Spitfire first take-off; first "landing" observations

A really good demo fenrir. Virtually identical here.

My personal tweaks are double-DDs at one o.clock and fully trimming out with flaps down (2 - 3 grads up) in case that helps anyone. Rolling right out on landing without brakes is really important. It's even possible to taxi on rudder alone if the speed is kept down and stay right on top of it.

Well I waited until 2.0 supported the Spit and I wish I hadn't bothered. The Spitfire may have been a sweet handling beauty by WW2 standards but the DCS version is a vicious bitch with no redeeming features.

Welcome back A-10C - I always loved you!

Well I waited until 2.0 supported the Spit and I wish I hadn't bothered. The Spitfire may have been a sweet handling beauty by WW2 standards but the DCS version is a vicious bitch with no redeeming features.

Ooohh, harsh words. ;)

She is like a refined lady, you have to treat her just right, nice and gentle on t/o and landing :joystick:

Much easier than the 109, Yo-Yo did a great job on her.

I have no doubt there are people out there who can get the best out of her, but sadly I'm not one :(

I have no problem with the TF-51 and I was able to take off and land that within 10 attempts but the Spit is a whole different kettle of fish! I've spent more time waiting for the view to zoom out and adjusting the trim for t/o than anything else!

I'm going back to Mavericks and CBUs :)

I have no doubt there are people out there who can get the best out of her, but sadly I'm not one :(

I have no problem with the TF-51 and I was able to take off and land that within 10 attempts but the Spit is a whole different kettle of fish! I've spent more time waiting for the view to zoom out and adjusting the trim for t/o than anything else!

 

I'm going back to Mavericks and CBUs :)

It is possible that the Spit is a bit more twitchy than it should be but it can be done. True, you have to stay right on top of those swings but don't give up. Try the free flight to get a feel for her. Remember the TF-51 has a very wide undercarriage compared with the Spitfire and that makes it much easier to handle on the ground. Not sure what your zoom problems are but set it and leave it. Focus entirely on the takeoff.

I was loving the F-5 while waIting for theSpitIX. Jets are so simple to fly compared with a tail-dragging prop job, especially on a narrow undercarriage. Jets are more about weapon systems than pure flying.

For those 2.0 guys joining us with the Spit for the first time, here's my how to for getting off the deck and back on without bending anything!

The clip doesn't work when clicked here.

Got it to work in separate window when I extracted the link from "reply with quote" (why there are two links displaying anyway? Are You sure You embedded the vid correctly?).

Edit: watched it - that's a very good vid. I must try the "double D's on top" trimming. Have been using full right, but not entirely happy with it after liftoff.

And therein lies a clue.

 

Adolph Galland said of taking off and landing the Spitfire that it was ridiculously easy compared to his beloved 109.

Pre or post installation of tail wheel lock on the 109? Take off / landing without locking the tail wheel is a whole other story in the 109

Hi Art,

Repeatedly tried editing the post to get the embed to show correctly - used the youtube link creator but for some reason it wouldn't take. Got bored and added a plain old hyperlink to the video below!

Thanks for your generous critique; regards rudder trim, the effect of it after takeoff is precisely the reason I dialled back to the 'dd to 12 o'clock' position. I'm happy to have a smidge more rudder workload on the takeoff run if it saves having to faff about with the trim thereafter.

I watched Fenrir's video this morning. A Hat trick I was never able to manage. My best quota is two TakeOffs and one Landing before I had to call for the Ground Chief after the second "landing"... (broken prop or straddle-legs)

Besides of a lot of practice is easy doing very important for not to wreck the plane.

Unfailing hardware is the other base. I tweaked(1) my rig some, so I got 30+ Frames now. IMHO the Spitfire isn't controllable with less than 30 FPS.

Still a problem is, there is no one who tells me, when I should start to flare. Out from pilot's seat I can't calculate the right distance to the floor. So not to jump is a matter of luck.

