I do like the Seneca from Carenado. However, when it first came out, I hated the "twitchiness" of rotation and overall flying characteristics. JohnCi gave us a fix which included this: "Change your pitch stability to 5.0". That worked great, and it helped immensly. Then Carenado came out with a patch but they STILL did not have the pitch stability where John Ci had it. It was much, much, better but still not good enough.After the patch, I changed my pitch stabiltiy back to 5.0 as John suggested, and it works exceptionally well. I suggest that if you have this plane, that you heed John's advice and change that parameter. I think the plane feels really good, and extremely controllable.Thanks, John. Great tweak!Stan

yeah it helps but doesn't solve the real problem.......lack of a quality FDE

yeah it helps but doesn't solve the real problem.......lack of a quality FDE

Well I am still confused on these complaints cause I have been flying it fine if not better than most fs aircraft...Is it reality settings that are messing it up or joystick calibration? There has to be something that is causing the bad experiences for some-and I'd be the first to complain if I had them but I don't.

I dont think its a control input issue because RealAir's Duke flies wonderfully on my system. It doesn't roll and pitch like a F16On the PA34 if I push the stick forward ever so slightly the plane dives down like a meteor.... I don't think that's correct. And like others have said the turning radius is practically on a dime. Not sure how to fix that one...

I dont think its a control input issue because RealAir's Duke flies wonderfully on my system. It doesn't roll and pitch like a F16On the PA34 if I push the stick forward ever so slightly the plane dives down like a meteor.... I don't think that's correct. And like others have said the turning radius is practically on a dime. Not sure how to fix that one...

That is what is strange Ryan-I get none of that. In fact, I trimmed it with no autopilot (with goflight) and was able to fly hands off like a real PA, and something rare to see in fs. I am using a Saitek yoke, goflight trim, and ch rudders.

Maybe goflight is just elite lolI'm guessing the majority of the users fly with a joystick/ch/saitek yoke

Maybe goflight is just elite lolI'm guessing the majority of the users fly with a joystick/ch/saitek yoke

How about realism/control sensitivity?

Very similar to yours actually (set based on RealAir's recommendations)

Very similar to yours actually (set based on RealAir's recommendations)

Nothing can really compensate for a sensitive-in-pitch flight model. The underlying flaw will still be there. I hasten to add I haven't tried the Seneca so this is a general point. Apart from the somewhat coarse pitch stability tweak in the cfg file, which again doesn't really solve an underlying flaw but does make it less prominent, stick sensitivity settings in FSX are quite important. Overall the FSX sensitivity settings don't, or shouldn't, reduce the maximum pitch or bank capability of a given aircraft. What they do is make a steeper or shallower input exponential curve. Using high sensitivity the first quarter or third of movement on your input device is somewhat exaggerated and then falls off nearer the end of travel. By contrast low sensitivity provides for a gentler initial reaction which then exponentially increases as you get to the end of joystick travel.Personally I like to set an exponential curve in the flight model itself (gentle beginning, stronger end) because most domestic joysticks have a very very short range...a matter of three or four inches compared with maybe one or even two feet of movement on a generous real joystick. That means that for a given desired pitch or bank change you are using up to a fifth or less of the movement required on a real joystick or yoke. That makes "games" joysticks intrinsically over-sensitve and the practical solution to this is to lessen the pitch response, provided it doesn't compromise the overall positive or negative G capability of a given aircraft. This is where it takes hours and hours of tweaking to get a good compromise.The realism settings, and especially the top slider "general sensitivity" have an entirely different function. With anything less than maximum general realism, the flight model is always dumbed down and this results in easier control, much more slick roll movements and a host of flight model detail being disabled, including the ability to spin or side slip, because a less than max setting wipes out a lot of detail in the relationship between pitch and lift, and roll and lift. Thus, if a flight model has been designed to use max realism, you should never ever reduce the general realism slider from max. Even one tiny increment back from max dumbs down the flight model. But some good flight modellers set their dynamics to respond well to less than maximum and if this is a deliberate ploy then it's perfectly ok to set the general slider to the recommended settings of each developer. All the RealAir aircraft are calibrated for max general realism, as are all the aircraft I've co-designed (Eaglesoft, PSS, FeelThere, Just Flight, Maam Sim, Jan Visser etc).On the other hand, helicopters are almost impossible to control properly with the realism slider maxed out because the core FS flght model engine is not really designed for them, and most choppers respond more realistically with this set to half to two thirds.The torque and p factor sliders merely damp or exaggerate the tendency to swing at high angles of attack or on take off runs, or to torque-revolve the fuselage in the opposite direction to that of the prop rotation. These two controls do not fundamentally change anything in the rest of the core flight model.Hope this helps!Best Wishes,Rob Young

That is what is strange Ryan-I get none of that. In fact, I trimmed it with no autopilot (with goflight) and was able to fly hands off like a real PA, and something rare to see in fs. I am using a Saitek yoke, goflight trim, and ch rudders.

