Take Off in the Bf 109K-4

[scoobie]

Doh! :doh: I finally got it! Bought my first DCS warbird the other day, and after two evenings of trying all those ways to take off in Bf 109 given by other people (thank you!) and literally hundreds of test take-offs, I think I got it.

Yes, I know there's more than one way to skin a cat and whatever works for you is fine, this is simply my take on the subject.

I'm going to be a bit more elaborate for folks who still don't dig it and perhaps need more explanation until it "clicks" for them.

 

MAIN THOUGHTS (my discoveries, hehe):

1. Taking off in the DCS Bf 109 K-4 is actually straightforward! It really is! It's not very easy, there's one aspect of it you'll need to practice, but the procedure below is dead simple.

2. You shall not, never ever, let her develop a yaw any bigger than a minute one, at any stage of take-off roll. Whenever she does show yaw, you must quench it very quickly. Otherwise you're dead, no deliverance, prayers futile. Suppress yaws.

3. A side effect of the above is this: when she's too slow for the rudder to be effective, you can have NO yaw or at worst a tiny and non-accelerating one. Otherwise you'll have to tap that toe brake, but I find this more of a rodeo with your life at stake than a proper, repetitive technique.

4. As for "just slam that throttle" technique. If anybody assures me it's healthy for the engine, I will obediently reconsider my technique (as given below). Until then, it smells like a treason, Reinhard! Das Vaterland seems to be loosing the war and you just want to slam the engine on our precious fighter? Give me your pistol and take off your belt. Guards! ;)

 

CONDITIONS

1. WE'RE NOT TALKING CROSSWIND HERE (haven't tested that so far)!

2. Tested with 50% fuel, but also with 100% internal fuel, the external tank attached, full ammo (106% MTOW) - works well in both cases.

3. DCS OB 2.5.6.something as of the 3rd of Nov., 2020. Normandy, "Saint Pierre du Mont" airfield (or something like that), runway takeoff.

4. Summer, 9:00 a.m., 20 degrees C, no precipitation, no wind.

 

PREPARATION

1. Tail wheel checked locked.

(Checked means you have tapped toe brakes to see if the lock has actually snapped).

2. Prop pitch 12:00 (manual).

3. Elevator trim full nose heavy (which is nearly +2 degrees).

4. Stick centered and don't play with it. Centered is good until the lift-off.

5. Full right rudder and keep it there until I tell ya. You won't be using toe brakes.

6. You may - and for praciticing perhaps you should - zoom out just enough so that you can see some ground outside the cockpit, to the left and right of the dashboard. This is meant to help you notice any yaw tendencies early. Practice with various zoom (out) levels until you find a comfortable setting. (VR users and/or multi-pancake users may have different ways to deal with that).

 

PROCEDURE

1. Gradually apply approx. 0.7-0.8 ata of power, so that she doesn't yaw or seems to yaw just a tiny bit. Now let her roll.

(You do keep the right pedal in the floor, right?)

Actually at 0.8 ata she's very likely to yaw (to the left), you can see it on the turn indicator built into the attitude indicator. The "needle" (white square) will shift to the left, but will still be "in touch" with the marker at the outer ring of the a.i. Such tiny yaw is acceptable, because:

a) she won't veer off the centerline too much (this phase of T/O roll takes only 3-5 seconds or so),

b) such small yaw at low speed does not accelerate, it's stable (probably because of the tail wheel doing its job),

c) if you don't want any yaw at all, you may give her 0.7 ata as well.

Oh, but don't stare at the a.i.! Look outside at all times!

 

2. Very soon you will notice that the left yaw tendency (if any) disappears and she immediately starts yawing to the right. This time, this right yaw will accelerate on its own until she kills you, so this is when you need to start steering your plane. Quickly!

2.1 Ease off the rudder some. How much? I don't know. Don't drive by the numbers at this stage, use your "driver instincts" to keep her centered. With practice you'll get it right.

