Suspension Compression

[Kimber]

What I meant was that the others act like they have working
suspension put only the plane moves, and the nose wheel
goes into the runway but does not move in relation to the
plane!! The DC-3 has working suspension, even the tail wheel!!

[Philip Foglar]

I think what often happens is that either there is no animated gear compression or that the contact points are set so that it doesn't show it all that much while there is lots of sinking and a little floating. Or the other way around, lots of gear action with very little sinking but loads of floating. Also, contact points from the start should to be located at the lowest part of the gear wheels when they are unloaded, that is, when the suspensions are at their lowest. Then the compression settings are configured to achieve the correct loaded gear height and damping so that there is no sinking or floating, and this also needs to take the plane's weight into account. Where it gets really tricky is when there is a CG issue which is often the case, so lots of times where a compromise or balance has to be made.

Philip.