i've had problems flying the default baron58 with its over-sensitive pitch inputs and i have changed all the sensitivities on the stick but no go. also the mooney bravo with it's roll to one side or the other, same thing. sometimes other aircraft don't seem to fly quite right either. i recalibrated my stick for each aircraft every time i flew them for the last couple of days as an experiment and lo and behold they all flew perfectly, even the baron58 flew VERY smooth and the mooney didn't roll at all. all other aircraft flew amazingly well. my question here is this: is it uncommon or possibly something wrong somewhere that recalibrating each aircraft before i fly makes it fly better? i don't mind doing it at all, just wondering if that's what needs to be done. I do not have FSUIPC and have been told to get it which i may but for right now i'd like to solve this thing without it. any input on any of this please? thanks, william

This is an interesting observation. I know in the past there was someone that had made downloadable config changes to some of the default FS2004 to include the Barron, Mooney, and Kingair. Unless the config files for each of those aircraft are so far out of calibration, I really do not know why doing a joystick cal before the flight works. I am going to try this technique for myself and see if I can duplicate your results.Terry

hi terry, great, please do that so you can verify it.was hoping someone would try it and let me know. i'm hanging around the forums here so will be checking back shortly. thanks, william

William,I tried your suggestion on the King Air, Barron and Mooney and the only one that seemed to benefit on my system was the Mooney. Maybe it is due to the joystick I am using which is the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro. I know my stick has a few problems, one being that the Z-rotation calibration to the right does not completely go to full right. I also set the "Realism" setting in the FS to the right or Real position. Having worked on "Real" world flight simulators in the Air Force, I believe the flight models used in FS2004 are either right on the money and the realism setting is too sensitive or that the program has too many bells and whistles (eye candy) which consume system resources. That is not enough computer time is devoted to the flight dynamics in the program. We have all seen and probably complained about the jerky video and or the non-linear movement of the instruments which leads me to think that if this program was strictly an instrument only simulator, we would have more realistic performance. On one of the last simulators I worked on, (F-111D) we had seven different computers all running at the same time to simulate a given flight. Each major system (flights, weapons, ECM, radar, visual, etc) had its on separate computer dedicated to running only that part of the program. Then there were a couple of computers that linked all of the individual computers together and sent that information to the cockpit and instructor console. For the most part that worked pretty well until we upgraded the sim to install a 3 window visual system. We never could seem to get the visual system and the flight dynamics to react at the same time. The time it took to get the signal from the joystick to the main computer, then the visual computer and back to the cockpit display was just a fraction of a second out of sync. This made very precise operations such as aerial refueling almost impossible in the sim and the students would not be allowed to try this until they had first done it in the real world. The AF was afraid that the sim would have a negative impact on their training and scare them off from doing it correctly in the real jet.I would say that we have a pretty good overall program for the price of around $50 and considering we are running it on computers that cost only a fraction of what a real world sim would have. Sure, I would like to see a better product with more realism but I know that that will not be possible, at least for the near future. Ever wonder why those people who are building home simulators out of wood and sometimes real cockpit shells are running multiple computers? They know that there is just too stuff to run off of one computer.Terry

hi terry,thanks for trying it. i'm using a cheaper saitek stick but used to use a wingman extreme3D and had the same problems so i don't think it's in the sticks.from what you mentioned about your real world experience then you'd be the one to know for sure and i think you're probably right. the other aircraft than the three you mentioned fly fine overall but seem better after i calibrate and i have no reason as to why that is. well yes i do, possibly when calibrated for one aircraft then switching to another perhaps some of those settings are still in the stick but then i don't know why it wouldn't work for everyone, could just be how my computer is setup. i might call microsoft about this too. i'd like to think microsoft has the aircraft setup correctly and that it's something on my end. i've also heard of a few people who say those three aircraft fly just fine and don't know why i'm having such a problem with them. for sure this is a love/hate relationship with me and these 3 planes and has been for years. if i find out anything from microsoft i'll post it back here. i'll keep an eye on this thread in case you or anyone else has some more input. thanks terry, william

