A big thank you to Morton for uploading the recent Meteor F3 & F8 and the AH Spitfire Mk 1 packages.  I've been enjoying flying them for the past couple of days.  I must say the flight dynamics of all 3 aircraft are the best I've seen so far on any CFS2 aircraft, very stable, they fly and perform very well.  So far I haven't been able to land the Spitfire without ground looping.    I know the real airplane was a terror to keep straight but I have a problem with my rudder pedals, one of the toe brakes is physically broken, so I had to disconnect them and use F11 and F12 for differential braking.  I do think the tendency to ground loop is a bit overdone, it should be possible to keep straight just with rudder alone.

I know there's a bit of a problem with the F3 Meteor DP because of the long range belly tank which sometimes causes the SIM to CTD.  And it's too bad the F8 can't jettison any of the 3 drop tanks because they are part of the model file.  But notwithstanding these minor imperfections, it's great to see new additions such as this are still being produced for CFS2.  Thanks again Morton!   

ozzy72 wrote on Oct 19^th, 2012 at 4:57am:

I didn't know the Spitfire had a lockable tailwheel.

I've not read that the Spitfire was prone to ground looping on landing. At least, no more so than any other taildragger.  The recommended way to land the earlier Marks is on three points. The differential brakes are connected to the rudder which makes steering on the ground a lot easier. This can be simulated in FS with rudder pedals or a joystick with separate rudder control.

Oz, how do you lock the tail wheel?  There's no option under Assignments for that.  And nothing on the panel to enable you to do that.  I remember on the DC-3 (I have 1200 hours on the real airplane, last flight was in 1970) when you lined up on the runway you would let the airplane roll ahead a few feet to straighten out the tail wheel then use the lever underneath the pedestal, I can't remember if you pulled it back or pushed it forward to lock the tail wheel, one or the other.  It certainly helped to keep the aircraft straight (until the tail came up).

I've sort of fixed the problem.  Under section 1004 in the air file I changed Landing Gear to steerable - true and this helps quite a bit.  I can now land and come to a stop usually, without ground looping.