Do all fs9 planes need rudder in turns?

[Guest fl390]

When I turn off auto-rudder it SEEMS that fs9 wants me to give some left or right rudder in left or right turns *all the way through the turn*. Whereas my understanding is that rudder counteracts slip due to *operation* of elevator, therefore you apply rudder with elevator until turn is established, then remove rudder and elevator while turn is in progress, then apply opposite rudder with opposite elevator to return to level flight. Unless I'm misreading the ball, I seem to need constant rudder during turns in all the planes I've flown so far?

[alsummers 0]

Rudder is used to 'balance' a turn, and is used in conjunction with the ailerons. Assume you are turning an aircraft to the left WITHOUT rudder - i.e. you remove you feet from the rudder pedals - the aircraft will turn, but is not 'balanced', and will be somewhat sluggish. Applying left rudder, encourages a moment about the aircrafts vertical axis, to help the aicraft maintain a smooth change of direction throughout the turn. And yes, in all aircraft you need constant rudder during turns. During a turn, apply relevant rudder to keep the 'ball' in the centre of the turn and slip indicator, and you are undertaking a 'balanced' turn.As a real life pilot, I must concede that I use auto rudder when flying in Flight Sim, simply because I have no rudder pedals, and using the joystick rudder is unrealistic and difficult to control. Of course I will switch it off when operating in heavy cross winds, and the need for a boot full of rudder is increased!Al.P.S. I've noticed that you are confusing 'ailerons' and 'elevator'. The elevator controls pitch about the lateral axis (climb, descend), and the ailerons control roll about the longitudinal axis (bank left and right), the rudder controls movement about the vertical axis (slip).

[rhodges 6]

Roger that:You do need rudder throughout the turn unless you are useing autorudder under realizm settings, you are initiating a spin, side slipping or forward slipping the aircraft in a descent.This is also true in the real world.Your logic on changing the pitch with the elevators (and bank with the aileorns for that matter)and then returning the controls to neutral, or at least near neutral is correct, however the rudder requirements are a bit different from this. In fact, if the rigging of your bird is a bit our of whack and there is no rudder or aileron trim, you can even need a little rudder to center the ball in straight and level flight. (Bad Bad Bird!)As at least part of an explanation, say you are in a left turn. Your right wing is moving a little faster than your left creating increased drag. Therefore the plane will tend to want to yaw to the right slightly with the nose seeming to lag behind the turn. If you are uncoordinated enough, you can have your left wing down in a traditional left turn configuaration, but with enough right rudder you may even be able to have a sloppy right turn (not recommended). Some combination of this action (but totally under control without all of the slop) is what is done in a slip.I recommend the RealAir contributions if you want to work on this.Hope this helps:RTH1585368CFI

[Guest fl390]

hmm, thanks, and sorry about the typo i meant Ailerons ok, i'm still confused reconciling what you say, and what fs9 does, from the book "stick and rudder":"every pilot knows that characteristic change in the airplane's manner- how at one point, when you bring the stick back to neutral, it suddenly seems to become willing to turn. And now what about the rudder? now that no adverse yaw effect acts on the airplane, the rudder is not needed. Thus, when he neutralizes his ailerons, the pilot must also neutralize his rudder. If he did not, if he kept holding rudder against a force that is no longer there he wouldmerely disturb the airplane.It is a very frequent fault with the students; for if you have the usual idea that the rudder is the airplane's turning control -why naturally you will want to hold the rudder as long as you want to keep turning."and then it goes on to say to 'straighten out' you use opposite aileron and combined it with rudder...edit: for what it is worth, this works ok with the GA x-plane planes (combine rudder with aileron use religiously to do co-ordinated turns).

[AlaskanFlyboy 7]

Is that Langewiesche's book? If so, could you give me the section that was under and I'll read it and figure out what he was trying to say.Adverse yaw will always be a factor in a turn as someone earlier said. Furthermore, when in a single engine in level climb, cruise, or descent, you will find yourself needing correcting rudder to counter-act the four left turning forces that are a byproduct of the prop's spinning. Climb will require the most correcting rudder, cruise will need less, and descent will need very little and in some planes seemingly nothing.----------------------------------------------------------------John S. MorganReal World: KGEG, UND Aerospace Spokane Satillite, Private 130+ hrs.Virtual: MSFS 2004"There is a feeling about an airport that no other piece of ground can have. No matter what the name of the country on whose land it lies, an airport is a place you can see and touch that leads to a reality that can only be thought and felt." - The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story by Richard Bach

[Guest Ron Freimuth]

>When I turn off auto-rudder it SEEMS that fs9 wants me to>give some left or right rudder in left or right turns *all the>way through the turn*. Whereas my understanding is that rudder>counteracts slip due to *operation* of elevator, therefore you>apply rudder with elevator until turn is established, then>remove rudder and elevator while turn is in progress, then>apply opposite rudder with opposite elevator to return to>level flight. "Autorudder" in MSFS does NOTHING but lock out rudder input. Ron

[Guest fl390]

sure, it is page 183 in the chapter devoted to rudderthe whole last four pages of that chapter discuss rudder use being always coordinated with ailerons, how the wright brothers had their plane setup so that it was in effect "auto rudder" mechanically linked to ailerons, and that was a brilliant insight, etc etc.. I can imagine that different planes of course do slightly different things but the emphasis of the whole chapter is that rudder is mostly to counter yaw induced by aileron *use* -- and of course once a constant turn in no wind is established the yoke is back to horizontal - you are not using the aileron at all..this is not my experience with the fs9 planes. during a turn, as soon as you put rudder back to neutral you've got to "step on the ball" (re-apply the rudder).

