If you fly the Analog Gauge “Low and Slow” liver, beware of the overspeed indicators. The analog gauge (MPH, not knots) has yellow starting at 120mph, red at 140mph, which are 104 and 121 knots respectively. But the G3X airspeed tape has yellow and red at 80 and 100 knots, which I believe are the correct limits. So, “trust the tape”. I had a couple of unfortunate “overstressed your airframe” end-of-flight events due to this.
I briefly checked Stage 2, and the analog MPH gauge is identical to the above. I haven’t compared it to the tape settings, though.
So got a few hours in this now. My thoughts (bear in mind I never flew the previous version):
Overall I think it’s a great package. Lots of different tunes. Lot of liveries. Some airfields to go with it. The 3D modelling is amazing. The sounds are fantastic - they somehow made a Rotax sound beefy (at least in external view), and they’ve got the sound of the prop chopping the air.
The flight model is definitely more difficult than I thought it would be. Take off into the wind is fairly easy, but crosswind take-off’s are definitely a handful and I need a lot more practice with them. The nose will swing around into the wind very quickly and it’s hard to judge how much to kick the rudder - being able to lock the tailwheel would help I feel, but I don’t think you can? Actually I can’t even find a manual.
Landings are even harder. Very bouncy! I feel like I’m slamming into the ground half the time. I have found that landing as slow as possible seems to be best. 3 point touchdown at 40kts or less seems ideal, and then full back on the stick to keep the rear wheel planted. I’m struggling to do wheel first landings though. The moment the fronts touch down the rear just wants to slam into the ground.
Other minor annoyance for me is that the cockpit noise seems to automatically reduce itself. If you remove the doors, then go external cam, then back into cockpit it’s nice and loud as one would expect for the first second or so, and then the sound reduces in volume. It’s kinda weird, never heard a plane in the sim do that before. But imo it makes cockpit sounds too quiet (especially with doors off).
Other bug bear is the analogue version sort of seems tacked on. Others mentioned no turn co-ordinator, but also the HSI has no course or heading indicator for the AP. And there is no VS indicator either. Not that I really use AP on a plane like this.
I think how much flight time this plane ultimately gets will depend very much on whether I can tame those take off and landings a bit better. Someone above suggested a LONG runway to test. I did a similar thing but on a LONG beach (and position the sun so you can see your shadow on touchdown). Helped a lot, but definitely still feels like a handful, even the base model, compared to the taildraggers included in the game. Even compared to GotFriends legacy taildraggers (and the DoubleEnder feels like childs play compared to the Fox).
Interesting. They might tweak it depending on feedback I guess.
I do like the new G3X, but I also find the text in it very small. It’s perhaps not ideal in terms of usability when in a sim. I still prefer the GTN750.
It was easier and not realistic for a taildragger. Entertainment is a matter of taste, what is fun for you maybe it’s boring for me and viceversa. The point is: from a sim perspective the “new” model is way better than the older one.
So I spent my lunch hour doing some more practice.
I think I’m getting the hang if it. With take-off, the moment the tail comes up start pulling back on the stick. She will lift off very quickly and it avoids a lot of squirreling around on the ground. In a direct 5kt crosswind this still seemed to work pretty well. Same with landing, land just above stall (less than 40kts).
I also reduced the reactivity of my rudder pedals to 50%, although I’m not entirely sure whether it improved or was a placebo.
I’m gonna see what info I can find on flying the real thing on YT.
Just watched Trent teach Ryan (Missionary Bush Pilot) how to fly the Kitfox. He retracts the flaps completely as the front wheels touch down. Touchdown at ~50mph (which is 40kts ish). On take off he also has half flaps and then pulls full flaps on rotate.
Basically it seemed to correlate with my experience of “get off the ground as quickly as possible”. I do think the nose of the plane tends to rotate to the side too easily in MSFS but that’s just MSFS as we all know.
The weathervane effect just seems WAY too strong in this plane. When practicing takeoffs with just a very light crosswind, only about 3 kt x-wind component, the nose rapidly turns into the wind when the tail comes up and would run me off the runway without quick correction. Thought it might be some gyroscopic precession effect, but, no, it will turn right or left into this light wind.
My technique I’m sure is far from perfect but there’s just no way such a light wind would be applying that much force to turn the plane so rapidly. Maybe something is wrong on my end but not seeing behavior this bad on other taildraggers. I know the weathervane effect is really bad in the sim now but some planes like the new Cub seem to handle it a lot better.
A little airplane with a rotax making an instantaneous left lunge that instant the tail comes up that would make the Red Bull F1 development team envious doesn’t even make sense. You can get around it but the last FM was better.
Ok guys, I gotta say… the more I fly this the more I love it! Really, just give it some time. Spend a few hours doing take offs and landings. She is honestly quite tameable and predictable once you get a handle on her (even with my crap rudder pedals). And LOTS of fun! Start with calm winds and work your way up. I’ve been doing reliable takeoff & landings in 10kt crosswinds. She flies wonderfully!
EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention. In the video Trent says to use full aft trim when landing. I find that does help.
So I’ve just been trying some crosswind takeoff and landing (and a few with no crosswind too).
I’m no pilot but the handling seemed reasonable and certainly controllable to me. I had live weather with a 12kt full crosswind.
The technique of pulling flaps back in on landing is a common one for tail draggers I think, certainty I always land the spitfire that way, and in the video linked above Trent says to do this in the fox, and the other guy said he even does that in the Kodiak.
If I float the plane in under 50fpm at the right speed, even with a 2 wheel landing it does not bounce. At 100fpm it will, but I figure that’s pretty hard for a small plane and the big tyres are probably acting a bit like bouncy balloons. On a replay from outside it looks like it behaves sensibly in both scenarios. In the video Trent says to land tail wheel first.
As to the weathervaning then if you have ailerons neutral and try to correct with the rudder only then as soon as the rear wheel lifts its going to veer across and be almost uncontrollable. But IRL pilots don’t take off like that. You’d deflect the ailerons with the stick towards windward and compensate with opposite rudder. If you do this it’s quite controllable and behaves reasonably predictably. In just a couple of goes I was able to take off in the 12kt cross wind with the main wheels straddling the runway centreline and not crossing them. I’m not much of a pilot so I’m sure I wouldn’t have done any better in the real plane.
Same for landing, although it’s a little harder, you need to dip the wing to windward just a touch but it lands OK. Remember, ground loop is a real thing, easy to do in tail draggers and very dangerous if you are sitting in a real one!
This is a good article that describes primary control surface technique in tail draggers:
I had the Missionary pilot’s video playing while I was practicing and moments after I thought “I need to get better at rudder control to fly this” I heard Trent say “you need to get really good at rudder control”, and I thought yes for sure!
