How to fly resp. start the new DC-3 properly?

The title sasy it already. I was so happy that i can fly the DC-3 which is one of my all time favs. But it starts at 50mph and gain altitude but after a fe seconds you completely lose control and the plane crashes within seconds. I tried now 17 times with different flaps and so on. I always lose control. What is goin on?

Update: Now i made her fly but its really hard to keep her stable. And its really difficult to stay on runway.

i just watched this youtuber explaining the dc-3 startup procedure.

The issue i’m having with it is, as you reach about 85mph, the nose starts to come down on throttle, whereas under 85, it noses up… a really weird behaviour. (flaps up, gear up, pitch neutral)…Something is not right with the flightmodel there.

THX i will take a look asap.

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Its very important to turn boost pumps on at start otherwise you wont have enough power to start. But there is an online manual which i completely forgot/ignored (shame on me!). The DC-3 itself is not so easy to fly but i love her still. THX for bringing her to the sim!

Where is the online manual please Ive looked everywhere and I cant find it at all?

Thanks

It’s in a subfolder of the installed aircraft folder. On my system it is in

.\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\Official\Steam\microsoft-aircraft-dc3\Documentation

The developer who did the flight model has a video on it. This is actually how the aircraft behaves IRL apparently. Under 120mph (IIRC) it’s unstable and will pitch down on acceleration, which is unintuitive.

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You need to pitch forward quite hard and keep her on the runway until 97mph. She wants to lift off much earlier because of ground effect under those massive wings, but once you climb above ground effect you don’t have the airspeed and thus it stalls or is otherwise very unstable.

Once in the air, pitch down to keep her relatively level until you’re @ 120mph, only then start your climb. Throttle and prop should be pulled back to 36in. @ 2350 rpm.

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Yeah, i have indeed seen that video (after i posted my comment) … and you’ve remembered correctly. That video is a great explanation of the numbers on paper, i have to believe the guy, as he’s the numbers kinda guy and knows how to work/interpret them. But thanks to whatever happend between him delivering and ms/Asobo handing out the update 11, it definately changed the behaviour by not doing this pitchchange at 120, as it’s doing it right around the 85 mark right now. And i think it actually pitches up under 85 and down over 85… not as the dev explained. But i’ll test a bit more later today.
I said 85mph before, but the cockpit instrument might be in knots, but that would still be 97mph, way under the described tipping point of 120

There’s just that word “unstable”… in my world there’s “mildly” and “wildly” unstable… what this dc3 does (in-sim) is wildly unstable. It would actually help to look away from the numbers and watch the actual screen in sim as well as watch a takeoff in the real world. Might even help to ask actual DC-3 pilots, like the ones that fly at DDA, the Dutch Dakota Association or those alaskan bushpilots, if they have to wildly adjust their trim upon takeoff and level flight. I’ve not seen a video yet of a real world pilot and copilot adjusting that much trim upon lifting off the ground, nor do i see wild pitch forward movements of the tailplane on the takeoff roll. All i see is a gentle swan, stickin up it’s talk gently, then leaning on the front wheels whilst gaining speed, then lumbering like a gentle giant into the skies…

Oh, and about the flightmodel: there’s just no way in hell, that a dakota is able to pull off a looping and LIVE from 500 feet up… but here we are in the sim. :wink:

Anyways @EuleIowa89 , how are you getting along flying this fantastic bird?

I found that in cockpit view, i tend to get surprised on landings that the wheels are that far down :wink: (yeahyeah, i bounced quite the number of times already, but it’s all part of it.)

Have a nice flight Captain’s.

Kindest Regards,

Steiny

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Its still not easy. Yesterday i crashed directly after starting it. And tbh i dont know why. Maybe wind was too strong. The DC3 itself seems to be somehow unstable. I am still tryin to understand her.

Before i give you some recommendations (install 1, test it, remove it and install the next) i’d like to ask if you have the flightmodel in Flightsimulator 2020 set to “modern”? (Flightmodel “Legacy” is a nono, where it concerns the airplanes in the sim, unless it is a FSX-port from someone)

Anyways, in the last week, some brilliant minds have been working on the DC3 in a couple of different mods, so… (hoping you are not on xbox) it “might” just work a bit better for you with one of either improvement mods.

This first one is the dc-3 realism mod, which might actually have you work alot harder than you are already doing:

Then there’s the Duckworks DC improvement mod, which might make it easier to fly as he tweaked the low speed ground effect handling a bit more.

Then there’s the Gotfriends 40th anniversary improvement, which actually takes care of more than one airplane… So far it’s featuring additions to the Beaver and the DC-3 (wanna try a DC3 with Floats? there ya go!) The Developer of the mod says his mod plays as nice as it can with other mods, but i’m pretty sure it’s not wise to install more than 1 of these “improvement mods” at the same time to avoid any ctd’s or other weirdness where the mod is concerned. As one flightmodel, might overwrite the other one, or they bump heads, maybe?

Hope it helps you enjoy the DC3.

Just trying the Duckworks mod, and here the Nose gets pulled down because of Landinggear, flaps down and dropping the engine rpm…and gear up, flaps up, throttle up also means nose up which makes a bit more sence then the default 85mph turning point of pitch.
So, line up on the runway, lock the tailwheel, flaps up, throttle up and make some speed, then keep the nose down/wheels on runway to gain some more speed, then takeoff Slowly, during takeoff as you pull up the gear, she will nose up again, keep those trim buttons handy at all times, it requires LOADS of trim still. Keep watching your airspeed, dont let it fall under 90 and, as with all old propellor airplanes, after liftoff, stay low and gain some more airspeed, then slowly start to climb a bit… Basically the same what s0cks182 said in his second post, only a bit more elaborate :wink:

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For some reason I had no real issues the first few days after release, then I started getting that violent pitch up @ 60mph issue. Duckworks mod helps a lot, but she still wants to float up off the ground too early imo, even with plenty of trim or forward yoke, so I sometimes have to force her back down. It’s manageable though.

I wish she had DME equipment in the classic fit - it would make IFR easier as I currently have no idea how far I am from a VOR/airport. The retrofit is borderline unusable imo, with no way to set the heading bug, and the VS rate on the AP doesn’t seem to match up with what the aircraft is doing.

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Are some of the issues people have reported with setting trim etc effected by the centre of gravity and is the an ideal setting for this?

I’m not sure. I know that prior to Duckworks mod I tried different trim settings. But I could be pushing full forward on the yoke and she would still pitch straight up in the air. I had absolutely no elevator authority so I don’t think a bit of trim would make any difference.

So far I’ve always tested with default payload.

I started playing with this bird tonight. Has anyone successfully mapped landing flaps control handle to a keybind or button press? Trying to map as many controls as I can to the HOTAS due to how spread out and not intuitive the controls locations are. I can’t seem to find any that will operate the handle at all.

That is odd, I’ve been able to use the same flap axis on the DC-3 that I do with all aircraft.

You’re even having issues with buttons? Do the standard keyboard F-key flaps mappings work?

yes, I use buttons to set flaps on my other main birds. (X-cub, PC-6, C152) But when I tried to set up the DC-3 with the same buttons nothing happens. I didn’t try the F-keys, I started with a totally wiped profile and started creating a totally custom one for the DC-3. I’ll program the default F key’s and see if they respond. Thank you for your time :slightly_smiling_face:

Try the default keyboard profile first, to make sure it actually works with the DC-3. If it does, then there is something funny going on with your mapping of the Hotas, perhaps.

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