What do you prefer and why?
For me, I’m always finding myself drawn towards taildraggers. I like how they look and the extra challenge. Though it can depend on the plane - some seem like an unrealistic handful in the sim.
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If the taildragger is one that behaves, then I really enjoy it. If it’s one that is a mess, then I’d rather fly the trike.
Like you, I love the way a taildragger looks along with the fact that most of my vintage aircraft are, subsequently, taildraggers, so that only adds to my love of them.
In a way, trikes seem like easy mode, but that figures given their forgiving nature. I definitely prefer taxing in a trike, though!
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Ah yes, same. Tbh I often like to go external cam anyway for taxi. I just like seeing the aircraft move along the ground.
most of the fellers have a hard time with castoring vs steerable tail wheels on their tail draggers. Probably because the sim did a poor job of modeling the ground handling of the castor type tail wheel behavior.
In the real world there isn’t much difference - you just have to ‘influence’ the tail wheel movement you want using the toe-brakes on the main wheels. IE - tap the brake on the side of the plane you want to turn toward and the tail wheel should castor to swing the tail appropriately. It works quite well in reality - but less so in the sim. Maybe that’ll be fixed in SU15 since they mention tail dragger ground handling specifically.
All that said I prefer the tail draggers. I like the extra work of having to taxi with ‘s’-turns to see where I’m going. MSFS makes that practice even more important due to their insistence on having trucks, buses, and fork lifts driving all over the taxiways and runways day and night. I would suggest it is probably impossible to really appreciate this challenge without a head or eye tracking device though.
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Yeah, headtracking made a hug difference for me. Can’t fly without it now, at least not VFR. You can’t really snake properly without it, well you can, but it’s a handful.
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I love me some tail draggers, the WACO is my overall favorite, but the Wildcat is the most challenging, especially landing and maneuvering on a WWII carrier. Flying tail taxis with the Husky are pleasant too. The all just require quality pedals, the TFRP’s will give you fits in this game.
I love mastering smooth wheel landings in taildraggers. To me, it is one of the most awesome skills of flight. As a child, I remember being enamored by all the WWII planes gently touching down on two wheels (edit: at airshows, I mean; I’m not quite that old!). So cool!
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That’s all I got. They aren’t great for sure, but I make do.
Not only for tail wheel but also for non-steerable nose wheels. E.g. DA40 is modelled as if the nose wheel was steerable which is not correct. Are there any trikes with castor nose wheels that are modelled correctly in the sim?
No free-castering wheels of any sort are modelled correctly, and they can’t be. The sim does not allow for a dynamically moving contact point about the swivel point, so even attempts to free caster the wheels in the configuration end up in a complete jitter-fest.
Free-castering wheels in the real world are almost always arranged where the swivel point leads the contact point of the tire. This creates stability. This is not possible in the sim, where the contact point is always in the same location x and z as the hinge point.
The custom-coded tailwheels on the Flying Iron addons are about the closest you can get, but everything else I’ve seen is way off.
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If I remember correctly, there is a realism mod for the DV20 and it modifies not only the FM but also the nose wheel behavior. I tried it some time ago and liked it.
Save your pennies for the goal of upgrading those.
I can’t even express how great it’s been going from those to MFG Crosswind.
Seriously, the best money I’ve spent on this sim.
I did my 3 year sentence with TFRP before getting TB pedals. When you raise the resolution it’s a huge change. All my racing rigs have had load cell brakes since they became available, I can still remember spring ones more than 15 years ago. It’s borderline impossible to get those right. In both cases I saw more quality of life changes with those than the rest of the gear.
First time you land on the mains, keep centerline and decide to just keep flying the tail closer to the turnoff because it’s an easier taxi, it’s a big change. And you’ll be quite proud of yourself. The pedals are more notable to sensor improvements than yokes or sticks. Our hands are far better trained than our feet. We could figure out how to make an Atari 2600 joystick work in under a minute.
You’d be surprised how much just stiffening one toe does if the peripheral can detect it.
Oh and slips slips everywhere. Especially bush flying, you won’t even realize you slipped just for a better peek at something after a while. Easiest way to get a perfect approach just right in the small aircraft.
The problem is that here in NZ all we got is TM or Logitech. And the pendulum TM’s are hella expensive. I have thought about importing, but I worry about the lack if local support/warranty.
Some planes like the Beaver and the non GF/GG ‘monster’ default taildraggers are fine with TFRP’s. Working to get the tail up quickly helps with the TFRP’s on any tail dragger. It’s just enough behind that what you are reacting to is a little too late. You pretty much learn to ‘play the take-off game’ for a given aircraft until the tail is up.