The Seneca was my only recent payware purchase where I noted an issue with pitch sensitivity. Even after their change (which of course reverted my mod), I noted on rotation the Seneca would very easily over rotate and be hard to get settled down. I have a Saitek stick and if anything my sensitivities are even a tad less than your settings. The RealAir Duke flies (and of course looks) like a champ. And most of my other Carenado aircraft fly alright. I played with their mod again and noticed even increasing the pitch stability to 3 or so makes a difference and may be more realistic than the 5.0 value I originally suggested. I suppose it is possible the Goflight trim might make a difference in your setup, might make it easier to get trimmed vs. using the MSFS trim controls.Regards,John

The Seneca was my only recent payware purchase where I noted an issue with pitch sensitivity. Even after their change (which of course reverted my mod), I noted on rotation the Seneca would very easily over rotate and be hard to get settled down. I have a Saitek stick and if anything my sensitivities are even a tad less than your settings. The RealAir Duke flies (and of course looks) like a champ. And most of my other Carenado aircraft fly alright. I played with their mod again and noticed even increasing the pitch stability to 3 or so makes a difference and may be more realistic than the 5.0 value I originally suggested. I suppose it is possible the Goflight trim might make a difference in your setup, might make it easier to get trimmed vs. using the MSFS trim controls.Regards,John

I have no idea but I certainly am not having this issue. I am well versed with twitchy in xplane so I know what it like.. :(

I have been reading these posting with interest because I purchased the Seneca II a couple of days ago and concurred that it should not leap off the runway as it does - it is almost like ground effect is having too strong a force. I have applied the pitch stability setting recommended of 5 and am trying also 3.0. (It does help a little.) I have also gone thru controller setup and re-calibrated my joystick. If anyone from Carenado is reading this thread, would they care to comment on the FDE and the performance.But in looking at the pictures of your setup for joystick and realism I have suddenly realized you both have setting button I do not have (i.e. egine stress causes damage). I do not have this. I can only assume that it is because I have not installed Acceleration but rather just Service Packs 1 and 2. (and yet I had the understanding that Service Pack 2 and Acceleration are one and the same except for the associated aircraft,gauges, sounds and missions ????

Engine damage is a part of Acceleration and is not included with SP2.

I have been reading these posting with interest because I purchased the Seneca II a couple of days ago and concurred that it should not leap off the runway as it does - it is almost like ground effect is having too strong a force. I have applied the pitch stability setting recommended of 5 and am trying also 3.0. (It does help a little.) I have also gone thru controller setup and re-calibrated my joystick. If anyone from Carenado is reading this thread, would they care to comment on the FDE and the performance.But in looking at the pictures of your setup for joystick and realism I have suddenly realized you both have setting button I do not have (i.e. egine stress causes damage). I do not have this. I can only assume that it is because I have not installed Acceleration but rather just Service Packs 1 and 2. (and yet I had the understanding that Service Pack 2 and Acceleration are one and the same except for the associated aircraft,gauges, sounds and missions ????

The only twins I have flown are a Duchess for about 23 hours and a Baron for about 320. I have never flown a Seneca so have no basis to judge how accurate this one is. However, the main difference to me in twins vs. a single is they do leap off the runway. In my Baron it wants to start flying just below redline-our procedure is to hold it till 10 over(and it will fight you trying to fly)-then gently pull back on the yoke where it does in fact "leap" off. At this point we lower the nose to stay in ground effect and achieve blue line before making the decision to continue and raise the gear. This is very different from say a 172 where you pull the nose up and it gradually pulls itself off the ground. If you click on my name-go to videos and check out "takeoff from knoxville island" I think it shows this pretty good.

I'm finding that adjusting the propellor lever, introduces a head motion,like rocking back and forth. The outside view of the plane is quite stable, and inside, the paneldoes not move relative to the horizon - but my head rocks forward and back for a while,almost enough to make me reach for the barf bag...I copied the VC camera definition from the cameras.cfg file into theaircraft.cfg file for the Seneca and turned off the momentum effect.That cured it.Anyone know if the effect can be adjusted rather turned off completely?