Sometimes it is much harder to fly a slower/lower performing aircraft well than it is to fly a big complex one mainly due to all of the backup systems a larger aircraft has. I really do not think this is the case though with FS2004. The pitch/roll and stability values for those particular aircraft might not be as forgiving as in some of the others. I imagine that a number of different people designed the various aircraft and it would be interesting to see if the same people worked on the aircraft we both seem to have control problems with. What I learned from working on real world sims is that you want the fighter/high performance aircraft to be slightly "Unstable" in order to get the most performance out of the aircraft. When I worked on the F-4E simulator, we would always get write-ups (discrepancies)stating the sim does not fly like the real jet. I was lucky enough to get a flight in the real jet to just see what they were really talking about. My flight covered most of the state of Arizona and altitudes and speeds from 200 feet above the ground at 450 kts to FL300 and speeds of .98 mach. Yes they were correct in that the simulator did not fly like the real jet. The real jet was much easier to fly. At the time of my flight, I probably had several hundred hours of F-4E simulator time since the techs had to fly the sims daily (preflight inspection) in order to make sure all systems worked correctly for the days scheduled flights. I also flew as a replacement aircrew member when Stand Eval was giving a check rides and there was only one pilot or weapon system officer in the sim. That and I was already a commercial instrument rated civilian pilot/ flight instructor. Maybe that is why I felt it was much easier to fly the real jet. The big difference between our sim and the jet was the seat of the pants sensations you cannot really simulate in fighter aircraft sims like G forces and the way the airframe buffets when you do a maximum performance turn My highest Gs were 6.5 to 7 positive and about 1 negative which my sim bolted to the floor just could not duplicate. Forcing yourself to breath at high G loads was something I had never expericed before in my civilian flying. Since a fighter pilot has his head outside the cockpit (not looking at instruments) most of the time, he/she needs to be able to fly the aircraft to it's limit mainly by feel.Even though I was flying the jet from the backseat (limited instruments and visibility), I had no doubt that I could have soloed in the real jet if that was allowed in the flight manual. I would also say that flying the real jet made me a better sim pilot which is kind of what the sim is suppose to do for you in the real jet.On the other side, you want the larger slower aircraft to be more stabile just for the fact you do not want to spill the passenger

i used to fly the fighter sims like falcon4 and janes f18 and many others. there were a few real fighter pilots that said the same thing, the real aircraft is easier to fly.did those guys who did the daily pre-trip sim inspections calibrate the sticks daily too? just wondering about that. terry, i have the sensitivities set at the default positions and the null settings also. sometimes for the baron i'll lower the elevator sensitivities which helps. i called microsoft and the tech person said she will try to fly the 3 aircraft to see what happens and will call me back tomorrow morning.to busy to do it today. you might be correct about different people working on all the aircraft, makes sense. i'm still experimenting in the mean time and will try to accept that that's just the way they fly. william

William, Glad you were able to talk to someone at Microsoft. I understand from reading a note on the Avsim home page that the MS FS team will be at the Avsim convention. That would be a good time to get some one on one questions answered if you are going. As for the daily preflight of the Air Force simulators, no you do not calibrate the sticks. There were certain systems you could do some minor tweaking but remember that a "Real" sim has lots and lots of "Real" aircraft parts installed and the control sticks were real. They operated through a real hydraulic control loading system of 3000 psi and yet the cockpit while it looked real from the inside was made on a steal frame with aluminum outer skin. The ejection seats were real but did not have the explosives installed and parts (mainly electronics) could and were at times used on real aircraft. We (the simulators) could go through supply and maintenance channels and actually ground a real jet in order to cannibalize needed parts off an operation jet in order to meet or flying schedule. This was not done that often with the F-4E because the jets on the ramp were F-4C and had different avionics but we did it several times on the F-111D because the jet and sim used the same components.While this program has a lot of bells and whistles and features that my real simulators did not have, it is still basically a "Computer Training Aid" and not a real flight simulator. Terry