Aircraft.cfg [flight tuning] stability.

[nevern]

Why is it that with almost every single addon aircraft the stability settings for roll, pitch and yaw are 1.0?

The other day I tried a stability setting of 0.1 for all three axis on the default B737 and the difference is incredible. The physics feel much better and more fluid and the aircraft always needed pilot input, especially when doing an approach. I do not know if it is more realistic or not, but it did feel more realistic to me. Also comparing real cockpit videos of an approach and landing taken from a camera on top of the glare shield, it looks almost the same as the real world when I put a 'camera' in the same location in FSX in relation to the aircraft flying through the atmosphere with wind and turbulence affecting the aircraft. With 1.0 the aircraft handles like a rock (very stable), not very realistic from my point of view.

Try it out with the default B737 and give us your views and thoughts.

[camelface]

Do you mean that it made the plane more agile? I find some planes too agile. I have a feeling that the pilot, if he/she flew like I do in flight sim sometimes, would get a letter of warning from his/her employment for flying causing potential danger to the aircraft.

[nevern]

Not really more agile, it feels like a setting of 1.0 dampens the physics somewhat. With a setting of 0.1 it feels more like X-Plane if you have played it.

Try the tweak out, it only takes a second to change the .cfg. You will see what I mean (turn on real weather too.)

[mikeandpatty]

The [Flight Tuning] section is not necessary in the aircraft.cfg file, so you will not always see it. If that is the case, all parameters are set to 1.0 as the default value - in other words, the responses coded into the air file. Normally you are able to edit these responses by changing the values in the [Flight Tuning] section. and it in turn addresses the air file when flying the plane.

A good example is rudder/elevator/aileron effectiveness. You can play with these and see the differences. Try setting an elevator effectiveness to 4.0 for example - you will be in for a surprise. It is easy to edit the cfg file back and forth.

I suggest you do not fool with the lift or drag scalars unless you really know what you are doing.

If there is no [Flight Tuning] section in the cfg file you can easily add it anywhere - I normally make it the first [xxxxx] section entry:
Just cut and paste this:

[flight_tuning]
cruise_lift_scalar =1.000
parasite_drag_scalar =1.000
induced_drag_scalar =1.000
elevator_effectiveness =1.000
aileron_effectiveness =1.000
rudder_effectiveness =1.000
pitch_stability =1.000
roll_stability =1.000
yaw_stability =1.000
elevator_trim_effectiveness =1.000
aileron_trim_effectiveness =1.000
rudder_trim_effectiveness =1.000
p_factor_on_yaw = 1.0
torque_on_roll = 1.0
gyro_precession_on_yaw =1.0
gyro_precession_on_pitch = 1.0

This has not changed anything, because they are all default values -again, assuming there is no [Flight Tuning] section in the original aircraft.cfg file that you are working with.

You can then play with each parameter as desired - including decimal fractions - such as 0.975 for example. Decreasing values lessens an effect - try setting p_factor_on_yaw=0. for example, on a single engine prop - it will wash out the left yaw on takeoff. Some parameters have an upper or lower limit, but normally they are so far "out of the box" that you wouldn't want to use those extreme values anyway

In order to make tuning easy, I use the "ignore" feature of the cfg file as I make changes: for example,

p_factor_on_yaw = 0.75 //was 1.0

the stuff after the // is ignored until FS reads the next executable line it sees

[nevern]

Thanks for that explanation.

Even though I have been flight simming for over 10 years and have edited the aircraft.cfg file for the aircraft that I think needed adjusting, for the life of me I have no idea why I was not intrigued into fiddling with the stability settings.