Can´t land the BF-109 (Frustrated!)

[heloguy]

Yeah, what he said.

No really, it's actually no big deal to control the prop manually in a 109. You just have to know what you're doing. I'm sure it would be harder without a control setup that gives you an axis for prop pitch, but I didn't even discover you could turn off auto-prop on the 109 and 190 until well after I'd bought a stick with that ability.

Can't believe that was five years ago already.

[BadAim]

Funny thing Kaptein, I usually fly 109's and have trouble landing spits. These planes are all have very different personalities, and they often bite their masters.

[123-Wulf-123]

Have to agree to disagree with you, there is NO point in flying manual pitch on the 109. Certainly dont need it to land.

[unreasonable]

100% prop pitch is equivalent to 12.30 on the prop pitch instrument (pitchometer?). 12.00 is 90%. When you land with prop on auto with a normal low power setting of 1,500 to 1,800 rpm the pitchometer settles at 12.00 and stays there throughout the whole landing sequence. So you land with prop pitch at 90%.

The 109G manual says, if I remember right, land with prop on automatic or if you must use manual control (eg if the automatic control is non fuctional) set the prop to 11.30, which is between 80 and 85%.

(Anyone at all interested in this aeroplane should download a copy of the translation from one of the 109 sites.)

I have tried manual at 100% and do not like it - it needs much higher engine rpms to maintain a given glide path and is less responsive to throttle changes to adjust rate of descent. I suppose that is because the prop is not at peak efficiency. Also not needed to slow down when all you have to do is trim the a/c to the right AoA.

Manual at 80% is better than 100% - more control - but auto is optimum for me, and the manufacturers. Clever fellows, these germans.

BTW the time when manual prop is recommended in the manual is when you are adjusting boost and rpm to achieve the recommended cruise settings, but since the autosettings do a pretty good job of this anyway at normal IL2 heights I do not bother.

[heloguy]

Originally Posted by 123-Wulf-123

Have to agree to disagree with you, there is NO point in flying manual pitch on the 109. Certainly dont need it to land.

Disagree how? That it's a big deal? I never said you HAD to do it to land. It was just a suggestion to try. There's nothing that says everyone has to do everything the same way in this game.

Anyway, enough about it. He fixed his problem, and seems to be doing fine.

Funny about the brakes, though, I'd definitely be pretty pi$$ed too. Were you flying other aircraft at the time? You'd think that you would have had the same problem in other tail draggers.

[Richie]

He's got too many things on his mind during the landing to fart around with his pitch.

[Kaptein_Damli]

Originally Posted by Richie

He's got too many things on his mind during the landing to fart around with his pitch.

I found out what was wrong! Read my post at page 1, near bottom of page. I had bought a new mouse with PS2 connection to free up more USB slots. Somehow my Saitek Quadrant then changed ID´s in IL-2. Suddenly brake was proppitch! My red leveler was on max, and since the 109 has autoprop I did not touch my red leveler. Therefore, max.brakes was applied as soon as I touched the ground. I watched a replay and could not understand why I tipped over instantly when touching ground with wheels. I know how to land almost every aircraft, but I have not flown the 109 much and just thought you had to be the Jedi Master to land this plane! I saw on my track I came in a perfect glidepath, and in a speed of 190-200 km/t, touched the ground in a gentle manner. Homever, when I reattaced brakes to a different leveler (blue), landing the 109 was piece of cake!

[Richie]

I knew that was your problem