Hi All,

I've just gotten into ROF and started a campaign. I've been playing quick missions for a bit but now in campaign I need to land the plane. I'm a flight sim vet but mostly modern era and wwII.

So I was a bit surprised at how hard it is to land. I take my throttle down and expect the RPMs to come down and have the plane lose altitude. But I am finding that the RPMs keep coming back up. I have the RPM limiter off. Am I missing a setting or do these WWI planes just work differently. I'm not having much success in slowing enough to get it on the ground comfortably. I have been cutting the engine to land.

Also, without a trim system these planes are really hard to push around. Especially with the springs in my TM cougar. It is a stock cougar so the joystick has all the normal issues with bouncing and fidelity of input.

Any advice. Really liking this. Will stay on my HD with F4 and BOB

Bluenose,

By the sounds of it unless your throttle is on the blink, you're diving at the ground.

Fly it like an R/L aircraft; attitude controls airspeed and throttle controls rate of decent. If you're doing this already, check the calibration of your thottle.

=IRFC=Vasco

Thanks. That is actually what I was doing. I cut back throttle and expected to lose altitude. The RPMs drop then come back up. It is like it is trying to keep me from landing.

Then I do dive to get lower and, yep, airspeed picks up so too fast.

I tried going into the joystick configure area and the throttle seems to be working fine. Maybe I'll try that again and let it sit there all the way back and for a bit and see if it kicks back up.

I have one of the first 100 Cougars that were sold so it is a bit old. Also not liking the Cougar joystick now as well. Can't afford at warthog so may just look at other sitck / throttle / pedal combos that will work here and in other sims.

Are you flying a rotary engined A/C? Maybe the blip switch is somehow cross assigned. If so try the SE5a or Albatros, or just try other aircraft to see if it is the same.

Use the blip switch and glide in at zero throttle. You may have to circle to get your airspeed down. If your speed is still high on your approach pull up to reduce speed then level off and glide to the ground.

You might have a control assignment conflict, it sounds like something other than your throttle may be increasing rpm. Have a look in the controls menu, if throttle has a double square in the box next to the assignment than there's something else bound to the function.

ROF lets you bind multiple keys or axis to the same function, mostly its handy, occaisionally it causes problems. Axis assignment is also very sensitive, its easy to bind one of you your stick axis to a button press by mistake if you move your joystick a tiny bit before you press the required button.,

Still learning on this sim. It is a Neiuport 17. I did not think to look at cross asignments.

Just curious. What does the blip switch do?

Bluenose, you might also try adjusting mixture to lower RPMs when landing. Also, check out Requiem's videos on Youtube. He has a set of Landings videos that explain how to land most of the aircraft in the game.

Blip switch kills the engine ignition in rotaries while its pressed.

I had blip mapped to joystick back by mistake, I'd moved my stick while I was trying to map blip to a joystick button. The end result was the engine cutting out every time I pulled the stick back..... My fault but it took me quite a while to work out what was going on. the fact it was only the rotary planes that wouldn't start only added to my confussion.

Thanks all. I pulled out my old MS Sidewinder Precision Pro and this all works great. I got in and made sure that the mapping was okay on this one and it works fine. Thanks for the tip on the Blip Switch as well. That really helped on landing.

Looks like it is time to retire the Cougar. It is a bit worn at this point. The MS SW is much smoother. Need to look at a new HOTAS set up for this sim and my jet sims. Warthog as bit too expensive. Will look at some of the CH Products.

Thanks again

Another thing worth thinking about is that these planes have no flaps and are slipperier than you may think, at least at low speeds when parasite drag is low. An often used technique when landing planes without flaps is to slip on the final. You can make a quite steep descent without heavy acceleration if you just step on that rudder. Just don't forget to straighten out in the flare though.

My RPM also increase when landing or diving. I prefer to fly my plane into the ground and flare at the last moment. I just switch off my engine for the last part and go in silent. I'm gonna try the blip thing though. I thought the RPM-increase was due to having all the engine management set to computer control.

-C-

Not a lot different than landing a Zeke in IL2 really.
The lightness of the plane, and that it actually bleeds speed faster was the adjustment I had to account for.

I personally don't like using my nice HOTAS (warthog) for ROF. My old sidewinder seems more appropriate for these old planes.

Agreed, I'd hate using a fancy jet style HOTAS for a WWII sim even...which is why I don't own one.
12-1 online kill ratio back in the day in IL2 with my trusty Saitek twist stick.

Rudder pedals though are something I'd like at some point.

People saying their engine speed is increasing is odd, unless they mean RPM increasing as they dive with the fixed props.

I agree you don't need a complex HOTAS to enjoy ROF but a decent throttle setup is nice to have.

Practice landing with the engine off. It's never a bad skill to perfect.

For me it was the RPM not decreasing. I think the auto engine mangement was part of it. But with the MS Sidewinder it seemed to work fine last night. So I may have just had some cross assigned keys.

I haven't used the Sidewinder Pro in years. Always defaulted to my Cougar. But it was a stock Cougar so the precision was really bad. Not as big a deal in F4 where I can lock on a heat seeker. It was a big deal here. One difference, though, was my Track IR. One of the big advantages of the Cougar was all the hats to manage views. With Track IR I don't really need that. Also no MFDs or targeting systems to manage in ROF. So my sidewinder works great. The stick is much lighter on the touch so the lack of trim was not as bad. I was fighting the Cougar to just keep the nose down. I was getting a significantly higher K/D last night and really felt the plane.

For my modern sims I do like the HOTAS for system management. I essentially set the same basic keys for my sims so I don't have to remember the individual keys for each sim type. Retiring the Cougar this week. I'm using CH pedals ... which work fine for me. I ordered the CH fighter stick and pro throttle today based on a lot of recommendatins from the controller forum here. I'll give CH a shot. Wait for the warthog to come down a bit in price in a year or two. Never liked the stock Cougar joystick and I'm not really a technician so never upgraded. Loved the throttle though.

Im not sure if this is the same thing as the op is experiencing but when i flew one of the early Albatros(DII/LT)in career mode the throttle would often shoot back up to something like 70% or such when trying to land.It made the landing speed much too high.I read sometime later on the main ROF forum others experiencing much the same.It seems that the auto pilot may be kicking in on ocasions.Its something that didnt happen very often and ive not had it happen with any other aircraft.Hope that helps

Hector

Is it the throttle or the RPM? If you descend too quickly it can increase RPM.