Taxi turns stall

[axmiha]

Hi. About making turns while taxiing the IXEG 737. I didn't find anything regarding this and it's probably my fault, but when I try to do a 180 with the plane to line up, I end up stopping the plane in the middle of the turn. It's like the wheel goes 90 degrees and the plane stops. Is this a "nose wheel stall" or soemthing like that? (I remember seeing something in some video). Maybe I'm going too slow to make the turn, but it doesn't feel like it. Does this happen in the real plane? Could anyone help me do this correctly? I know it's kind of ridiculous and I don't expect any tutorials about doing 180s on the ground with 737s....but, there you go. 

OBS - the rudder Y axis on my joystick broke and I'm using the normal left-right on the stick to taxi.

Thank you.

ax

Edited March 26, 2019 by axmiha

[Litjan]

Hi ax,

this is a problem with X-Plane - the nose-gear friction increases the more the wheel is deflected. We overcome this to a certain extent with our own plugin, but only to a certain extent.

Real planes show this behaviour, too - the really tight turn places a lot of twisting stress on the wheels, and this adds to the friction. However, the effect is not as pronounced as in X-Plane.

Here are some real-life strategies to avoid this - they also work in X-Plane.

1.) Avoid sharp turns wherever necessary. If line-up distance is not critical, it´s perfectly viable to give away a few meters to do a lower-angle line-up.

2.) Don´t use brakes to "help" with the turn unless an absolute minimum radius emergency turn is necessary (like turning on a very narrow runway without a turnpad).

3.) You can use some differential thrust to help with the turn. Me mindful of jet-blast hazard.

4.) Enter the turn at a minimum speed - in real life 3-5 kts work well. Make sure that your speed does not decay below that during the turn (add some thrust).

5.) If you stop during the turn, release the wheel, get some speed (3kts +) then start the turn again.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Iain]

Are you sure this isn't the bug that the brakes come on when you turn at more than a certain angle, about 45 degrees.  This bug is really annoying, I can taxi around 70% of the time normally but at a few airports where there are sharp slow turns in the ramp area, I need to go to the control options are re-assign yaw as nose wheel tiller and then the brakes are not active anymore.  Would be great to see a fix to this, I don't have this problem in other aircraft.

[Litjan]

Hi Iain,

this has been "fixed" since May - and the fix was discussed in a forum thread that you were part of. So I am surprised that you haven´t heard of it!

Cheers, Jan

 

[Iain]

Interesting, I never checked that thread since then, my mistake.  I was think it was fixed in an update so now see I need to change the value in planemaker, will check this out later.

So it still means the OP has to also change this value in planemaker, or anybody who missed that thread will have to do this?  Or I'm still missing the point?

Thanks

Iain

[Litjan]

Hi Ian,

for now everyone has to "fix" this themselves. We have changed the master aircraft on our server, of course - so once we roll out the post 11.30 update it will be part of this.

Make sure that you use the 11.26 planemaker for the fix, not the 11.30 beta planemaker. Otherwise some lights in the cockpit won´t work for you anymore (they won´t cast light).

Cheers, Jan

 

[Iain]

Jan

Never been near Planemaker so need to check how to use it and the versions etc, I don't want to start it, might get addicted to it and get side trapped from flying, but like when I started using overlay editor recently and can't stop messing around with oil spill textures and stupid baggage cart positions on the ramp....!

[Litjan]

31 minutes ago, Iain said:

Jan

Never been near Planemaker so need to check how to use it and the versions etc, I don't want to start it, might get addicted to it and get side trapped from flying, but like when I started using overlay editor recently and can't stop messing around with oil spill textures and stupid baggage cart positions on the ramp....!

Haha, you crack me up! Just wait until you see my WED tutorial videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p84lyOu55Ug&list=PLGRsg_6rB1D4vm0UHvHm6J-rvIyUBGN_K

Anyway, using PlaneMaker is fairly straightforward - it is located in the main folder of X-Plane. Just follow my instructions in the other thread, you just need to change a single value, then save - done.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Iain]

I started with WED, got a but overwhelmed and decided to start with Overlay editor.  Will get back to WED sometime, would love to make a small simple GA airfield near my home village in Scotland (fictional) or make a small grass airfield on a farm where GA aircraft come for certification of some sort (non fictional), location in google maps is "Boat Farm, Thankerton, the field with straw bails to the SE and south side of the river Clyde (I come from the middle of nowhere!).  

