Unable to land the Spitfire; any tips?

The only unnecessary band-aid perfesser wrote in his post is "pre-loading the brakes" method and applying them already shortly after touch down. DCS Spit requires neither and the sooner people drop bad habits, the better for them. When touching down well trimmed Spit on three points at speed as per manual, almost no rudder and definitely no brake input is necessary for most of the roll out. I alway land with flaps though.

 

Nothing wrong with rest of his tips, though, as they pretty much describe landing by the book.

All good, except, no rudder? Don’t agree there, no way.

You should have waited a bit longer to play your trump card (as probably the only one here who has actually flown in one).

What say you then? Any near wingtip dragging? Any near ground loops?

LoL - no, none of the above, but then:

A) I wasn't landing it, the chap in front, Don Sigournay, with thousands of hours in Sea Harriers and several hundred in Spits of various Marks thankfully was!

B) I can only report what I observed and felt

C) It was twin pit Mk.IX which Don told me handles a little more skittishly than the single pits thanks to the rear cockpit and cargo(!) shifting the CoG rearwards

Observations as follows:

1) a massive amount of sink rate on finals - even coming from RL gliders that really surprised me and goes a long way for me to confirm that DCS has these physics right and a great many of our legacy simulators got it wrong. Nose is very much higher and rate of descent very much larger in both DCS and RL than I've seen in previous simulators.

This could mean for some that bad virtual pilot habits result in too much sink rate and ergo energy when reaching terra firma.

2) lots of short sharp rudder movements post touchdown - Don the instructor pilot was really working those pedals HARD but the actual nose movement was tiny and he kept the aircraft tracking bolt straight down the runway

3) seat of the pants feel - I felt in my posterior all the movements Don was correcting for much more - and earlier - than I noticed any visual cues. I cannot stress how important this sensation was and one that is - and for the foreseeable future always will be - sadly lacking in flight sims.

In DCS I get around it by trusting my judgement and if I even suspect the nose is starting to drift from the track I stab a boot full of opposite rudder in to catch it before it even starts to take hold.

Tip - be well zoomed out for a nice wide field of view for landing ( I make sure I can see the bottom of the dash when looking dead ahead); use your peripheral vision and the local environment (trees buildings) on the horizon to sense when the nose is starting to go. It takes practise but soon becomes 2nd nature.

4) Pitch sensitivity - it is a very very responsive a/c in pitch and to that I can attest - only a few mms of movement provided noticeable displacement in the nose. Transfer this behaviour 1:1 to a short throw joystick and you will end up with an a/c that feels uncontrollable. You have to dedicate some time tweaking the curves and the saturation to reach a compromise that suits you.

Otherwise there are companies out there willing to supply full scale replica Spitfire sim-pit controls but you may have to re-mortgage and eat nothing but canned beans for the rest of your days! Link: http://www.spitsim.co.uk/prices-combinations/4553425287

However, my belief is that it is a factor outside of the FM that is a primary culprit.

5) The first person picture - I maintain that the lens through which the 1st person camera in DCS collects its view of the virtual environment is significantly different from other older sims that the majority of us come from and as such it gives us a false sense of altitude - this combined with the more forgiving flight models of these older sims means that when we come in to DCS we not only have to deal with narrower margins of success from the FM but also we're, by habit, assuming we are at a particular altitude when in fact, because of this difference in first person camera lens, in DCS we are higher.

I was having exactly the experience of wing slapping or sudden uncontrollable ground loops that many describe until I made the conscious effort of cutting later and pulling into the flare a few seconds later - and ergo at a lower altitude - than my sim-pilot instincts were telling me to.

It cured my wing slapping ground looping problems overnight.

By deliberately flaring at a lower altitude we reduce the height at which we drop from = less energy. By cutting power later the aircraft settles rather than stalls, thus again reducing sink rate = less energy.

The flare itself I make very gently (see point 4) as the low longitudinal stability of the spit and the stick sensitivity makes it easy for the nose to end up higher than desired.

We've all read plenty on the Spit.

I've never heard any wartime spit pilot say it was hard to land or difficult to handle on the ground. On the contrary, everything I've ever seen said the opposite.

I'd be careful as these judgments are a) subjective and b) relative. Back then all anybody had ever flown was taildraggers (generally speaking) and compared to it's contemporaries the Spit probably was easy; all taildraggers want to swap ends, it's an inherent part of the physics of taildraggers so given that if you keep your wits about you and get in early with the corrections, how does that make the Spit any harder or easier than a Tiger Moth or a Harvard?

Compare that nowadays to pilots who work their way onto warbirds and who say that the most difficult part of flying these planes is the takeoff and landings; the majority have come baptised from a nosewheel environment, be it GA or Civil, where an a/c self corrects any deviation from it's ground track and the wayward nature of taildraggers is almost anathema and is suddenly much much more of a risk factor.

