trimming help/tips..

[fulanito_uk]

hi, i have a fully working Saitek X-52 and use the rotary dials for trimming, however i can never seem to get the damn plane to level flight... always a few degrees up or down then as i try to fix those few degrees it all goes down hill making it even worst... its rather annoying is there something I

[TSC.]

Trimming a plane in FS isn't very realistic, so it's quite difficult to get it perfect - it's a lot easier in real life. I understand where your coming from with it being a few degrees out either way, but instead of using the trim wheel to fine tune your angle, try using the throttle to bring plane into level flight. As I've said FS isn't very realistic, & whilst it's nice to do things like trimming manually, sometimes I give up with FS & just set the AP to 'alt hold' until the plane has trimmed itself, it's not perfect, but neither is FS.

Hope this helps a bit,

TSC.

[Nav]

fulanito_uk, as TSC says FS is not completely realistic (though it gets closer than any other flight simulator). There is a method that can help, though.

The aeroplane takes a bit of time, after you level out, to settle to an even speed. What usually happens is that the speed gradually creeps up - and I mean 'gradually,' if you keep an eye on the ASI you'll find that the airspeed goes on creeping up for several minutes.

So try trimming the aeroplane as well as you can, and then leaving it to its own devices for a while. At first it will probably climb slightly, because it's going slightly slower than it 'wants' to for a given power setting; but once it reaches the right airspeed for that setting, you'll find that it will pretty well level itself out.

It will tend, however, to have gained a certain amount of height in the process. You can bleed that off if you like, not by using the trimwheel but by making a (very small) reduction in power. Best to do that by tapping 'F2' rather than moving the throttle lever, joystick levers are a bit too coarse for the purpose. With a bit of patience you can usually get the aeroplane pretty well dead level at your chosen height.

In the days before autopilots had 'altitude hold' that was the technique used in real flying - level out a couple of hundred feet above your intended height and then ease off the power and let her find her own (slightly lower) level. Used to be called 'putting her on the step' - some pilots swore that it magically produced a few knots of extra speed, but in fact it was just the aeroplane finding the level at which engine power and altitude were exactly balanced.

It's a tribute to the accurate modelling of FS that you can use that technique successfully with most of the default vintage aeroplanes - like the DC3 Dakota or DH Comet, for example.