(1) If I can reproduce what I did, I'll post that to the "Low performance"-Thread.

Pre or post installation of tail wheel lock on the 109? Take off / landing without locking the tail wheel is a whole other story in the 109

He didn't say. It was a post-war conversation/debrief.

Thanks for taking the time to produce this clear & concise guide DD Fenrir. As they say, a picture paints a thousand words!

Yesterday I had a new kind of incident with the Spitfire.

Long Story short: While approaching after a few circles ATC called in: "Go arround, RWY is busy". OK.

I did so, cause I don't want to loose my brandnew licence. After a few minutes I got bored anyway and I tried some Aerobatics. Wenn es dem Esel zu wohl ist, geht er auf's Eis tanzen. (LEO dict says: "Pride comes before a fall" or: fail). :)

Height was good - fuel also, so I made a few maneuvres. At the very end a (don't know the Aviatic Expression) "banked dive" (as I see in Cinema: roll 120 degree left and pull the stick) at about 220 knots. As I tried to pull her out at 1000 ft, it made "Klock!" and the outer part of my left wing was gone... I guess too much Gs. What seems strange cause I had no black out.

(Made a Vid of that. Maybe I upload it to Youtube tonight.)

Edit: Canceled due DCS is unable to replay correct. First time Video-Record ran fine (sadly with stutters), now AC ends while taxi in the meadow. Each time :(

Finally I managed to land this fireball on the RWY without Flaps. (Remaining parts induced asymmetric drag. So I retracted them immediately after deploying.)

What I want to ask here:

Has there been a sign before(!) I lost my wing?

What have I to do (or: what for I have to pay attention) to prevent this from happen again?

Thank you, Yo-Yo.

That is copied :)

But what about my main question: Do the Spitfire "tell" something to her Pilot BEFORE she decides to atomize :)

The incident happened while "easy flying" on a sunny afternoon. I can't imagine what'll happen in Combat with muzzle flashes of a ME in the mirror...

Goes the point to me or to him, if I throw with parts of my plane to hit him?

...

 

Much easier than the 109, Yo-Yo did a great job on her.

Wow, I can't agree here. I haven't flown the WWII birds much at all, mostly just the P-51 and the 190 but most of my time is spent with the jets as that is my preference. Tried the Spit out and for the life of me I couldn't get that darn bird in the air. So I then tried the P-51 again (it had been many months since I had last flown her) and the 190 (same, long time no fly) and had no problems. tried the 109 and got up on the 2nd attempt (first time flying her since I bought her many moons ago...) and found it no big deal. The Spit on the other hand... that's going to take some time and effort to learn her little idiosyncrasies... But I can't agree with you that the Spit is easier to take off or land in than this current Spitfire.

Once you get your head around the break management and appreciate that ful power should not be used for take off it is strange jumping back into the other aircraft, I wouldn't say it jis easier though...

Now in terms of performance in the air, well unfortunately no sim can truly model the physical advantages that some aircraft had over others. The spitfire had light controls compared to the other aircraft which was an advantage in real life, however in the sim it means you can over stress the aircraft quite easily...

...

Never pull abruptly then the GLOS will help...

In other words: Lead her gently like a Lady. Even under worst conditions.

This shouldn't be a problem as she is uncomparable agile.

I (all Pilots) have to insert a "fast-move-barrier" into the hand-eye-link. Same as for TakeOff and Landing.