2.2 At the same time add T/O power (1.35 ata typically). You neither need to slam it (don't), nor do you need to be slow and overly cautious with power. Your rudder is alive now, and you are already steering the plane, so just smoothly add that power. At all times concentrate on suppressing yaws, don't pay attention to power - even if you give too little, she will eventually get to speed and take off. Besides, with pracice you will learn where your hardware throttle should be moved to along its axis (more or less is good enough). And besides, the throttle will settle at about 1.4 ata until the last inch perhaps, where the boost kicks in, so really - don't think about power, suppress yaws.

(If you want, you may examine your power later, reviewing the "track" file).

 

3. Carefully steer her, SUPPRESS THOSE YAWS!

If you don't make serious mistakes, you'll be using the right pedal only.

I've noticed I'm very "jerky" with the pedal, but perhaps that's how it's done or at least it works fine for a beginner like me.

 

4. Once she lifts off or when the speed is good for a lift-off (but she somehow doesn't want to lift off on herself yet), pull back a little bit on the stick.

This is required as full nose heavy trim makes it a bit hard to lift off or she may settle on the ground again (which is no big deal, except that you look lame).

I find full nose heavy better than 1 degree because:

a) with 1 degree, she'll tend to lift off at a lesser speed, so she'll be closer to a stall - I don't need trouble, I'm busy already,

b) it's easier to set full nose heavy - just turn the wheel until it stops, you don't need to read numbers in that "readout window" in front of the trim wheel (yeah, I'm lazy and yes, my eyes are bad ;)).

 

5. Don't forget to switch to automatic pitch once you are safe in the air. Fly the airplane, raise the gear, fly the airplane, switch auto pitch on, fly the airplane.

 

===========

 

That's it.

The only thing you need to practice is suppresing yaws, the rest is dead simple. At all times you will just observe yaws and fight them, no need to look at the dashboard, no need to do magic maneouvers with your stick etc. (which all make things only harder, at least for a noob like me). Just look outside, constantly, evaluate your position on the runway and fight the bloody yaws.

To be very exact, a yaw in itself is only dangereous because it gradually gets you off the centerline and the runway has a limited width - but that's a minor issue. The big issue is if you let the yaw accelerate too much - then all hell breaks loose and you can only burst in tears ;) Only a sloooow yaw lets you survive, and you need to suppress it while you still can (the window of opportunity is small!).

 

NOTES:

1. Why manual pitch? I've found out that variable pitch somehow interferes with keeping her centered, I don't know how exactly, I'm too busy to notice when she's rolling, but I don't want that regardless of the physics behind it.

2. Why 12:00 of pitch? I don't know, everyone says it's a good number. I haven't tried different settings. You may (or may not) find a better pitch value, I just don't know, so I'm using 12:00 for now.

3. I'll try to improve on this procedure (just out of curiosity), but the above procedure got me going, repeatedly, so I guess it's good for starters.

 

 

[Weegie]

Question and if its ben already mentioned forgive me I did not read through the whole thread.

 

I recently went back to the 109 after a long time away, spending time in the Spit instead. Well I see ED decreased tailwheel friction, or perhaps all tyre friction, unsure, anyway the 109 was a beast, especially landing but take offs were pretty exciting too.

 

To my question, I normally have trim full nose heavy and when using that in SP its been fine. However I went onto the Aerobatics server and did the same thing and got launched waaaaay earlier, almost like no trim was applied. I checked on the dial and defo full nose down but it didn't seem to behave that way. Am I imagining it, becuase I felt there was a profound difference?

 

Trimmed for landing although I normally have around 0 to -1 trim in at landing anyway and it was fine

[Weegie]

Oh nice explanations @scoobie thanks

 

Going to try that, before I've had full stick back.

 

The auto prop controller which is trying to match RPM to prop pitch (KommandoGerrat or something) is very slow, this causes the pitch to vary and hence the torque applied, so you end up trying to counter, with rudder, a swing rate that's a moving target. Its like a PIO but with your feet rather than your hands

 

I also switch it off and I read on here somewhere that a lot of the Luftwaffe pilots did the same. Problem was forget to switch it back and you're going to have a dead engine pretty quickly

[grafspee]

Take off supposed to be done with prop fixed at 12 o'clock.

