Spitfire and Hurricane take off and landing tips for Newbies with minimum budget ( joystick, no other accessories ).
These tips are for new players to be able to take off and land using manual throttle without knowing the finer points of flying. Control surface trims are zeroed by default and don’t need touching at this stage. You can play with those later !
Rightly or wrongly this is the way I do it and it works for me.
Firstly I have the mouse in my left hand (X&Y set for views) with the scroll wheel controlling prop pitch, joystick in right hand for everything else. Left hand mouse took me a week of practice but now it's even more natural than the right.
To start, set throttle to 15% open.
Prop pitch fully fine (all the way back)
Fuel on, both mags on. For speed right click in and out of VC to hit buttons either side especially the Hurri.
2 pumps on the primer and as you hit the start button, offset the torque with a bit of right rudder and aileron.
Release brakes, ease pitch fully forward while controlling aileron and rudder.
Ease in throttle to 95% also controlling rudder and aileron.
Tail lifts at about 55mph and torque decreases.
I hold her down and don't unstick until about 95mph
The reason is that a higher takeoff speed gives you more manoeuvrability early, important for ground attack exercises.
Once airborne, wheels up, adjust throttle and pitch.
The most important instrument is airspeed, watch it like a hawk, it takes practice to understand prop pitch but basically course gives you more grip up to the point where it begins to slow you down. You can use fine pitch in a dive to also slow you down.
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Landing;
First find the field(radio if you can't see it.)
Having ascertained the wind direction, fly abeam the field on the opposite heading.
Watch your compass as you turn onto the wind heading and you should then see the field in front of you. Keep an eye on altitude, I use a target altitude of 500' and descend from that. ( flat turns can be difficult at first and remember that with a plane on its side, the rudder performs the function of elevator.)
The main problem I had with landing was judging the distance. Initially, it's better to make a longer approach and keep nudging the throttle to keep it flying.
Prop pitch fully course( more grip to accelerate should you need to.)
Open canopy ( This game is so good that the open canopy actually slows you down, you may wish to leave it closed on takeoff for increased speed ).
Throttle back, speed drops to 140, flaps down and gear down. Target touchdown speed is about 80.
Small throttle increases just to ensure that you don't drop too low.
As wheels touch the deck and you're certain that you'll stay down, pitch to fully fine to help with the braking. 50mph and you can start stabbing the wheel brakes to bring you to a stop.( With pitch fully forward until touchdown you have the grip to accellerate and go around again.)
The Spit is more slippery than the Hurri and you may find that on approach your airspeed is too high to get flaps and gear down. If you don't want to do a go round you can waggle the rudder to scrub off some speed. This is why I find 500' to be the maximum height as I start my approach, any higher and the glidepath is too steep and you'll come in too hot and high.
If you train at Tangmere you can taxi to the pub for a couple of well earned pints( Tea from the wagon at Kenley just doesn't cut it.)
Here's my flying, so if you think it sucks, you can ignore all I've just said !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo9kFCYPH8Ehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmkldnwhOCAHappy flying and remember a good landing is one you walk away from.
Circuit training;
Select a field with a nice long runway like Tangmere.
To position yourself at exactly the right place to make an approach, here's how I do it.
In order to make a circuit and position for approach, the start point is the end of the runway at Tangmere. Just before you take off look at your compass and write down on a pad the heading of the runway, you may have to move a bit to make sure the plane is straight.
Whatever that heading is, add or subtract 180 to give you a figure less than 360 . So you have two headings written on your bit of paper.
What you do now is take off, fly straight for a minute and then turn left and fly an extended oval.
The reason is that if you fly that oval on compass headings and do the same rate of turn at each end of that oval you will put yourself on exactly the point in the air from which to start your approach (with 0 wind. 3mph wind makes little difference).
So the first heading is the outbound takeoff heading then do a gentle left turn onto the second heading(the return or opposite heading) don't climb above 500'. and keep the speed down to about 160 remembering that at low speed a turn will reduce your speed further so compensate with throttle.
The plane wants to climb in the turns so offset that with rudder so that you don't climb above 500’.
You will see Tangmere go past on your left side. When adjacent the place on the runway that you started from, fly straight for about another minute and then use the same rate of turn as your first. Watch the compass as you turn onto the first heading which you wrote down on your piece of paper. As you come onto the first heading you will see the runway ahead and then follow the landing procedure above.
These tips were originally written for Badger but now amended for any player.
How NOT to take-off a Hurricane;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbI8js2ANv8Time wasted opening and closing the canopy would have been better spent ensuring fine pitch and applying more right rudder and aileron to stop the torque swing.
Still shooting at an ME110 after two people have jumped out of it....is a waste of bullets
(even if we like to see them burst into flames !)
How NOT to land anything;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsU1d1eeHIgThis Squadron Leader Rex should have given himself a longer approach ( when downwind, if the the field is visible over the shoulder, the approach is too short)
On running into the dip at Manston, continuing to brake was a case of irremovable digit
He improved his looks with a bent nose and lived long enough to shoot down a lot more of the Luftwaffe
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