Smooth, More Realistic Takeoff - Suggestion for an Improvement

[FlyingWingNut]

Even with wheel friction set to zero, the models tend to leap off the ground.
I would love to see the large models smoothly take off. Did the FMS programmers choose to leap off the ground for a reason? I suspect it has to do with detecting the condition for a crash. It probably has to have a dead band so that crash mode isn't encountered on take off. Would a smarter crash detection function be hard to do?

For those of you who would like to see your model smoothly leave the ground, one thing I discovered is that you can taxy way beyond the runway then get it to minimum flying speed and hold it there waiting for the ground to fall away. (World landscape) Even then, the plane seems to go up, but not nearly as abruptly.

[ggunners]

FlyingWingNut,

One thing I found with the alpha 8 .par files is that the lift off from the ground is directly controlled by whether you can rotate the model to alter the wing angle of attack while taxi-ing. The tail draggers with a generous angle work great. Others that are straight across between front and rear wheels will do exactly as you describe, just as real models.

I actually made this error in several of my models and had to go back in Metasequoia and leave room for the rotation. The only way I could get the model to lift off was to give it extreme rudder and hope to catch a wing tip. Fixing the model and .par file made it much better.

Try increasing the height of the front wheels in the .par file and see if that'll help with the takeoff. Also try the FKstick8 model and litemoth8 model and see if they take off more realistically. You really need the alpha 8 .par file models to get the benefit of better taxi and take-off and landings with the wind components.

-- ggunners