Sinking

Grumpy's Tips 'n Tricks

Fix That "Sinking Feeling"on FS2000 Aircraft in FS2002

Most FS2000 3rd party aircraft work well in FS2002.
One common problem is that the nosewheel appears to sink or disappear through the FS2002 runways.
This is caused by the FS2000-style nose suspension. It's usually quite easy to fix by tweaking Aircraft.cfg.

Kirk Olsson's FS2000 USAF C-17A Globemaster III is a typical example. Here's how it looks in FS2002.

I've seen a lot worse than this. Note it's just the nosewheel that's "sunk". The main gear is fine.

If your aircraft has a similar "sinking" nosewheel try this. Please take a backup copy of Aircraft.cfg first.

Open Aircraft.cfg of the offending aircraft in Notepad & scroll down to the [contact_points] header.
The first thing I check is the nose gear (usually point.0) Static Compression entry.
Your aircraft will be completely different but the tweak is exactly the same. We're only concerned with a single entry.
Here's the nose gear line for the C-17A.

[contact_points]
point.0=1.000000,30.416667,0.000000,-15.416667,1574.803150,0.000000,3.692445, 51.900000,1.497286, 2.500000, 0.289721,5.000000,5.000000,0.000000,0.000000,0.000000

Count the entries separated by commas starting from point.0= (The first entry 1.000000, is # 0.)
The Static Compression entry is # 8. I've marked it in red. Change the value to 0.2 like this. I've found that usually fixes it.

[contact_points]
point.0=1.000000,30.416667,0.000000,-15.416667,1574.803150,0.000000,3.692445,51.900000,0.2,
2.500000, 0.289721,5.000000,5.000000,0.000000,0.000000,0.000000

Exit Notepad saving changes.

Check it out in the sim. If the nose gear still sinks check the Max/Static Compression Ratio (entry # 9).
I've found this seems to work best in FS2002 at a value of 2.500000 as on the C-17.

This is the result. It's a nice piece of work like all Kirk Olsson's designs.

I won't promise this is a magical fix which will work for all aircraft. There might well be other considerations.
If the main gear & static ground position also need tweaking it's a little more involved.