Kodiak 100 Amphibian (Simworks) - 'Taxi out to land'?

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Good morning, forum.

I wondered if someone could clarify something for me on the Kodiak Amphibian please.

One of the things I liked about the Grumman Goose model in stock MSFS was that once you’d landed in water, you could pootle over to the shoreline, lower your wheels and basically just drive out onto the land. Then, when you wanted to set off again, you could taxi into the water, raise the gear, then power up for your takeoff.

Now I don’t know whether that’s realistic or not - I guess gathering views on that is partially why I’m here now. But I note that I can’t do it with the Kodiak because if I lower the gear while I’m in the water and I’m a little too fast I explode. (I probably don’t, but I can’t help interpreting Flight Sim’s way of conveying critical damage as instant black screen as the plane exploding.)

And if I’m really really careful about speed, the moment I touch land the wheels fall off. (Again, not 100% accurate - but they collapse back into retracted position and can’t be extended on land. Fair: presumably they’re designed to hold the weight of the aircraft, not lift it.)

The only reason I make such a wordy fuss about it all (especially given I could’ve just said “are you supposed to be able to taxi into and out of the water in the Kodiak Amphibian” and it would’ve saved everyone a whole lot of aggro), is that I keep finding this line in Simworks’ description of the aircraft:

“Hear the propeller roar as you use beta range to taxi and turn tight in the water using the rudders, or lower the gear and taxi out to land .” [My emphasis]

I read that as saying that you are meant to be able to do this - but I may be misinterpreting it. If I’m not, can anyone give me any tips on how I’m supposed to carry out this procedure without breaking stuff? If the answer is, “Read the obvious checklist included, you ■■■■ fool” then I apologise. I’m pretty sure it’s not referenced but do let me know if I’ve missed it.

Otherwise any tips or thoughts gratefully received.

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I can’t tell you if it is possible in the simulated Kodiak Amphib. I only own their wheeled model.
But I have personally seen the real aircraft do it in both directions.
Probably a damage threshold set too low in one of the configuration files, but they may not be editable in the Kodiak…not sure.

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Hmm. Interesting thought. There are a number of XML files in the folder that seem to relate to all sorts of conditions and thresholds. I’m absolutely the opposite of expert in tweaking files like that, but the next time I have a free evening I might go through and see if anything looks promising. And tweak it. (After backing up, of course…!)

Thanks for the confirmation that it happens in real life, though. I just couldn’t see why it would cause an immediate wreck, although I was happy to be educated if that had been so.

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You should be able to turn off collision damages to fix that I think? (I don’t own that aircraft though)

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The damage model is so broken in MSFS it’s probably just better to turn it off, then you should be OK.

If like me you really want to keep damage on because having limits is crucial to having a realistic flight experience, then you’re probably still better to turn damage off because the limits are largely broken and unrealistic.

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Indeed. Real life has proven a 747 can take several G’s. Pretty sure it’d break long before “several” in game. About the first time my plane disintegrated due to being 3 kts overspeed I turned it off.

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I landed at loggerhead lighthouse not to long ago and drove right up on the beach.

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I have landed the Floatiak on water and taxied up onto the beach before.

It most likely depends on the terrain and what the transition from water to dry land is like.

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I did a trial with the Kodiak floatplane in a lagoon: while on water got closed to the land slowing down with the reverse thrust till stopped before the floats touched the shore ,then moved gear down and set thrust forward moving very slowly …got ashore did a turn on land and returned back on water…no problems.

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I think it’s best if you turn off collision damage in the simulator. That way you can taxi to the ground in any amphibian plane, as long as the shoreline geometry and physics allow. Unfortunately the collision detection in MSFS is not accurate. It’s better if you just tell yourself whether you crashed or not - I mean it’s pretty obvious most of the time if you did.

I remember there is a custom airstrip in New Zealand (I think?), basically just a shack where I just couldn’t land with collision damage on, because trees and bushes reach onto the airstrip and no matter how I tried to land with the (wheeled) Kodiak, it always sensed as if I crashed into the foliage.

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I’d even turn off aircraft stress too. Otherwise if you dare open the Kodiak storm window at 100kts your aircraft will fall apart.

I’m of the opinion that if you’re trying to fly realistically then you will know if you’ve pushed the aircraft too far, especially when we’re talking about civilian aircraft.

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