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3.5. SHAPING THE LANDING GEAR 39
Gear Retraction Warnings
Figure 3.36: Numbering of the landing gear door boxes
If a landing gear is retractable, there will often be a speed above which it is not safe to have the
gear extended (the maximum landing gear extended speed, Vle) and a speed above which it is not
safe to extend or retract the gear (the maximum landing gear operating speed, Vlo).
To have X-Plane play a gear warning noise if you operate the gear beyond these speeds, open
the Viewpoint dialog box from the Standard menu. There, in the Default tab, check the box near
the bottom-center of the screen labeled “has gear warning horn.”
Customizing Wheels and Steering
Using the preceding sections, you can build a landing gear with the right wheel configuration,
the right position, the right retraction characteristics, even the right gear doors. What we haven’t
touched on yet is the steering characteristics of the gear, as well as the properties of the wheels
themselves. These settings are all found in the Gear Data tab of the Landing Gear dialog box.
There are two “nosewheel steering” parameters here (the top two input boxes in Figure 3.38).
These control how far, in degrees, the wheels responsible for steering can deflect. The one on the
left sets the maximum deflection at speeds below the transition speed, and the one on the right
sets the maximum deflection above the transition speed.
If the aircraft does not use the typical nosewheel steering configuration and instead uses free
caster wheels which are controlled using differential braking, set this parameter to zero. (Note that