Can't get the thing off the ground.

[brettt777]

I got the two week trial of this thing and I have yet to get it off the ground. It's all over the runway. I thought the Spitfire was tough to get airborne. This "Mossie" is ridiculous! I have went through every check list and how to that I can find. Prop all the way forward, rudder trim a bit to the right, pitch trim a bit down, roll trim neutral, flaps about 15 degrees, supercharger to "mod". I bring the thottle up slowly and at first, I use taps on the brakes to keep it straight. Most of the time it will just suddenly turn to the right and no amount of left rudder or brake will stop it. And, on the rare occasion that I can actually keep it on the runway long enough to get airborne, I can't get enough speed to even lift the tail off the ground. Last time I did that, I think the ASI was just barely reading 60 knots when I ran out of runway. What am I doing wrong? At this point, I am very glad this is only a trial cuz I would have been major p*ssed off if I would have actually bought this thing. I'd really like to figure this out cuz it's kind of a cool plane, very different... and I would love to get it airborne. So, a couple questions...

- Is there some kind of parking brake somewhere that I haven't seen that could be slowing it down? I didn't set one in the controls but who knows?

- I have the mixture set to "strong" which I guess means "rich". is this correct?

- Are the rest of my setting correct? I thought I saw something in another post about boost. Is there a boost setting somewhere that I'm missing?

[razo+r]

Turn off the arcade game mode or whatever it is called in the settings. Apparently it is non-finctional and will keep the aircraft on ground.

But yes, it has a parking brake, but that gets turned off as soon as you use the brakes. The parking brake simply holds the brake lever in the pulled position with a simple pin.

The rest of your setting and setup sounds correct.

Edited May 9 by razo+r

[Art-J]

^ What razo+r said. I think the option is called "simplified flight mode" nowadays or sth like that (?). It's been always known to make Mosquito "untakeoffable" .

[Maulet]

^^ that + 1000

and then some test take offs to get the right feeling and hand memory, after that it's easy, really!

[brettt777]

20 hours ago, razo+r said:

Turn off the arcade game mode or whatever it is called in the settings. Apparently it is non-finctional and will keep the aircraft on ground.

But yes, it has a parking brake, but that gets turned off as soon as you use the brakes. The parking brake simply holds the brake lever in the pulled position with a simple pin.

The rest of your setting and setup sounds correct.

Okay, tried all that. Somehow the thing got set to the simple flight model. The Mosquito must have done that cuz I never use thae simple one. Anyway, all that did was make it worse. It's like, as soon as the tail comes off the ground, the thing just goes out of control and will spin to the left or right and no amount of rudder or differential braking will bring it back. One time out of about 20 attempts, I got it airborne but it was still pretty much unflyable for me and shortly after takeoff it just rolled to the left and crashed regardless of what I tried to make it do.. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but this one is a NO for me. Glad it was a trial and I didn't pay for it yet.

[grafspee]

On 5/10/2025 at 4:05 AM, brettt777 said:

Okay, tried all that. Somehow the thing got set to the simple flight model. The Mosquito must have done that cuz I never use thae simple one. Anyway, all that did was make it worse. It's like, as soon as the tail comes off the ground, the thing just goes out of control and will spin to the left or right and no amount of rudder or differential braking will bring it back. One time out of about 20 attempts, I got it airborne but it was still pretty much unflyable for me and shortly after takeoff it just rolled to the left and crashed regardless of what I tried to make it do.. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but this one is a NO for me. Glad it was a trial and I didn't pay for it yet.

When tail is rising, gyroscopic precession will swing plane to the left in order to minimize this effect pull stick a bit back to slow down tail rise rate that helps a lot to stabilize that process. 

Another common issue is over-correcting, in other words you end up fighting instabilities during take off made by your inputs.

Here is my take off with controls scheme and pre take off trimming shown as well.

Shortest airfield in normandy which i could find.

 

Edited May 11 by grafspee

[rob10]

Also it's really easy (especially if you're used to a modern jet like the F-18) to not realize that you're climbing at an excessive rate on takeoff (you're viewpoint is much higher in the Mossie) and that can cause you to stall and bank and die.  Took me longer than I care to admit before I realized that's what I was doing that was causing crash just after airborne.  Keep a close eye on climb indicator and attitude indicator.