[Guest aca_dia]

Stick and Rudder is a classic book, but there are quite a few incorrect ideas on aerodynamics. If nothing else some of his concepts are lost or confused in translation. If you want a great and fairly current book that is readable take a look at

[Guest fl390]

I didn't find the realair 172 much different, to be honest. Or the flight-one cessna. After all, all these downloadable planes are just config files containing coefficients for hard coded math inside fs9.I'm curious, what incorrect ideas are in the book? or where are these incorrect ideas discussed online? this isn't a very estoeric chapter, after all ..Do we have any real pilots here? there must be many! do they hold a constant rudder and horizontal yoke, while doing standard turns? Guess I'll find out in january anyway - I'm going for an intensive course in a 172SP (yippee).BTW, x-plane has only a couple of GA craft (multi engine) to compare, but both need only a tiny amount of rudder after turn is established.my guess is that the book is basically correct (he was a test pilot for cessna after all!): you need coordinated rudder to start and end the turn, and depending on the plane shape, and then "some other" amount (zero, small or even opposite) when yoke is back to center and the plane is clean again, during the steady turn .. it may depend how steep the bank is.. there are after all centrifugal forces also acting on the plane that depending on the CG of the shape may generate slip..btw: great book! a must-read IMO.

[Guest aca_dia]

I am a real world pilot (commercial, inst, CFI) with about 2500 hrs. As far as the Stick and rudder book goes it is a great book don

[Guest aca_dia]

>I didn't find the realair 172 much different, to be honest.>Or the flight-one cessna. After all, all these downloadable>planes are just config files containing coefficients for hard>coded math inside fs9.There are some other factors that come into play as you test these different aircraft out. Joystick/Yoke settings and sensitivities, realism settings, and even system performance can really affect how and aircraft feels and even that feeling via a computer is pretty subjective. That being considered I still maintain that certain flight models can me made to greatly out perform the default flight models. I have found in particular that models by Steve Small (FSD International) & Rob Young (RealAir Simulations) to be some of if not the best out there. Again this is based on my machine, controls, and many little personal tweaks used to get the feel I expect based on my real world flying.Again in the end FS9 (or X-Plane) is only a desktop sim. It can do a lot, but it can

[Guest paddy]

This is quite an interesting discussion of an old known problem in aviation. However, as far as the elevator was mentioned initially in this discussion, it plays its part as well during any turn to compensate for loss of lift. In a 60 degrees turn you will even loose half of your lift you had during straight and level flight, which effect must be compensated for by elevator and/or throttle during a turn. Paddy.

[Guest fl390]

I'm kind of surprised several people here missed the point. As it happens I had my student pilot physical today and the good doctor has been a pilot for 20 years(!). I couldn't help it and asked him :)He confirmed what the book says, that the sequence in a turn is:yoke and rudder to initiate turnback off yoke and rudder when you're setup in the turn (you are turning)backpressure as necessary and watch the heading bug roll aroundapproach heading you want to roll out on...yoke and rudder together to level wings and reduce backpressureback off yoke and rudder, hopefully right on the heading..IE: for a 180 degree turn, 160 degrees of it requires no rudder.so rudder IS linked to yoke use, and is NOT necessary while you are banked, and turning *unless there are other factors, wind shear, etc*So fs9 has it completely wrong and if you use the rudder as fs9 wants (constantly thru the turn) you're learning stuff that won't work in real life.shrug.

[Guest aca_dia]

>So fs9 has it completely wrong and if you use the rudder as>fs9 wants (constantly thru the turn) you're learning stuff>that won't work in real life.You are still partially incorrect. I flew about 7 hours (real world flying) today and I paid quite a bit of attention to turns. I flew a C172, PA32, and a TBM700 today and for all three if turning rudder is required through the entire turn to keep the turn coordinated. The only exception is in very slight turns. Again it may not be much rudder, but what ever is enough to remove the slip and not so much as to introduce a skid. If you dont use some degree of rudder through the turn you are slipping. You(and your doctor) can fly that way and the aircraft will not fall from the sky, but this is poor airmanship in the real world. In fact more often than not when giving a flight review (BFR) that is one of the classic bad habits of pilots... they get lax with the rudder. I stress again that depending on many factors you may not need much rudder in a turn. You may even need to back off the rudder a bit once the turn is stabilized (especially in fairly gradual turns like standard rate). However when flying steeper turns you will have more substantial adverse yawl and stronger turning forces in general and may need quite a bit of rudder through the turn. It is all a matter of degree relative to the situation (aircraft type, speed, bank angle, etc will all effect what is required).If you are having to use an extreme amount if rudder in FS9 you may have setting issues. You should not be burying the rudder pedal to achieve a coordinated turn. It sounds to me like you need to tweak your setup a bit to get things flying right.

[Guest Jimbofly]

From my real-life flight experience and based on what I've read, an aircraft that's designed well aerodynamically will only require rudder use to counter adverse yaw generated during the transition from flying straight to entering a turn. This is generally true, although because flight is so intricately complex on so many levels (scientists still don't have a thorough understanding of the nature of vortices), you'll find that you might need to apply a small amount of rudder on most aircraft during the turn. The amount required is usually negligible and you can quite easily get away with not using it.It is extremely important, however, to use it during a transition into and out of a turn to maintain balanced flight.Edit-In a sharp turn greater than 30 degrees, rudder use during the turn becomes completely negligible due to the fact that the elevator pressure is generally enough to maintain the turn co-ordinated. Imagine making a very steep turn, say > 45 degrees, and you'll be using so much elevator pressure during the turn that the g-forces should be directed directly downward from the perspective of the pilot, ie the ball will be centered.James