Keeping a constant taxi speed
Is there some secret to getting a large aircraft to roll at a constant speed during taxi? I'm having a terrible time getting my aircraft to taxi at a reasonably constant speed, and I'm wondering if airline pilots have some special technique for doing this. Or is it just practice?
For example, it seems that a lightly loaded 747-400 will lazily start rolling at 35% N1, but then it will speed up and up and in no time you're rolling along at 30 knots. And yet if you set power to 32% N1, it will gradually slow down and stop. The "sweet spot" seems to be about 0.00008 knots in width. Sometimes I hit it entirely by accident, but otherwise constant tweaking of the throttles is required. I must be doing something wrong.
Ditto for the 737-800, except that you see results a bit quicker when you adjust the throttles. A 767-300ER seems to want to roll even at idle, but it does seem to speed up and slow down more rapidly, which makes it a little easier to set the throttle.
So, how do you taxi at a steady speed in real life? Do you try to find the right spot for the throttles or just constantly adjust them. And is it cheating to set the throttles so that you gradually accelerate and then tap the brakes a bit to slow down when necessary? I don't know how much this heats the brakes. On a small plane I'd use differential braking to help in turns but I don't know if this is allowed or a good idea on large aircraft (and in any case differential braking doesn't seem to make a lot of difference in turns, at least in simulation).