Aces High Bulletin Board
Help and Support Forums => Help and Training => Topic started by: opus on March 15, 2004, 11:38:35 AM
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When I try to land the F4U, it fishtails and flips around as soon as I touch the wheel break. I've tried land very slow with full flaps and even turning off the engine to eliminate any torque effect. But it still fishtails and I wind up rolling down the runway backwards. I guess it still counts as a landing, but it sure aint pretty. Whats causing this?
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The F4U is just a nasty plane on take offs and and landings. What are you using for rudder input? I used to have major problems with that bird, which after practice I've managed to reduce to minor issues and only the occasional groundloop. :)
One thing I found was easy to do is end up contributing to the problem, the plane would start to veer one way so i'd stomp (so to speak) on the rudder to and end up over correcting and pretty soon the plane would fishtail and become uncontrolable. About the only advice I can give ya, since I'm really not much of a Hog jockey is to watch the rudder inputs and be as gentle as possible, physically having a good controller for this would help. That and practice, practice, practice. Pretty soon you'll get used to the F4u's little quirks and it should become a littler easier to deal with since you'll be able to anticipate what it's going to do.
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Keep your tail high and use right(v) & left (c) wheel brakes to steer, use only very small rudder movements.
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Here's what I do, and it works 100% of the time.
Touch down at no more than 100- 110 mph.
as soon as you are planted (3 wheels on te ground) tap the left brake a couple of times. Don't hold it just tap it. Then alternate between left and right brakes (depending on which way you are veering) until you are slow enough to apply full braking.
hope this helps.
cheers,
RTR
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what rtr said... nice n' slow
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Thanks all, the left and right brake did the trick.
Just two questions..
If the engine is off, what is making the nose swing violently to the right?
And if planes had rudder pedals, where are the left and right brakes on a real f4u?
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The autotrim trims the plane taking into effect the torque from the engine. You turn off the engine, but the autotrim is still trying to account for it.
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F4U I believe had toe braking. IE. the rudder pedals were used as brake pedals (pretty common set up). You pushed on the top of the pedals to actuate.
Cheers,
RTR
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got no rudder pedals here but i wish i had them though, so i dweeb it when i land the f4u. as soon as my two wheels touch the ground, i just press X :D
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use rudders to keep it straight (left rudder) use brakes same time..
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F4u loses rudder authority as speed drops off.
Try "Burying" the tail as soon as its slow enough to not lift off the runway again.
Pull back hard on the stick, STICK that tailwheel on the ground and hold it there. Voila, you have steering control again.
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The problem is typically that people land the F4U at too high a speed and it "ground-loops" when you brake. Ghosth is correct, you need to get the tail-wheel down so either pull back on the stick (and hope you aren't so fast as you take off again) OR don't set down until you are much slower. My technique is to fly as long as I can while only 5ft or so above the runway, slowly increasing back-pressure until the aircraft just settles onto the runway. That gives a nice slow touch-down speed and it's easy to keep the tail down and apply the brakes at the lower speed.
Differential braking, or heavy rudder use, can be used but you have to be quick on the controls or it can quickly exceed what you can control and will ground-loop uncontrollably.
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I was ground looping both the F4U and F6F pretty consistently until I read the tailwheel plant suggestion in another thread a few weeks ago. Since then no problem other than twice I've inadvertantly taken off again.
The tail wheel plant is especially useful on planes with heavy noses, such as the IL-2. I used to have bad nose bouncing when trying to slow that plane, even damaging the prop several times. Now I slow down to just under take off speed, pull back hard on the stick and slam on the brakes. That's the fastest way to stop. An IL-2 will still ding the prop if you brake too hard, but it makes a big difference.
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When you touch down. Just release the back pressure on the stick.. That worked for me
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Yes, slowing way down lets ya land easy, as well as using differential breaking. When I was first learning with the corsair, I would kill the engine right before I touched down to help cancell the effects of engine torque.
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Well I found if you're in a hurry to land (like no more gas and a mission is comming into the base), landing gear up is the way to go. You still flip around, but stop a whole lot faster!
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ty rtr worked like a charm
:aok
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I'm not sure if I'm doing what you all are saying but here's how I land with all the tail draggers.