Not a super easy aircraft to takeoff, but definitely doable if you do it right.  Make sure you're lined up straight with runway (dif braking is a good way to crash on takeoff until you're more used to the aircraft).  Set trim nose down and rudder to the right.  Hold stick back to lock tail wheel and get power up SMOOTHLY but relatively quickly to get speed >60 MPH then let it off to get tail up and get rudder control of direction.

[Holbeach]

5 hours ago, rob10 said:

 

Not a super easy aircraft to takeoff, but definitely doable if you do it right.  Make sure you're lined up straight with runway (dif braking is a good way to crash on takeoff until you're more used to the aircraft).  Set trim nose down and rudder to the right.  Hold stick back to lock tail wheel and get power up SMOOTHLY but relatively quickly to get speed >60 MPH then let it off to get tail up and get rudder control of direction.

There is No 'tail wheel lock' on the Mossie,

..

[brettt777]

6 hours ago, rob10 said:

Also it's really easy (especially if you're used to a modern jet like the F-18) to not realize that you're climbing at an excessive rate on takeoff (you're viewpoint is much higher in the Mossie) and that can cause you to stall and bank and die.  Took me longer than I care to admit before I realized that's what I was doing that was causing crash just after airborne.  Keep a close eye on climb indicator and attitude indicator.

Not a super easy aircraft to takeoff, but definitely doable if you do it right.  Make sure you're lined up straight with runway (dif braking is a good way to crash on takeoff until you're more used to the aircraft).  Set trim nose down and rudder to the right.  Hold stick back to lock tail wheel and get power up SMOOTHLY but relatively quickly to get speed >60 MPH then let it off to get tail up and get rudder control of direction.

Okay, well one thing I did not know is that pulling the stick back locks the tail wheel. I tried that and I actually managed to get airborne a couple times. But of course, there had to be something else. I could not get my landing gear to go up. The gear handle was moving to the up position but the gear never raised. It never even tried. The first time I thought it was because I waited too long and the higher airspeed damaged the gear somehow. But the second time I managed to get airborne, I put the gear up immediately... at least I tried to. The handle went up but the gear did not. So, is there some trick to getting the gear to raise that I don't know about?

[razo+r]

10 minutes ago, brettt777 said:

Okay, well one thing I did not know is that pulling the stick back locks the tail wheel. I tried that and I actually managed to get airborne a couple times. But of course, there had to be something else. I could not get my landing gear to go up. The gear handle was moving to the up position but the gear never raised. It never even tried. The first time I thought it was because I waited too long and the higher airspeed damaged the gear somehow. But the second time I managed to get airborne, I put the gear up immediately... at least I tried to. The handle went up but the gear did not. So, is there some trick to getting the gear to raise that I don't know about?

There is actually no tail wheel lock.

And did you make sure the gear level is mapped correctly and the correct lever is moving? Because the gear lever is the middle one and has a travel lock to prevent it from being put into the retract position. So make sure you lift the travel lock before trying to raise gear.

[grafspee]

3 hours ago, razo+r said:

There is actually no tail wheel lock.

And did you make sure the gear level is mapped correctly and the correct lever is moving? Because the gear lever is the middle one and has a travel lock to prevent it from being put into the retract position. So make sure you lift the travel lock before trying to raise gear.

Sometime believing in tail wheel lock helps a lot

[rob10]

Mixing up my P-51 and Mossie I guess on the wheel lock.

But what others have said: there is a lock the you need to press to unlock before you can use the gear up lever.

[brettt777]

On 5/11/2025 at 2:05 AM, razo+r said:

There is actually no tail wheel lock.

And did you make sure the gear level is mapped correctly and the correct lever is moving? Because the gear lever is the middle one and has a travel lock to prevent it from being put into the retract position. So make sure you lift the travel lock before trying to raise gear.

Well, I dunno... but holding the stick back until I was at about 60-70 knots sure seemed to help. I will look for the gear handle lock. Thanks. Maybe there's hope for me and the Mossie yet.

[Slippa]

There’s hope, I thought I’d never get it sorted when I first tried it too. 

I wouldn’t say the Mossie’s easy to either land or take off. Not straight away anyhow. Like a lot of things, easy when you know how. Saying that, I still rush in and smash em up regularly enough. Keeps the chippies busy .

