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Joystick "at rest"

Controlling your aircraft, using the autopilot etc.

Joystick "at rest"

Postby LearningToFly » Mon Aug 21, 2017 6:20 pm

I'm very new to this, and it was suggested over on another thread that flying was easier, and more fun, with a Joystick - so I bought one.
I'd got pretty good with a mouse - once I was off and heading in the right direction at my chosen altitude, I could, for whole chunks of time, let go of the mouse and things would go on as they were - once in a while a small nudge of correction required - I could fly straight lines, even gentle curves, without touching anything.
With the joystick it's different - in order to stay level I have constantly to have a little pressure forwards - if I let go, my plane heads upwards - can't say as I'm finding that very relaxing - constant small pressure for 15 minutes - certainly not as relaxing as the mouse used to be.

Am I doing something wrong, or have I configured something wrongly (I'm using the joystick file that was automatically chosen for me - Thrustmaster 16000M - not a lot of choice of joysticks here in Portugal but I can return this within 30 days if he's the problem), or is that how it's supposed to be?
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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby Thorsten » Mon Aug 21, 2017 6:41 pm

With the joystick it's different - in order to stay level I have constantly to have a little pressure forwards


Real airplanes need to be trimmed to fly level with the stick in neutral position. Look for the trim wheel of the airplane of your choice and use it (often it's mouse wheel, the joystick might have a trim integrated, sometimes it's a clickspot in the cockpit).

The mouse hides the need to trim pretty well, the stick does not.
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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby LearningToFly » Mon Aug 21, 2017 7:07 pm

Excellent - with the right amount of trim I can fly pretty much hands off for seconds at a time - much more relaxing.
Thanks.
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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby D-ECHO » Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:13 pm

I can give you an XML file for the 16000m with the hat on the Joystick configured as trim once I'm back
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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby LearningToFly » Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:53 pm

D-ECHO wrote in Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:13 pm:I can give you an XML file for the 16000m with the hat on the Joystick configured as trim once I'm back


Thanks - that would be cool.

One small question - this thing with the trim - is that what you'd do in a real aircraft (that's really what I'm aiming for, as much as possible), or just something I can do here so I can sip my wine without veering off course :-)
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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby wkitty42 » Mon Aug 21, 2017 11:06 pm

yes, you have to trim all aircraft so they'll fly as desired without having to hold the yoke in the same place all the time...

on the T16000m, the default joystick is configured like the following...

Code: Select all
************************************************************************
*
* Bindings or Thrustmaster T.16000M USB joystick (see joysticks.xml in fgfsbase dir)
*
*
* Axis 0: ailerons
* Axis 1: elevator
* Axis 2: rudder (twistable stick)
* Axis 3: throttle
* Axis 4: Horizontal Hat
* Axis 5: Vertical Hat
* Axis 6: view left/right
* Axis 7: view Up/down
*
* Button 0: (fire) all brakes
* Button 1: gear up/down
* Button 4: trim up
* Button 9: trim down
* Button 10: flaps up
* Button 15: flaps down
* Button 2: trim aileron left
* Button 3: trim aileron right
* Button 5: Mixture up
* Button 8: Mixture down
* Button 6: Propeller up
* Button 7: Propeller down
* Button 12: Battery On/Off
* Button 13: Fuel selector
* Button 11: Magnetos
* Button 14: starter
************************************************************************

so buttons 4 and 9 trim the elevator and buttons 2 and 3 trim the ailerons... the hat is used for looking around like is done in most things that have a look around feature/capability...

the above configuration is slightly different than it used to be... i remember when the default config was changed but i don't recall what version that was... my default config file for the T16000M is dated 16 Jan 2016...

the default configs, at least for joysticks, seem to have a comment header like this... now if i can just remember which buttons are which on my T16000M :lol:
"You get more air close to the ground," said Angalo. "I read that in a book. You get lots of air low down, and not much when you go up."
"Why not?" said Gurder.
"Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."
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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby Richard » Tue Aug 22, 2017 8:48 am

LearningToFly wrote in Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:53 pm:One small question - this thing with the trim - is that what you'd do in a real aircraft (that's really what I'm aiming for, as much as possible), or just something I can do here so I can sip my wine without veering off course :-)


From watching Training Captains and test pilots flying real simulators, both civil (B737, B767) and military (Hawk, Tornado), a lot of the time (in the cruise, or after takeoff and prior to the landing phase) they fly with the pitch trim rather than stick movements. This isn't to say that they never use the stick, just that generally pitch trim seemed to be preferred[1]

