The question is : How is it possible to keep the plane safe with the tailwheel unlocked? :rolleyes:

Takeoff: increase throttle gradually, counterwork with the rudder, and never use the breaks. I start rolling with 50% throttle, and once the tail is lifted, I give max power.

Landing: break only when the rudder is in neutral position.

BTW, has anyone tested systematically which planes lost their tailwheel lock capability with 4.12.1? And is it a bug or a feature?

No

This is not a bug, it is how the mission waypoints for landing are utilized. If the template maker attaches the LANDING waypoint to a carrier all aircraft will attempt to land on the carrier. If the template maker attaches the LANDING waypoint to a land airfield all aircraft will land at that location.

There are 8 flights per side and each flight will always follow the same waypoints that are on the template that is loaded by the QMB. There is no variety to the waypoints that the planes will follow unless the template maker has made more than one template of the same mission and changes the waypoints for each flight. The template that is loaded will determine the waypoints that each flight will follow but every time that particular template is loaded you will get the waypoints that were used on that template, there is no variation done to those waypoints by the QMB.

I made the Hawaii and Midway templates for the QMB and made the choice to allow planes to land on the carriers since in older versions of the QMB prior to allowing the templates to be user created the planes would just land in the ocean since the LANDING waypoints were not attached to the carriers. I know it's not perfect but due to the limitations of the QMB I felt allowing the aircraft to land on the carriers was better than having them land in the ocean and sink. Unless a way can be made to allow for multiple LANDING options per flight that takes into consideration the type of aircraft that is using that set of waypoints then this will always be a choice that has to be made by the QMB template maker when it comes to allowing aircraft to land on the carrier. :)


Wheels

has anyone had AI planes landing gear collapse on the runway before takeoff, I experienced this with several planes in the QMB, MiG 3 Yak 3 and yak 9. Doesn't seem to occur in FMB with taxi to takeoff. Also pilotless AI aircraft hold their airspeed, attitude and heading indefinitely, meaning a damaged aircraft can keep climbing forever (defying physics).

Fair enough. I'll accept that it's a limitation on the QMB. Sounds like something for the next "readme" file, so sticklers for historically accuracy know to specify carrier-capable planes in their QMB missions.

I'd still hold that it's a bug that heavy aircraft attempting to land on a carrier don't cause damage or at least stick around longer, however. I don't know what the weight limits were on a carrier's deck (probably pretty impressive, given that B-25 were able to take off from a U.S. fleet carrier), but a crashed medium bomber on deck would take some time to clear, and a fire involving such an aircraft might take some time to put out.

Trains can kill themselves with their own AAA. They aim at you but hit their own wagons. This almost always happens for me.

The same thing happend with truck columns. Old problem.

Why no smoke when Ta-152-C in a fire?

It's most likely the fuel tanks that are on fire, they burn without leaving the big black smoketrails. Commonly happens with the Pe-2/3 too if you hit it near the wingroot.