I’d say don’t hang about with the throttles. I’ve usually got my RPMs to 3,000 within a couple of seconds, maybe three? I usually trim the nose down around 1 1/2 notches. I sometimes have to flick the brake with rudder to straighten the nose, once the speed finally starts to build I might be twitching my pedals some. Almost before I’m airborne I get the gear in. Probably best not to try that one but get em in as early as possible. I use a button to unlock em before I throttle up and a switch to bring em up or down.

Try not to climb or turn too early, stay straight and level and let the speed build first and trim out. Practice, practice, and practice, you’ll suss it. It’s a great module, worth all the wreckages. Don’t forget to pack your sandwiches and bring a flask, enjoy. 

[brettt777]

6 hours ago, Slippa said:

There’s hope, I thought I’d never get it sorted when I first tried it too. 

I wouldn’t say the Mossie’s easy to either land or take off. Not straight away anyhow. Like a lot of things, easy when you know how. Saying that, I still rush in and smash em up regularly enough. Keeps the chippies busy .

I’d say don’t hang about with the throttles. I’ve usually got my RPMs to 3,000 within a couple of seconds, maybe three? I usually trim the nose down around 1 1/2 notches. I sometimes have to flick the brake with rudder to straighten the nose, once the speed finally starts to build I might be twitching my pedals some. Almost before I’m airborne I get the gear in. Probably best not to try that one but get em in as early as possible. I use a button to unlock em before I throttle up and a switch to bring em up or down.

Try not to climb or turn too early, stay straight and level and let the speed build first and trim out. Practice, practice, and practice, you’ll suss it. It’s a great module, worth all the wreckages. Don’t forget to pack your sandwiches and bring a flask, enjoy. 

Okay, so y'all will be happy to know that I did NOT give up and I finally managed to get the thing airborne, get the gear and flaps up, and get it trimmed out. Then, of course, I found out that it's actually a very nice airplane to fly. It handles about like you'd ecpect a plane that size to handle but it's also quite fast for a bomber. It will do 300 kts without breathing hard. Anyway, now that I find I can actually fly the thing (with a little help from my friends), I will definitely be adding it to my hanagr.

Cheers!

[Slippa]

Nice one .

Let us know how you get on with landings .

[Dragon1-1]

22 hours ago, brettt777 said:

Well, I dunno... but holding the stick back until I was at about 60-70 knots sure seemed to help. 

It's not a tailwheel lock. What you're doing is planting the wheel firmly on the ground, preventing it from castering as much. This is very much proper technique in any taildragger, both on landing and on takeoff. This is also why some aircraft have tailwheel locks activated by pulling back on the stick, you should be doing it anyway any time you want your tailwheel to be locked.

[rob10]

Glad you got it figured out!  Takeoff in the Mossie reminds me of AAR in modern jets.  It's really hard to start and seems completely impossible (except that you know others are doing it so it can't be impossible).  And eventually it clicks and you slalom down the runway but manage to get airborne only to bank and die because you were pulling up more than you thought.  And then you manage to tame it and actually fly and it slowly gets easier each time you go up.

I'm still working on landing because I seem to have a habit of getting hit badly enough by flack that I don't make it back more times than I'd care to admit so not enough practice at landing.  But I have found doing low level, high speed straight in bombing to be a little safer (if harder to hit accurately).  And if you try that make sure you set to 11 sec delay fuze so you don't frag yourself .

[Bozon]

14 hours ago, rob10 said:

I'm still working on landing because I seem to have a habit of getting hit badly enough by flack that I don't make it back more times than I'd care to admit so not enough practice at landing.  But I have found doing low level, high speed straight in bombing to be a little safer (if harder to hit accurately).  And if you try that make sure you set to 11 sec delay fuze so you don't frag yourself .

Landing after a combat mission is the exception… The Mosquito is a flak magnet - I swear those AAA tracers curve in the air to hit me.

The best and most fun bombing method is spot the target outside of AAA range, then drop as fast & low as you dare (under tree height) and shoot the bomb at the target from a close range. I say “shoot” because from such a low altitude the bomb does not develop much vertical speed and is basically tossed forwards like a rocket - I use the bottom of the reticule circle to aim. Needless to say, a delayed fuse is mandatory.