slide flying??

[RFB]

Hi all. New to this forum, and I have a question. Ive been running FS2002 Pro now for months. I fly the lear most of the time, and once in a while the 737 and 747. The majority of flights are IFR and VOR to VOR or direct GPS navigation. During my adventures around the world, I would often take screenshots of the flights for my logbooks.

Very recently when switching to the spotplane view, I noticed that the aircraft (doesnt matter which one) would appear to be flying at about a 10 to 15 degree angle (yaw) to the actual direction of flight, and is evident when viewing the aircraft from the spotplane in reference to the contrail behind the aircraft. What is even more weird..the aircraft seems to fly off course by this same amount of angle..10 to 15 degrees.

Doesnt matter if its in auto pilot or not, the indicators for flying on course do not show that you are directly on course unless you are flying at a 10 to 15 degree offset.

For example...your flying to your next VOR, it is at 150*, the direction indicator says its bearing is at 150*, so  you start flying in that direction, but your indicator starts drifting as if you were not maintaining the flight direction towards the VOR, oh wait..the auto pilot is on and set for heading 150* but the aircraft is flying at 160* or more and that darn green indicator shows Im off course!!! Wow...even the plane appears to be flying....errr...sliding along as its flying!

Ok....being a bit melodromatic there. No..its not rudder trim....no its not one engine out of sync with the other...no its not alieron trim...none of those little things...I checked all that stuff. After flying for awhile you learn to check for those little "gotchas".

It is a bit puzzling...and a bit annoying to consistantly be flying at a 10 degree yaw angle to fly straight on course.  ???

Thanks for any suggestions.

RFB147-Lear45

[Nexus]

Erm..I don't want to be a smart alec, but you seem to have forgotten the WIND FACTOR. Crosswinds will make you drift off course and to correct that you need to yaw the plane in the direction of the wind. The plane stays ON COURSE but your actual heading and course won't be the same. This is completely normal.

Welcome to SimV btw!

[Dan]

A warm welcome to SimV RFB.
Dan Garner.
Wales, Uk

[Poseidon]

A strong wind can actually cause this deviation. Your heading indication remains the same but you slide to the left or right depending the wind. Just like changing parallel courses.

[OTTOL]

In the real world, you can cure the "yawing" with the yaw dampner. This is located on the autopilot control head(with the autopilot switches). Otherwise try "autocoordination" in the realism settings.
Nexus, I'm not trying to pick on you(although it may seem so of late), but to correct for crosswind, you don't yaw, you crab. The difference being that the A/C remains coordinated. If you YAW to correct for crosswind, you will be creating unnecessary drag. I'm sure it's probably just a matter of "verbage".  ;)

[Nexus]

No offense taken, pal  :)
Those english aviation terms aren't really my neck of the woods. But you learn something new every day.
When I look the word up in the dirctionary now, crabbing (same thing you do when landing in crosswinds) is the term I was supposed to write...but who on earth has the patience to go after a dictionary all the time  ;D

Happy new year to you Buddy!

[packercolinl]

Just to throw more into the 'verbage' the CFI I did my R22 flight with used the term 'yaw' when I applied my delicate touch to the pedals.

Cheers

[OTTOL]

absolutely correct!  ;)

............you YAW with the pedals
         ...........ROLL with ailerons(stick or yoke)
      .............."crabbing" is simply weathervaning to account for crosswind. The A/C's groundtrack remains straight, and the nose will be either left or right of center, pointed towards the relative wind. Think of a boat that is traveling upstream and then turns for shore. If the captain wants to park at a point that is 90* from his turning point, he will have to turn LESS than 90*(nose angled TOWARDS the DOWNSTREAM water flow) to maintain a straight track.

[Fozzer]

[quote]absolutely correct!

[OTTOL]

* ...should that be "water"...LOL... ...?
LOL...!

Actually.................I have tried to land the floatplane on land, as well as a few other stunts that usually take place around 3am local and after about a gallon of coffee!
:-/  :D
Aren't simulators great?  ;D

[RFB]

Thanks for the responses. Actually I did take into consideration the wind patterns and such which could cause this sliding effect. What is confusing is how far off this effect puts your aircraft away from the flight path.

Using the GPS window, zooming in to the 5 mile radius, it appears at its worst..the aircraft can be up to 2 or more miles off the flight path indicated in the GPS window, as well as on the course deviation indicator on the flight pannel. Its just weird..since Ive never seen this to be the case before. However after trials and checkouts....unchecking the "download winds aloft" option in the weather setups...this seemed to cure most of the sliding effect.

I try to run this sim with as much realistic settings as possible since I am using this sim to become familiar with flying for real. Last night flying out of Paris to Keflavik, I encountered a severe upper wind sheer that threw the aircraft almost 30 degrees to the right and lost about 800 feet in altitude, like as if something grabbed the aircraft and gave it a good shaking. Trust me, it doesnt look so bad on a small monitor when your plane jars around, but view it on a 63 inch wide screen HDTV monitor and it feels like your fixing to loose your lunch even in the comfort of the lazy-boy chair! My virtual passengers and crew blamed it on me!  :o

Thanks for the warm welcome. I realize my question was probably a stupid one, but Ive learned long ago that without questions there can be no answers..and without questioning the answers....there can be no truth.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and I look forward to spending more time here on the forum.

Thanks all!

RFB
RFB-147