The A2A Simulations Community

Well,I'm back to the landing gear/emergency gear extension system.I took the MK1 for a spin yesterday (I never flown mk1 before,only 2a) and put her on jacks to do some tests.Here is what I've found:

Emergency gear extension doesn't work.It extends the gear some 55-60% and that is it,you can't extend it 100% using the emergency system.

I tried,just out of curiosity to unlock the gear and mechanically (inspired by rock it to lock it) lower it.I found out the following:If you just keep cycling the gear selector lever (not the hand pump) the gear will lower to about 90-95%.Then I managed to lock it down by rocking the aircraft (to be honest,a spin did it in the end).While doing so I noticed that the landing gear struts oscilate as I rock the aircraft,probably the hydraulic struts used for gear extension act as shock absorbers.

I also tried extending it to 95% (using the gear selector lever alone) and then touching the ground and yawing to the side (in an atempt to physically move the gear strut to lock it,but it just stayed there,i managed to land with gear unlocked,stop, put her on jacks and the gear was fine,I didn't damage it.

Also,the same old problem,when you discharge emergency gear extension cylinder with the gear selector in raise position,the gear will lower with no problems using the main system.

My questions are:
1) what should a mk1 pilot do if,for example,hand pump lever broke and he was unable to lower the gear,but system remained pressurized (no loss of main hydraulic system,just the hand pump lever).He couldn't fully lower the gear using emergency system.

2) again,when discharging emergency cylinder with the selector in up position,you should at least have difficulties lowering the gear using main system,or not being able to lower it at all,or breaking the up locks in the process.

3) if the gear was unlocked,only held in 90% down position by hydraulic struts (again,mk1,no pressure at the moment),shouldn't the contact with the ground and yawing of the aircraft move the strut to the side?

4) shouldn't I damage the gear if I land with gear unlocked?

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Владимир Левков/Vladimir Levkov

Aviation is proof that,given the will,we have the capacity to achieve the impossible

well i noticed it too, but may be the emer.CO2 system is just used for popping the gears out of the bay as soon as possible, than finished it with hand pump to lock it..

a2a does as best as they could... but after a while peoples starts thinking that every phisical principals working as it should be

i think it's wise to use this ADDON plane as it's wrote down in the manuals , and don't try to find after every "hand made crisis" for reasionable asnwer and a fully realistic consequent

i know.. the first thing what i does after a saw the Jacks option, that i tryed to lay down the plane with only one gear was at fully locked position... but it won't worked until i fully locked the 2 of them:) dummy proof

I doubt the developers would agree with you on that.Physics works in accusim and that is one of the key reasons for existence of accusim.

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Владимир Левков/Vladimir Levkov

Aviation is proof that,given the will,we have the capacity to achieve the impossible

I would add, that you can use the emergency C02 bottle all you want, it refills itself, maybe it should be like that?

Edit. disregard this comment, forgot i was in a hangar.

If the Co2 bottle doesn't extend the system all the way (and more), then this means the power packed into the Co2 container is not strong enough. We did test this but admittedly, there was some coding done after, so this is likely a bug. I just added this post to our Spitfire beta forum.

Scott.

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A2A Simulations Inc.

A question.


In the mkII i could lower and retract the gear in flight with the engine shut down, is it normal ? my engine was windmilling, maybe that drived the gear ?

On jacks it can't be retreacted, or extended of course.

The turning of the engine turns the hydraulic pump.

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A2A Simulations Inc.

Thanks, thats what i thought

One can say that the need for a CO2 bottle is almost non-existent , well despite the hydraulic pump damage , or hydraulic leak ,or.... ok ok im shutting myself

I can only confirm this issue..

Both on the jacks and in-air, using the CO2 bottle doesn´t extend the gear to more than appr. 70°.

"Rock to lock" does not seem to have any impact on the landing gear.

FinnJ

"Rock to lock" does not work with the Spitfire because of the way the hydraulic system is designed, hydraulic fluid is trapped and the gear does not fall down freely (like the P-40). If you pump, the gear falls then stops due to the trapped pressure. This is not the case in the p-51. The gear falls by it's own weight when the up locks are released.

Scott.

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A2A Simulations Inc.

Now that's what I call accusim physics.

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"If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down."

I noticed this issue last night, which made me think a little about how this actually supposed to work. I was guessing that it was designed more for the case of hydraulic failure (leak) then for use under other circumstances. In that scenario, I'm guessing the gear should in theory fall by its own weight, since there is no hydraulic pressure keeping the thing up. But then, it would make more practical sense if the CO2 did pack enough punch to drop the gear all the way down even with hydraulic fluid in the system--more fail safe that way.

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It's a closed system, so even with no pressure, there is still fluid in the lines. As your gear falls, the pressure builds by the weight of the gear and stops.

Scott.

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A2A Simulations Inc.

There's the advantage of not having a feathering prop on a Spit...

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Any news regarding a fix ?

FinnJ