As I was tinkering with the Ford Tri Motor's flight dynamics, I was pointed by a guy named Steve to this post at Just Flight's FS2004 forum: http://forum.justflight.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2031I reproduce the text of the original author Fred Williams (Merlin) here so knowledge will be spread and tests can be done and results discussed________________________________________________________________Posted - 20 Oct 2003 : 10:10:49 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Hi allIt's a hot and widely debated subject but the general feeling on stock FS9 flight dynamics is that they are 'crap'Tailwheels jammed round the wrong way and such likes certainly support the view of the sceptic.However, after a great deal of mucking aound with stock airfiles I hit upon a simple fix for all stock aircraft which gives them very acceptable dynamics. It works for all the stock aircraft.No doubt some people might be aware of this but I post here because I believe knowledge is for sharing. Basically, what I discovered was that in the aircraft cfg, in the [flight tuning] section you will find pitch stability, roll stability and yaw stability. Roll performance seems acceptable for most if not all of the aircraft, but pitch and yaw are too wild. Re Piper Cub. Now, the values in the [flight tuning] cfg section are scalars or multipliers for want of a better word and here's the interesting part: increase the pitch scalar by a factor of ten i.e. from 1.0 to 10.0, and increase elevator effectiveness by some lesser amount say 2-3 times to compensate. Do likewise with yaw stability but note a 4X increase usually is enough.Flight test the model, you will notice it lifts off the rwy more smoothly and is much more stable in the air and requires a lot less trimming. However it is highly likely that near maximum speed you get oscillation setting in, so back off the pitch scalar a bit at a time just until you get rid of this. Repeat the same with yaw.Everyone knows the DH Comet and Piper Cub are too vicious to be flown properly, but I have near perfect flight dynamics on both these using the above method.I am begining to suspect some kind of monumental ####-up by M$, quite possibly in the way the 'scalars' interpretted or set up.Why else is it that with adjustment to the scalars you get the model behaving properly ?This proves that the airfiles are basically sound, because a bad airfile is a bad airfile and no amount of 'scalar pulling' will give good dynamics under such conditions.Many have said that 2K2 aircraft imported into FS9 were terrible flyers even though the were perfect in 2K2, this gives further indication that FS9 does things differently. I think the difference is with stability scalars.If any of you didn't know this stuff already, I hope it helps.The aircraft I have fixed are:Piper CubBoth Beechcraft'sAll Cessna'sDH Comet.RegardsMerlins---------------------------------------------------------------------Edited by - merlins on 20 Oct 2003 11:13:52 _____________________________________________________________________Further it might help to make new airfiles using a spreadsheet from www.avhistory.orgComments are welcome :)Rob "Holland&Holland" de Vries http://www.emotipad.com/emoticons/Flying.gif"A Bad Day At The Field Is Still Better Then A Good Day At Work"

Might try these 1% files for Cub and Comet.http://www.netwings.org/dcforum/DCForumID3/1445.html

I think that might be a simplistic way of approaching the problem. You can calm down an FM that way but it doesn't mean you'll end up with an aircraft that flies like the original. The stock FMs are crap because they are just not well done. If you look at the excellent FMs that come with aircraft like the RealAir 172 or the Flight-1 152 you'll notice that all the scalars are set to 1.0 As an other example a friend and I have a reworked FM for the stock Cub that now flies very well. Yaw stability is set to 3 but pitch and roll are set very close to 1.0. TonyDigital-Flight

but does it fly like the original? Why don't you share it so the community can test it..?

I just tried messing with these settings and here is what I found. If I raised up the pitch sensitivity to 10 and then adjusted the elevator effectiveness to 3.0 or 4.0 I did get a much smoother pitch control on departure and climb. Then as I increased my airspeed the aircraft began to flutter like it had a control problem!I reset the settings and then just adjusted the control sensitivity to a smaller number .4 or .5 seemed to do the job. The aircraft seems a little under controlled, but its in general much more flyable for most situations.Thanks for the tip.

It's not hidden, you can download it from the MSFS2004 aircraft page at my web site:http://www.digital-flight.comI've never flown a Cub but the fellow I worked with to make these changes has. Give it a try and let me know what you think.TonyDigital-FlightPS: IMO AVSIM could really use a forum just for flight modeling. It's really kind of sad that panels and visual details seem to generate more interest then how the dammed things fly.