The A2A Simulations Community

Has anyone else encountered erratic flight in FSX or is it just my system.

It happens randomly throughout the flight but more pronounced on takeoff or landing. With no change in controls, and even while on autopilot, the plane will suddenly veer either horizontally or vertically or both. It will exhibit a significant change in altitude. The airspeed can vary by 50 to 100 knots/mph. It does not return precisely to its previous position but will have to be corrected to get back to proper situation. This is often in the last 1/4 mile on landing.

It almost always happens when executing a climbing turn. About 45 degrees into the turn it will veer instantly by 30 to 40 degrees with a change in pitch.

This happens on all for of the A2A FSX aircraft (172, 182, 180 and 250). It also has happened on standard FSX aircraft but I virtually never fly anything but A2A so I can't say how it is over time.

I am running on a fairly capable computer with I7, 3.4ghz, 16gb ram. It is actually my CAD machine.

Hi.
Your info is insufficient to diagnose your problem .
What controllers are you useing.
Are you using FSUIPC paid version for control mapping or direct through FSX.
Have you done a calibration check of your controller , saitek need the pots cleaning every once in a while and have been know to cause erratic control behaviour prior to cleaning.
regards alan.

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Are you running any 3rd party weather addons like ActiveSky?

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running FSX out of the box. No FSUIPC at all. Using CH Products yoke and rudders. Controllers are smooth otherwise. It doesn't act like a controller issue because the airspeed can go from 70mph to 120mph INSTANTLY.

Also, it happens when on autopilot.

No 3rd party weather or anything. Just FSX and the A2A airplanes. I do have Fltplan Go and follow the flight on the Ipad.

added:

Just flying the A2A 180T. Set up on final, 0 flaps, 85 knots. 400 fpm descent. about 1800 rpm. One mile from touchdown.

Pressed the button on the yoke for 1 notch of flaps. The flaps on the 182T slowly proceed. Yet INSTANTLY when I pressed the button I was 20 degrees to the right. Well, half a second, because you could see the cowl move. The flaps virtually had not even started to move.

Then it partially stabilizes on the new heading and has to be corrected with the yoke and rudders. So, it isn't an instant display time thing but actually redirecting the airplane, as far as the processing of the flight goes.

That's an odd one ballistx. It sounds almost like slew mode is being temporarily triggered by a hardware input (for example by that button press for flap extension) but this should be pretty obvious by default because of the red onscreen text indicating this.

If there's any chance you could record some video footage or even a screenshot when the behaviour happens, it'll be helpful.

Thanks,
Nick

In the meantime check your simconnect installation, disable thermal effects for a time, unplug your controllers and check the flight then, also have you changed the default scenario at all ? Doublecheck your realism settings also. Do you have any traffic loaded ? Disable it for a time if so. Check your weather as well, winds and layers etc. This looked at first like the simulated wake turbulence from active sky but you say you don't use it...hmm

When this happens observe if the autopilot commands these changes or just reacts to them..check if you don't have any unused/overlapping button assignments or axis on your controllers that might spike.

I've had what I'd call erratic flight with the A2A planes and my Windows 10 system, FSX-SE. I've wondered if ORBX Global, AS16 or other addon could be to blame...

For example, some time ago I noticed that if I put my P-40 on jacks it will begin to levitate off the ground, slew as it hovers, and eventually drop a wing to earth.

The P-51 sometimes feels like I'm flying into a hurricane when I take off from KGTF Great Falls, Montana, until I get some altitude. Other planes, smooth as glass. I use ORBX FTX Rocky Mountains and Global, and I 've often wondered if there is a correlation. Similarly, I had the P-51's engine simply stop while on approach to Butte, Montana. I attempted to dead stick my landing but crashed horrifically ... but absolutely no damage was recorded in the hangar or on the model when I reloaded.

The other day I couldn't get the Cub airborne from Butte without it losing power as soon as I cleared the fence. It dropped like a stone three times in a row. Again, no persistent damage to the aircraft. I tried taking off in opposite directions for wind, too. Maybe it was icing. Anyhow, I moved the Cub to Lompoc, California, and it has been performing very nicely there.

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Most of the things to check are way beyond my familiarity with the program. It happens in totally calm weather. The autopilot reacts quicker than I can (of course) so it is less severe with the autopilot but, still there. It has gone on virtually as long as I have run the software (9 months).

I don't have any add-on's that I know of. Just using the A2A, or standard, planes. And it happens with all of them.

The one thing that gets me, (or one of), is that it is somewhat repeatable. It typically happens about the same time in a turning climb-out, after about 45 degrees. Almost count on it. It is like the computer got behind and then just realized and jerked the controls. Also the fact that the airspeed will go from 70 mph to 140 in about 1 second, then work its way back. However, whenever this happens it requires corrective input to get back on track.

Apparently this is unique to my system because it is something that would be very noticeable if on anyone's system.

I checked the performance on the computer and it is running at about 35% on the processor and about 45 frame rate. May slow down to 28-30 frame rate over a city. Have it set on unlimited.

I would be interested in finding out how to capture a video of the flight. It must be fairly straight forward the number of youtube videos out there.

Except for the weird speed increases this is what it most sounds like to me. I had a problem almost identical to yours when I first made the move to P3D. I made a fair number of custom key and axes reassignments, but I didn't delete the originals. Plane acted a lot like yours. Drove me nuts trying to figure out what it was.

Could it be that you're simply climbing between two wind layers in FSX, and experiencing the kind of dramatic windshear that the sim can sometimes create when this happens? If you're loading the same flight, it may be worth checking to see if this behaviour always occurs at the same predictable altitude, and if so, if this corresponds to the boundary between wind layers in the sim. Thermals in FSX can have similarly sudden and dramatic effects.

Nick

That would suggest a check with a flight with the "Clear Skies" weather theme is in order. This will eliminate the wind layers as a problem.

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Flight Simmer since 1983. Private Pilot
Paramus Flying Club http://www.flyingclub.org

Skycat - elevation above sea level has something to do with the Cub reacting the way it did I think:

Butte Montana? That's 5538 feet above MSL. Lompoc CA is 105 feet above MSL. No wonder the Cub was struggling.

Good point. I hadn't thought of elevation because I've taken off from Bozeman and Great Falls in the Cub but both of those are at less than 4,500 feet elevation. And I'm also recalling that FSX traffic at Butte only offered me R12/30 which AirNav lists as a 5,000-foot length runway, but not R15/33 which is 9,000-foot length. Now I'll have to revisit KBTM and satisfy my curiosity.

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Ballistx, did you ever get this fixed? I was wondering what it might of been.

This has happened to me and as best I remember it was conflicting and duplicated control commands.

For instance in the control manager I have my yoke, pedals and throttle quadrant, all with default assignments set. I might find throttle is assigned under the yoke list, and also in the throttle quadrant list. Generally these things are so obvious that it's easy to delete one entry or the otjher but some still slip through.

It's possible that you might have similar conflicts, possible even between joystick/yoke etc and keyboard commands...