I love this plane, but I have not yet figured out how to perform engine starts when starting on the water next to a dock. Even with the anchor deployed, once I start my engine run-up checks, it always starts drifting away from the dock. Am I doing something wrong here, or is this just a quirk of how floatplanes are modeled right now?
Try lowering prop pitch
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The opening of FS has a beaver flying over some camels. The beaver shown is a Canadian Ministry of Natural Resources fire fighting beaver. I donāt recall seeing many camels in Canada. Wonder if MSFS can revise the scenery in this situation?
You gota love the beaver.
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Yes, but they are thought to have originated in North America and attempts to bring them back have been made. Who knows? Maybe someone at Asobo is an obscure history buff.
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No, that didnāt work. As soon as I start the engine, the plane wants to pull away from the dock.
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Thatās pretty accurate to how float planes work. Cutting engines to drift in and moving away as soon as the engine is started.
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So, itās normal to warm up the engines and check whatever else needs to be checked before takeoff while drifting across the water? (Just wondering - Iām new to floatplanes so Iām not sure what is and what isnāt standard procedure).
I just lean it back until I notice a slight falter in the engine then bump it rich just tad
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Iām wondering what you think would stop a plane producing thrust from moving in water? The brakes?
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LOL no, of course I donāt think that. What Iām trying to figure out is two things:
- The anchor: is there any point to it once the engine starts?
- The mooring ropes: are they there just for show, i.e., thereās nothing really holding the plane down while I run up the engine?
It just seems awfully strange to me that a pilot would let the plane randomly drift off into the water while running up the engines and performing other systems checks, which is precisely what happens right now if I donāt use Active Pause. It would seem (but of course, Iām not a floatplane pilot), that the plane would remain moored to the dock until the engine was warmed up and all systems checks were complete.
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Probably should have said something to the effect you were using tie downs and an anchor at the time. Do these features actually work? Often they are just for show, though, I do think a couple of developers did make a working anchor, but Iām not sure. I donāt think such a function is in the MSFS code at this time.
Watch this take off. Thatās pretty much as it happens. I enjoy watching the seaplanes take off on Lake Union when I visit and this is pretty much as it happens. They push off, star the engine and take off. A mag check can be done as you head to your designated take off but youāre moving all the time.
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Found a good answer here. My hunch appears correct. Your usual preflight checks are done on the move. braking - How do seaplanes do run-up checks without brakes? - Aviation Stack Exchange
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Excellent, thank you both. 
The following should not be the same for the Landplane & Seaplane:
- Air Speed
- Take-off Distance
- Landing Distance
- Rate of Climb
- Service Ceiling
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Maybe itās just me but I had reduce the sensitivity on the brake axis to keep the thing from nosing over landing on short runway. I also had to reduce sensitivity on the rudder. I donāt have to do either of those things with any of a dozen other GA or warbird aircraft.
Itās not a big deal to reduce sensitivity on those 3 pedal axis, and save that profile to use for just this plane, but strange that this planeās rudder and brakes are extremely touchy compared to any other smaller plane that I have flown in MSFS.
None of this may be true for anyone else, but itās like that on my MSFS.
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You can modify how aggressive the brake is in the aircraft.cfg. IRC something like toebrakescalar
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In the Systems file.
Always back up your originals.
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And even better, after youāve made a copy and youāre editing the live file: copy the line that youāre changing, comment out the old line (usually a ; at the start of the comment), make your change, and add a comment to talk about why you made the change and what change you made in the comment.
I also like to go through the default files and find the ones where the values for the lines are described and add these lines to the files Iām editing.
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