Another question, this time about the tiller

[sidfadc]

Sorry for all the questions!  So I have mapped a button to engage/disengage the tiller.  I've found when I have landed I have barely any deflection with the rudder pedals which means I seem to slide left or right off the runway UNLESS I engage the tiller as soon as I land.    This is most definitely my sloppy technique but whats the correct procedure on touchdown?  Its a bit much when I've landed to engage the tiller immediately when workload is high.

Thanks

[Goran_M]

The tiller function has been fixed for the coming update, to allow for mouse manipulation, but for now, you will need to use hardware to steer, AFTER you have pushed the tiller in...and only after landing.

[nomdeplume]

On technique, generally one would switch nose wheel steering off before or during the takeoff roll; once you've built enough speed the rudder should have enough authority to keep the aircraft centred. You don't really want to be turning the aircraft with the nose wheel once you're above taxi speeds.

Same thing with landing; use the rudder after touchdown until you slow down and lose authority, then enable the steering. You can also use differential braking.

I don't know the specific normal employment in the SF34, i.e. whether the pilot actually pulls the tiller during the roll or if they leave it in and just use very very gentle movement of the pedals until liftoff; or even if they line up straight and disable the tiller prior to starting the roll. If you're reasonably straight by the time you've drifted off the centreline the rudder should be able to provide enough authority to correct.

X-Plane in its current state also adds the complication that propwash is badly modelled with any sort of crosswind, so you're probably getting a lot less rudder authority than you actually should have at any given speed/power setting; which in turn means you probably need to enable steering at much higher speeds than in real life. So I think as always we need to accept the simulator's limitations and do what works within it. For me, I disable the tiller during the takeoff roll at around 50-60 knots (then stomp on the pedals as needed), and when landing I use (heavy) rudder inputs and (light) differential braking for keeping straight until under the same speed before enabling the tiller. I also find nearly all X-Plane aircraft will have more steering authority from the pedals with nosewheel steering/tiller enabled even without actually using the tiller axis to steer the wheel, so effectively I get three levels of "sensitivity" - rudder only, tiller enabled but only using pedals, or pedals plus tiller steering (only for low speeds).

If you don't/can't map the tiller toggle to a button on your flight controls (or at least to a keyboard button) for easier use, then probably using differential braking until you're slow enough and controlled enough to fumble around with the mouse is the best bet. If you don't have separate toe brakes either, then you're probably in for a bad time without an easy way to enable the nose steering.