Inverted elevator, steering, and 2-Axis help

[Guest simagic3d]

My gmax plane model's elevator motion is being inverted by FS9.That is, when the joystick is pushed forward, the elevator movesup, but the result is that the plane pitches down as desired.How do I invert the automatic animtion generated by FS in thisregard?Next, I've keyframed the steering of a nose wheel gear in gmaxper a tutorial which said to use keyframe 100 with the gear at0 deg. and 360 degrees (rotated to the right) at key 200.How is this animation triggered/accessed in FS9? I don't seeany such action when the plane is on the ground and the stickis pushed left or right. The plane does turn, albeit VERYslowly even though the center gear contact point in theaircraft.cfg file is set to 45 deg and "auto rudder" isenabled in FS settings. Plus, FS doesn't animate the rudderwhen the joystick X axis is set to aileron control withauto rudder enabled and does when is it switched to rudder.But when X is set to rudder, then the effects of my "invisible"ailerons and the automatic stick animation don't work.If you're wondering, I trying to simulate a 2 AXIS plane...rudder and elevator only... but wing dihedral seems to be ignoredin FS9 so that rudder only induced banking turns aren't generatedas they are in real life, just slip.

[Guest Milton]

RE: the elevator- rotate the pivot 180 degreesRE: nose gear - starting at keyframe 100 to 200, rotate counter-clockwise 360 degrees. It's best to set position keys (at least one at 180 - frame 150) to assist gmax in understanding the full turn. When it works in gmax, it will work in fs.The animation is controlled by the rudder pedals ONLY when the aircraft is moving. The degrees of deflection is specified in the nose gear contact point. Use no more than 60 otherwise taxiing will be difficult. I prefer no more than 45, and really dislike this digital animation (prefer rudder-based steering for smoothness).You are correct, auto rudder doesn't show those movements.Dihedral effects and aileron induced yaw in turns are adjustable in the .air file about 17 different ways depending on what tables you use. Have fun :-)

[Guest Douglas K]

>If you're wondering, I trying to simulate a 2 AXIS plane...rudder and elevator only... but wing dihedral seems to be ignoredin FS9 so that rudder only induced banking turns aren't generatedas they are in real life, just slip.http://perso.wanadoo.fr/hsors/FS_Soft/index.htmlAirEd is on this page of the same site, be sure to download the updated ini file for it :http://perso.wanadoo.fr/hsors/FS_Soft/fsairfile.htmlOnce you have AirEd installed, open the airfile of your aircraft and find the Cl_dr-Roll Moment Rudder entry. This is located in Rec 1101 Primary Aerodynamics among the roll stability and control derivatives. If you have used FsEdit to edit the airfile, then a separate record named Rec 1543 is generated and you will have to edit the Cl_dr entry found there. Editing Rec 1101 Cl_dr will have no effect if Rec 1543 is present. Also, the parameters generated by FsEdit are represented in real values, while the values found in Rec 1101 are scaled. Thus you might see a value in Rec 1101 of -114 for Cl_dr, and in Rec 1543 the value will be -0.057723. This makes no difference to the end result, simply increase the value and make sure it is negative. A positive number for Cl-dr will cause the aircraft to roll the wrong way in response to rudder deflection. When you flight test after editing, set AI traffic to zero, and don't forget to reload your aircraft if you make changes while FS is running. Also, with FS2004 it's a good idea to shutdown and restart the sim, and then flight test once more to make sure you have achieved the desired result. This will sometimes reveal subtle differences that are not apparent when just reloading the aircraft.To answer your question posted as a reply to another topic: >How does one create a new .air file from scratch? UsingFSedit from the FS9 SDK doesn't have any such option tocreate a new file or to add or delete records or otherdata entries.

[Guest simagic3d]

Great post, Douglass! Thanks.> you can simulate the rudder/roll effect you want in MSFS, but> you will need to download a utility called AirEd...AH! I was using AAM and didn't realize their were two ofthem and named the download of AAM as AirfileEditor.Getting AirEd now. Looks like it has a mush better interface,plus those add/delete options... great!> find the Cl_dr-Roll Moment Rudder entry... Editing Rec 1101> Cl_dr will have no effect if Rec 1543 is present.Bummer. I was using both, FSedit and AAM, thinking that oneedited only the aircraft.cfg file and the other just the airfile. So, they do both at the same time? Or once you'veedited the air with AE, do you have to go in manually andedit cfg? I disdain manual editing of contact points andmuch prefer tabbed field UI entry. :-)> A positive number for Cl-dr will cause the aircraft to roll> the wrong way in response to rudder deflection. Understood. What about elevator deflection direction? Isthere a setting to invert that?Now, how do I link the keyframed stick left_right animation inmy model to rudder? Last time I tried mapping the X axis on thejoystick to rudder, the stick animation ceased to function asit seems to be tied only to ailerons.> You can start with an airfile from the templates folder> located in the MSFS aircraft folder. Just choose one that is> appropriate to the aircraft you're modeling...Hmmm... no 2 axis, very lightweight, low horsepower, high-wing,non-canard designs.Thanks for the help again!

