The Cessna 172 Elevator Response

[Scott - A2A]

I posted this over at AVSIM to help with some questions. It's a video that should help those see how nicely our plane simulates the elevator from very high to very low speeds. This is being modeled in Accu-Sim btw, not FSX:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H0HvaeV8eY[/youtube]

Scott.

[DHenriques_]

I posted this over at AVSIM to help with some questions. It's a video that should help those see how nicely our plane simulates the elevator from very high to very low speeds. This is being modeled in Accu-Sim btw, not FSX:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H0HvaeV8eY[/youtube]

Scott.

I would add to this that I am experiencing no issues at all with elevator response.
DH

[Alfredson007]

I was all the time sure it wasn't a bug or an unrealistic feature. The problem is, that not all of us, sadly, have a yoke or something that has equivalent travel of original Cessna 172 yoke. Regular joystick's travel is much more shorter, hence, 1cm with a joystick is not same as 1cm in a real cessna. So, for me, the default setting is way too sensitive (logitech 3d), i hate when i have to use 95% of my concentration to super minor adjustments in order to make the plane fly smoothly. It also FEELS much more realistic when i have to really turn the joystick, it's more fun too.

There are people complaining about the left turning tendency, or lack of it, too. I think same goes here, if i gently turn my rudder, i can see the pedals moving, but the twist on the joystick is so minimal, it's barely there... For me, the main thing with simulator flying is that i can do correct actions, CLEARLY give right rudder, give elevator when turning etc... i hope everyone catches what i am after.

Of course, this could be solved with a PROPER flight gear... (i am not into that though)

The interesting fact though is, that A2A Spitfire and Real Air SF260 are the best planes to fly with my joystick, they both have very nice control feel out of the box, only light aircrafts i fly without the need of modify the config file. And you could imagine those are even more sensitive than the C172 (mostly due to speed).

[Caldemeyn]

When in a dive, i noticed the tendency of the real plane to roll right, will it be added in the future ? Also, what kind of controls and settings do you use for the elevator/aileron in FSX Mr. Scott / Mr. Henriques ?

[UnixRoot]

I have a Saitek Cessna Yoke and its far to sensitive. If the response will be like in the video it would be ok, but its much worse than that. If i pull the Yoke 1 cm back the plane rockets up like mad. Almost twice as in the video. Sensible elevator operation is almost impossible. If i fly a turn and pull back the Yoke a bit to keep the nose level, the nose pitches up extremely with just some millimeters of yoke movement. The Problem gets even worse if you trim the plane for level flight. Then some Millimeters are enough to flip up and down very fast.

The Yoke is calibrated with FSUIPC and is modified with industrial grade potentiometers and 12bit resolution usb controller from leo bodnar. So it's definitely not a hardware problem. All other planes work like they should.

[Lewis - A2A]

I have a Saitek Cessna Yoke and its far to sensitive. If the response will be like in the video it would be ok, but its much worse than that. If i pull the Yoke 1 cm back the plane rockets up like mad. Almost twice as in the video. Sensible elevator operation is almost impossible. If i fly a turn and pull back the Yoke a bit to keep the nose level, the nose pitches up extremely with just some millimeters of yoke movement. The Problem gets even worse if you trim the plane for level flight. Then some Millimeters are enough to flip up and down very fast.

The Yoke is calibrated with FSUIPC and is modified with industrial grade potentiometers and 12bit resolution usb controller from leo bodnar. So it's definitely not a hardware problem. All other planes work like they should.

Have you tried calibrating without FSUIPC or moving sensitivity down in FSX. We are all flying the same aircraft software wise so troubleshooting does point to the it being hardware related or at least the software used to run the hardware related. Nevertheless we will look into the saitek yoke, though I have a slight feeling that may well be exactly what Scott is using in the video cannot be sure though.

[MatzeH84]

I am running the Saitek Yoke with sensivity 25 in FSX, plus curve 3 in FSUIPC for better smoothness in small corrections. Works like a charm.

