Hey guys,

 

I finally got around to buying a joystick for playing Flight, and I decided on the Logitech 3D pro as a good starter stick. I'm finding it significantly more difficult than flying with the PS3 controller I had been using, but I'm redoing all the landing challenges to get myself used to flying with the stick.

 

I have a question about bank trim... Sorry if I don't use the right terminology, just let me know if my language is too ambiguous or flat out wrong and I'll try and explain it better. Basically, my plane always banks to the left. It happened with my PS3 controller, but I'm pretty handy with one of those so it wasn't a big deal to adjust for it. With the new joystick, however, it's something that really detracts from the quality of my flying, and it's really frustrating to constantly be making adjustments especially with my skill level being so low with the stick. I found a "bank trim" option, or something to that effect, in the options menu and bound it to some buttons on the joystick, but it doesn't seem to have any effect at all, at least in the RV-6. Is that just not a feature of that plane? How can I make my plane fly straight without my constantly babysitting the stick? Is this the natural movement of the plane due to the torque of the prop?

 

Thanks!

 

P.S. There's no way to see windspeed and direction without the HUD on, is there? :sorry:

I have a question about bank trim... Sorry if I don't use the right terminology, just let me know if my language is too ambiguous or flat out wrong and I'll try and explain it better. Basically, my plane always banks to the left. It happened with my PS3 controller, but I'm pretty handy with one of those so it wasn't a big deal to adjust for it. With the new joystick, however, it's something that really detracts from the quality of my flying, and it's really frustrating to constantly be making adjustments especially with my skill level being so low with the stick. I found a "bank trim" option, or something to that effect, in the options menu and bound it to some buttons on the joystick, but it doesn't seem to have any effect at all, at least in the RV-6. Is that just not a feature of that plane? How can I make my plane fly straight without my constantly babysitting the stick? Is this the natural movement of the plane due to the torque of the prop?

 

There are four factors that induce a left-turning tendency in your aircraft:

 

1. Engine torque causes a left roll.
   
2. The air flowing back from propeller spirals around the fuselage until it encounters the left side of the vertical stabilizer and rudder, causing a left yaw.
   
3. Gyroscopic precession of the propeller causes a left yaw.
   
4. At high angles of attack (the nose is pointed well above the angle of oncoming air due to low speed) the descending propeller blade (on the right side) produces more thrust due to the angle of the blades, referred to as P-factor, causing a yaw to the left.
   

These effects become strongest at high power and low speed, so they are are most noticeable during takeoff and climb-out. They are normally compensated for with rudder input.

 

I do not believe Flight's RV-6 is equipped with aileron (roll) trim-tabs, so the roll-trim commands won't do anything. Ideally, you could compensate for it with rudder (yaw) trim during cruise, but Flight's trim commands are too coarse to do this; 1 degree is the minimum trim amount, and it's too much... resulting in a turn in the opposite direction.

 

P.S. There's no way to see windspeed and direction without the HUD on, is there? :sorry:

 

Not directly, no. If you happen to be near a working smokestack you can judge it from that, and if you make a low fly-by of a wind-sock you can determine the direction and approximate speed as well.

There are four factors that induce a left-turning tendency in your aircraft:

 

...

 

 

Thanks for the explanation, I suspected it might be something like this.

 

So what's the easiest way to alleviate this? With the rudder or the ailerons? I used the ailerons when I only had my PS3 controller, but I'm finding that more difficult with the joystick.

Just like flying a real light aircraft, it is a matter of making constant corrections. I use the 3D pro joystick after using a yoke for about 15 years, and would never go back to a yoke at this point.

Strangely the aileron trim works on the Carbon Cub, but not the rudder trim (?)

Or simply turn off the torque effect in the options menu. I've done that. I got tired of that constant pulling to the left. Maybe not as realistic but a lot more relaxed.

I can always throw in real RV6A...........info here..

