Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
Guest jaapverduijn

How to make elevator less ticklish?

Recommended Posts

Guest jaapverduijn

Greetings!I enjoy flying the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (Flight One) Avro Lancaster, but she's a bit "ticklish", especially on the elevator. What files should I change, and how, in order to make her behave a bit more sluggishly? What I mean is something like the behavior of Tom Gibson's newly upgraded Californian classic DC6B, now that one FEELS and STEERS like a four-engined lumbering monster!Is this something I can do myself?Be well!Jaap Verduijn.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The good news is you can adjust the feel yourself, and all the entry can be done in notepad, to the aircraft.cfgThere's four areas where you'll need to play with. You may find you have to tweak a little in each, depending on how you want the aircraft to feel.I'll start with the easier adjustments first...In most aircraft.cfg files, there should be a section, enclosed in brackets, called "flight_tuning". If it isn't there, you can add it in. Three entries in flight_tuning go a long way to tweaking such twitchiness. These are the lines:elevator_effectiveness =1.000pitch_stability =1.000elevator_trim_effectiveness =1.000An entry of "1.000" defaults to whatever setting is defined in the .air file. To lower the elevator's twitchiness, you'll want to first try increasing pitch stability (I usually increase it in 25 pct increments), and you may want to lower elevator_effectiveness (I usually lower it in ten percent increments). The trim you can also adjust on the line shown, making it more or less sensitive. The pitch stability, btw, determines how much an aircraft will "snap back" to the pitch axis it was in prior to pulling back or pushing forward on the yoke.In tandem with these entries, there's a significant item in the "WEIGHT_AND_BALANCE" section, labled:empty_weight_pitch_MOI=........This is a non technical description. Basically, if it is higher, think of more stick force being required to initiate a movement in an axis, and more stick force being required to halt such movement. Lower, and you can give your aircraft a fighter jet type feel, with crisp starting and stopping of axis movement. Often, I find this figure too low in larger aircraft. Sometimes, a tweak of this entry alone keeps one from having to play with the effectiveness parameters. I did not try to post a technical description of these settings. Many of the A/C design gurus can offer more insight as to their preferences. I was flattered to see one FDE edit released by Steve Small that almost duplicated my adjustments line by line, neither of us having seen the other's work. So I must have some luck when it comes to this :)-John

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest jaapverduijn

Thanks John, that's the stuff I need! I'll get cracking in the morning (it's already late where I live), and let you know. Thanks!Jaap Verduijn.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...