This has happened once or twice before but I never cared since i figured it was either a calibration issue or something I did (or did not) during the rampstart.

But now its happened twice the last few hours for no reason I can understand!?
I do the regular rampstart routine in campaign, set everything up, taxi to runway and make ready.
On takeoff everything is normal up until i reach a speed of 140+ and are about to clear the ground and suddenly the ship makes a instant climb, crashing the tail into the runway, flies up out of control and crashes...

What the hell? I dont think im doing anything wrong at the ramp, and i cant imagine anything that would result in this kind of behaviour?
Random malfunctions is not turned on.

What is your loadout and take off weight in these attempts? - even clean I think I am more around 160KIAS for rotation


Are you at full burner?

Are you using a joystick?


edit: Okay just checked - 160KIAS is for 28000 lbs takeoff weight which would be just over the weight of a clean B50 with full fuel.

Yeah i usuly lit at about 160 but this was just before leaving the ground.
Not entirely sure of the exact speed but just short of 160.

So what is your takeoff weight??

160 will be too slow if you are carrying stores - the extra weight and drag means you need to be going faster to take off.

Im not sure, but aside from these freak accidents ive never had issues taking off even when loaded with external tanks and several bombs.
Details about speed and weight aside, what would make the nose of my ship instantly climb (by itself), scraping the tail into the runway and sending me into oblivion? Aside from some issue with my stick that is, it might be getting weird.

Btw, in bms I dont think ive ever had an issue lifting off at 160 no matter the loadout.

Never seen that ever - calibration issue - maybe (autopilot? on )

Sounds like its getting enough sudden lift to force the jet up at a very high AOA and into a stall.

Whats the wind speed?

The weight and drag are listed when you select your loadout

You should be going over 180 with most attack loadouts (38,000+ lbs)

It could be my HOTAS acting up, maybe its overheard me contemplating the x55

Maybe this is too obvious, or a silly comment, but could it be an elevator trim setting?

You need to be faster before you start pulling on the stick. Especially (as said before) with heavier loads.

The nose is coming up, but since you have not generated enough lift, the whole body of the aircraft can't lift and you end up in a aerobrake situation. Notice when landing how fast the nose will climb while aerobraking unless you are careful not to pull too much on the stick. It's kind of like rocking back too far on the back legs of a chair (in a wind tunnel!). You reach a point where there is too much weight to the rear and everything goes over the top and...boom!

Also keep in mind different stores may have different drag and weight characteristics. Wing tanks may have less drag than some bombs but are more cumbersome.

On a full load of bombs and wing tanks I'm usually at 175-180kts before I start pulling back on the stick and I just "ease" the stick back rather than "pull".

If you don't think any of this applies to your issue, then I would suggest checking the x and y axis calibration and also the throttle calibration. Remember that there are several "stages" of afterburner and if you don't have the afterburner set back a little in your throttle sweep, you won't get 100% out of your burner. (i.e. the bar in the controller set up should go past where you have AB set when you have full throttle applied)

HTH

-schnidrman

This sounds backwards to me. In F4AF take-off weight didn't seem to matter as much. In the BMS version w/ the AFM, take-off weight is much more important, along with wind speed and wind direction.

Schnidrman tnx for your replies.

Now that im a bit more educated on the subject im gonna try and replicate the situation by trying to takeoff early and see if the same thing happens.

Ive played mostely AF and when i changed to BMS one of the things i reacted to on takeoff was how much quicker i could get off the ground. Its been normal for me to lift off at 160+ but obviously that might in fact be the issue. Perhaps the times this incident has occured is with a specific loadout.

Ill get back!

I used to have this with my Logitech . In my case it was caused by the stick cycling the controls too many times during the startup sequence, but only if I used accelerated time. The only work around (before ditching the stick) was to use an external view to make sure that the elevator was centered and not moving before taxi. It's easy to check. Before taking off, look over your shoulder to be sure that both elevators move with the stick.

Nose trim zeros when wheels spin up to 60 knots on takeoff run.