On approach gear down, 1 to 2 notches of flaps and a slight bit of nose down trim. Bring my rate of decent down to approximately .5 speed approximately 120 or lower. With my stick held in one specific point for proper nose up attitude use my throttles to keep my rate of decent in check. By the time it's ready to touch down my stall horn is coming in at a slowly then to a higher hz rate until the plane squats down. Once I hear the wheels touch I'm immediately off the throttle and quickly increasing toe brakes. If for any reason the nose starts to swing off I just back off on that sides brake and bring it back on when it corrects itself.
I guess if your not using rudder pedals with brakes it'd be kinda difficult for the last part of it. Before I got mine I just used the space bar to stop and it seemed to work just fine by itself. I wanna say with the F4U I had to use them like pulser brakes to keep from ground looping.
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Cobra it sounds like you are still 2 pointing your landings. With the hog especially you want to 3 point the landing getting the tail down the same time the mains hit. Then you can apply the brakes immediately and steadily
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Mars I might actually be doing a 2 point but it's hard to tell to be honest. It actually feels like all three have hit but it's not until I apply brakes that the tail comes back off. I have a tendency to do that because of vulchers. I wanna get stopped ASAP and if I break a tail wheel once the tail comes down violently because of loss of forward momentum then so be it.
I figure I'm either gonna be getting shot at or landing on the carrier so thats why I'm hard on the brakes. I do know I've dinged the prop a few times doing it. I guess if it meant we took a perk loss or something by how damaged the plane is upon landing I'd be a little more careful. I'm also not sure if the take off and landings are as hard as they should be either. I wanna say I read somewhere that if I did what I'm doing now in a real bird I'd be on my nose in a heart beat.
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Rrgr that about the hard fast landing.:D
If your on the carrier and you three point that tail should have hooked. Unless your really fast.
If you three point really hard you should bounce back into the air, otherwise once you touch down, if you keep that stick back the whole time the tail should stay down.
:D
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This is a quote from the Diary of a Corsair Pilot :"The original XF4U had the cockpit much further forward than the production model. The Navy originally wanted one .30 cal. and one .50 cal. machine gun firing through the propellor and one .50 cal in each wing. After the first prototype was built they changed the specs to six .50 cal. machine guns in the wings. Placing the six .50 cals in the wings eliminated a fuel tank in each wing, so a fuel tank was added behind the engine and the cockpit was moved aft. This decreased forward visibility dramatically. The bent wing design placed the flaps very close to the ground which made the plane teeter-totter or float just before touchdown. The big prop transferred so much torque back through the airframe that the port (left) wing would stall before the starboard one, causing the plane to fall off to the left. If the wing stalled at more than thirty feet the plane would flip over. It was a tricky airplane to land. Later planes had a spoiler added to the starboard wing which caused it to stall at about the same time as the port wing.
To land a Corsair, the pilot didn't watch the runway ahead as in other aircraft - he couldn't see it. He would watch his instrument panel and keep the horizon in his peripheral vision. At night there is no horizon, so a night landing was always exciting, and this first one must have been incredibly tense after the problem with the landing gear. "
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Nice excerpt,
The big prop transferred so much torque back through the airframe that the port (left) wing would stall before the starboard one, causing the plane to fall off to the left. If the wing stalled at more than thirty feet the plane would flip over. It was a tricky airplane to land.
Once all that torque is transfered to the ground and the tail is still in the air the gyroscopic precession causes the wing over. Once the tail is down the gyroscopic forces are not enough to cause a wing over.
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Best advice ive heard landin the f4u, is (of course) as slow as possible, but do NOT touch the brakes until under 50mph. Works for me every time.
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i always land on cvs because of this ;)
its the easier option :o
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I just use ailerons with differential braking, I land hogs regularly at 180-190 no flaps like this with no problems. Most all the tail draggers that cause trouble with ground looping can be landed this way. I land the way your "supposed" to only when I feel like being realistic (letting the plane settle in using throttle to control descent rate and elevators to control speed).
Zaphod.
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from what I've heard, when landing a tail dragger the toughest part is when the tail hits the ground. I've heard pilots at airshows say they try and keep the tail off the ground as long as possible. Once they can no longer keep it there, the plane is slow enough for ground maneuvering with brakes.