There was a great Battle of Britain documentary out a few years ago featuring the actor Ewan McGregor and his ex-RAF Tornado pilot brother Colin; as part of the shows schtick Colin was taught to fly a two seat Spitfire and his instructor, one Air Marshal Cliff Spink, formerly an RAF fast jet pilot, goes at great lengths to describe, one nosewheel jock to another, just how different the flying style is.

Found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H23YtB6Cb9M

The flight training footage begins at at the following times:

0:11:20

0:25:44

1:05:15

Particularly note the rudder deflections on all types during the landings

As sim-pilots I suspect that previous sims have been too kind to us regards ground handling physics - so now it is a culture shock to realise what we are up against; much like a modern day RL nosewheel to taildragger conversion candidate!

As easy as it might get it's still always going to be a 2,000 hp taildragger and will always need to be handled with respect.

Exactly. Lots of powerful forces coming in and out of play at various moments in an a/c that by today's aerodynamic standards is unsophisticated i.e. it does little to design out those behaviours that if not caught early by the pilot could bend/break/kill him/the airplane.

Besides, this isn't the place for an in depth talk about it's handling, that is well covered. Just want to help this guy learn to land this thing in steps, easier to harder.

Indeed. Fascinating nonetheless!

Hey Vinnie, your comment is getting quite some reaction.

I know you're a veteran of spit flying in sims, so I think you deserve some sensible replies.

 

In my opinion, handling the spit on the ground, and in the "circuit" is something that can be picked up quite quickly. Once adapted to, you can drive her around the airfield and conduct takeoffs and landings with, shall we say, "mild discomfort".

 

Some suggestions:

I'd pull the saturation back on the Rudder input curve to about 50%.

You need quite a lot of throttle on the spit to overcome inertia when stationary. But that throttle suddenly translates into too much ground speed. For this reason, I tend to use a very fast up-and-down throttle when I'm trying to overcome that inertia, when changing from stationary to taxy-ing. I ramp up to 80% or so, and then back down to almost idle before the aircraft shows any visible signs of moving. In the time it takes me to say "reeeow" (you know, the sound that kids make when imitating an engine) I will advance and retard the throttle. There's a delay in transferring that to aircraft movement. If you leave the throttle "up" too long, the tourque will kick in and you'll ground loop, or wing drop.

Try to achieve "walking pace only" in the DCS spit. Speed adjustment requires the same approach described above. A sudden increase and decrease in throttle works much better than a slight increase which is sustained. One the ground speed gets up, you're better off just firwalling and trying to get airborne than trying to bring the aircraft to a standstill again!

 

This thinking also seems to apply to rudder operation on the ground. Sudden full-to-none changes in rudder input seem far more effective at arresting nose-swing than a steady and considered rudder input.

People (me included) talk about "dancing on the rudder", but that sounds like lots of light fleet footed inputs (aka tap dancing).

However, what I find works is a more infantile "stomping" on the rudder. I tend to smash in full rudder in one or other direction, and then my foot is back off the rudder in an instant. It's a brutal and jarring approach, rather than a gentle coercion.

 

I also taxy with my brakes set partially "on" the whole time. This is becasue I don't have a physical brake lever like the real thing which I can operate in tandem with the stick. IRL, the ergonomics of the cockpit make the brake/rudder system work. For us, with odd assortments of controllers, we have to compromise.

Once in the air, life is totally different. You can fly with a single finger, especially if you have an extended control column. tiny touches of rudder and elevator in particular will give you signficant responses. And, at low RPM (2000 to 2300), the aircraft will fly by itself, even in a climbng or decensing turn; she will hold a trimmed attitude almost in perpetuity. At higher RPM (aove 2500) it gets harder.

 

As a final point, be wary of the old pilot talk about spitfire handling.

Many of those guys had limited experience in multiple types of aircraft. In addition, many of them ignore/forget or fail to mention the issues with handling these aircraft such as pecking’ or ‘bogging' (nosing over and breaking props - which happened a LOT).

 

Also, a lot of the WW2 pilots seem to forget that they had Ground Crews sitting on the tailplane to prevent ground looping. There's even the famous case of Margaret Horton (1945), who ended up still on the tailplane when the aircraft got airbone!

http://britishairshows.com/features_sitting_on_tail_of_spitfire.html

 

The two-seater spits are quite famous for ground looping too, with Jokes about it being almost a rite-of-passgae for these machines. This thread dates back to 2009:

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?87470-Spitfire-Tr-9-landing-accident-in-New-Zealand-15-1-09&p=1349148#post1349148

Philstyle,

Thanks for these suggestions. Last night, I tried to follow at least some of them, and did a couple of pretty good landings. As I let the plane roll on done the runway, patting my self on the back, however, I still rubbed a wing on the ground. Practice, practice...