Something like that.no brakes are required for this.

 

[Vettefan]

On 11/4/2020 at 11:26 AM, scoobie said:

Doh! I finally got it! Bought my first DCS warbird the other day, and after two evenings of trying all those ways to take off in Bf 109 given by other people (thank you!) and literally hundreds of test take-offs, I think I got it.

Yes, I know there's more than one way to skin a cat and whatever works for you is fine, this is simply my take on the subject.

I'm going to be a bit more elaborate for folks who still don't dig it and perhaps need more explanation until it "clicks" for them.

 

MAIN THOUGHTS (my discoveries, hehe):

1. Taking off in the DCS Bf 109 K-4 is actually straightforward! It really is! It's not very easy, there's one aspect of it you'll need to practice, but the procedure below is dead simple.

2. You shall not, never ever, let her develop a yaw any bigger than a minute one, at any stage of take-off roll. Whenever she does show yaw, you must quench it very quickly. Otherwise you're dead, no deliverance, prayers futile. Suppress yaws.

3. A side effect of the above is this: when she's too slow for the rudder to be effective, you can have NO yaw or at worst a tiny and non-accelerating one. Otherwise you'll have to tap that toe brake, but I find this more of a rodeo with your life at stake than a proper, repetitive technique.

4. As for "just slam that throttle" technique. If anybody assures me it's healthy for the engine, I will obediently reconsider my technique (as given below). Until then, it smells like a treason, Reinhard! Das Vaterland seems to be loosing the war and you just want to slam the engine on our precious fighter? Give me your pistol and take off your belt. Guards!

 

CONDITIONS

1. WE'RE NOT TALKING CROSSWIND HERE (haven't tested that so far)!

2. Tested with 50% fuel, but also with 100% internal fuel, the external tank attached, full ammo (106% MTOW) - works well in both cases.

3. DCS OB 2.5.6.something as of the 3rd of Nov., 2020. Normandy, "Saint Pierre du Mont" airfield (or something like that), runway takeoff.

4. Summer, 9:00 a.m., 20 degrees C, no precipitation, no wind.

 

PREPARATION

1. Tail wheel checked locked.

(Checked means you have tapped toe brakes to see if the lock has actually snapped).

2. Prop pitch 12:00 (manual).

3. Elevator trim full nose heavy (which is nearly +2 degrees).

4. Stick centered and don't play with it. Centered is good until the lift-off.

5. Full right rudder and keep it there until I tell ya. You won't be using toe brakes.

6. You may - and for praciticing perhaps you should - zoom out just enough so that you can see some ground outside the cockpit, to the left and right of the dashboard. This is meant to help you notice any yaw tendencies early. Practice with various zoom (out) levels until you find a comfortable setting. (VR users and/or multi-pancake users may have different ways to deal with that).

 

PROCEDURE

1. Gradually apply approx. 0.7-0.8 ata of power, so that she doesn't yaw or seems to yaw just a tiny bit. Now let her roll.

(You do keep the right pedal in the floor, right?)

Actually at 0.8 ata she's very likely to yaw (to the left), you can see it on the turn indicator built into the attitude indicator. The "needle" (white square) will shift to the left, but will still be "in touch" with the marker at the outer ring of the a.i. Such tiny yaw is acceptable, because:

a) she won't veer off the centerline too much (this phase of T/O roll takes only 3-5 seconds or so),

b) such small yaw at low speed does not accelerate, it's stable (probably because of the tail wheel doing its job),

c) if you don't want any yaw at all, you may give her 0.7 ata as well.

Oh, but don't stare at the a.i.! Look outside at all times!

 

2. Very soon you will notice that the left yaw tendency (if any) disappears and she immediately starts yawing to the right. This time, this right yaw will accelerate on its own until she kills you, so this is when you need to start steering your plane. Quickly!

2.1 Ease off the rudder some. How much? I don't know. Don't drive by the numbers at this stage, use your "driver instincts" to keep her centered. With practice you'll get it right.