To this end, I land my hog at any speed, and once the mains are down I add a touch of foward pressure on the stick and hammer the brakes. The only plane this gives me trouble in is the spits, but who flys those dweeb planes ! :)
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The three-point landing is actually very similar to the stall landing. Most taildraggers will sit at their three-point attitude just slightly shy of the stall. When you really get familiar with a particular airplane, you can learn that exact attitude and touchdown so that all three wheels roll on at the same time. Usually it's just shy of a full stall. It requires a little finesse to do this nicely.
The wheel landing is actually pretty easy to make once you get the hang of it. This landing simply requires that you make easy contact with the runway on the main wheels first, with the shallowest rate of descent possible so the downward momentum of the CG is slight. At the moment of touchdown on the main wheels, almost with a slight anticipation, you apply forward stick/yoke to prevent the downward momentum of the CG from pulling the tail down. You actually want to raise the tail at that instance, decreasing the angle of attack, maybe even to zero or slightly negative, so you really stick the airplane down onto the runway. As the airplane slows down, the tail will come down and you end the landing rollout the same as if you had made a stall or three-point landing.
Is either the three-point/stall or wheel landing any better than the other? This is a good topic of debate among taildragger pilots, but the answer is simply no. Of course there are exceptions both ways for particular airplanes as specific airplanes have to be approached differently for all kinds of reasons, including how you might land it. Overall, either type of landing is fine if executed properly. What really matters either way is that you touchdown straight with no drift/crab. If you can't get it straight, you must go around and try again, or go find another runway. The bottom line is that for your typical taildragger you should remain proficient in both types of landings and make whichever one you feel most comfortable with in any given condition as that's going to be the safest type for you.
With all landings, you must keep that stick back when the tailwheel is down on the runway! Keep it all the way back, without exception. If making a full-stall landing, you want to work the stick all the way back so that it hits the stop the moment the airplane stalls and touches down, then hold it there until you shut down and get out. With the three-point landing, you want to do the same if possible, or immediately get it back at the moment of touchdown (it will be almost there if not already). After making a wheel landing, as soon as you get the tail down, immediately get that stick back and keep it back. Keep that stick back at all times unless it's tied down!
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well I guess all those guys flying the old wars birds at shows like MAAM in Reading are doing it wrong! Somebody should tell them so they don't crash and destroy the few remaining WWII flyable aircraft !!!
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Geee madjoe you still don't get it.
There are two acceptable ways to land a tail wheel. Not one, the Madjoe only way get over yourself lol.
And in aces high the inexperienced will wingover the f4U 90% of the time when you come in fast during the wheel landing. A wheel landing is the harder of the two to do. Hence this thread.
For those that have a problem ground looping the F4U you should 3 point the landing. It forces you to get the bird to stall about 1 to 2 feet over the runway thus dropping and sticking without the fear of ground looping. If you need to get down fast, scream to the field, slip short final get to 100 to 150 mph and plant that tail. The F4u is one of the easiest planes to slow down so losing all the speed at the end is no problem.
Since there is no wind in AHI it is not critical to wheelland, after you get the hang of three pointing you can start to perfect your wheel landings.
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Originally posted by mars01
Geee madjoe you still don't get it.
There are two acceptable ways to land a tail wheel
I have a lot of hours in real life tail draggers; And as mentioned there are 2 ways to do it. The easiest (and it isn't as easy as landing a tricycle gear airplane) is to plop and roll. Get all three on the ground. After you get the hang of it the "cooler" looking way is to grease it on the runway on the main gears and make it look easy. I was lucky enough to learn taildraggers from a WW2 vet. He was insistant on landing the thing on 2 wheels and keepimg the feet moving. The reason air show pilots land on ther mains only is because they can! Then there are thjose who can land on the left main, switch to right main, place both down, then place the tail down. Because they can! BTW it is much harder in AH to land a taildragger of any sort than to land say a P-38.
Pillur
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This also reinforces the fact that there is more than one way to do something in AH. Landing, like bombing, can be successfully done in more than one way. There is no 'This is the way to do it' it's more of 'This is the way I do it' .