I would like to also take this opportunity to remind everyone that: "These are all band-aids and patches to help with the flight model that isn't yet as it should be. This isn't (yet) the "flies without a vice", "obeys every command" Spit that your Grandpa flew in '44." is not my quote. I was simply responding to it.

All good, except, no rudder? Don’t agree there, no way.

I should rephrase. I was talking strictly about first half of the rollout, when the plane's still weathervaning plus stick to the guts makes this little centering effect of the tailwheel do its job. No rudder, then one slight dab, max two, is enough then (I use 20% curvature, though).

Of course, in the second phase, when the plane slows down and the instability really kicks in, I have to dance on those pedals like a maniac and start using brakes, but that's expected :D.

The main thing that changed landings for me was soft focusing my eyes on touchdown. By defocusing your eyes it makes it much easier to see if the plane is starting to turn left or right early. Spotting it early and correcting early with small, sharp inputs of rudder (and brakes at lower speeds) is the key. Fast taps on the brakes coordinated with small fast rudder inputs will help keep the Spit in line.

The Spitfire is a charm to land once you have mastered the absence of the "seat-of-the-pants" feedback in a flight simulator.

What makes it difficult to taxi, takeoff and land is just that - there being no inertial feedback on your body in the desktop sim... But with experience your brain can play it's tricks :-) and when trained to replicate the sensations, you'll be mastering the simulated Spitfire.

It takes a bit of practice to land her, but once you have mastered it you won't forget it. Like riding a bike!

It's a joy to fly in VR, and I find it MUCH easier to fly in VR. I tried in 2D on a 32" flat screen TV with track-ir and I was all over the place. It was like I had to learn it all over again. In VR you're sitting in it, I find I can 'feel' the aircraft much much more and this helps a lot in landing it.

I won't add any advice here as there is lots of good stuff already said in this thread, but I will say to those struggling with the Spitfire, keep at it, persevere and practice practice practice, she really is worth it.

My late father served in the RAF during WW2 as an engine fitter, and was based at Tangmere during the BoB working on the Spitfire. Since I was a kid I always dreamed of flying a Spitfire. I did get to fly solo IRL but not in a Spit! but the first time I flew it in VR I had a lump in my throat! Lol..! a grown man getting emotional over a pc simulator! Crazy, but its the closest I will ever come to fulfilling a life long dream. My all time favorite module in DCS for sure.

I am still a WIP for landing the Spit. My biggest mistake is not going around when I should and keeping the airspeed too high. I'll get 'er.

I have been in Love with the Spitfire since the first time I saw one at the Air museum an hour from me.

That particular Mk IX was flown to there originally in '64.

That was in 1973. It's time to revisit the old girl and the great collection so close to home.

Back then it was just a few old hangers but you could wander around in some of the planes like a Lancaster Bomber. It's probably all roped off at the new facility. I must go soon.

http://casmuseum.techno-science.ca/en/collection-research/artifact-supermarine-spitfire-lf-mk-ix.php

I've just recently started to get to grips with the landing its far from an "every time" event. At the moment I'm practicing at 50% fuel load

What clicked it for me was all of Yo-Yo's advice. The master, he is.

Try his suggestion of reducing fuel load to around 33%, its a different bird with that amount of fuel.

I actually prefer a steep curved approach at 110 IAS, I set the rudder trim to around "U".

Lower her to as near the runway as you dare then gently off the throttle

I hardly flare at all, I simply wait for her to settle onto the deck then full stick back immediately

After that it's a few taps on the rudder using the turn indicator as my guide, as the rudder becomes less effective small taps on the brakes usually complete the job.

I do wobble and stagger like a drunk at times but usually come to halt without having to visit the paint shop

Everybody develops their own technique, watch the videos and try techniques till you find what works and what doesn't for you.

After that its just grinding practice and suddenly one day it all snaps into place and you wonder what all the fuss was about.

Just tested with 50% yaw curve, and both inflight and on ground, I like it that way.

Hi,

May I suggest something?

My landings improved a lot after I mapped the brakes to a slider and started to landing with a bit. brakes applied, something like 1,5 to 2 psi in the gauges. That helps with controlability on the ground, but be careful to not fishtail too much.

Remember, correct spped on the approach and a 3 point landing helps a lot.

Experiment with a bit o brakes applied and tell me what do you think.

All the best and good luck,

Sydy

SiThSpAwN,

"But this was, correct?

Quote:

Originally Posted by VinnieJones

Why, then, did ED put it out in such a terrible condition? You have to wonder."

So, let's see. Someone says the Spitfire isn't ready for prime time, so to speak. My response asks if that is true, why did ED do what they did? My response was a challenge, not an agreement.

