Hello - just to let everyone know and not step on anyone's toes (just in case someone else is as well): I'm making up a trim tutorial right now - it seems it might be valuable for sim-pilots who have a less than perfect understanding of trim. I spent some time looking at the trim info in the Learning Center and what M$ laughably calls a 'flight lesson' and quite frankly; I'm not at all surprised sim pilots are so often confused about proper aircraft handling. I'm trying to do it with video; if that fails I'll write it out as a forum topic. Should be up Sunday. (It better be - The Roar of the Rings starts this weekend and I never miss Curling finals! 

Hope it helps!

If you or anyone can come up with a fix or better method, I'll worship at your shrine  .

OK; the trim tutorial is up at SimTeevee - and it only took three bloody hours for it to upload. 



It's still 'pending approval' but I haven't got any more time to hang around; night's falling, the temperature's dropping towards -40c fast and I've got a long walk ahead of me. I'll be back tomorrow - I'd appreciate a serious critique of the tute. Go to Sim TV, enter my name in the search feature and you'll find it.

Cheers!

Glad you like it, Dirt.

I agree - 'vertical speed' is correct and I wish I could change it - for some reason I always get the "bluh-bluh-bluh's" trying to dictate into that stupid little camera and after about a hundred attempts; I wound up saying "ahhhh - good enough!" It wasn't - of course - until I'd compiled the video and deleted all the material (20 bloody gigs of it! Holy snakes!) that I started going "Ummm.... I don't like that..." There were a couple of spots in there like that.

As for why I didn't use the attitude indicator; it's just how I was trained - establish SLF via outside cues; using the VSI as reference. To be honest, using the attitude indicator wouldn't be my first choice; possibly since the aircraft I first got my license on didn't have one at all; or even an artificial horizon.

As for number of clicks on the trim; it flat-out wouldn't work. I adjust all my aircraft so 'Elevator_Trim_Effectiveness' in the .cfg reads 0.25 which gives a much smoother response than stock. Also; the value would change with different conditions - temp., loading, etc. and some - like me when I'm flying the Citabria - have the trim mapped to a lever axis anyway. So overall, I thought it better to trim according to the aircraft's behaviour rather than trying to determine fixed numbers.

Cheers! And thanks again!

Wow..  superb tutorial.  Thanks for taking the time to put it together..

If a sim-pilot takes the time; to take to heart, the theories and techniques you describe so well.. and practices them until their application becomes second nature.. he'll be well on his way to ANSWERING sim flight training questions..

How do you get into Sim TV? I Googled it, and got an opening page, but no place to enter a search. Can someone provide a URL? Thanks.

Art

Staiduk wrote on Dec 14^th, 2009 at 3:22pm:
Pure excitement!  After resetting my trim .cfg to your setting, I fired up the sim, setup for takeoff (same number of trim clicks) and opened the throttle.  That sucker came off like a homesick angel and flew right on up into a full power stall.  Had to put my beverage down to recover - makes me wonder how I ever survived  .

Staiduk wrote on Dec 16^th, 2009 at 5:29pm:
It's great - hindsight is often more of a hindrance.