I fly gliders and have always need to apply significant amounts of elevator trim to keep the nose up and maintain level flight.  This is substantial worse when I winch launch and I have noticed that the higher the performance of the glider, the greater the amount of trim needed.  I have actually increased the ‘elevator_trim_effectiveness’ figure in the .cfg file for certain gliders just to get them to climb when being winched. Any thoughts as to the cause?

 

For info, I use FSX Steam and a Forcefeed 2 joystick, which I have calibrated, and the issue exists on both the glider supplied with the software and third-party ones.

1) Aren't you going too slow?

2) Is it there a suggested take-off/launch trim position? For reference, in the default Cessna there is a TO marking that is not at the middle of the trim range, so you need to trim for takeoff.

Thanks for the reply.

1) Aren't you going too slow?

I appreciate that more trim is required at slower speeds but even when flying at well above the normal speed for the glider there is significant amounts of trim applied to bring the nose up with the stick in the neutral position.  The cockpit trim adjuster is at the limits of its travel visually and I am still having to apply quite a lot more.  This only increases when I’m on the winch. I would have though that with the sophistication of the sim models, the trim adjuster would have reflected that of a real glider hence my concern about having some sort of issue (it is an issue as I have discussed it with a very experienced sim glider pilot, he has actually reduced his elevator_trim_effectvness setting in the glider .cfg file as he was finding it too coarse).

2) Is it there a suggested take-off/launch trim position? For reference, in the default Cessna there is a TO marking that is not at the middle of the trim range, so you need to trim for takeoff.

No.

Regards,

Karl

Edited April 8, 20215 yr by magicmerlin