Can someone help a dumbo land his spitfire. . . .

[Viper]

So, I have flown endless missions in BOB 2 WOV in Spitfires. I have landed maybe 200 times.
I can't for the life of me land a spitfire in COD. I have watched videos on youtube and read endless advice on various forums but I simply always end up on my back with a red screen.
My technique (if you can call it that):

o - Approach as 110-120 mph.
o - Trim to keep the stick forces moderate.
o - Flaps down, gear down. Trim again.
o - Cross the threshold at 100 - 110.
o - Keep level maybe slightly nose up as speed reduces.
o - Reduce throttle to almost nothing for a slow sink.
o - Stick back to keep the nose about 10 degrees above horizon (flare).
o - Sink to the ground - go too slow, stall, auger-in and flip. . . every time.

If I use just a little throttle to keep the air speed up above stall, the sink instantly disappears and I fly for miles at 20 feet at 90 mph and go way past the end of the runway.

Anyone know what I am doing wrong? In BOB2 this would be a great landing every time.

[JG4_Continu0]

Hm.... If you are an experienced Sim-Pilot, then you should not have THAT much troubles. Of course, Cliffs is difficult, but still.
I recommend checking if your joystick-inputs get transmitted correctly to the game. Normaly there should be an info-window showing you the position of your virtual Throttle. Check if this throttle does the movement you are doing with your joystick. Also, what spit-version do you fly?

[JG4_Continu0]

And maybe, 10 degrees is a bit much. Try a 2-point-landing first, going almost horizontal. And here, my best advice:
GO ONLINE, have a look for someone giving you flight lessons on the ATAG-Teamspeak!

[Viper]

Originally posted by JG4_Continu0:

Hm.... If you are an experienced Sim-Pilot, then you should not have THAT much troubles. Of course, Cliffs is difficult, but still.
I recommend checking if your joystick-inputs get transmitted correctly to the game. Normaly there should be an info-window showing you the position of your virtual Throttle. Check if this throttle does the movement you are doing with your joystick. Also, what spit-version do you fly?

I tried the mk1 and 2a spits. I'll try and get the window to work for me. They are still a bit of a mystery.

[Viper]

OK. So, I got the info window thing licked. I found that my wheel brakes were set at 50% on landing. Who knows why? I suspect that I was tapping the space key by accident. I don't have the space key mapped but I do have control-space mapped. It was mapped to 'open hatch' or something like that. Anyway, being very suspicous of IL2 key mappings i deleted the control-space mapping and landing just couldn't be easier.
So, why am I getting brakes applied in flight? No idea. I have wheel brakes mapped to "B" now and all is well in spitfire land. Many thanks everyone who chipped in.

[Viper]

Just noticed that without the space key being bound to any function/callback I can see 'brake 50%' appear on my secondary command info window. This isn't everytime the key is stroked but just now and again. I was messing about with it and noticed the message.

Suspicous . . . . of IL2 key binding. Has the space key ever been hardcoded to operate the wheel brakes in earlier versions? If so there is some residual code that needs attention.

[JG4_Continu0]

Could it be that you have set up an axis for the breakes...? Have a look at the "axis" tab, close to the title in the controls-menu...

[((dB))]

Approach at 100 and touchdown at 80
trim your aircraft for the speed so in short final you should be establish on a 7 to 500 feet per minutes rate of descent, it should be at or very close to full nose up.

On short final adjust your rate of descent with your engine ie Look at the rwy throu your gunsight if you see the touchdown zone moving upward add a little power if it goes move toward the bottom of the gunsight reduce power.

On the flaire just before touch down put the flaps up, the spit will sit on 3 point landing.

Remember on all aircraft trimed for landing,

Elevator and your trim for your approach speed and engine power for your rate of descent, not the other way around

o7

[Viper]

Well done JG - there was an axes setting usiing space for brakes. Stupid inteface. Needs a rewrite.

[Viper]

I just had a few bad landings in campaign. I checked the hydraulic pressure gauge in-flight and it shows the brakes are fully on (when flying) and without touching the brake key.

Now I check that the hydraulic gauge doesn't show the brakes pressurised before landing every time. Landing is back to normal (bit rough).

I don't know whether this is a real issue with spitfires but I suspect that the software is applying the brakes at some stage in flight. It goes unnoticed until I turn upside down on landing. Now I always hit the brakes in the air to free them up just before landing.

[JG4_Continu0]

Have you tried to delete the whole configuration by deleting the .ini-files?

[Viper]

I haven't ried that. That would be a last resort as I don't want the pain of key mapping from the beginning.

I notice that the hydraulic gauge goes to brakes on soon after take-off. The two needles point at 11 and 1 oclock.

[FG28_Artist (WS-I)]

That is really strange! The two needles shouldn't do that... And with me, they don't, too. Continu0 is probably right, and there is a strange mapping interfering. But before you do the radical, try to just go through all key and axes settings and delete all you do not need / or are not sure what the're for. That mapping user interface is a mess, I know...

What you also could do is to make a backup of all ini files, delete them, see if the problem is gone and restore them if it is not.