A thread in AVSIM that took a strange direction

[Nick - A2A]

Thanks chaps, for the pointers/info.

When you are trying to maintain wings level slow flight are you keeping the ailerons neutral and using the rudder to control bank?

I've tried a few different techniques now: rudder only, ailerons only, autorudder (as per Rob's post); all with much the same outcome.

•Couple thousand feet agl
•Setup 'An Approach' - 55-60kias w/ full flaps, approach power and descend a couple hundred feet
•At your chosen altitude - pull the nose up gently just like you would for landing (nose slightly above the horizon)
•Hold the altitude until the break.

Rob - when I try this, I just seem to lose pitch authority and the nose drops at around 40kias and I end up in a sort of power-on, pitched-up, mushy descent. Pulling-up rather more sharply does seem to result in a stall break at slightly lower airspeed, but I certainly can't maintain power-on level flight anywhere below 40kias.

It's an area of the flight envelope where I probably need to practice a lot more; certainly in the Cessna which has been a bit neglected since the arrival of a certain low-winged older lady!

However, in light of Scott's post about the forthcoming code to simulate ASI errors, I think I'll wait until after this update to experiment more with slow speed flight. In the meantime, I need to go and do some reading on the relationship between IAS and CAS...

Also, I have "Autorudder" enabled (twisty rudder for me too) so I reckon that gives a bit of an edge.

I'm sometimes tempted to use this setting too, even though it's cheating a bit. (God knows - my 'coordinated' turns are bad enough with the twisty joystick!) My flight sim 'station' at the moment isn't really compatible with yoke/rudder pedals: in other words, I don't have the luxury of a 'man-cave'.

All the best,
Nick

[Oracle427]

Don't worry about CAS, that only matters when you're computing performance as that is required to compute your TAS.

IAS is what matters for manuevers.

[Great Ozzie]

Rob - when I try this, I just seem to lose pitch authority and the nose drops at around 40kias and I end up in a sort of power-on, pitched-up, mushy descent.

I'm sorry man... I forgot to mention pull the power out as you start to pull the nose up. And then attempt to maintain altitude with increasing backpressure.

edit: btw only way i can tell when I get the break (airspeed-wise, that is) is to record it (as I am looking at other things)

[Nick - A2A]

I'm sorry man... I forgot to mention pull the power out as you start to pull the nose up. And then attempt to maintain altitude with increasing backpressure.

Okay - cheers Rob - I've got that. Could be we're talking somewhat at cross-purposes about power-off stall break vs. power-on sustained slow flight at <40kias (white arc).

Will wait and see what the update brings... Thanks again guys!

[Caldemeyn]

Im still not able to get readings shown on the video, no matter what configuration and rpm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPG05Dz8P6c

http://youtu.be/FbQeMCbsP60?t=4m55s

[Nick - A2A]

Since installing the latest Accu-Sim update (11/14/2014) I can indeed maintain controlled flight at slightly lower indicated airspeeds. Still not quite down to the 33 kias as indicated by the bottom of the white arc (let alone the 25 kias in the Youtube video) but there's definitely a difference.

Now - if Rob or anybody else is able to post a video of controlled, sustained level flight in the A2A C172 at 33 kias, I'll be suitably impressed!

Cheers,
Nick

[afcraig2010]

Yea with the R model that I flew in training, it's just like the A2A 172. And for slow flight, if you exceeded 43 knots then the maneuver was a bust. So the closer you can hold it to 33 knots the better.

[Oracle427]

There is another thread about realistic FDEs for FSX where someone commented that they find the A2A 172 unrealistic because it starts to climb with idle power unless the nose is pushed down. Not sure how much anyone believes that comment, but I imagine no one else had observed this.

We did have someone else recently post on these forums (I think) that when they pull back on the yoke the aircraft initially pitches down then up. Nothing I've ever seen either or heard of from anyone else.