Flew my first flight in DCS: Mustang this afternoon.

I fired up a mission, picked a random paintscheme, grabbed my stick and rudder and took off (gulp!). Thankfully I "RTFM" to get some rough numbers and had listened enough to Ray talk about his tailwheel takeoffs that I didn't ground loop this Pony on the first try, but after some rather ugly takeoffs and bouncy landings (still working on those), including side-loading the main gear and a bent prop resulting in a belly landing while flying too low down the runway on a high-speed pass, here's my first full flight in the P-51D...



Ray, I need that tailwheel endorsement... BAD!

Takeoffs and landings are the most challenging part, but I love how the sim feels oh so right. Most of it is coming together natural for me, no need to "go uninstall" (yet). It took me a while to map my controls and setup curves (currently using the left throttle for my prop control) and I haven't flown a single engine prop IRL or in a sim for more than eight years I think, haha. This was fun!!!

Nice video, and I agree Ray's takeoffs and landings make me crazy

Need More Tail Wheel Time

Looking good there LD

And isn't she beautiful to fly aerobatics in, something majestical about her.

Ells wrote:And isn't she beautiful to fly aerobatics in, something majestical about her.

It's a hoot to fly aerobatics in the Stang! Behaves so nicely.

I feel I've gotten 200% better at landings and takeoffs just since yesterday, too. 3-pointers and wheel landings are coming along much better, takeoffs are also a lot smoother, keeping 'er straight but still needs some polishing. I'm loving my rudder pedals... constantly dancing on 'em; happy feet!

Ray, has me practicing landing on one wheel then the other one down the runway (Bob Hoover's school) and it's not easy, but I think in a few more sorties I'll have enough stick and rudder muscle memory to pull some of those tricks off as well. It's just too much fun!

Lawndart wrote:Ray, has me practicing landing on one wheel then the other (Bob Hoover's school)

Cool that that ability is in there rather than the scripted landings of the LO/FC series to date. (I suspect this is part of the AFM...I'm pretty sure I did it in the updated Frogfoot and probably in A-10C...but could never manage it with the -15 or -16 flight model. Used to do this in Falcon quite a bit).