"Flying off"

[BlitzPig_EL]

When watching the many videos of WW2 fighters being flown today, the pilots quite often will say that the aircraft in question will fly itself off on takeoff, without additional input on the controls.  The in cockpit camera shot verifies this.

 

Yet, in the sim I cannot replicate this behavior, even in identical aircraft.  The sim aircraft all need to be forced to give up their tenacious grip on terra firma.

 

What's up with that?

[PhilthySpud]

Correct trim, for a start.

[DD_Arthur]

1 hour ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

When watching the many videos of WW2 fighters being flown today, the pilots quite often will say that the aircraft in question will fly itself off on takeoff, without additional input on the controls.  The in cockpit camera shot verifies this.

 

Yet, in the sim I cannot replicate this behavior, even in identical aircraft.  The sim aircraft all need to be forced to give up their tenacious grip on terra firma.

 

What's up with that?

 

Yeah,  in all the combat flight sims I've used you have to give em' back pressure on the stick despite the pilot notes saying they'll take off at x speed and x trim without needing additional input.

 

Oddly enough, in MSFS2020 they will generally fly themselves off the deck.  However, that sim has plenty of other problems on takeoff - or landing - to make up for this and compared to GBS and DCS the flight model there is rather more......primitive

 

[jollyjack]

autopilot ?

[Trooper117]

The Fw 190 will fly itself off from a three point attitude just as the manual states... if you accelerate and lift the tail however, I then find you need back pressure on the stick to get it airborne.

[Lusekofte]

The Thypoon need full trim left and correct pitch trim then it fly pretty well off the ground. 

[Luftschiff]

I've always found the 109 to fly itself off nicely with the stated flap settings, but maybe that's all in my head because I'm used to it by now. It's definitely no common occurence in most planes though.

[DD_Arthur]

4 hours ago, Luftschiff said:

I've always found the 109 to fly itself off nicely with the stated flap settings, but maybe that's all in my head because I'm used to it by now. It's definitely no common occurence in most planes though.

 

Does the 109’ need flaps for a normal takeoff?

 

[unreasonable]

6 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

Does the 109’ need flaps for a normal takeoff?

 

 

Flaps to 20 degrees is recommended, but I have forgotten and taken off OK enough times: it just needs a longer take off run to get speed up the extra ~10 kph you need without flaps. Then you have one less thing to do.

[Robli]

109 takes off by itself without flaps also. 

[BlitzPig_EL]

According to my copy of the P40E Pilot's Manual, take off at 2800rpm, all trims set to neutral, mixture to Auto Rich, "Set flaps as required, but never over one-half way down".  

 

So I tried taking off from the concrete runway at Adler on the Kuban map (near Sochi).  No setting of the flaps from zero to half down will let the P40 with 50% fuel and standard ammo load out "fly off" without elevator input.  It keeps it's main gear firmly planted on the ground the entire length of the runway and on into the grass.  The tail comes off and that's it.

[Lusekofte]

I never really thought of it. But we aint having a real environment to fly in. 

It is many planes one have to pull out of the tarmac when thinking of it. I will test this when I am home

[Trooper117]

It's a flight sim 'game' after all... there's bound to be anomalies  between the game and real life.

Some of the planes can give an approximation towards the real life manual, and some definitely don't.

 

[Avimimus]

3 hours ago, Trooper117 said:

It's a flight sim 'game' after all... there's bound to be anomalies  between the game and real life.

Some of the planes can give an approximation towards the real life manual, and some definitely don't.

 

True. But it could also be that we aren't taking off at the correct trim, we're trying to pull into the air at too low an airspeed, or we're lifting the tail prematurely... there could be a lot of differences between how we've learned to take-off and how pilots were actually trained.

 

Case in point, in Il-2 1946 multiplayer I used to just check to see if the runway looked clear and take-off with the TB-3 straight from park by just going to full throttle... completely ignoring the runway, and in-fact cutting across it at a diagonal... usually worked - especially if there was a body of water nearby to give me space to climb above the treeline.

[busdriver]

On 8/14/2021 at 8:53 AM, PhilthySpud said:

Correct trim, for a start.

 

Does not matter what trim setting you use in the P-40. At around 60-70 mph the tail comes up and the airplane assumes a level attitude, just like a wheel landing (versus a three-point landing) and the gear remain "pinned" without ANY forward stick. In a handful of tests, ONLY with full nose up trim will the P-40 "fly off" somewhere around 140 mph. Neutral or slight nose up trim will not get the P-40 to "fly off."

 

Default trim, slight nose up. Main gear are "pinned" to the runway.

 

Full nose up trim gets the airplane to "fly off" on its own.

 

 

Our hero @BlitzPig_EL has a valid criticism.

 

1 hour ago, Avimimus said:

or we're lifting the tail prematurely

 

In my limited tailwheel flying (300 hours in Citabrias and SuperCubs) I applied some brief forward of neutral stick to get the tail up then back to neutral. In game the tail comes up without any stick input. 

 

With default trim, slightly nose up and slight aft stick for the entire takeoff roll. You still wind up in the weeds.

 

 

If you start the takeoff roll will full aft stick in the P-40 the tail stays down and right about 80 mph you get this.

 

 

If you relax some backpressure (aft stick) right around 60-70 mph but keep the stick aft of neutral then at 110 mph you get the airplane to "fly off" in a natural tail low attitude.

 

 

 

Starting the takeoff roll with full aft stick is what we did in the F-4, relaxing backpressure as the nose started to rise.

Edited August 16, 2021 by busdriver

[busdriver]

@BlitzPig_EL after more testing...I went into setting and checked the pitch response curve of my X-56 stick. I have a 40% response curve, no dead zones. Then I practiced getting the pitch input to half (for muscle memory). 

 

 

Starting with the default Takeoff trim setting and approximating the aft stick position to get half (like above) I could consistently "fly off" right around 100 mph. This was with a normal aircraft attitude, i.e. slightly tail low. When I held too much aft stick I could see the airplane get light on the gear (left/right wobble) below 90 mph and I would relax a bit of back pressure. So it can be done, albeit not according the P-40 manual.

 

I suppose a 1GCCFP with a floor mounted stick and extension could practice placing his/her forearm in just the right position to achieve that perfect aft stick position. 

[Bremspropeller]

Isn't the P-40 supposed to be stalled in tail-down attitude?

 

4 hours ago, busdriver said:

In my limited tailwheel flying (300 hours in Citabrias and SuperCubs) I applied some brief forward of neutral stick to get the tail up then back to neutral. In game the tail comes up without any stick input. 

 

In my way more limited experience, as I'm scared to dig the prop, I'll always have at least 1/4 of stick aft. Works just fine. Maybe at the expense of a couple feet of ground-roll. Visibility isn't an issue, but then again these Super Cubs didn't have tundra tyres and only a weak-azz 90hp engine...

[PatrickAWlson]

The 110 will often do it if it does not have an external payload - standard fighter configuration, with just a bit of flaps.  Can't get it to do it with bombs strapped to it.