How to fly the Spirit Of St. Louis.

I need to know if anyone knows how to make the Ryan NYP take off.It,s very hard,the plane is very rudder heavy and I seem to crash the plane every time.Is there any tips to getting the aircraft off the ground.

I installed the "Other" Sim model of the Spirit of St. Louis and found I needed a 20lb sledge hammer to make it fly, and then, of course, immediately crash into the ground. The wheels lifted off at about 70 kts and it was downhill from there.

I installed the "Other" Sim model of the Spirit of St. Louis and found I needed a 20lb sledge hammer to make it fly, and then, of course, immediately crash into the ground. The wheels lifted off at about 70 kts and it was downhill from there.

Unfortunately, the plane spins after it turns left and I can't seem to control it when I control the rudders.It crashes by the time it reaches 30 knots.

I finally managed to get the plane off the ground.But it's not easy to do.You can't use too much rudder to go right or it will spin out of control.It's the same when it trys to turn left also and you have to balance it out while pressing the number 5 to straighten out the rudder.

Now I need help with keeping the aircraft afloat.It seems after it climbs a little,the aircraft starts to decend quickly and crashes.Can anyone help me with answers on how to fly the thing after take off.

Like the real thing, it's VERY nose heavy with full fuel tanks. Start with 10% fuel in all 3 tanks and fly it like a modern microlight - hands on all the time, trim settings can't be relied on as Lindbergh himself said.

Tank 1 empty, tanks 2 and 3 about 20% full. Achieved flight but still freaky in the air.

 

Okay,thanks I'll try that

She's unstable by design; Donald Hall... "decided that the empennage and wing control surfaces would not be altered from his original Ryan M-2 design, thus minimizing redesign time that was not available without delaying the flight. The result was less aerodynamic stability; nevertheless, the experienced Lindbergh approved the unaltered design. This setup resulted in a negatively stable design that tended to randomly introduce unanticipated pitch, yaw, and roll elements into its overall flight characteristics. There is dispute regarding whether Hall and Lindbergh also preferred this design because they anticipated that the continuous corrections to the random movements of the aircraft would help to keep Lindbergh awake during the estimated 40-hour flight. Whether or not the unstable design was deliberately retained to help fight fatigue, Lindbergh did later write how these random unanticipated movements helped keep him awake at various times during the flight."

 

Alan :pilot:

 

 

I have made three changes to the flight tuning section of the cfg file.

elevator_effectiveness = 0.8 //1.0

aileron_effectiveness = 0.8 //1.0

rudder_effectiveness = 0.8 //1.0

Reducing the effectiveness makes it slower to respond to control inputs but a bit easier to fly although still very unstable. I can take off and fly on full tanks with these changes.

Just so you know, to try and get it to a compromise, you CAN use settings like 0.86, or 0.8743. They don't have to be just one digit to the right of the decimal point. That sort of thing, to try to get the best possible controlability, with the least possible "overthrow" of the controls.

Hope that helps a little bit...

Pat☺

It has been awhile since flying the Spirit, it crashed right off the ground, tried it again I use a yoke I kept on giving it a little of up trim. Slowly gave it up elevator made slow banking while climbing, I spent several minutes flying around. I did not lighten up fuel just took off using outside view until I thought I might have enough speed to take-off, gave some trim slight elevator again trim in small increments it is hard to see but made it to 1761 ft. Then I came in for a landing. I never fly from the outside, WOW!!!! landing is hard that way but did it. (see image). Kenny

It took awhile, but I think I have the take off figured out. Start with considerable up elevator, and during the take off roll, when she starts to depart, "kick" the rudder, to knock it back and immediately center the rudder again. It is like balancing a baseball bat on your hand. Once the tail lifts up, she becomes more stable.

 

If you start with enough up elevator, she will lift off on her own, but you may need to add a notch or two before you get to the end of the runway. Just use the minimum inputs and she will climb slowly but steadily after takeoff.

 

Landing, I don't know. My first and only attempt she went over on her nose.

Really, Charles Lindbergh must have been one H--L of a pilot!

Elevator trim needs to be set right for takeoff. The trim handle is on the left side of the cockpit and there is a pencil mark about halfway back. If you set the trim handle at the mark, she will fly off by herself before reaching the end of the runway and she will climb smoothly with no porpoising. You can concentrate on keeping her straight on the runway using sharp rudder kicks.

 

Additional Note:

Well, that pencil mark was just a speck of dirt on my screen. Just pull the handle back about two thirds. That should do it.