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Any way to increase Braking power?


Jon Clarke

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I have a lot of trouble in stopping the Maule and a ported C172 in P3Dv3. I think the sim is not relevant to my question though. I have Saitek throttle and joystick X52 and have the trigger key assigned to the the brakes, as i always have had. I just cannot seem to get either of the planes to stop especially at airfields where the runways are shorter. They also coast for a long time even with my brake button held down constantly. I land at around 80 knots and immediately slam the brakes on but it takes ages for the plane to lose speed and more often than not I am at the end of the runway careering ! I have also used a controls button to "cut props RPM" but still I see the end of the runway looming large. I am probably around 40-35 knots at this time. 


Can anyone with knowledge assist in telling me what I need to do to enable my braking to be more effective and realistic, as this problem did not happen in my real life experience when I occasionally flew a Cesna 172, landing at my local airfield (EGBS).


Thanks.


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Do you see the brakes message at the bottom of the screen?  


 


To check if your brakes are working you can always hit the parking brake key and see if it pulls up faster.  if not it might be you're too fast or the surface is modelled as slippery.


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Thanks for the replies so far. To John: Yes i see the brake notification bottom left. Will try the Park Brake trick.


To aeronautica: I think i have it on the left so will change the slider to full right and try that.


I assume I could also modify the Brake settings in the aircraft cfg, cut will have to experiment with that setting if the above suggestions don't work.


Even if i land slower than 80k the plane just keeps rolling, very slowly losing soeed with the button pressed on, so I think the suggestion to turn the slider to the right will certainly help. At the moment it appears that hitting the Brake button only actually has an effect one time despite me thinking that it means the brake is in a constant "On" mode. Bit like keeping your foot down on a car brake. At present it feels like putting your foot on the brake peddle, getting an acknowledgment and initial braking impact but then the braking stops!


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John and Jorge are on the money here, and yes there is an adjustment to the Braking scaler in all wheeled aircraft.cfg's. Be very careful when modifying brake scaler, if for "tail dragger type aircraft", as they tend to over brake, pivoting the tail back off the ground, and in some circumstances can flip the aircraft over on its nose.


Increasing brake strength will not help if the strip is modelled as slippery, a very small number of grass strips actually cannot be easily made to have a grip surface, because of the type of landclass present on or around the strip, or if a grass strip is wet or very short, in that case you would need to adjust your landing speed accordingly and try to choose a Runway taking the wind direction into account (no one wants to be blown down a runway by a strong tailwind.


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Hi again


Just a few quick thoughts about braking efficiency and wind direction. If you have a Registered version of FSUIPC4 (FSX) there is a facility in the "Winds" tab to limit wind on the ground, (setup explained in FSUIPC4 User Guide.pdf).


When enabled wind variables only come into play when airbourne. This can be a great benefit to getting your aircraft under control on takeoff and landing with regard to braking efficiency, particularly where Tail-draggers are concerned, be sure to pull back on the stick or yoke with these aircraft once you have reduced to braking speeds, then your tail will be firmly on the ground whilst braking, with the additional benefit of increased wing drag to aid braking.


 


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Perhaps I can add an additional thought; the braking issue in P3D v3 may be related to the propeller low speed theory limit as discussed  by one of the LM guys here:


 


http://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6312&t=112505&hilit=sudden+thrust#p113410


 


From fiddling with this setting and the associated scalar,  it appears to have a significant effect on the thrust produced at low RPM.  My guess is that  compared to FSX, the same propeller settings in the aircraft.cfg produce more thrust at idle in P3D v3. 


The release notes for V3 indicate that low speed thrust calculations were adjusted:


 


•Change low speed thrust limit on propeller in order to better blend the low and high speed thrust calculations


 


Incidentally, if one is willing to adjust other parameters too, you can use the low speed theory limit parameter to shorten the stopping distance after a floatplane touches down.


 


[Edited to add] If I remember correctly, the problem addressed by LM mentioned above was that some planes acted as if they were stuck in the mud on takeoff so to speak until they had picked up some speed.  It looks like the fix was to increase thrust at low speed, which would make the braking problem worse.


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