If you've not flown a biplane before you may not appreciate how much you can throw the aircraft around. Full back stick will give you a very tight radius of turn without stalling the aircraft. She is very light on
the controls and also rather sensitive - especially rudder. If you can't get used to constant footwork to keep her straight then use auto-rudder.
The aircraft doesn't have an artificial horizon but you don't need one. On take off just raise the nose until the cross wires are pointing at the far end of the runway and she'll fly off the ground when she's ready. If you insist on cruising at full power you will also find that the cross wires resting on the horizon keep her level - unless you have altered your view positions. You really don't need to do this except for taxying. Press CTRL + ENTER just once and you should see over the nose for steering. Raise the view again for take off! Yes, you don't see anything until you lift the tail but there again you don't need much of a run to get airborne.
If you bring back the power in the cruise to the correct setting of 1950 rpm you'll cruise at about 83 mph. In this case use the top of the front cockpit windscreen as your horizon reference. It works in the real aircraft as well!
On approaching an airfield get used to staying high for much longer. Ideally you should close the throttle and trim for 65 mph on the approach. If you do that the ground you see just above your cockpit is the point at which you will touch down. She doesn't point her nose down very steeply on approach but you are still descending quite quickly.
When you come to flair on the runway you'll need to bring the stick back much more than you are used to. As soon as you flare your speed drops quickly - get the roundout height just right and you'll touch down gently and roll to a stop in a few yards. It takes practise!
If you take off and reduce power to 2000 rpm right away you can stay at ground level for some excellent contour flying. The aircraft will stay at about 85 mph and you can easily fly up streets and around trees and houses. I'm not saying we did this in the real aircraft - well, not round houses ayway...
The only effect I can't simulate in the flight model is the high drag of the aircraft. If you lower the nose for a loop in the real Tiger you have to stick it down quite a lot. A really steep dive will only push the speed up to 125/130 mph. In this FS version there doesn't seem to be any way of producing that drag and she speeds up far too quickly. If you want to try aerobatics in the sim I would suggest using higher speeds than those in the checklist. Maybe 10% more. She will loop at 120 mph (just) but at the book figure this model doesn't quite make it round.
The Tiger is no sports car so cross country flying can be painfully slow. She is excellent for simply flying for fun and enjoying the view.. At least you don't get cold in this FS model..