[Zgredd]

Do you have stick_sensitivity_mode=0 in fsx.cfg?

[CodyValkyrie]

I was all the time sure it wasn't a bug or an unrealistic feature. The problem is, that not all of us, sadly, have a yoke or something that has equivalent travel of original Cessna 172 yoke.

There's hope yet mate. I'm using a Sidewinder 2 with a very small throw. As with most flying with this stick, I tend to use my fingertips a lot unless it comes to landings and takeoffs. I've never found the 172R simulated here to be overly sensitive. My sensitivity settings are done via FSX and are set to about the middle with zero null zone. This in effect "should" make a linear response from the 172. What are your sensitivity settings?

[Caldemeyn]

From what i gathered from using FSX, lowering sensitivity just limits the range of motion of the controls in the sim, that way you don't have full motion available. You can easily chack that, set your sens to 1 and try to move your controls.

[Zgredd]

From what i gathered from using FSX, lowering sensitivity just limits the range of motion of the controls in the sim, that way you don't have full motion available. You can easily chack that, set your sens to 1 and try to move your controls.

True. Try stick_sensitivity_mode set to 0. It should lower controls sensitivity.

[Nico081]

My advice to everyone:

all my controllers (Yoke,Stick, Pedals, several throttle quadrants) are assigned to FSX via FSUIPC. All axis assignments within FSX (also slew mode axis) are deleted in FSX.

Advantages
-> Individual controller assignemt for every single aircraft (even per texture !) possible
-> Fire up FSX and decide what you want to fly, in case of the B17 i only have to sit in front of the yoke, changing to the Cub i take the Stick in my hands -> No further actions neccessary
-> Prevention of changing global sensivity values within FSX while adjusting one aircraft -> that decrepits maybe other aircrafts in proper function
-> You only have to assign an aicraft once within FSUIPC including slope functions etc. without affecting others
-> Create sensivities per aircraft or even per repaint individual
-> Manually manage the FSUIPC.ini file (copy&paste) for creating further aircraft profiles or use templates within FSX (FSUIPC menue)
-> Controller specific issues and overreactions can be individual compensated according to one's own taste without affecting other aircraft profiles, also the toe brakes it it is defined as an axis and not as a button on your pedals.
..
..

I will never ever miss that, because it is absolutely neccessary to create aircrafts specific input setup .

[Jigsaw]

I was all the time sure it wasn't a bug or an unrealistic feature. The problem is, that not all of us, sadly, have a yoke or something that has equivalent travel of original Cessna 172 yoke. Regular joystick's travel is much more shorter, hence, 1cm with a joystick is not same as 1cm in a real cessna.

Exactly. The elevator reponse that I experienced with my Thrustmaster Hotas X flightstick out of the box was way, way, way stronger than what I see in the video. Had I worked the stick as violently as Scott did the yoke here I would have done a loop or two. Only after editing the elevator effectiveness in the aircraft.cfg do I get something that resembles the response seen in the video, even though it's still more twitchy than that.

It's good to see that it's that realistic with a yoke, but unfortunately those of us who don't have such expensive hardware need to tweak a bit to get the same result.

[CodyValkyrie]

For the record I've never tested with a yoke. I'm using a Sidewinder 2 with very little throw. I'm not experiencing anything like what you guys are describing.

[nojwod]

I'm happy with my elevator response at flying speed. What I'm having problems with at the moment is the excessive airplane response in ground effect during the flare. Every memory i have of the 172 behaviour at the point of touchdown is that you could move the yoke quite a long way back once the stall warning came in and the aircraft would remain relatively stable, it would nose up a certain amount but not fly up and leave ground effect, so it was possible to point the nose up without gaining any noticeable height. In the sim last night, any back yoke movement after the stall warning had started, in the flare, resulted in an appreciable gain in height.

It's possible that in the FSX engine it's not possible to mimic the elevator behaviour as shown in the video above while keeping the flare behaviour more realistic (well at least as I remember it, if anyone thinks I am wrong about what i remember please say so!). If so then so be it.