Hi all. New to this forum, and I have a question. Ive been running FS2002 Pro now for months. I fly the lear most of the time, and once in a while the 737 and 747. The majority of flights are IFR and VOR to VOR or direct GPS navigation. During my adventures around the world, I would often take screenshots of the flights for my logbooks.

Very recently when switching to the spotplane view, I noticed that the aircraft (doesnt matter which one) would appear to be flying at about a 10 to 15 degree angle (yaw) to the actual direction of flight, and is evident when viewing the aircraft from the spotplane in reference to the contrail behind the aircraft. What is even more weird..the aircraft seems to fly off course by this same amount of angle..10 to 15 degrees.

Doesnt matter if its in auto pilot or not, the indicators for flying on course do not show that you are directly on course unless you are flying at a 10 to 15 degree offset.

For example...your flying to your next VOR, it is at 150*, the direction indicator says its bearing is at 150*, so  you start flying in that direction, but your indicator starts drifting as if you were not maintaining the flight direction towards the VOR, oh wait..the auto pilot is on and set for heading 150* but the aircraft is flying at 160* or more and that darn green indicator shows Im off course!!! Wow...even the plane appears to be flying....errr...sliding along as its flying!

Ok....being a bit melodromatic there. No..its not rudder trim....no its not one engine out of sync with the other...no its not alieron trim...none of those little things...I checked all that stuff. After flying for awhile you learn to check for those little "gotchas".

It is a bit puzzling...and a bit annoying to consistantly be flying at a 10 degree yaw angle to fly straight on course.  ???

Thanks for any suggestions.

RFB147-Lear45

A warm welcome to SimV RFB.
Dan Garner.
Wales, Uk

In the real world, you can cure the "yawing" with the yaw dampner. This is located on the autopilot control head(with the autopilot switches). Otherwise try "autocoordination" in the realism settings.
Nexus, I'm not trying to pick on you(although it may seem so of late), but to correct for crosswind, you don't yaw, you crab. The difference being that the A/C remains coordinated. If you YAW to correct for crosswind, you will be creating unnecessary drag. I'm sure it's probably just a matter of "verbage". 

Just to throw more into the 'verbage' the CFI I did my R22 flight with used the term 'yaw' when I applied my delicate touch to the pedals.

Cheers

Quote:


Hi OTTOL.... ..!
I think, for that very reason, every "simmer" should try at least once, to land* and park a DH Beaver float plane parallel to the landing stage whilst struggling against surface waves and a strong cross wind.... ...!
..that will test anyones capability and patience... ...!
LOL...!

...Oh...the joys of "Bush Flying".... 8)...!
LOL...!

Cheers mate... ...!
Paul.

* ...should that be "water"...LOL... ...?
LOL...!

Thanks for the responses. Actually I did take into consideration the wind patterns and such which could cause this sliding effect. What is confusing is how far off this effect puts your aircraft away from the flight path.

Using the GPS window, zooming in to the 5 mile radius, it appears at its worst..the aircraft can be up to 2 or more miles off the flight path indicated in the GPS window, as well as on the course deviation indicator on the flight pannel. Its just weird..since Ive never seen this to be the case before. However after trials and checkouts....unchecking the "download winds aloft" option in the weather setups...this seemed to cure most of the sliding effect.

I try to run this sim with as much realistic settings as possible since I am using this sim to become familiar with flying for real. Last night flying out of Paris to Keflavik, I encountered a severe upper wind sheer that threw the aircraft almost 30 degrees to the right and lost about 800 feet in altitude, like as if something grabbed the aircraft and gave it a good shaking. Trust me, it doesnt look so bad on a small monitor when your plane jars around, but view it on a 63 inch wide screen HDTV monitor and it feels like your fixing to loose your lunch even in the comfort of the lazy-boy chair! My virtual passengers and crew blamed it on me! 

Thanks for the warm welcome. I realize my question was probably a stupid one, but Ive learned long ago that without questions there can be no answers..and without questioning the answers....there can be no truth.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and I look forward to spending more time here on the forum.

Thanks all!

RFB
RFB-147