-----------
[1] This is an observation from a small sample so it could just be an anomaly. However I too tend to use pitch trim a lot.
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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby wkitty42 » Tue Aug 22, 2017 7:27 pm

i've heard that, too Richard... maybe that's why the pitch trim knob on airliners is right there on the side of the center console where the pilot and co-pilot can reach it easily? the other two trims are also generally near by from what i have seen...

i know that it is rather trippy and funny when flying some craft... they trim out with their nose down at 3 to 5 degrees or more... that's just weird... seems to me that if the nose is down, we should be going down but i guess this really points to a problem in the FDM... i just can't remember which craft it was that i first saw this in... it was really funny, though...
"You get more air close to the ground," said Angalo. "I read that in a book. You get lots of air low down, and not much when you go up."
"Why not?" said Gurder.
"Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."
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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby Bulldog 1 » Tue Aug 22, 2017 7:55 pm

LearningToFly wrote in Mon Aug 21, 2017 6:20 pm:I'm very new to this, and it was suggested over on another thread that flying was easier, and more fun, with a Joystick - so I bought one.
I'd got pretty good with a mouse - once I was off and heading in the right direction at my chosen altitude, I could, for whole chunks of time, let go of the mouse and things would go on as they were - once in a while a small nudge of correction required - I could fly straight lines, even gentle curves, without touching anything.
With the joystick it's different - in order to stay level I have constantly to have a little pressure forwards - if I let go, my plane heads upwards - can't say as I'm finding that very relaxing - constant small pressure for 15 minutes - certainly not as relaxing as the mouse used to be.

Am I doing something wrong, or have I configured something wrongly (I'm using the joystick file that was automatically chosen for me - Thrustmaster 16000M - not a lot of choice of joysticks here in Portugal but I can return this within 30 days if he's the problem), or is that how it's supposed to be?


The joystick sensivility... I can't do nothing, you can try the trim for small changes, but, you can ivert the elevator controls, By presing Files -> Joystick settings
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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby Johan G » Sat Aug 26, 2017 12:45 pm

I am not using FlightGear as much now as I used to do, but I use trim a lot. Pretty much all the time I change attitude or power setting.

This mnemonic might help later on: PAT-REA

  1. Adjust
    1. Power
    2. Attitude
    3. Trim
  2. Trim
    1. Rudder
    2. Elevator
    3. Aileron

Note that often you only need to adjust elevator trim, at least in FlightGear.

Side note: From nearly day one I changed the top hat on my joystick from controlling the view to controlling trim, but at first I had elevator trim inverted. I only found out when trying a flight simulator at a museum and constantly trimmed initially in the wrong direction. :lol:
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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby D-EKEW » Sat Aug 26, 2017 1:12 pm

As far as I know (pls correct me if I am wrong), the extra500 is the only aircraft model in FG that has a real elevator trim system. There is a model to calculate the actual pilot forces and the elevator trim is used to counteract it. So you have a dependency on airspeed, center of gravity, flaps, gear etc etc. Also when you miss-trim, you are in a lot of trouble. There is a special control mode where the joystick actually controls the pilot force, not the position of the yoke like in other aircraft models. In this mode a centered joystick is no pilot force, pull back is pull and push is push (obviously).

Please have a look at the wiki page for more info http://wiki.flightgear.org/Extra_EA-500/pitch_control

Cheers,

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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby Thorsten » Sat Aug 26, 2017 1:20 pm

As far as I know (pls correct me if I am wrong), the extra500 is the only aircraft model in FG that has a real elevator trim system.


Depends on the meaning of 'real' - the 'fly by wire' craft also have an elevator trim...
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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby D-EKEW » Sat Aug 26, 2017 1:52 pm

Does any 'fly by wire' aircraft in FG calculate the pilot forces (or elevator moments) dependent on airspeed, CoG, etc and feed it into the fly by wire system? So the pilot can 'feel' g-load, airspeed, changes in aircraft configuration etc?
If yes, I stand corrected!
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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby Thorsten » Sat Aug 26, 2017 1:55 pm

It's just the thing, real fly by wire setups don't necessarily do that (there's no point in making a pilot pull harder if the surface is moved by the hydraulics system anyway). In fact, the F-16 stick initially didn't move at all (only when the pilots found that too weird, they made it move a bit).

And I suppose a real pilot feels g-load quite well without a force-feedback stick...
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Re: Joystick "at rest"

Postby D-ECHO » Sat Aug 26, 2017 2:57 pm

@D-EKEW I'm planning to make a better C208 and have already thought about how to make trim realistic (though only thinking very very basic like
Code: Select all
var trim=getprop("controls/flight/elevator-trim");
var real_trim=trim*(getprop("/velocities/airspeed-kt")/50);
var elevator=getprop("/controls/flight/elevator");
var elevator_real=elevator+real_trim;

may I include your trim system instead?
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