wahubna wrote on Feb 27^th, 2012 at 8:26pm:


Hello Adam...

In the aircraft.cfg file, add this entry under....

[Brakes]

differential_braking_scale = 1.0  // rudder activated differential brakes

This will turn the nose wheel and/or operate the brakes differentially by operating the Rudder to turn the aircraft.

I add it to any of my planes if the entry is missing.

Paul.... ..1

To make the tail wheel steerable you need to edit it's contact points. Here is an example from another aircraft.

[contact_points]
         //0  Class   1=wheel
        //1  Longitudinal Position        (feet)
        //2  Lateral Position             (feet)
        //3  Vertical Position            (feet)
        //4  Impact Damage Threshold      (Feet Per Minute)
        //5  Brake Map                   (0=None, 1=Left, 2=Right)
        //6  Wheel Radius                (feet)
        //7  Steer Angle                         (degrees)
        //8  Static Compression           (feet)  (0 if rigid)
        //9  Max/Static Compression Ratio
        //10 Damping Ratio               (0=Undamped, 1=Critically Damped)
        //11 Extension Time              (seconds)
        //12 Retraction Time             (seconds)
        //13 Sound Type
        //14 Airspeed limit for retraction (KIAS)
        //15 Airspeed that gear gets damage at (KIAS)
//GEAR
point.0 = 1, -20.4,  0.00, -2.9, 1600, 0, 0.52,  , 0.42, 4.0, 0.90, 5.0, 4.0, 0, 195, 250
point.1 = 1,  -0.8, -3.75, -5.0, 1600, 1, 1.25,   0, 0.50, 2.5, 0.85, 6.0, 5.0, 2, 195, 250
point.2 = 1,  -0.8,  3.75, -5.0, 1600, 2, 1.25,   0, 0.50, 2.5, 0.85, 7.0, 6.0, 3, 195, 250

Change the 'steer angle', 180 in this case, (180 makes the wheel non-steerable, castoring). Change to something less that 90. 45 is a good value to start with.

Tail/nose wheel is usually, but not necessarily, point.0=. A tail wheel will have the most negative 'longitudinal' value.

Some authors will include 2 entries for the tail wheel with one of them (the steerable one) 'commented' so the sim ignores it. (Commenting is done placing 2 slashes  // or a semi-colon  ; before the line to be ignored.)

It might look something like this.......

//point.0 = 1, -20.4,  0.00, -2.9, 1600, 0, 0.52,  40, 0.42, 4.0, 0.90, 5.0, 4.0, 0, 195, 250
point.0 = 1, -20.4,  0.00, -2.9, 1600, 0, 0.52,  180, 0.42, 4.0, 0.90, 5.0, 4.0, 0, 195, 250

Edit to this to use the steerable line.

point.0 = 1, -20.4,  0.00, -2.9, 1600, 0, 0.52,  40, 0.42, 4.0, 0.90, 5.0, 4.0, 0, 195, 250
//point.0 = 1, -20.4,  0.00, -2.9, 1600, 0, 0.52,  180, 0.42, 4.0, 0.90, 5.0, 4.0, 0, 195, 250

Note: a handy reference for the aircraft.cfg and other .cfg files associated with an aircraft is the FS2004 Aircraft Container SDK, available here.-http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/downloads.php?do=cat&id=10

Thanks dave, I will give that a whirl as well. I just have a time crunch today so a test run might have to wait a day or two.

Paul, the 'Grumman 7' is an addon freeware airplane series from the SOH team and Milton, check the new additions to the FS2004 downloads section There are currently 4 available as of this writing.

Fozzer wrote on Feb 28^th, 2012 at 9:59am:


Paul,

The S-2 Tracker series are tricycle gear airplanes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-2_Tracker

As with all of Milton's airplanes, these are an absolute joy to fly. Lots of options, a great looking model, all from a group that listens to comments and reacts to them in a timely fashion. They're still tweaking and caressing it but the fixes are minor and easy to apply.

Adam,

Keep an eye over at SOH; Milton posts updates there on a regular basis. There has been one Update Pack released for the Tracker/Tracer series.

Alan