Tail dragger ground handling ! ?

[dpc]

I fly with my aircraft settings at realistic. No auto-coord and I have a rudder axis on my joystick. I like flying the tail draggers however I find the ground handling extreeeemly difficult to work with. In the Cub and the Extra I find it almost impossible to taxi and to start a take-off roll without doing a ground loop. Is it me or are others seeing this as well?

Thanks
Dave

[Flying_Scott]

It's just a matter of practice, I can taxi the Cub and DC-3 pretty good, just don't slam on the rudder going really fast or you'll tip, go slowly around the corner, the extra seems very hard to taxi to me also. I guess i should just do some practice landsing and taxi around after each landing.

[chasw]

Like many things, practice makes perfect - I was looping the Trimotor all the time until I learned to go SLOW, and to use the BRAKES before commencing a turn.
Once you've mastered it, it's quite easy really. Also remember that the DC-3 has a tailwheel lock, but I don't think the other draggers have.

Chas

[bostona1]

Hi Dave,
As a real world pilot with about 150Hrs in an Aeronca 7AC Champ, a tailwheel airplane, they are harder in real life to control than a nosewheel airplane. You have to be ready with the rudders to correct any small drift, before it becomes a big problem. It's hard to do in FS, because you only see it, you don't feel it. In the Aeronca, I keep pressure on both rudder pedels, if it starts to drift to the right I put more pressure on the left foot, but never relax the right foot, and vise versa. I have found in FS2004 and 02 that I always made out better using a little left or right brake to keep stright, more so than rudder. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I find it much harder in FS to keep a tailwheel plane stright, than in real life. Although I've never flown a J3 in real life, the first time I did in FS2004, I thought it was a bit oversensitive. I groundlooped it in Seattle turing off the runway at a very slow speed onto the taxiway. Keep trying, if you can master a taildragger, than a nosewheel is duck soup.

Paul