[Litjan]

6 hours ago, Iain said:

I started with WED, got a but overwhelmed and decided to start with Overlay editor.  Will get back to WED sometime, would love to make a small simple GA airfield near my home village in Scotland (fictional) or make a small grass airfield on a farm where GA aircraft come for certification of some sort (non fictional), location in google maps is "Boat Farm, Thankerton, the field with straw bails to the SE and south side of the river Clyde (I come from the middle of nowhere!).  

While this is clearly going off-topic I can only say that WED is the faster and more powerful tool. The only downside is the lack of "real time" feedback on how your buildings look in a 3D environment. But OE can only edit "Overlay" (i.e. stuff that goes into the .dsf file), never important stuff like taxiways, runways, etc.

WED 1.8 will make stuff even easier it´s out in beta now.

Cheers, Jan

[Iain]

Hi Jan

Yeh, off topic, but very good info, so you can confirm with WED 1.8 that I will become addicted to it

Look forward to it, like I said, I tried WED a few weeks ago, but with limited time to learn I had to put it aside, sounds like a nice winter project  

PS, I adjusted the landing gear value in planemaker, will try it later, flight will be my new location for real world ops with Norwegian, JFK and Fort Lauderdale to TFFR & TFFF (Caribbean area), interesting place to fly.

Edited November 18, 2018 by Iain

[axmiha]

On 11/16/2018 at 5:29 AM, Litjan said:

---Don´t use brakes to "help" with the turn unless an absolute minimum radius emergency turn is necessary (like turning on a very narrow runway without a turnpad).

 

Hi Jan. thank you for the reply and suggestions - and thank you guys for all the info that followed.  This happens exactly in the circumstance you mentioned above. Much easier to avoid the "stall" (is it called stall in this case?) when there is a turnpad, but many runways I "fly" don't have one and I always look like an idiot in the middle of the turn. My old joystick also doesn't help much, I'm afraid. It's falling to pieces, poor bugger. Anyway, thank you beri much. 

And I agree about WED, and how nice would it be to make airports without having to keep reloading the scenery in XP to check. I tried OE but the UI alone made me o so very nervous.

Thanks guys. Awaiting for the 11.30. Er....I see here "version 1.21" not "11.21"(?)

axmiha.

[Litjan]

Hi axmiha,

the 11.30 reference was to X-Plane version 11.30 - which changes a lot of things with regard to the aerodynamics and ground modeling. So we will upgrade our version for that one eventually - although it will work initially, because Laminar Research provides backward compatibility.

The current IXEG version is 1.21 - it is not determined yet what the next version will be called.

Cheers, Jan

 

[axmiha]

Ah, XP 11.30, ok. Duh.

I love that plane, by the way. What an "obra prima", we'd say here in Brazil. A masterpiece!

best, ax.

[axmiha]

Jan, just one more thing before we close. Sometimes the "realistic" option when loading fuel (ground services) doesn't work exactly and twice I had to divert because of fuel emergency. Not enough fuel. It was quite fun, but I wonder if it's a bug or something.

ax.

[Litjan]

Hmm, that is weird - the "realistic" option should work the same as "instant" - except that it takes a realistic amount of time.

We don´t try to create any of these problems for you - but consider this a lesson learned: If a real pilot does not check anything or skip all parts of the checks before he takes off - to check the fuel level on board is the ONE thing you certainly want to check before departing. It has happened in real life - and planes have crashed because the flight-crew was too embarrassed to admit their mistake and tried to "just" reach the airport.

I have once mixed up the fuel figure, ordering 1000kg too little from the tanker. We noticed before departure when we read the "before start" checklist - the fuel would have been "just about" legal, with little to no extra fuel left. So I ordered the fuel truck again, and the fire brigade, made up an excuse "Ladies and Gentlemen, weather at the destination just got worse and we decided to take on a bit more extra fuel..." and fueled with passengers on board.