You have to try different methods and find one that works for you.
If Plan A isn't working... try plan B
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Originally posted by fuze
This also reinforces the fact that there is more than one way to do something in AH. Landing, like bombing, can be successfully done in more than one way. There is no 'This is the way to do it' it's more of 'This is the way I do it' .
You have to try different methods and find one that works for you.
If Plan A isn't working... try plan B
suicide bombing in lancasters IS NOT the way to do it.......i dont care what you say :p
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I agree 100% Overlag. Some exploit anything in the game... I try to get better at the way is 'should' be done. 'Should' meaning trying to do it the way it was done in reality or the way the simulation wants it done. I will never... repeat NEVER do a suicide run in bombers to kill the cv. I take my fuzeforts up to 10k and level bomb it through the bombsight. Of course I'm human... and I do kamakazee them occasionally in a jabo.
[ Scratches his head and wonders...] how does a Ju88 torpedo run with almost certain death after the drop compare to kamakazee Lancasters??
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhSHADDUPfu zeman
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I've had plenty of F4U groundloops. I could never work out what was going wrong. Sometimes aileron against the GL would work.
I think the tendency is for us to rush the landings. We're about to get vulched by an incoming swarm, so we hurry the landing.
When there are no cons around, you can take your time. I made this landing last night. I don't think I could do a better one.
Film of F4U landing (http://www.zen33071.zen.co.uk/film222_f4ulanding.zip) - view in external view mode.
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Err, I rely solely on the left and right brakes. I can stop the plane in a short distance without doing anything wild.
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so what do you do when you lose your rudder in combat and have to land
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bail out..... or fly to a cv.........or land without gear...
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Belly landing in a pinch is a great option. It still manages to ground loop (and somehow overcomes a hell of a lot of friction from all that metal twisted in bunches on the runway), but you stop real quick.
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Rudders?
It may interest you to know that I have worn my twisty stick out again, and have not had rudder control for the last 6 weeks or so.
I have had to disable it, else it spikes like crazy.
The landing procedure I described above was borne from the need to land succesfully without rudder. Having been down this road with rudder control 3 times prior to this, I seem to have become quite adept at flying without it. Albeit I tend to do better with rudder versus without, however it doesn't impact my ability to land the F4U consistently.
But, I am a dweeb afterall. hehe
cheers,
RTR
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Landing a F4U on land is easy, first, reduce speed to between 100 and 110 tas, 1/4 flaps, approcah runway atthis speed lowering gear, then when on final use 1/2 flaps, maintain 100 mph, at 500-1000 feet from runway, go to full flap, maintain 90-100 mph, when the wheels touch the runway, rollout to below 50 mph, then apply wheel barkes slowley to a stop, use left and right brake for steering, useing rudder will cause a spinout
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Just go watch the videos for the F4U's at Zenos. It tells ya exactly how to take off and land.
http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/F4U.html
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I think you need to toggle combat trim off also. I''ve been experimenting with EXTREMELY slow landings and burrying the tail wheel. It still flips arround, but stops on a dime ( and loses no pieces). With the combat trim off, it doesn't flip arround. At this point, its just a matter of making a pretty landing. I think I have the hang of keeping it in one piece for a hot pad.
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Combat trim should be off at all times anyway, useing manual delivers more precise performance.
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Hey wolf, thanks for the site with the vids man, Pretty sweet place to sit back and relax, witha bowl of popcorn :)
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Originally posted by opus
Thanks all, the left and right brake did the trick.
Just two questions..
If the engine is off, what is making the nose swing violently to the right?
And if planes had rudder pedals, where are the left and right brakes on a real f4u?
The whole secret to landing any hog safely is the rear wheel... Get it on the ground, THEN apply your brake. If you brake early, she'll give you a little reminder and then you'll have to use individual wheel brakes and still probably break a wing. Turning the engine off does help, but the rear wheel is the "key."
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Seems the F4u veers left on the pizza map. Why left - hell i dunno- I guess pizza is in the southern hemisphere. What a crock. The ground loops are goofy and exagerated. Gota remeber - f4u goes right Baltic - left pizza - I LOVE the realism (cough).