Thank you :)

Wow, just had a weird experience while waiting for today's official 1.5.6 to release. I hadn't tried the Spit in 1.5.5, only 2.0, and found it extremely hard, even after watching some of the great vids posted here. Tried it in 1.5.5 and did what I do in 2.0 and took off with no problem whatsoever! Flew a circuit and landed. Taxied to the end of the runway, turned around and took off again without issue... Tried in 1.5.6 and was just as easy for me. I now have to go back to 2.0 and see if it's just having a day of sleep that let it all sink in or is there really something drastically different in those two maps as everything but the temp and location are pretty much the same.:unsure::confused:

Wow, just had a weird experience while waiting for today's official 1.5.6 to release. I hadn't tried the Spit in 1.5.5, only 2.0, and found it extremely hard, even after watching some of the great vids posted here. Tried it in 1.5.5 and did what I do in 2.0 and took off with no problem whatsoever! Flew a circuit and landed. Taxied to the end of the runway, turned around and took off again without issue... Tried in 1.5.6 and was just as easy for me. I now have to go back to 2.0 and see if it's just having a day of sleep that let it all sink in or is there really something drastically different in those two maps as everything but the temp and location are pretty much the same.:unsure::confused:

I no longer have Nevada, and I don't know where you were operating the Sptifire from at that Map, but altitude / temperature / moist ( although I don't think this last is taken into account in DCS ... ) basically DENSITY ALTITUDE can play quite a role on aircraft performance.

If you were taking off from high airfields it doesn't surprise me that you can really notice the difference...

... Flew a circuit and landed. Taxied to the end of the runway, turned around and took off again without issue... Tried in 1.5.6 and was just as easy for me. I now have to go back to 2.0 and see if it's just having a day of sleep that let it all sink in or is there really something drastically different in those two maps as everything but the temp and location are pretty much the same.:unsure::confused:

I had a similar experience as I switched to OpenBeta. Than crossed my mind I forgot to deactivate Autorudder and TO-Assistance. This is - as I remember - activated after clean install of DCS World.

I no longer have Nevada, and I don't know where you were operating the Sptifire from at that Map, but altitude / temperature / moist ( although I don't think this last is taken into account in DCS ... ) basically DENSITY ALTITUDE can play quite a role on aircraft performance.

 

If you were taking off from high airfields it doesn't surprise me that you can really notice the difference...

I was taking off from Tonopah airfield, quite a small/narrow airstrip. And yes, I'm aware of the effects of what you mention but those things should not affect the rollout of a plane down the strip causing it to veer to the left sharply.

I had a similar experience as I switched to OpenBeta. Than crossed my mind I forgot to deactivate Autorudder and TO-Assistance. This is - as I remember - activated after clean install of DCS World.

Nope, didn't have those enabled. Triple checked to make sure. What I did discover was that even though no wind was setup I did have turbulence still set from my initial mission setup! Thinking it should still not be an issue because there was no wind setting for the two lowest altitudes (just like in the 1.5 map) I decided to clear its' setting and check again. Sure enough, the plane no longer drastically went to the left like before. Still not as smooth/easy a take off like 1.5 is for me but at least now it doesn't take about 20 attempts to barely get off the ground in pone piece. So, once again, user error. lol Thanks for the replies!

EDIT: Well, I did some more testing and moved my Spit to Tonopah Test Range because it has a much wider runway and I was able to take off and land. It wasn't pretty but I did it in one piece. Tried 3x and was able to take off each time. Went back to 1.5.6 and it still feel a lot easier to take off and land for some reason. But especially the handling while trying to take off appears to be much less of an issue for me on 1.5.6 than it is on 2.0. Practice practice practice!

Finally got a chance to fly the Spit some in 2.0

Wow I feel like I am having to learn how to handle this thing on takeoffs all over again.

Had gotten to where I was making some nice ones in 1.5, now in 2.0 I seem to be all over the place again on my takeoff roll...

Finally got a chance to fly the Spit some in 2.0

Wow I feel like I am having to learn how to handle this thing on takeoffs all over again.

Had gotten to where I was making some nice ones in 1.5, now in 2.0 I seem to be all over the place again on my takeoff roll...

Crosswind? I'm finding the instant action takeoff in NTTR easier than in 1.5 where there's a crosswind.

Crosswind? I'm finding the instant action takeoff in NTTR easier than in 1.5 where there's a crosswind.

Not for me so far, the 2.0 instant action take off seems much harder for me to control the plane... maybe need little more time with it.