Landing the Mosquito?

[Raven Morpheus]

Hmm, I make 180kmh 111mph, which is slower than I tried last night, and about what I was trying when I first opened this thread.

I'll give what you've said a go though JtD.

Really want to be able to land this plane (and it'll probably help me with any other plane on land) as I'm currently doing the 633 Squadron addon campaign and I'm only on mission 2. I must have landed it on mission 1 though, but I think I probably belly flopped it and fluked a survival or dug the nose or something else in but still managed to survive...

[MaxGunz]

With planes that I can use manual prop pitch, I set it at 100% rpm and generally I can run at very low speed with 30% to 35% power. With P-40B it's about 33% right near stall which lets me run a bit faster while slowly descending.
Low power and high rpm has a kind of braking effect on higher speed, you can find a power setting and buzz along then lower yourself by backing off the power just a bit. But get real close to ground over a landing strip in IL2 and you get ground effect modeled (IL2 ground effect is/was only over landing strips) where you'd better be cutting power to land.

For fast speed landings, don't give it much flaps or you'll bounce badly.

Generally I like to touch down at the speed I took off or slightly less just to minimize the hops.

Once I'm down either way, the flaps come up to cut lift and help me stay landed. When I slow down more, 160-170kph or less, I can drop them for the drag.

[Notorious M.i.G.]

Going by your video, it looks like you were a bit too high and hot, and extended gear/flaps a bit too late. I've spent the last year or so showing some friends how to play, and the #1 cause of landing crashes I noticed was that they weren't giving themselves enough time/distance to set up a landing. I like to have everything ready (runway lined up, flaps down, gear out, trimmed etc) a good 30 secs before I expect to touch the runway, and only make minor corrections in those 30 seconds.

I threw together a little video of me putting the Mosquito down - I'm sure there's plenty of mistakes in there somewhere that a more regular Mossie flyer will correct me on, but the key is to be ready to land long before you do (for any plane really). I was also a little too twitchy on the throttle and touched down sooner than I expected, because I've been flying the P-36 a lot lately and wasn't used to the high landing speed and sitting so far above the ground.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmdiRMxpMCc

I also noticed that it's a lot easier if you have the gunsight up to give you a reference as to where your nose is pointed. Otherwise you tend to guesstimate a lot.

[Raven Morpheus]

Originally Posted by Notorious M.i.G.

I also noticed that it's a lot easier if you have the gunsight up to give you a reference as to where your nose is pointed. Otherwise you tend to guesstimate a lot.

Thanks I'll have a few watches of that video and make some notes.

BTW how do you turn on the gunsight in the Mosquito, on my copy it's turned off, and I notice the guns are aimed to a point just left of the gunsight, kind of in the middle between the edge of the gunsight glass/plastic bit and the edge of the cockpit window on that side? (I'm running the latest DBW and TFM on patch 4.10.1m if that makes any difference)

All the other planes I fly the gunsight is on by default and the guns are zeroed in the middle of the gunsight (to 500m distance).

[JtD]

Press Shift+F1. But I'd recommend to use the not gunsight view, and raise your point of view for the best possible view over the nose (6DoF, you can use mouse). Keep some small part of the reflection in the sight, for reference, but don't have it centred there.

Check attached screens for different viewpoint, grab0007 is gunsight centred. It offers the worst view over the nose. grab0006 is possibly the easiest for landing, and grab0008 offers the best view. (Yes, I use a vertical monitor. I tend to read a lot and in game I get a good view at the instruments all the time.)

[Raven Morpheus]

Interesting view you have there.

I can't replicate it. I play on a landscape 21" widescreen LG TV and I set my FOV to 110% as that seems the most appropriate for me in most planes.

Plus in the Mosquito when I press Shift+F1 it zooms in and centres for the gunsight, but I can zoom out again to 110%. That's very odd because in other planes (mostly single prop fighters) the aiming reticule is displayed by default.

I also can't seem to raise the point of view up, I tried pressing S which I've assigned to raising the seat but that does nothing - any info on how to raise the view up in the Mosquito?

[JtD]

You don't raise the seat to get what I got in my pictures, you move the point of view. This can be done through track IR, or, as in my case, by assigning controls and move the viewpoint with the mouse. I use my mouse scroll wheel to raise my head and my right click+mouse movement to move around.