle and go around… you wont have enough runway to stop the bouncing And bringing it to a stop safely.
A little cheat i use every once in a while is: on final flare, bring up the flaps… she’s sure to come down and not back up again… not to be considered in the real world, as physics are a bit more deadly.
Good luck, hope it helps.
P-51s are notoriously difficult in real life, but the obvious difference is that in real life pilots have the rest of their senses to help them know what to do. In the sim, you’re almost exclusively trying to base everything off of sight that lacks the same depth perception of real life. And then you also have the differences of our flight sticks/yokes vs. the real thing.
I personally wish they would’ve made it slightly - just slightly - easier to land the p-51’s. I love a challenge but it’s almost too challenging for my brain to figure out. Even when I rarely get it right I’m not able to replicate the result. The T-6’s on the other hand are a joy to land. I wouldn’t necessarily want the P-51 to be as easy as they are, but definitely a little closer to that. Mainly, I just want to feel like it’s challenging but not like there’s a high likelihood that I’m about to wreck my plane and kill my pilot.
after some practice nobody will still complain about everything we got. some people just hasn’t patience… if it has twist tendence trimm rudder. if wave tendence trimm elevator. in my case only p-40 better be with trimmed rudder. both spitfires, corsair, ah mustang, cool without any trimmers. but p-40… microsoft mustangs need trimmers only for elevator if you don’t want fight with pitch axis on take off. i use twist rudder and sure it’s more convenient and intuitive. but native pedals in any way gives you more precision position of rudder… for me most problem today with that birds it’s microsoft mustangs. because for taxi they required toe brakes. i use simulators from 199x years and never used flight simulator pedals, ever. most time use twist with ms sidewinder precision pro(3d+) then in x65f. even a2a company gives opportunity taxi with only rudders. ah spitfire you can change this by click at glass of brakes pressure gauge. in mustangs from reno i need push - and * buttons for taxi… or buy rudders with toe brakes axis. that i really don’t need. landing and take off just fine. after some crashes of course:)
Is there a difference between the F-51 and P-51?..
The Goldfinger Reno plane seemed impossible until I asked for advice on here.
Landing I expected to be tough, it porpoises like mad or when I do actually land goes nose up and into the ground.
I appreciate that is practice.
It was just the takeoff I didn’t expect to be so hard… o really did think it was broken.
I can no manage a fairly rough looking take off every attempt and occasionally a smooth lift off…
It is technique. .Some of the responses here really have great advice that worked.
Really grateful to all…
I’m not sure how much each Reno P-51/F-51 handling varies, or if they vary at all. My assumption, though maybe completely wrong, is that they all fly identically.
mustang has very bad feeling with nose up. it’s all about landing and take off. but for take off it’s better use +4 elevator trim instead of landing with 0 trim. when you land most of other aircraft you can trim it before landing at about stall speed and they will touch the ground by 3 points and go on. ms mustang have very bad tend to drop nose without any buffeting any other felt, that can help before. but this is not a problem, that has connect to our question about landing and take off. this is just stuff i remember first, because try to compare ms mustang to other tail wheel ac. so. this one will jump if you have any aoa more than 0 so you need to land it only at 2 points and take it level till tail will land itself. so why she need 0 trim on landing. in any way with dry tanks. so this bird in the sim have same take off behavior as landing just reverse logic. first you run at 3 points as long as you can then gentle relax stick for nose go down. landing you touch by main gear with horizon flight and after that landing tail only then tail can not be above ground any more. corsair in video can do same way. but for do that with milviz model, we can found in flightsim.to corsair mod. i can not recomend it. because i don’t know how real it is. but in any way you can land at 2 points and take nose long enough for have 0 problem after tail wheel touch the strip. all that situation with trim. i told that before. the big compromise. in real trim need only because you need different force for different air speed. but in simulator joy position has to move control surfaces at same angle at all speeds. just because it’s works that way. with ffb joystick on the other hand trimmers has sense. so compromise of that when we use don’t ffb joystick is we need push more then we need. for modeling more force. btw with force sensor joystick it has a little sense too like ffb lol. but in my opinion this trade-off between real and sim have to works with another resolution. graphically if we have to move or push(force sensor stick) more than we should in low speed. it must show less control surface angle or has reaction on trim or any change airflow. that way control surfaces and virtual cockpit joy must be animated not depended of physical stick. but physical one just push them from ever they(dynamic surfaces) are by airflow in the sky. as example most of aircraft will never in the spin if your real world rudder and joystick will in neutral position. but after stall happens airflows moves controls with stick and so you need to change ailerons rudder elevator position and many of aircraft will ok if you just set them in center. another example. corsair. in real life it has dynamic balance tabs on elevator and ailerons. that’s means when you move stick in the corsair you in the same time use dynamic trim tabs in opposite main surfaces directions. so in corsair trims don’t make controls more easy and only as second way for controls and set corsair by some certain way to go. as modern fbw aircraft use trims. and this simulator as any other simulator have that compromises and misdirected of animation or dynamic implementation. just because use not perfect model initially. so company as milviz or a2a try to make simulator inside simulator with own codes. but those still not real. as example my favorite a2a mustang have neutral elevator when i trimmed went to land. because stick was in neutral. but trims has to move virtual cockpit joy and elevator to the climb. in any school of logic. it’s just must to be so… thanx god. i don’t give a ■■■■ about external view. but i still see ailerons from the cockpit hgahahaha.
