Sounds like you are having a serious blast in this plane and its steam gauges! Utah indeed has a very diverse and challenging range of terrain for bush flying. Love it. Thanks for your nice and encouraging writeup…tells me this plane is going where it should be!
Yes about those flaps and the “up attitude” response. Glad you raised it. I think 3 points I would like to mention:
- Do not deploy flaps above 60 to 65 kts or so. And when you do…go flaps 1 first, then 2. This alone will help a lot. If you need to bleed speed, make some high g turns and the induced drag will do the rest.
- With top wing aircraft, and especially in a light plane, their is a considerable pull up due to the location of the high wing flaps and the lower CG. This is just physics at work.
- Having said all this, am really looking forward from feedback from pilots with experience in similar planes. I also think the effect should be a bit less. Let me know!
Update: have already tweaked the flight model for the next v1.0.4 update, the “up attitude” on full flaps is now much less pronounced.
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Thanks for the tips, I’ll keep them in mind. And a great mod, I thoroughly enjoy bush planes, and the steam gauges are cool as well… even if they take some getting used to.
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Just to share, some favorites when it comes to honing your STOL skills.
RECOMMENDED STOL TIPS
- How to Land An Airplane Short - by Trend Palmer
- Backcountry Aviation’s STOL Tips: The Takeoff
- Backcountry Aviation’s STOL Tips: The Approach
- Backcountry Aviation’s STOL Tips: The Landing
- Backcountry Aviation’s STOL Tips: Go Arounds
On a side note, I update the first post of this topic frequently as the project develops. It contains a convenient summary of a lot of useful information about the plane and the project. Just added these STOL tips, for example.
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The attitude problem occurs at “Flaps 1” also. It is pronounced. Hope that gets a tweak also.
Enjoying the aircraft!
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I have zero experience in taildraggers, but have flown high wing Cessna’s as C150, C172, C182, C177 and the Centurion. In those Cessna’s, you deploy those big 'ol barn doors fully, you’re coming down without considerable throttle. Not too much on the first notch, which I was taught to use in most all landings. When flaps were applied, without corresponding throttle, you always went nose down. When on full flaps, you REALLY went nose down, and you better have some altitude and be ready on the throttle. You don’t want to drag it in at low altitude at full flaps and high throttle. The other reason for single notch landings, is those flaps, when full, act as a weather vane, and if you have wind gusts, will toss you all over the place at a point in time when you don’t need the added grief. As they say, the two most useless things for a pilot is the altitude above you and the runway behind you.
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Thanks guys that’s very helpful feedback (and a very good explanation on the Cessna’s). Yes the tweak will also apply to “Flaps 1”, so there’ll be about 50% less attitude change as before when deploying flaps (in the next update). Mostly because I reduced flap drag a bit, which was too high I think. They’re more like airbrakes at the moment.
Pitch behavior depends on the design of the airplane. It is pretty well described - in a concise manner - in the FAA Airplane Flying Handbook, Chapter 8 (on page 4). Some planes will pitch down, others up, upon flap deployment.
Here’s a relevant quote from that page:
“Also, deflection beyond 15° produces a significant nose-up
pitching moment in high-wing airplanes because the resulting
downwash increases the airflow over the horizontal tail.”
Ultimately however what the Savage does when you deploy flaps is a result of the simulation taking many factors into account, including what is described in the FAA Handbook above. I made very sure the locations of the wing and tail are accurate in the flight model, so the sim can model the airflow accordingly. But that is also where the tweaking comes in…the model is not perfect…so small (and sometimes not so small) adjustments need to be made here and there in order to achieve the desired result. Question then is…what is the result we’re looking for in the Savage?
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In general, I feel pitch during deployment is very much dependent on airspeed. At higher airspeeds (at max flap deployment speeds), you will get much more pitch up than you would at lower airspeeds. Typically, flying the pattern at 1000’, you’re going to cut throttle, reduce airspeed, deploy flaps in increments, and control your descent. During short field practice, we fly at full flaps, 5 kts. above stall speed, and fairly low altitude at higher throttle settings, or in other words, drag it in, touch down at the very start of the runway, apply full braking to stop at the shortest possible distance. Flying short field approaches means a higher angle of attack, ensuring obstacle clearance, less visibility ahead and an increased tightening of the sphincter. I don’t know if this can be encoded (not the sphincter tightening), but I’m sure you’ll do the best you can.
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Gotcha. Pitch behavior during flap deployment is highly dependent on airspeed in the sim too. The short field approaches with a higher AOA are also covered, you can drag her in STOL-style with high nose (and terrible visibility), full flaps, and managing your throttle doing 30-33kts or so…while enjoying the music of your stall horn. 
Interesting doing that short field practice you’re describing.
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I would love to see a military livery!
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Yes to the D-Day livery!
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Ok I hear you on the D-Day livery. Coming update will still have a main “under the hood” focus, but I suppose I can squeeze this one in 
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Thank you Asobo for giving developers some cool toys. This one helps in visualizing the forces at play…in this shot I was testing the effects of flaps on the elevator. Very very helpful!
If you want to know where this is…I love to test at NASA’s KTTS. Couple of reasons:
- It’s at sea level. This sets the basis for many numbers.
- The runway is oversized. 15000 x 300 feet.
- Not many buildings, so I get to test at high FPS, enabling me to see everything that happens to the plane.
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Yet another realism improvement coming up: it’s now much easier to lift your tail while stationary, like you should be able to on a light taildragger that has some HP to spare.
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That looks awesome!
Update: using the official US Airforce color codes of WWII (the green, black and yellow), replaced snoopy with an eagle on the cowling, and the stripes have been applied to flaps / ailerons as well.
Maybe use Neutral Grey instead of Dark Olive?
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Dark Olive is the appropriate color for the fuselage. Kilroy (as in Kilroy was here) would be good as nose art as well. Can’t wait to fly this bird over Normandy, Nijmegen, and Bastogne.
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Wow this thing is a-mazing! All of a sudden I’m a much improved bush pilot. Landing while hanging on the prop was never so easy.
What about slowing down the rate of flap deployment just a bit to ease the tendency to pitch up? Any merit to that idea?
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