Beta 6 is out

[CaptCWGAllen 49]

Anyone else finding that the 172 is behaving much better, eg I don't need to trim everytime I touch the throttle ? It feels much more realistic to me, what real live pilots keep telling, that the Cessna hardly needs trim in cruise flight. What are your thoughts?

@zulfar,I also found the clouds (or the shadowing, coloring) much more realistic, I was wondering the same after today's short hop.

+1. Not getting the weather vane effect either. Set up 15 knot of winds and the Cessna ground handling was completely fine. Idle is much better but still a little fast.

 

cheers

Peter

[Arwen 289]

+1. Not getting the weather vane effect either. Set up 15 knot of winds and the Cessna ground handling was completely fine. Idle is much better but still a little fast.

 

cheers

Peter

 

I'm still having major issues with the 172 weather-cocking in B5.  Anything greater than 10 knot side winds makes taxiing practically impossible.

 

What I don't understand is how this is NOT an issue for everyone.  My only addon is the 124thATC plugin (and XPUIPC); everything else is totally default.

[trevg 21]

Behind the times ?

Now 11.00pb6

[Arwen 289]

Behind the times ?

Now 11.00pb6

Oops! I'm running Beta 6, after all this is the Beta 6 thread..  It's just that B4 so quickly was updated to B5 and we never had a Beta 5 thread, that the numbers get a bit confusing,

[Paraffin 2,197]

Behind the times ?

Now 11.00pb6

 

The weathervaning issue is still there for many of us in pb6. 

[bonchie 2,305]

+1. Not getting the weather vane effect either. Set up 15 knot of winds and the Cessna ground handling was completely fine. Idle is much better but still a little fast.

 

cheers

Peter

 

Impossible. The weathervaning on the ground has existed forever with XP and it is not fixed in B6 nor is it just a C172 problem. It's all airplanes.

 

When you start to taxi, does the airplane go straight with no rudder input? If it does, you've hit the lottery or something.

The weathervaning issue is still there for many of us in pb6. 

 

It's not just many of us. It's everyone. If someone isn't seeing it, it's just because they don't know what they are looking for.

[Murmur 3,941]

When you start to taxi, does the airplane go straight with no rudder input? If it does, you've hit the lottery or something.

 

Uhm... Will a C172 go straight without rudder input in a 15kts direct crosswind?

 

Note I'm not denying the evident and exaggerated weathervaning issue in X-Plane, just wondering if a real C172 will go straight without requiring rudder intervention in a 15kts crosswind.

[soaring_penguin 428]

I also found the vaning still existed while taxiing and running up. My question was about in flight trim... .

[bonchie 2,305]

Uhm... Will a C172 go straight without rudder input in a 15kts direct crosswind?

 

Note I'm not denying the evident and exaggerated weathervaning issue in X-Plane, just wondering if a real C172 will go straight without requiring rudder intervention in a 15kts crosswind.

On the ground in a slow taxi, yeah. 15 knot winds would not push a plane's nose sideways like in XP in a taxi (I own a 182). The crosswind correction you worry most about taxiing is with aeilerons.

 

But that's not really the point. Go turn the wind to 3 knots to eliminate the high wind variable.

 

Now try to taxi. Do you have to hold opposite rudder to just roll straight? That's the long standing issue people are talking about.

 

And obviously if you held strong opposite rudder during a taxi without counteracting torque in the mix, like takeoff, you'd simply turn left or right, not go straight like happens in XP. Neutral rudder travels straight as the nosewheel is coupled to the rudder. Left or right rudder means the nosewheel turns. But in XP, it acts like the plane in the air with how it reacts, as if there's no ground friction or sense of the weight of the plane (along with the fact that rudder rigging is fairly heavy and won't move on the ground without input).

[Murmur 3,941]

My suspicion is that XP doesn't properly model neutral pressure on the rudders that in real life keep them from moving without input for the most part. So unless you are using it directly, it seems like it just flaps in the wind. In real life, the rigging is heavy enough that such won't happen.

 

That can be ruled out, X-Plane does not model control surfaces flapping with the wind.

 

So the problem almost surely lies in an excessive sideforce applied by the vertical stabillizer, with a possible secondary contribution due to the yawing moment applied by the fuselage.

 

It is still unclear whether the tire friction modeling plays a role or not.

[bonchie 2,305]

I edited. The friction idea sounds right. The weight of the plane, heaviness of the rudder rigging, and the friction of the tires should mean neutral rudder travels fairly straight with no input, even in moderate to heavy winds (10-20knts). Corrective inputs in that case would come with the yoke while neutral rudder was held.

I've never taken a Cessna out in 35+ knot winds for obvious reasons so I can't comment about more extreme wind levels but normal crosswinds shouldn't require opposite rudder on the ground. In real life that would simply make you turn.

[be77solo 125]

I love X-Plane, I really do, and fly it daily.  But, I do chuckle that at even version 11 after 20+ years, we still struggle with getting a plane to taxi properly.

[bonchie 2,305]

I love X-Plane, I really do, and fly it daily.  But, I do chuckle that at even version 11 after 20+ years, we still struggle with getting a plane to taxi properly.

 

It's a bit mind-boggling that they've seemingly ignored the issue. As far as I know, it's not even recognized as an official bug/flaw, and that's not from lack of being reported.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

A follow up. Navigraph issued AIRAC 1701 Rev 2 for Xp11 and it now works correctly (at least no error messages) with b6.

[Janov 2,383]

I'm still having major issues with the 172 weather-cocking in B5.  Anything greater than 10 knot side winds makes taxiing practically impossible.

 

What I don't understand is how this is NOT an issue for everyone.  My only addon is the 124thATC plugin (and XPUIPC); everything else is totally default.

 

If you are having weathervaning problems, do this:

 

Go to Settings, then Data Output and enable the following data displays (click leftmost buttons) for these parameters:

 

Weather (#5)

 

Joystick aileron/elevator/rudder (#8)

 

Flight controls aileron/elevator/rudder (#11)

 

Landing gear steering (#134)

 

Now you can take the guesswork out of what is going on.

 

You can see if you ACTUALLY have the wind that you set up (many people have much higher winds, because they set a strong wind at 30.000 but X-Plane assumes this to be valid to the ground)

You can see if you ACTUALLY get full joystick rudder deflection (it needs to go from -0 to +1 and be at 0 when not steering)

You can see if you ACTUALLY get full nosewheel and rudder deflections (they need to go from -20 to +20 and -1 to +1, respectively).

 

I can taxi, take off and land in a straight 16kt crosswind. Taxiing is competely uneventfull, takeoff and landing need a bit of forward elevator to increase nosewheel grip.

 

Hope this helps to find out what is going wrong for you guys,

 

Jan