I am new to flight simulators, but not new to aviation. I've been in love with airplanes and aviation for a very, very long time. I have a Commercial license with an Instrument rating and have flown Cessna 172s and many of the the lighter, two-place aircraft such as J-3 Cubs, Aeronca Champs, to name a few. My computer is an HP wide-screen lap top outfitted with a CH yoke and CH rudder pedals. The aircraft I fly in FS 2004 for the most part are the Cub, Cessna-172, Lockheed Vega and the Mooney Bravo. Now, here's my question/problem. I'm having a devil of a time trimming the elevators, especially with the Cessna. I'm porpoiseing up and down trying to get the plane settled down. Any thoughts or advice? Perhaps some tweaking in Settings? Thank you.--Roger

The default airplanes are really twitchy, but you can set the sensitity of your trim buttons which will help. Just go into your control settings and find the trim buttons. There should be a column that says "Repeat" and a bar that you can adjust. Move it to midway or all the way to the left.

I don't find the default Cessna as twitchy as some, but then I'm use to it, as I've done this a long time! :D However, getting it to trim out as easy as the real thing, is another matter! It's always wanting to climb or decend a bit, until I really work at finding the sweet spot, or have to pay too much attention to the computer screens small horizon. Usually, I don't care if it swings a hundred feet or so either way; or I'll just hit the auto-pilot button...:-hah I use one of two hat switches on my Saitek X52 to more or less mimic electric trim. Since I've simmed long enough, as well as fly real planes, I can somewhat "feel" trim forces to a degree. It's a case, of where the mind fills in the gaps.........if the mind knows what the specific "feeling" is.L.Adamson

Hi Roger;Welcome to the forums.The easiest way I've found is to do the final trim with the throttle.FS will not trim quite like the real deal but you can get it close andthen use power to stabilize it.

It would be great if they could put manual trim into flight yokes or joysticks. A manual trim wheel that actually pulls the yoke or stick in that direction as in real life. Or program force feedback sticks to let off the pressure when you hit the trimmed phase. Until then, it's always guesswork.Patrick ClarkAnchorage, Alaska, USAhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/1900driver.jpg

Did you have tried RealAir's C172? It has more realistic pitch sensitiveness and trimming behavior(I guess). I recommend it, freeware. http://www.realairsimulations.com/list_box...?page=downloads

The RealAir 172 is my all-time favorite simulator aircraft. I don't know whether I'm proud or embarassed to admit it, but mine has 164.4 hrs on the tach as of my last flight which I just finished about 5 min ago.Have you tried rolling your mousewheel over the trim wheel on the panel when you need finer trim adjustments? Hold mouse cursor over the trim wheel gauge and roll the wheel fwd to trim nose down, back for nose up. I usually make coarse trim adjustments with my joystick trim switches, but when I'm "in the ballpark" I switch to the mousewheel method. I can usually nail it fairly close this way, but sometimes still need to throttle up or down slightly with a jab of F2 or F3 to get it perfect.Jim

RogerThe parameter that affects this is the elevator_trim_effectiveness in the aircraft.cfg. For the C172 this is found in the FS9 folder at Aircraft/C172/aircraft.cfg. Lower this value to your liking. I have the rudder_trim_effectiveness value modified as well.The other ac have similar folders and aircraft.cfg files.Also, do try the RealAir C172 that KTH090 suggested.

Yep and also highly recommended are the C-172 mods by Alexander Metzger (of Digital Aviation): http://www.metzgergva.de/default_e.htmThis together with the new Cessna 172 Lycoming O-360 by Christoffer Petersen / Turbine Sound Studios breathed new life into the ol'Cessna:http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID...nds&DLID=109636Best!Rob "Holland&Holland" de Vries http://fool.exler.ru/sm/fly2.gif"To go up, pull the stick back. To go down, pull the stick back harder"

Thank you all for your very interesting and helpful posts.Alex...I went into the control-settings trim-buttons, and slid them to the left. What a difference it made! I'll tweak them both to the right and experiment a bit. Thank you.Bob Z... Thank you. How do I get to the FS 9 folder? For just an instant when I start the program a menu bar appears, but then quick as a wink the FS 9 window comes up soon followed by the default aircraft window.--Roger

RogerThe full path is C:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesFlight Simulator 9Aircraft

Bob...Thanks again...Roger