"These are all band-aids and patches to help with the flight model that isn't yet as it should be. This isn't (yet) the "flies without a vice", "obeys every command" Spit that your Grandpa flew in '44."

I said it and still stand by it. As to why it was released like that.... above my pay grade.

But,

as Yo-Yo answered ( I believe at this same thread ) the correction / fine tuning of some features like adding stiffening with dynamic pressure to the rudder ( making it a lot less sensible than it is right now ) is queued for inclusion in an upcoming patch, only delayed due to work in the new damage model.

There is surely a lot of work in the background, not to count the release of the Normandy map, and all of the associated v2 updates...

Anyway, this Spitfire looks to me like being probably the closer we have to reality in any of the presently available flight sims ( ? )

Having set the rudder curve to 50% it is a lot easier to control in yaw without going into a wobbling situation... I'll wait calmly for that upcoming patch, while I try to understand the intricacies of this beautiful machine :-)

The Spitfire is a charm to land once you have mastered the absence of the "seat-of-the-pants" feedback in a flight simulator.

 

What makes it difficult to taxi, takeoff and land is just that - there being no inertial feedback on your body in the desktop sim... But with experience your brain can play it's tricks :-) and when trained to replicate the sensations, you'll be mastering the simulated Spitfire.

The most pertinent point of view..so far, and actually it's true for all DCS modules. Practice makes perfection.

On the other hand, there are a lot of guys coming from other so called "sims", which are the most vocative about the Spit in DCS, but absolutely NONE of them are commenting on the flight model.. Why is that.. one may wonder.

The most pertinent point of view..so far, and actually it's true for all DCS modules. Practice makes perfection.

On the other hand, there are a lot of guys coming from other so called "sims", which are the most vocative about the Spit in DCS, but absolutely NONE of them are commenting on the flight model.. Why is that.. one may wonder.

Can you be more specific?

I don't quite follow the meaning of the rhetorical question.

I happen to be "one of the guys coming in from other so called "sims"" so maybe I can shed a light on what some of these "guys" are thinking/saying about the Spitfire in DCS.

This time it wasn't a rhetorical question at all. I didn't see any comparison with the real life data, made by any of you, regarding the different flight characteristics of the Spitfire L.F. Mk. IXc. Please let me know if you find such a thread in this forum. Thanks.

This time it wasn't a rhetorical question at all. I didn't see any comparison with the real life data, made by any of you, regarding the different flight characteristics of the Spitfire L.F. Mk. IXc. Please let me know if you find such a thread in this forum. Thanks.

As far as I can tell, most voices seem quite happy with the Spit FM, which is probably why you haven't seen any "comparison to real life data". There's no need to go into all that effort unless you suspect something is wrong and you want to try and justify your position.

Fenrir came from CloD - he is quite happy with the Spit, he has posted so many times

I also came from CloD - I'm quite happy and have produced a number of videos testing various things (level speed and fuel consumption in particular) which resulted in positive feedback for the FM. It's certainly the most enjoyable virtual spitfire I've ever "flown".

Klem who has flown sims for years has largely positive things to report

Talisman - Klem's squad-mate, who has mainly asked questions about ED content decisions and has overall a positive opinion it seems to me

Now, in addition to those voices (the players I know), I would also propose that where there have been questions or criticisms of the FM or DM, there actually HAVE (contrary to your claim/ suggestion) been presentations of real-life data. For example:

1. The "endless" discussions about convergence involving a few "guys from other so called sims"- where numerous "real life" documents were presented (https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=186574 & https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=180672)

2. Discussion about ammo belting, started by a "guy from another so called sim"- , where "real life" documents were linked: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=183520

3. In the spins thread, where the manual was referred to in the OP (https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=187798)

4. The "only issue with FM" thread where "real life data" was linked in the form of this NDCA report: http://jsbsim.sourceforge.net/spit_flying.pdf

5. Discsussions about how a clipped wing might affect the FM, various "real life data" documents are linked in the 6 pages of discusssions (https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=179432&page=5)

I could go on, but seeing as you seemed to have asked for just one thread, I think providing 6 should get you started.

AFAIK - the only ongoing issues / questions are:

1. regarding ground handling - which YoYo has suggested will always be a bit problematic due to the absence of momentum effects on the virtual pilot and

2. the rudder at high airspeed - which YoYo has also said is missing the high-speed airflow stiffness and stability.

So it seems to me the ongoing complaints are few - It's certainly not the cocophany of complains I'm used to seeing with WW2 sims.

In short....you guys struggling with your landing,without wanting to sound blunt,but you've just got to practice,practice and practice.

There is no easy fix here,there is certainly all the advice under the sun on these forum pages,take the advice but practice.

The flight model is perfect guys,it's superb,so you can understand why we don't want it dumbed down,you've just got to put the hours in,period.

How do you know it's perfect? Have you flown a real spit?