[Guest Douglas K]

>AH! I was using AAM and didn't realize their were two ofthem and named the download of AAM as AirfileEditor.Getting AirEd now. Looks like it has a mush better interface,plus those add/delete options... great!Bummer. I was using both, FSedit and AAM, thinking that oneedited only the aircraft.cfg file and the other just the airfile. So, they do both at the same time? Or once you'veedited the air with AE, do you have to go in manually andedit cfg? I disdain manual editing of contact points andmuch prefer tabbed field UI entry.Understood. What about elevator deflection direction? Isthere a setting to invert that?Now, how do I link the keyframed stick left_right animation inmy model to rudder? Last time I tried mapping the X axis on thejoystick to rudder, the stick animation ceased to function asit seems to be tied only to ailerons.Hmmm... no 2 axis, very lightweight, low horsepower, high-wing,non-canard designs.

[Guest simagic3d]

>> What about elevator deflection direction? Is>> there a setting to invert that?<> You can change the sign for Cm_de Pitch Moment - Elevator in> Rec 1101 or Rec 1541 from negative to positive but that will> only reverse the direction the aircraft pitches with elevator> deflection, the elevator animation will remain the same.Thus, some stealthy reversals of the control stick animationin Gmax will take care of the reversal of the animation when theY axis is reversed in Settings to match the animation of theelevator that FS provides. Then, I'll change the Cm signso the plane flies normally.>> Now, how do I link the keyframed stick left_right animation>> in my model to rudder?> I'm sorry I can't help you with Gmax animations...No problem. I found the "lever_pedals_l_r" anim tag in thesdk and now the rudder handle on the control stick animatesautomatically when the X axis is mapped to the rudder.Making the nose wheel steer is still giving me headaces... itjust don't. For the experts reading, I'm using the "c_wheel_"part tag as the parent of the "c_tire_" parts. c_wheel issupposed to provide the steering auto-anim in FS while c_tireprovides wheel rotation from still to blurred parts. At leastthat's what I interpret the makemdl sdk to mean. The c_tireparts do animate, just not the c_wheel (which is actually thenose wheel fork). Doesn't the rudder/X axis supposed toanimate the steering? At what keyframes is the anim supposedto be at? Currently it's 0 degrees at frame 0 and 360 at 100.The center gear contact point is set to steer 40 deg.> The closest you can get to your aircraft in the templates> folder is 'Single Engine Prop'. Yep... and I'm tweeking the heck out of it. Finally got somecrude auto roll with rudder only input, tweeking now to get thedamping and amplitude to match real world experience.

[Guest simagic3d]

Just to let all know... I corrected the inverted elevatoranim by reversing both the joystick Y axis and the movementsof the keyframed stick animations and used "lever_pedals_l_r"part name for the stick's right/left animation so it could belinked to the rudder movement.I also tweeked the air file's Roll Moment due to Rudder and theRoll Dihedral Effect params to get a reasonably accurate coordinatedturn via rudder action only.Help neutralizing/cancelling out a slight left yaw in level cruiseis now needed as well as reverved tire rotation anims per my othernewly posted topics.

[Guest simagic3d]

> I corrected the inverted elevator anim by...Scratch that! Didn't like having to reset the joystick back tonormal for the rest the other planes, so I took the tip givenin this forum in the reversed wheel spin thread and just rotatedthe elevator pivot to align with the world axis (Y was pointingdown instead of up) amoung other things and now the elevator worksthe way it's supposed to without the need for Y axis JS reversal.Just have to say here folks that this forum ROCKS! Would'veliterally cracked my thick skull open on the driveway if Ihad to figure this stuff out on my own via even more extensivetrial and error... keyword being error.Who's writing an in DEPTH book on all this stuff anyway? Oh...yeah... huge market for it... right. Darn. Forum posting it isthen!:-)