2.2 At the same time add T/O power (1.35 ata typically). You neither need to slam it (don't), nor do you need to be slow and overly cautious with power. Your rudder is alive now, and you are already steering the plane, so just smoothly add that power. At all times concentrate on suppressing yaws, don't pay attention to power - even if you give too little, she will eventually get to speed and take off. Besides, with pracice you will learn where your hardware throttle should be moved to along its axis (more or less is good enough). And besides, the throttle will settle at about 1.4 ata until the last inch perhaps, where the boost kicks in, so really - don't think about power, suppress yaws.

(If you want, you may examine your power later, reviewing the "track" file).

 

3. Carefully steer her, SUPPRESS THOSE YAWS!

If you don't make serious mistakes, you'll be using the right pedal only.

I've noticed I'm very "jerky" with the pedal, but perhaps that's how it's done or at least it works fine for a beginner like me.

 

4. Once she lifts off or when the speed is good for a lift-off (but she somehow doesn't want to lift off on herself yet), pull back a little bit on the stick.

This is required as full nose heavy trim makes it a bit hard to lift off or she may settle on the ground again (which is no big deal, except that you look lame).

I find full nose heavy better than 1 degree because:

a) with 1 degree, she'll tend to lift off at a lesser speed, so she'll be closer to a stall - I don't need trouble, I'm busy already,

b) it's easier to set full nose heavy - just turn the wheel until it stops, you don't need to read numbers in that "readout window" in front of the trim wheel (yeah, I'm lazy and yes, my eyes are bad ;)).

 

5. Don't forget to switch to automatic pitch once you are safe in the air. Fly the airplane, raise the gear, fly the airplane, switch auto pitch on, fly the airplane.

 

===========

 

That's it.

The only thing you need to practice is suppresing yaws, the rest is dead simple. At all times you will just observe yaws and fight them, no need to look at the dashboard, no need to do magic maneouvers with your stick etc. (which all make things only harder, at least for a noob like me). Just look outside, constantly, evaluate your position on the runway and fight the bloody yaws.

To be very exact, a yaw in itself is only dangereous because it gradually gets you off the centerline and the runway has a limited width - but that's a minor issue. The big issue is if you let the yaw accelerate too much - then all hell breaks loose and you can only burst in tears Only a sloooow yaw lets you survive, and you need to suppress it while you still can (the window of opportunity is small!).

 

NOTES:

1. Why manual pitch? I've found out that variable pitch somehow interferes with keeping her centered, I don't know how exactly, I'm too busy to notice when she's rolling, but I don't want that regardless of the physics behind it.

2. Why 12:00 of pitch? I don't know, everyone says it's a good number. I haven't tried different settings. You may (or may not) find a better pitch value, I just don't know, so I'm using 12:00 for now.

3. I'll try to improve on this procedure (just out of curiosity), but the above procedure got me going, repeatedly, so I guess it's good for starters.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for this great guide. It works like a charm, also with these modifications:

 

Take-Off Assistance = 0  (in "Special" Settings)

Trim = +2

Propeller Governor still on Auto

 

o7

[GPatricks]

Bought this module yesterday, after about 20 attempts got off the ground (not pretty) twice. First followed Chuck's guide (Full right aileron/auto pitch) and then the advice a few posts back (full right rudder/12:00 pitch). I think part of my issue is babying the RPM increase as using the advice above I consistently would end up veering right and coming off right rudder didn't help. Just tried Chuck's method and accelerated more rapidly to 2300 RPM and it worked. Need to keep at it, never had such a problem with TO before!

[Leg2ion]

Tried for 3 days!!! ONE successful (as I would call it!) takeoff!!! Albeit I eventually got a straight acceleration across the grass after veering left off the tarmac, wrestled the right wing back down level then managed to hit a molehill that launched me skywards, accelerated through a pretty hairy hard left hand bank into S&L flight - yeah - I'll take that one!

 

Help!

