How I taxi the B-17 with a single lever throttle

[Paughco]

Guys: This may be considered by some as sacrilege; but if that's you, please just hit the back button and scroll on.

I made a very slight tweak to the aircraft.cfg that allows a modicum of rudder pedal control of the tailwheel on my B-17. Got it from the aircraft.cfg for my MJ C-47. The MJ C-47 comes default with a full-castoring tailwheel, but the aircraft.cfg for my C-74 has two first lines in the [contact points] section. They look like this:

//-->Alternative settings for tail wheel steering
point.0=1, -55.75, 0.0, -2.90, 1500, 0, 0.93, 72, 0.30, 2.75, 0.20, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

//-->Default settings with free castoring tail wheel
//point.0=1, -55.75, 0.0, -2.90, 1500, 0, 0.93, 180, 0.30, 2.75, 0.20, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

All you have to do is delete the two "//" marks at the beginning of the line you want and save the file. Note that the only difference between the two files is that the full-castoring one has a 180 between the 7th and 8th commas, and when that is replaced by a 72, you get a rudder pedal-controlled tailwheel.

Well, the aircraft.cfg file for my B-17 doesn't have the two options, but it does have this very similar line in the beginning of the [contact points] section:
point.0 = 1, -34.0045, 0, -4.0, 4000, 0, 1, 180, 0.3, 2.5, 0.7, 10, 8, 0, 135, 180

Here's how that line looks in the aircraft.cfg file for my B-17 now:
point.0 = 1, -34.0045, 0, -4.0, 4000, 0, 1, 72, 0.3, 2.5, 0.7, 10, 8, 0, 135, 180

It works! I was able to taxi my B-17 down the taxiway and make gradual turns. I still need a bit of brakes for the tighter turns, but it's much more manageable now.

Seeya
ATB

[iflyc77]

Cool. I was thinking of editing this too. Even with more than one throttle I think it would be very unrealistic to taxi. Trying to use differential throttle now to start a turn, you can be sitting there with full power on number 1 or 4, and the thing barely moves/turns. The real one would only take 200-300 RPM extra on the outboard engine to start/stop those turns.


I also think it takes wayyyyyyyyy to much power to taxi. In the two 4 engine bombers that I fly in real life, we try to keep atleast 900-1000RPM and even then it takes quite a bit of brake use unfortunately to keep the speed under control. Sometimes we even shutdown the outboard engines on the B24 if we have a long slightly downhill taxi. If you ever see the B29 taxiing on just 2 and 3, that is probably for taxi light clearance.

This B17, even at really light weights, takes a tonnnn of breakaway and then taxi power. Usually like 1300-1400RPM to keep it moving at all.

I love the A2A B17 so far, but the overall ground behavior seems to be its only weak spot to me.

[MarcE]

yup the taxi behaviour has always been a very weak spot forever in the sim unless the developer has created a custom ground model lika A2A has done with later airplanes, I think since the C172. For this reason I've made the tail wheel tweak too. The 8th number in contact point.0 defines the angle the steered whel can turn, 180 is free, 0 is locked I believe and everything between 0 and 90 is the turn angle of the controlled wheel.