The A2A Simulations Community

After about 5 hours on the clock the brakes in my P51 are wearing. I use the brakes often to taxi because I get very little response from the rudder/tail wheel steering. I can't see any left or right movement of the tail wheel when the rudder is moved. I've tried moving the stick back but it makes no difference. Some spec are as follows;
saitek rudders sensitivity set to a bit more than three quarters to the right.
A2A CoreUpdate 1.4
I have the rudder "slope" slider set in FSUIPC

Any suggestions, have I missed something in the aircraft operation?


Ian

Try moving the stick FORWARD next time.

Whiic

Ok I see in the manual that pulling the stick back only gives six degrees tail wheel movement (each side) and that's not enough to do a tight turn. I had read but forgot about the stick forward thingie which unlocks the tail wheel. Thank you.

If I decrease the brake sensitivity in FSX will that reduce brake wear in the aircraft?


Ian

Welcome to Accusim! Your brake wear has a lot to do with how you're using or (abusing) your brakes.
Normally in a Mustang, you shouldn't be using brakes all that much when taxiing. Try some serious planning ahead as you taxi and you'll be surprised at how little you need to either use brakes or make a tight turn.
Remember.........Accusim is treating you as it determines you are treating the airplane!

It's a whole new world you have now in FSX with your A2A with Accusim aircraft in FSX. THIS airplane will TELL you how you're treating it. ))))))))
Dudley Henriques

Possibly, probably. I don't know the internals.

I reduced brake sensitivity merely because that way it'd be less likely for me to nose-over. Yeah... I configured my FSX with Spitfire in mind. That plane is devious regarding brakes. But I guess it will save brakes as well, and not just the props... (the best thing would be if I had a binding of brakes to a slider rather than a key. With a key I can only define repeat ratio as "once", "often" or "very often" and often already being too often for a smooth braking).



Serious planning or not, it only takes a mere tap on directional breaks to bring P-51 on borderline of groundlooping. To do it safely (as groundlooping is bad, and borderlining it is not actually safe), that takes some planning (i.e patience and slow taxi speed). Brakes are merely needed on short runway landings. For taxiing, usually not at all, and for doing tight turns, only taps (being careful the inner diameter wheel keeps turning and doesn't bend).

Using brakes for tight turning, one of the most important aspects but be to not rotate in circle around either landing gear, in a condition where the wheel doesn't spin but only bend and skid. It's bad on the strut to inflict a twisting force when the landing geat strut is designed on completely different types of forces (mostly lateral, but also for non-twisting-type horizontal forces).

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I'm not sure if you are talking the sim or the actual aircraft. If the actual Mustang I would respectfully disagree with you on the "mere tap" causing a ground looping issue in the 51. I have never found this to be an issue in the Mustang. The main gear on the 51 is more than wide enough and the airplane tracks as if on rails. It takes serious misuse of the brakes to cause a ground loop issue in this airplane.
PROPER use and application of brake however IS important.
Dudley Henriques

Ok, I was exaggerating as in, it's unlikely to cause the plane to spin so fast on the ground to make the outer wing plow a ditch on the landing area (would it be unpaved, of course, as you can't plow concrete). With Spitfire, it's possible (though the narrow track width that causes susceptibility of wing-tip plowing also makes it less susceptible to turn faster than intended when brakes are applied directionally).

So I probably used word "groundloop" in an unprofessional fashion, meaning rather "unwantedly fast rotation" rather than catastrophic wing-tip plowing into the ground. Plowing a ditch with P-51D is about as difficult as plow a ditch with P-40 it just won't work.

Then again, I've heard word "groundloop" used in context of DC-2/3's, which (like P-51D) has quite a wide track width compared to wings span. I guess there's different definitions of "groundlooping", some definitions requiring either wing-tip to actually contact the ground, others to merely cause unintentional spinning around a lateral axis (such as overshooting a turn).

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Considering the wide track width of P-51 or P-40 compared to Spitfire, it's obvious the risk of wing-tip-to-ground contact is minimal, thus any looping on the ground (whether you qualify it as "groundloop") is likely to be non-dangerous (to pilot, at least, but it could be harmful to the landing gear). However, with a wide track width, directional breaking also has more effect than directional breaking on a narrow track width. It has all to do with torque: the longer the lever, the less force you need to cause rotation. (It's merely that rotation is less harmful, if you have a long "lever" in a taildragger.)