[xnomad]

I bought this module a few years ago but prefered IL2 back then. Been playing it again the last few days. 
My fool proof takeoff is, tail wheel locked, prop pitch to 11:45, flaps to 20 hold stick right back and slowly accelerate, with a bit of right toe brake. When the speedometer starts to register and climb past 100km/h stop holding the stick back and start to slowly push the nose forward, a bit of right rudder then hold and you'll start to climb automatically. Put prop into auto retract gears and flaps.

[grafspee]

 

[Reflected]

@grafspee I would do I quite differently. Slamming the throttle forward so fast would be suicide IRL. I read an account where they heard the engine roar up fast, and they already knew the pilot would crash. Also, it's recommended to keep the prop pitch at 12:00 manual for the takeoff according to the pilots' notes. Easier to control the torque.

 

The other thing is, keep it at 3 point attitude as long as you can, and use the tailwheel to keep it straight until the rudder becomes effective, but then, the tail needs to come up (slowly!!), and you need to keep it at a 2 point attitude, main wheels on the ground until 190-200 kph. If you rotated too fast IRL, the plane could turn on its back and crash.

 

These are not really factors in DCS, but the info is coming from both WW2 pilot accounts and those who fly the 109 at airshows today.

 

On landing you were coming in fast, 200-220 is better depending on the fuel load, and again: manual prop pitch at 12:00. 

[grafspee]

When you looks closely i apply quite a bit of back pressure to prevent tail rising too early. 

[scoobie]

Do you know if the tail wheel friction was reduced since... around Q4 2020?
I'm asking because now I'm having problems with my own "procedure" for take-off I gave a few posts above in this thread. It used to work for me, but now when I give her 0.8 ata to peacefully get up to the speed where rudder becomes effective without veering off the RWY centerline too much (and without tapping the right toe brake)... 109 can now drift to the left quite a lot, often too much. So my procedure is now broken, doesn't work so nicely anymore.

[grafspee]

I know, but i didn't notice any difference, any way my take offs works as good as always. Sometime i set prop at 12 o'clock but i often use max power for take off and engines over revs after lift off and i need to switch governor to automatic in very dangerous moment

I am used to take off from short normandy airfields with external fuel tank, no enough runway to play with engine at 0.8 ATA, so i tap brakes for every take off. 

I hold brakes, revs engine up so i don't need to deal  with rapidly accelerating engine while rolling slow.

I still has feeling that DCS warbirs are too easy to take off. But i've seen ppl crying that it is impossible to take off those, so i don't see any point in increasing difficulty, just my opinion.

As you can see my first take off in video which i posted recently, i did w/o flaps or trim for take off, still looked good.

Edited July 12, 2021 by grafspee

[scoobie]

Thanks, grafspee!

Naah, how can it (the take-off) be impossible if other people can actually do it nicely?
OK, I'll try other methods then. 109 was my first warbird, then I bought them all (except for the Ishak) and have now many more hours in them (counting collectively, that is), so perhaps I no longer need my procedure aimed at beginners? No, I'm not the one to complain that this or that plane feels difficult to deal with - I have already noticed that it's just a matter of time you devote for the aircraft, learn/discover what she demands from you and adapt to that. It's actually great fun!

 

[Art-J]

7 hours ago, scoobie said:

Do you know if the tail wheel friction was reduced since... around Q4 2020?
I'm asking because now I'm having problems with my own "procedure" for take-off I gave a few posts above in this thread. It used to work for me, but now when I give her 0.8 ata to peacefully get up to the speed where rudder becomes effective without veering off the RWY centerline too much (and without tapping the right toe brake)... 109 can now drift to the left quite a lot, often too much. So my procedure is now broken, doesn't work so nicely anymore.

 

I don't know if it was Q4 2020 but when the lateral grip of all wheels in DCS warbirds was reduced long ago, the tailwheel in the 109 was affected the most in my opinion. That does make the takeoffs and landings somewhat more challenging compared to early years of this module.

[LeCuvier]

I continue to use the old FMOptions.lua which has a "last changed" date in August 2018. Out of curiosity I switched to the current stock file and did a take-off and landing, then switched back to the old file and did the same, using the same process.

With the current file
1. I need a little bit of differential braking at the very beginning of the take-off run, but no big deal.

