How to take off without alpha warning?

I can’t take off without getting a high alpha warning. Even with a clean ac @70%fuel I will trigger the warning. The ac won’t react to stick input below 280-ish kmph and even if I have a very small stick input when I hit this speed I will get a warning as soon as I get close to airborne.

So my questions are:

-How do I take off without triggering a high alpha warning?

-Why doesn’t the aircraft react to stick input before 280-ish kmph? When I read the take off diagrams I see no reason for this.

Regards

F

I also used to get the warning every time (nose like just popped up) untill I tried another joystick. It turned out to be too low resolution on my first one (no problems flying helicopters with it though). Or that's my explanation to it anyhow.

Hmm, I’ve seen a sort of hud that show your stick inputs, how do I activate that?

RCtrl + Enter

Awesome, thank you!!

I've been having this issue as well. Sudden and abrupt nose up attitude, nearly tail-striking, and high-alpha warning plus buffeting from very little aft stick.

Tbh, never had that problem. What joystick do you use? I have the TM Warthog which is expensive but therefore allows very fine adjustments.

You need to be careful on your input. Is your procedure right? Try to not use afterburner if the runway is not super short. Begin to slowly pull at around 280, youll lift at around 300 then.

Did you set nose trim correctly? 3 deg with weapons.

Follow the indications on the HUD. It shows when to pull (time line) and where to place the FPM (pole tracks) with or without afterburner.

But I think youre just to hard on the input. Maybe not your fault if the stick doesnt allow that resolution. Axis settings could help then.

I think it's a pretty common problem, even John in the Nav Video tail struck it's VERY easy to do

Bit of practice and being slow and gentle with the stick help but you need a good stick with good resolution to really prevent it.

As said already might not be you might be your stick. Trimming and axis curves can help a lot

Oh and don't get too despondent, I saw a YouTube video somewhere of a cockpit view in the real thing and the pilot got a High Alpha warning as he lifted.........just saying!!

Trim and speed. I haven't had problems since I started to trim at least +3 on the pitch trim and pay attention to the HUD on the take-off roll, it practically flies itself off the runway.

Trim +3? I recall the guides saying -3. I usually have trim set -3, full burner, aft stick when the rotation cue in the HUD comes up.

What works for me is to pull back very hard and then immediatly releasing to almost neutral. This makes the nose wheel "unstick" from the tarmac and rotates the aircraft just enough to get you a little bit of alpha but not enough to trigger the warning and then you just have to very gently adjust the alpha from there to get it to be just enough to take off and just shy of triggering the warning.

Takes some practice to get it right and this is probably not how they do it in real life :)

One or 2 beeps is not a problem in real life either, it gives you an indication that it is working.

For me it does that when rotating properly to the upper SI poles.

Just as stall warnings is common on touchdown in real life aviation.

I can’t take off without getting a high alpha warning. Even with a clean ac @70%fuel I will trigger the warning. The ac won’t react to stick input below 280-ish kmph and even if I have a very small stick input when I hit this speed I will get a warning as soon as I get close to airborne.

So my questions are:

 

-How do I take off without triggering a high alpha warning?

 

-Why doesn’t the aircraft react to stick input before 280-ish kmph? When I read the take off diagrams I see no reason for this.

 

Regards

F

I always use the trim for T/O and I almost never touch the stick in the roll. Fuel tank,2 x 24's, 2 x rb's for ex. ac trimmed to 5 degrees, 2 stage AB and ac lifts it self.

For normal takeoff no AB is used. If the runway is shorter than usual stage 2 AB is used. Use stage 3 for very short takeoffs but be aware of the fact that you only have a small time window then to takeoff before you are faster than the allowed speed for the tires.

The manual describes this well and also warns about that risk. The HUD has references for both, with and without AB takeoff.

Trim +3? I recall the guides saying -3. I usually have trim set -3, full burner, aft stick when the rotation cue in the HUD comes up.

Indeed the documentation does say -3, but it's 3° nose up trim. Which I would call +3 trim, as it incurs positive pitch. But we can talk force vectors and shit all day. As long as you trim nose up, you're good.

I need to double check the trim gauge and my controls setup. Pressing aft trim makes the trim gauge needle go below zero, making me think that it's indicating -3. Not sure if that's accurate, or if the positive/negative pitch vs. positive/negative trim semantics are confusing me.

Tried again, something doesn't feel right:

Center-line tank, half-load of bombs, trim 3° nose up, 2nd stage burner, rotate at 250kmph, which seems to be after the timeline marker in the HUD. Between 250-300kmph I have to maintain 15 units of AoA just to keep from smacking down onto the runway, with the alpha warning blaring at me. It isn't until I get through 300kmph that I can actually climb out.

Tried again, something doesn't feel right:

 

Center-line tank, half-load of bombs, trim 3° nose up, 2nd stage burner, rotate at 250kmph, which seems to be after the timeline marker in the HUD. Between 250-300kmph I have to maintain 15 units of AoA just to keep from smacking down onto the runway, with the alpha warning blaring at me. It isn't until I get through 300kmph that I can actually climb out.

It doesn’t sound too far off actually, with that load and stage 2 your speed of rotation would be above 260km/h at +30C

But I’m not sure about the high AoA.

What if you use a clean AC ?

A clean AC with 100% fuel weighs about 15000kg. At +30C your speed for rotation is 195km/h with max AB stage3.

180km/h at +15C.

A really cold day -15C the chart show 165km/h but the minimum allowed speed for rotation is 180km/h.

But I can’t rotate with an AC with 70% fuel below 250, it’s just not possible for me.

If we look at max AB stage 2 the speed of rotation for clean AC 100% fuel is 240km/h at +30C and about 225km/h at +15C.

This was at -1C in the ME, taking of from Vaziani so probably closer to -2 or -3C on the runway.

I tried again on a Spring day, +18C, center-line tank only, AB Stage 2.

The timeline marker on the HUD became obscured by the time I hit 200kmph, rotated at 250kmph, FPM slightly above the outer altitude poles on the HUD, maintaining 12 units AoA with a lot of buffeting, but no alpha warning, until 300kmph. From 300 to 400kmph I had to maintain 10 units AoA to keep the FPM around the outer altitude poles on the HUD.

It didn't feel like the main gear left the runway until about 280kmph or so.

What's weird with the Viggen (and Mirage) is that after rotation and waiting for the main gear to leave the ground, the aircraft wobbles so much it's almost scary.

I know the α warning as well, but I just have to get more gentle on the rotation. But I constantly get it when approaching with AFK and that 15.5° setting as the AFK is very slow in setting the throttle. I tried to just ignore it hard by pulling out the CB knob for the α warning on the right hoof side of the cockpit - and it still goes off. So the CB and probably all the others which I didn't try are not functional as of yet.

Interesting to see the Viggen is usually taken off without AB which is almost impossbile at the moment in DCS. Somehow the dry performance could be a bit higher... and I remember the devs saying that they're gonna work on it, but that's been a year ago already