 

No, I do not have to baby the joystick. While some RV's don't have aileron trim, I put it in mine. Stick forces are light without it, but I like perfect trim for cruise. If the sim can create aileron trim, then use it. Same goes for rudder, although my RV has a fixed, but bendable tab like a Cessna 172. Point is, I can release all pressure from the stick, and it won't immediately pitch or bank. Doesn't mean it's like auto-pilot though. And if the sim has a 1 or 2 axis A/P, then use it too, if desired, because lot's of RVs have them.

 

L.Adamson

A question for the real world pilots:

 

Would you put up with your aircraft constantly wanting to roll to the left at cruise power, or would you land the plane first chance you got, go to the mechanic and complain and get him to adjust a fixed trim tab somewhere to correct the condition? Or whatever else could be adjusted.

 

Before the last update the Stearman had a slight left roll tendency at cruise, but with the proper power settings this was minimal. The other planes may have had the same effect as well. The trick was getting the power set just right.

 

I can imagine Microsoft putting in the rolling tendency to get us to use aileron trim. But some planes don't have that, and the adjustment is far too coarse to be any good. I wonder how many people complained that the airplanes flew "as if on rails", which was an atmosphere problem, not a flight model problem.

 

I've been turning off the propeller factors in the options on some aircraft now. In the Maule, I can balance the roll force just fine by burning fuel from the left tank for a while.

 

Every time I've ever been up in a small plane the pilot has said the plane will fly hands-off. This includes flight instructors. They even let go of the controls to prove it. Can you do that in Flight now?

 

Edit: Thanks L.Adamson. You beat me to the post. :)

 

Hook

If trim was available in smaller increments in Flight, it could be used to compensate for these kinds of problems. As it is, though, rudder and aileron trim (for the aircraft equipped with the appropriate tabs) is essentially useless in Flight. A single 1 degree nudge of trim (the minimum you can apply) produces a force about three times greater than needed to compensate for the left-turning tendency in a cruise configuration. Using it simply puts you in a turn to the right at about twice the rate of the one you're trying to correct.

 

With the Maule, you can burn fuel asymmetrically to lighten the left wing and eventually stabilize the aircraft, but the RV-6's fuel-selector doesn't work.

Hi,

 

To set the trim in the RV6. Turn on mouse control. Set trim. Turn off mouse control. Don't touch the stick again until needed. Repeat as necessary.

Option 2: Get really irritated.

 

Jim F.

Yeah, I guess I'll just turn off the torque effect in the menu, at least until I get used to flying with a joystick. Maybe once it gets a little too easy I'll switch it back, but that will definitely make landing less frustrating!

To set the trim in the RV6. Turn on mouse control. Set trim. Turn off mouse control. Don't touch the stick again until needed. Repeat as necessary.

 

This is probably the best way to trim aircraft in MS FLIGHT! Apart from it I sometimes use assymetric fuel tank selection.

One of those shows on telly about moving big objects (houses and what not) had moving a Spitfire across the pond. Once it got put back together a test pilot took it up to make sure all was in order. There was a bit of a tendency to roll in the cruise. Once it got down again he took to the aileron with a bit of round bar and a hammer to fix it - permanently. There is absolutely no reason why an aircraft cannot be made to remain relatively level in roll in cruise - which the modification made to the prop effect screwed up. I've turned it off for the time being. I think that's less unrealisitic than the roll that shouldn't be there.

 

Hook - I was sometimes told by an instructor to let go of the controls to prove to them that I'd trimmed it properly. One grumpy retired instructor would lament that some students would have been better off just letting go from time to time as the plane would do a better job of flying itself than they were.

Once it got down again he took to the aileron with a bit of round bar and a hammer to fix it - permanently.

 

See! See!! I TOLD you pilots and mechanics did things like that!

 

some students would have been better off just letting go from time to time as the plane would do a better job of flying itself than they were.

 

LOL! Pilot induced oscillations, anyone?

 

Hook

Sorry folks... a gross insult on my part... a Spitfire is not an 'it' and never will be. Once SHE got put back together. I apologise. It will never happen again.