Everyone makes mistakes, part of being a responsible pilot is to admit to and deal with them. Even if its embarassing .

Cheers, Jan

 

[Iain]

Regarding realistic vs instant refueling, you need to be careful with realistic, the sequence can stop.  I often use realistic, starting the fueling before doing other stuff like FMC setup etc, then at the end, check the total amount and off you go.  However, the sequence can be broken, I am not sure how, but I am sure it's been discussed in the forum before, something like alt tab to windows and back, or checking something in menu's, correct weather for example, something like that can stop the sequence.  I know because I have also had short fuel on flights and sat scratching my head then realised I used realistic fueling to, lets say 12'000kg, then I checked my reply and can see I took off with 10'000kg, so the sequence did stop.

Now when I use realistic, I stay in the cockpit and don't do anything apart from cockpit prep and FMC stuff, and check the gauges and the FMC prog page to check final fuel amount...then tell the pax that the wx has changed and we need more...haha.

To add, I adjusted the landing gear parameter and it works perfect, might be worth making that a sticky?

Cheers

Iain 

[Litjan]

Hi Ian,

thanks for the insight - that could possibly be a problem with the realistic fueling time. I never use it, don´t have the time for it ;-)

And happy that the landing gear fix works for you - considering the sticky idea!

Jan

 

[axmiha]

Thank you, sirs. Yes, I thought I should check the fuel. Lesson learned. Indeed I have the sequence stopping sometimes and it must be what lan said. I'll think of that from now on. Billy Connolly, scotish comedian, wonders from subject to subject without a plan and sometimes he never gets back to what he was talking about. Once he told the audience "Don't worry about that. If I come back quite near the subject that's good enough for me. And that's why I never became and airline capitain. Can you imagine...'the plane landed quite near heathrow''". I admire what you guys do a lot. Even with the many cheklists and procedures, the amount of details is such that I really don't know how you do it. It's amazing.

[Hullu-poika]

yeah. I can confirm it. Sometimes I use realistic fueling option and then close the popup window. If I open the popup window again the fueling will be stopped. In my opinion it is OK. Just do not open the fuel and weight setting window until fueling is complete.

[axmiha]

Yes. But I did some tests and it seems unpredictable. Sometimes it stops, other times in doesn't. But it's not a problem at all. As Jan said, the capitain should always check everything.

[axmiha]

Guys, another one. Although checking the fuel very carefully after fueling, this time I confused kilos for pounds going from SCEL to SCFA. HA! Run out midway, but could land at SCAT with 440 lbs remaining. I had the previous plan at SimBrief done in kilos. What a dumb sumb. Does that ever happen in real life? I would imagine not. I have no idea what 8500 kilos are, or how long you can go with 8500 lbs on a 737. On a 614 miles trip, any real pilot seeing 8500 lbs would find it very weird, right?  Anyway, since I didn't crash, I gave myself a medal!

ax

Edited December 4, 2018 by axmiha

[Litjan]

Hehe, cool story! You have to be careful with the units when you go to places where they are still confused about the correct units to use for weights, distances etc (like the U.S.) . But normally the FMS and airplane gauges are set to use one unit only, the only problem could be when telling the fueltruck guy that you want 8000kgs and he doesn´t listen (or know what kg´s are...) and fuels 8000lbs, only. But then rule #1 applies, and those 8000lbs would show as 3600kgs in your fuel gauges.

By the way, the conversion factor is 2.2 - so 2.2lbs are 1 kg.

There was a spaceship lost because the braniacs at NASA confused some units once, iirc.

Cheers, Jan

 

Edited December 4, 2018 by Litjan

[axmiha]

Indeed, I remember something of that story. Weird. Hey, isn't the kgs/lbs mess up what caused the Gimli glider thing? The fuel truck guy, according to the Air Crash Investigation film, messed up. Again, so many details to think of that it's scary how you guys deal with it all. If I showed you some of my orchestral scores, you might say the same, but the worse that can happen in my case is ugly sounds, some boos and laughs. But no one dies.

abr

ax