Sean, meet ground.

[N33029]

Gang,

 

I crashed again, but this time I don't know why it happened, other than I lost control of the airplane and took too long to regain control.

 

I was flying the Curtiss Jenny and trying to climb around about 4000' MSL to save fuel and the controls got sluggish. The weather setting was "clear day, STP". I don't remember why I pitched over into the 90 degree bank. I think I responded (no test pilot here) by aggressive use of the ailerons with back pressure on the stick. I was flying over barren desert, checking out something I'd seen on my charts, and the ground texture was minimal, though actually greater than it probably would have been in the real place. I don't know what the airplane was doing, except that every time the horizon came into view there was a strong buffet, as if the change of attitude reversed, then resumed the exact same way.

 

Finally I tried to dive, succeeded, but it was too late to pull out of the dive and I crashed.

 

But the buffet, out of control thing: thoughts?

 

If this happened again I would use the spot plane view to try to regain attitudinal awareness, but something makes me think it wouldn't have been enough. The ground might have been 1500' MSL there.

 

There's another thing I've noticed: I was able to land the Jenny from the first time without a ground loop, but the Cub is more difficult. This is the Piper J-3 Cub in FS 2004. I did manage a couple of landings but I wind up going off the runway in the Cub. Ah, but it's so fun to fly other than that!

 

Thanks,

Sean

[lnuss]

The Jenny is not the strongest performing aircraft around, and at 4000 MSL it's struggling a bit. Your description sounds as if you stalled the aircraft. "Aggressively" using the ailerons is one thing, but you need rudder too in order to counteract adverse yaw. But back pressure on the stick may have kept it in the stall. The buffeting is one way some aircraft indicate being near a stall.

 

The only solution is relaxing back pressure, gaining airspeed, then adding gentle back pressure to recover, taking care to not add so much pressure that you approach the stall again.

[N33029]

The Jenny is not the strongest performing aircraft around, and at 4000 MSL it's struggling a bit.

 

[...]

 

Yes, I had thought the service ceiling was over ten thousand feet MSL, but I was hovering the mouse pointer on the altimeter to find I was climbing at perhaps two or three feet a second. Somewhere I think I read that the FS9 Jenny needs to climb at a shallow angle, too. I had changed the point of view so that while I was climbing the horizon was ahead of where the fuel gauge meets the fuselage.

 

Tonight I will take the Jenny out again and see if I can reproduce the problem, and then try using the rudder to see if I can recover from the problem without needing to dive as if I was in a spin. That ground came up to meet me fast before.

 

It occurred to me that if something like this happens again, I can pause the simulation with the "[Alt] key before I hit the ground and use the instant replay the way I do after landings. Sometimes I'll watch a landing with the replay ten times to see what I did and what happened.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Sean