Need help Taking off

[Zorro]

I feel like a pest asking about this but with the torque turned on and now have to really learn how to take off. I do throttle up slowly and add up trim and pull the stick into my gut. Still my taking off's are... really bad. Landings are at an all time good. So, how much up trim do I need? I tried to throttle up slowly but when the plane departs, the torque pulls it to the left, and I have to get really agressive with rudders and stick. With setting the trim, I watch the unit on the left turn, but have not figured a way to judge how much of it should be turned. Wind is off at present. I find taking off a lot harder than landing. All, any advice appreciated. sorry to have to re ask this but I am missing something in my methods. As stated before, really enjoying the difficulity of the Spit and glad it's not a fly be wire kids sim. I was getting cocky and thought I was becoming a fly boy hot shot, but all changed when turning on torque effects. This plane is going to turn me in to a pilot. I find the FSX stuff child's play after flying the planes in BOB.

[Anvilfolk]

Hi, Zorro!

First off, a warning: I don't think I've ever taken off from the actual runway! I always seem to veer out into the grass at some point. In any case, I've managed to get the plane off the ground, and here's what I do (I just took off to make sure I had this right):

I take off the brakes, and start moving the engine throttle up, REALLY slowly, until it's at around 50%. For until I decide to bust the power up, I pull back on the stick so that the tail-wheel stays on the ground for as long as possible.

At some point, as you gain speed, the plane will start to turn and one of the front wheels will start lifting, but the other will stay down, due to the torque.

To compensate for that particular effect (torque, one wing going up and the other one down) regular ailerons should do it. Don't be afraid to give the joystick a hard jerk to make sure you don't hit the ground - crash verification is pretty unforgiving here. You should keep it under control.

Another problem that starts happening is that the plane actually turns, changing direction. To TRY to make sure you stay on the runway, you can use the rudder, but doing so, you'll give the plane an effect kind of like the torque (especially if you're on button/key rudders) - which, as I've said, you can compensate with the joystick.

As soon as you hit a decent speed, ease the joystick (you should not be pulling too hard to begin with, I think), and the back of the plane should lift. You should not have too much torque to compensate for at this point. Bust the power to the maximum, and within one or two seconds, you'll be able to lift (very gently) off the ground. For me, it usually seems as if you're still on the ground, but I toggle the gear in, gain speed, and lift up further!

In any case, I found that keeping the joystick pulled would make the plane try to lift without enough power, hence the easing and letting it gain speed with one less wheel on the ground, until enough to pull up into the air.


50% is probably not a good value. I feel as if you could bring it up to 60% or even 70%, but if the torque effects kick in too strongly too quickly, I have a hard time pushing all the buttons and levers at the same time to compensate and get off the ground. Depends on your equipment!

I hope this helped! For me, it really helps to go SLOWLY, so you can get to know the torque and how to respond to it. Once you gain experience, I guess you can start increase engine power faster, and take off more quickly.

Good luck!

[Tako_Kichi]

I must admit I have not flown the Spit in a while as I have been testing the TM a lot recently. However, I never applied full power from stationary as that is just asking for trouble. I would ease in roughly 50% power, controlling the tendency to veer off with the rudder and then once the tail came up I would gently increase the throttle to about 85% (I use a X52 HOTAS and it has a detent at that point so I know just where I am on the travel). Once the tail is up the fin becomes much more effective and helps to keep you in a straight line so you can ease off on the rudder at that point.

A little up trim helps but in most cases I left it at the mid point and don't forget to get your wheels up ASAP after you leave the ground as they create a lot of drag.

I must agree that after the BoBII planes the FSX ones are much easier although the FSX WoP Spit can be a real handful on the brakes if you don't have toe brakes on your pedals (like me). I find it very easy to stand it on it's nose with just a fraction of a second too long on the brake button!

[Zorro]

Just noticed Shockwave has some very nice planes for FSX. I know where to come in getting planes for FSX. If I stop spending time with BOB (maybe in the distant future), I'll use Shockwave planes in FSX vs the stock FSX sissy planes. Don't mean to put FSX down but I flew several props in FSX and they seem easy vs BOB's planes. With BOB I have to work on stick and rudder and fly the plane from beginning to end. Adds tension and not something that can be thrown around in the sky with out thought and lack of skill. Getting back to taking off, I'll try the suggestions as the Spit is not the easiest plane to take off in (thank goodness). Thanks for the imput.

[Zorro]

Well, some good news. Your flight instruction works. Thank you! No crashes! After 15 or so take off's, things like wing drops, untidy, and one too slow, and one good, I can now have the metal plate in my head removed, and put my teeth back in. I eased back on the trim, and powered it up as per advice. The nice thing is the advice works. Yesterday, I was crashing more than flying. The plane is no pushover, and that's the way I like it. With more practice will turn on wind effects and learn how to land with them on, proper direction etc. The sim is a chalange prior to combat, though I flew a lot of practice combat missions. After that phase, time to learn the campaign. This is not a plug and play sim. That's what keeps me going for if it was easy I would have lost interest a while back. Eventually will get maps and navagate by dead reckoning. This forum's flight school works!

[Tako_Kichi]

Glad you are making progress Zorro. Take your time and all your efforts will be rewarded. If it were easy it wouldn't have remained as popular as it still is.

[Bader]

Glad you are making progress Zorro. Take your time and all your efforts will be rewarded. If it were easy it wouldn't have remained as popular as it still is.

Agreed. There are challenges at so many levels in BoBII. It's a really complex game.

Glad to hear you're up and running, Zorro. Gradual application of power and feeling the plane 'liven up' as airflow bites (around 50mph), and reacting to it, is key.

I am not saying that merely hard=good, the challenges are all there to make you think about what would happen in real life.
One thing for sure- no-one would take off in a 1000HP machine without a lot of trepidation for the first few attempts. I reread an account recently of a pilot talking of a colleague that just couldn't master landing a Spit. He claimed the aircraft would kill him. And it did. He crashed on landing and died.

[stanner]

With all tail dragger aircraft you get better rudder control if you push the stick forward to get the tail in the air. You do not keep the tail down as long as possible.

With the tail up in the air the rudder is more sensitive and will control the left torque better.

Stanner

[Tako_Kichi]

With all tail dragger aircraft you get better rudder control if you push the stick forward to get the tail in the air. You do not keep the tail down as long as possible.

With the tail up in the air the rudder is more sensitive and will control the left torque better.

But don't over do the stick forward bit otherwise the prop has a nasty habit of eating dirt!

Ask me how I know!

[Hylander_1715]

Yep, I've pranged my share of props!

[dgd2008]

Hello Zorro

What do you mean by "torque turned on"?

I just started using Manual Prop Pitch and max the pitch while taking off and landing (after reading here a post about prop torque management, where members suggested with prop pitch to max is better doing taking offs and landings).

Best regards
DGD

[Trumper]

Torque is able to be switched on in the main menu,look at page 51 in the manual .
Main game user interface [menu]> flight> flight options and you will see torque listed.
"Flight Options
Flight Options
Minimum, Low, Medium, High, Maximum, Custom
Setting this box will change all the options to 5 pre-configured difficulty levels. For instance, minimum uses the Novice flight model with most of the options turned off, and maximum will set up the full flight model with the options set up to give full realism. If you manually change the options , then the Flight Options box will show "custom".

[dgd2008]

Thank you BDG

I have always had torque On and all other realistic settings to ON, except the Engine Management (still cannot decide to start the engine myself everytime ), so I completely forgot about torque....

Cheers,
DGD