Liking the Cherokee

[knightfire_2001]

Hi A2A Team,
I've been flying the Cherokee for about a month now and am really enjoying it, well done on bringing much more realism to FSX and allowing us to sample what real life ownership of a plane is like!
On landing, I still to seem to have the nose dropping in the flare though, with one pilot on board, 70lbs in the baggage hold and loads of nose up trim. It does seem to cause me to hit the runway quite hard. Any ideas?

One idea for the next Accu-Sim update: when I fly in real-life in the club's Cessnas (especially at low levels) I get a gradual build up of dead bugs on the windshield, which then need to be cleaned off. If you can model that for us, that would be great!!

Cheers, Marcus.

[Lewis - A2A]

Hello,

glad to hear you are enjoying the simulation. For the nose are you running out of elevator control? This can be an issue with the early model Cherokee we have modeled and was fixed in the later models via a slight increase to the size of the stabilizer. However its very different to high wing aircraft which I believe you allude to flying so it'll take a little bit of getting use to the difference.

thanks,
Lewis

[Scott - A2A]

Marcus,

As Lewis said, if you are used to flying 172's, it's common to just drop an older hersheybar Cherokee on the first few landings because you can and do run out of elevator quickly if you don't have a lot of nose up elevator trim dialed in.

Scott.

[Caldemeyn]

Plus to what Mr Scott and Mr Lewis said, try to land a little faster than in a Cessna so you won't run out of elevator.

[knightfire_2001]

Hi all, thanks for your replies.
I do fly Cessna 152's in real life, so the early Cherokee is quite a different beast.
Yes it's is running out of elevator in the flare , I have been using a lot of nose up trim, but I might try a bit more airspeed on the approach.
Great that you guys have modelled the early Cherokee's idiosyncrasies to make the virtual flying a real challenge, thanks again!

[Scott - A2A]

knightfire,

After landing the Cherokee (real or Accu-Sim) with just yourself, it's common for your elevator trim to be 80% back (nose up).

Scott.

[AKar]

Yes it's is running out of elevator in the flare , I have been using a lot of nose up trim, but I might try a bit more airspeed on the approach.

The elevator tends to be quite enough for nice flare unless one "hesitates" during the maneuver - when I learned away from bad landings with A2A Cherokee, I found it a good 'tip', if you will, to not let the pitch rate stop until flying horizontally just above the runway. If one manages to pull it through in one continuous pitch-up, it sits rather nicely. But if you attempt many separate pulls and let the nose stop rising in the middle, then you may run out of elevator more easily. Also, keeping just a bit power on helps too. As a side note, in actual airplane, if you reach the elevator travel limit, the trim position of course makes no difference whatsoever to airplane's response (or if one looks über precisely, actually it lessens the elevator authority a tiny bit in general case) but only to the force needed to keep it against the stop. With PC controllers this is of course impossible to replicate unless one had some real nice FFB hardware.

-Esa

[Caldemeyn]

From what i know, there was a trim fix for a2a ga planes, now the position of the trim won't interfere with elevator so you won't be able to make turns like an ufo when trimmed to the max as it is with default planes. Don't know about lessening/enhancing ( depending on how you are trimmed and how you are moving the yoke) authority with the typical trim tab configuration though.

[bricke94]

I too have this problem my friend. I try to focus my eyes on the end of the runway, and use the "Runway Expansion" effect. Also i like to reduce power when about 50 feet descending to the runway. (For ground effect)

[n421nj]

We need a good force feedback yoke and rudder pedals

[EnDSchultz]

I've heard at least one person say that they were trained to treat every landing in the old Cherokee like a soft field if runway length is sufficient. The prop wash from leaving just a tiny hint of power in during the flare dramatically improves your elevator authority massively.

[knightfire_2001]

Hi all,
Thanks for your replies and advice. I pulled off a great landing at Parkes in Australia. I left a small amount of throttle in the flare, and managed to hold the nose up for a nice main wheel landing.
Now I just need to keep practicing so I can do that consistently!
Cheers,
Marcus