Aircraft trimming

[stoney]

Having lost my beloved "MS Force Feedback Sidewinder" I'm finding trimming most CFS2 aircraft for hands off flight almost impossible to accomplish with out the FF. I'm now using an "Extreme 3D Pro' stick with no FF. Using Flight Tuning to reduce the elevator trim effectiveness doesn't seem to really help the issue very much. I do use buttons on the stick rather than always reaching to the keyboard which always seems to be in the dark on my setup.

So I was wondering how you guys did the trimming.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Hi Stoney:

I use an X52 flight controller with many buttons, toggles and rotaries. The buttons are all used for the more important functions, and the rotaries are too sensitive for me. I tried using the toggles for elevator trim and found them to be inadequate and difficult to "fine tune." Thus, I use the number keys 1 and 7. I've gotten use to this set-up to the point it is not clumsy or uncomfortable for me at all.

This is not the answer you were looking for, but no one else has responded, so far and I just wanted to give you my side of the issue.

Cheers:

Shadow Wolf 07

[_486_Col_Wolf]

Stoney,

In my simpit I have rocker switches assigned as keystrokes for the three trim functions. One rocker for elevator up/down, and two others for aileron and rudder. I have found that while using keystrokes for trim, if you hit them slowly (one stroke every 1-2 seconds) produces a +/- 0.04 change in trim. However if you hit them fast (2-3 strokes per second) they produce a greatly increased trim change almost +/-0.50 for the axis. So, three slow clicks produces about +/-0.14 of change, whereas three fast clicks produces almost +/-1.10 of change in the axis. There is a gauge that you can install that shows you the trim change in real time by keystroke but I can't remember who made it and I'm typing this on a different PC than my setup.

After years of flying specific A/C I have made myself a chart of base trim settings for each A/C for take-off, level cruise, level cruise at altitude, associated trims for bombs and external tanks and landing and use those as a starting point for trim settings and fine tune during flight as needed to compensate for fuel, ammo, altitude.

That being said, has anyone else noticed that after action, some planes lose almost 5-10 kts in speed for the same throttle setting? It's a strange phenomenon I've found in most after market A/C.

[Mike71]

----Using Flight Tuning to reduce the elevator trim effectiveness doesn't seem to really help the issue very much. I do use buttons on the stick rather than always reaching to the keyboard which always seems to be in the dark on my setup.

So I was wondering how you guys did the trimming.

I have not flown CFS but have used some in the old FS9 as I recall. I believe aircraft.cfg files are similar to those in FSX / P3d and have a [Flight_tuning] section.

With regard to "level flight", longitudinal trim sets a speed stability point, not a fuselage attitude/ other.

In a [Flight_tuning] section for any particular plane, there are 3 lines that you should play with to try to help:

elevator effectiveness = x.x
elevator_trim_effectiveness = y.y
pitch_stability = z.z



If small changes to trim effectiveness does not help, try to make small changes in the pitch stability line.

I do it this way --
pitch_stability =z.z1 //z.z
the "//z.z acts a comment, saving your previous setting; you can have as many as you like after //, i.e. //z.z-1//z.z-2//z-2.5 etc as an example. Helps in making numerous small changes and see what is helping

[stoney]

Thanks guys for the replies and thoughts on the subject I'll give them a go in tonight's session. Would any be able to suggest a good (and not too expensive) force feedback flight stick? I sure do miss that!

[Motormouse]

Thanks guys for the replies and thoughts on the subject I'll give them a go in tonight's session. Would any be able to suggest a good (and not too expensive) force feedback flight stick? I sure do miss that!

Doesn't CFS2 have an autopilot function, engaging that will trim the aircraft one would have thought

Ttfn

Pete

[Captain Kurt]

There is an autopilot function in CFS2, but the ability for an airplane to use it has to be set in the .air file. Many planes have this set in their .air file and therefore have an autopilot capability, but not all

[stoney]

I have been using the AP in some cases. I'll enable the AP then just use the altitude hold function. I use this to keep the plane's AHI level during long flights, with out a lot of trimming. Works the same way as the "Level Horizontal Stabilizer" function in IL2 1946 I think. It's just during combat situations with multiple changes in power settings trimming by key board to lighten the stick loads is un-necessarily cumbersome. I thought someone might have come up with a way to accomplish this that I had not considered.

[kdriver]

Here is a trim gauge to try out. I find the easiest way to trim is to cheat and use the autopilot with altitude hold. I find using the keyboard cumbersome as well.

[stoney]

Hey, thanks KD. I'm sure it will help!