2. The landing needs a bit more attention after touchdown to keep her from breaking left of right, but again quite manageable.

In conclusion, I see a distinct difference and maybe the current file is more realistic, but the difference is not dramatic at all.

Having said this, I continue using the old file as it handles more nicely. This does not pass Integrity Check for MP, but that's no problem for me as my old eyes cannot spot hostiles without labels (real lablels, not a blue dot), so MP is out for me anyway.
 

[5urvivalis7]

Yesterday I discovered, to my shock, that takeoff assist was set to 100%!!! WTF! Just when. I thought I was getting the hang of it!

Today I get to see if I can actually take off a BF109. Wish me luck.

[LeCuvier]

5 hours ago, 5urvivalis7 said:

Yesterday I discovered, to my shock, that takeoff assist was set to 100%!!! WTF! Just when. I thought I was getting the hang of it!

Today I get to see if I can actually take off a BF109. Wish me luck.

I updated to 2.7.8 yesterday, and the takeoff assistance for the Bf-109 is still at 0, as it was before the update..

[Tuturuu]

Had the same issue with rudders ahah feel Bad at first but i wasn't so far off luckily

Personally i had to set the rudders axis tune to 30 to finally be more aligned with the runway when taking off

 

 

 

[Elf1606688794]

I've spent hours trying to get this thing off the ground. I have the takeoff assist off and yet I keep careening out of control.

[Elf1606688794]

I've seen a lot of posts saying to use manual prop pitch but the gauge is in German and I don't speak or read Germany Talk so how do I know how to set the prop pitch?

[Baldrick33]

17 minutes ago, Elf1606688794 said:

I've seen a lot of posts saying to use manual prop pitch but the gauge is in German and I don't speak or read Germany Talk so how do I know how to set the prop pitch?

Set the governor off and map increase rpm & decrease rpm to buttons (or use the keyboard) and press them either way until the gauge on the right goes to 12 o'clock.

That said I don't find the 109 too hard with the governor on. I just use differential braking at the beginning until the rudder is usable and push the stick forward a bit to stop it rotating too quickly. I work the rudder pedal a lot to keep it straight, just constantly correcting in small movements. It certainly isn't by the numbers but I just fly it by the seat of the pants. My background is sim racing/rallying so I am used to being busy with the controls, probably make it hard for myself but I find it the fun way to fly if not by the book  

Edit: I don't bother with trim either just use the controls to keep the nose pointing where I want it.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Baldrick33

[Elf1606688794]

8 minutes ago, Baldrick33 said:

Set the governor off and map increase rpm & decrease rpm to buttons (or use the keyboard) and press them either way until the gauge on the right goes to 12 o'clock.

That said I don't find the 109 too hard with the governor on. I just use differential braking at the beginning until the rudder is usable and push the stick forward a bit to stop it rotating too quickly. I work the rudder pedal a lot to keep it straight, just constantly correcting in small movements. It certainly isn't by the numbers but I just fly it by the seat of the pants. My background is sim racing/rallying so I am used to being busy with the controls, probably make it hard for myself but I find it the fun way to fly if not by the book  

Edit: I don't bother with trim either just use the controls to keep the nose pointing where I want it.

 

I don't have rudder pedals.

Are you saying to read the prop pitch gauge like a clock?

The commands to increase/decrease prop pitch are the increase/decrease engine rpm commands? 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Elf1606688794

[Baldrick33]

4 minutes ago, Elf1606688794 said:

I don't have rudder pedals.

Are you saying to read the prop pitch gauge like a clock?

The commands to increase/decrease prop pitch are the increase/decrease engine rpm commands? 

 

Yes to both.

I would find taking off in the 109 (and any of the WW2 planes come to that) very hard without rudder pedals.

[Elf1606688794]

3 minutes ago, Baldrick33 said:

I would find taking off in the 109 (and any of the WW2 planes come to that) very hard without rudder pedals.

I be the poor.

Thanks for your help Baldrick, I got off the ground on my first try but I didn't stay airborne long before I crashed and burned. At least I was airborne for a few seconds.