Wilco Harrier: Nose gear deflection: Possible after all?

[Manschy]

Hi to all experts here,

after detecting an interesting detail with the DC FA-18 Hornet in this MSFS thread

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforu...s-legacy-Hornet-freeware-released-1-27!/page2

my hope goes on to maybe get a proper solution to my problem after all with my Wilco GR3.
But one by one....

The Hornet has a similar gear issue out of the box (please have a look at the bottom pic):

If you compare both pics, you will notice the missing deflection at the gears at both gear parts.
But there seems a solution inside the contact point section which solve this problem perfectly (which many pics show in many following screenshots in this topic...)

So, the Wilco Harrier GR3 seems to have the same issue:

Especially the nose gear - it should have an almost right angle at the pivot. But it stays like inflight.

Many years before, we can't find a proper solution via the contact point section (please have a look at the former topic those days if you like...)

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforu...ion-Modification-visible?p=1081129&viewfull=1

So finally, maybe there is still hope to use the F-18 solution at the Wilco Harrier as well. Each help is much appreciated.

@Rob and Milton: Thanks again at this place for your effort in 2017....

 

[centuryseries]

Have you looked in Model Converter X to see how much that nose gear is animated? Is it animated at all?

I bought the Wilco GR3 so many years ago that I don't have it anymore, but usually so long as the animation is full travel in the mdl, it should be possible to adjust the contact points settings to make use of that travel.

 

[hschuit]

Gear compression is animated, the amount of vertical travel between keyframe 100 - 200 is 0.3231 meter (nose) and 0.3146 meter (main). It is what David says - Aircraft.cfg [contact_points] need some tweaking. FYI my attempt:

[contact_points]
//        0       1       2      3      4  5      6     7       8      9     10 11  12  13   14    15
point.0 = 1,  8.500,  0.000, -6.65, 16575, 0, 0.892, 60.0, 0.2908, 1.111, 0.355, 5,  5,  0, 300,  250
point.1 = 1, -5.000,  0.711, -4.76, 16575, 2, 1.031, 0.00, 0.2517, 1.250, 0.945, 5,  5,  3, 300,  250
point.2 = 1, -5.000, -0.711, -4.76, 16575, 1, 1.031, 0.00, 0.2517, 1.250, 0.945, 5,  5,  0, 300,  250
point.3 = 1, -7.000,  9.800, -4.76, 16575, 2, 0.608, 0.00, 0.2517, 1.250, 0.945, 5,  5,  2, 300,  250
point.4 = 1, -7.000, -9.800, -4.76, 16575, 1, 0.608, 0.00, 0.2517, 1.250, 0.945, 5,  5,  3, 300,  250
max_number_of_points = 5
static_pitch = 6.460    //6.235
static_cg_height = 5.4
gear_system_type=0

 

[Manschy]

Thanks so much both of you, guys. So there seems to be hope at last. Will give Henk's suggestion a try this evening and will fiddle around the settings a little. I did so many tries in the past, but everything I tried did not work.
Will give you feedback next days, thanks a lot.

 

[Manschy]

Okay, did some experiments with it but it is not the result I did hope from it.

With Henk's adjustments, the main gear now comes a little more down, but the nose gear stays like before. It is almost like in flight position.

The articulated arm is what I mean (red circle). It stays the same, no matter, which entry inside the contact points section is done. Normally, when touch the ground, the gear should deflect in left arrow direction and the articulated angle should be far less than 60 degrees.

Here two pics - Wilco gear is the same like the real gear in flight:

That's like it should look like on ground:

 

[Manschy]

Okay, just noticed while a look at the mdl file inside MCX:

While the main gear and the wing gears do a proper deflection, the nose gear don't at all. It only extracts, that's all. Furthermore, the articulated arm is not animated. That's a real shame, especially there will be no realistic Harrier GR3 model for P3D any more (for MSFS certainly not as well....).

Sad, but true...

 

[centuryseries]

Just thinking out loud, but it might be possible using Model Converter X to adjust the animation, and maybe check the part name to see if it conforms to the standard c_gear naming.

 

[Manschy]

Thank you, CS.

Yes, did some experiments with the GR3 yesterday evening. I have to correct myself - there is a deflection in the nose gear indeed, but not very strong. So I will check out if I can alter the deflection a little more inside the contact point section inside the aircraft.cfg or maybe the parameters inside the MCX object hierachy scenery graph notes...

 

[Manschy]

Okay,

even maybe nobody will notice the differences, I am more than satisfied with my results.
Because of getting Covid last week, I was not able to make that much experiences I would like to do finally.
But yesterday, I got the solution how to (for now...) manage my personal freedom with the Wilco Harrier GR3.

1. Inside MCX, I did detect that I can affect some individual model parts in size, position and rotation without isolating, exporting and remerging all the stuff. Changing the dimensions are possible inside the hierachy editor by transforming the needed parts.
2. That way, I finally could rework most parts of my own demand - especially the gear section now almost match my vision, even the Wilco is not able to answer my expectation at last.
3. So I also changed the size of the pilot (the pilots head at least...), to improve the dimensions at all.
4. The GR3 now stands with its legs apart, stands tall, even if the improvements are small and you can't see it straightaway.
5. Current state I am satisfied.
6. Will see what's possible next...


Nose gear and main gear both are altered in size (by ca 10%), all gears are lowered for ca 10 centimetres, nose gear wheel section got a fine Z-angle rotation of 4% (that way, it still was possible to hide the nose gear inside the fuselage after retraction...)



The Harrier now looks much more compact, even the changes are small. I did many trials and too big differences made the aircraft look more cartooning...



Finally the way too small nose gear is gone and together with the bigger size pilot now the Harrier looks more real, more uniform.



That's like I use it - that's I like to use it....



Will see if there are any options to alter the nozzles and/or payloads as well...

 

[Manschy]

Okay, some final shots - for better comparison all together (please note original Harrier has no gun pods below fuselage...):

1. The original Wilco Harrier dimensions:



2. The original Harrier GR3 dimensions:



3. The improved Wilco Harrier dimensions:

 

[centuryseries]

Much better, great job

 

[delta_lima]

Great improvement!