Ground turning radius very poor

[avgaskoolaid]

It's very difficult to turn this aircraft on the ground. While I see the nose wheel turning at what seems to be normal/full extension, it seem like it only has 5-10 degrees of effect. Some aircraft simulate the nosewheel 'skidding' if you over-turn, but I tried easing into the turn at a slow speed to no avail. 

[Modifly]

This appears to be the correct behavior.  From the How To - Taxi Management post:

"Nosewheel steering is controlled by the rudder pedals, which in turn can deflect the nosewheel up to 15 degrees left or right by deflection of a bungee spring and cables. The nosewheel can further deflect up to 50 degrees by using differential braking.

This is very different from airliners which have nosewheel steering up to 70 or more degrees.

The pilot of the F406 will have to consider the following:

• The bungee spring assembly can only turn the nosewheel if the aircraft is moving and the rate at which it rotates depends on the speed. The slower the speed the longer it will take for the nosewheel to reach the commanded deflection.
• Start your turn early and use braking and/or differential braking if necessary.
• Differential power will also assist in turning, especially to achieve the smallest radius of turn."

So you just have to be aware that you only have 15 degrees of nosewheel steering and the rest has to come from braking and thrust.

[tclayton2k]

The flight_model.cfg files have the max steering angle set at 45°, which is reasonable given the ground handling engine in MSFS (2020). The dev's were nice enough to remember to enable diff. braking for those of us with twist rudders, so turning on one main wheel is still possible. If you examine the contact points and do the trig, a steering angle of 59° would give you that single wheel pivot without diff braking - but it might be twitchy at higher speeds.

[dresoccer4]

On 7/12/2025 at 6:35 PM, tclayton2k said:

The flight_model.cfg files have the max steering angle set at 45°, which is reasonable given the ground handling engine in MSFS (2020). The dev's were nice enough to remember to enable diff. braking for those of us with twist rudders, so turning on one main wheel is still possible. If you examine the contact points and do the trig, a steering angle of 59° would give you that single wheel pivot without diff braking - but it might be twitchy at higher speeds.

how do you enable differential braking with a twist stick?

[tclayton2k]

This is the brakes section from the system.cfg - the line you need is in bold red. Set to zero, the only way to get differential braking is with a set of rudder pedals with separate axes for each brake. But set to 1, if you twist the rudder one way or the other before hitting the brakes, you only get braking on that side. I think the sim will accept a decimal value between 0 and 1, but that probably wouldn't be realistic.

[BRAKES]
parking_brake =1
auto_brakes =0
toe_brakes_scale = 0.9 ;1
differential_braking_scale =1
hydraulic_system_scalar =1
autobrakes_disabled_on_stop=0
rto_disabled_on_stop=0

I've made this edit on over a dozen of my planes - both addon and stock.