lnuss

Gauge placement in the virtual cockpit isn't as simple as it used to be, at least for those aircraft which have "3D" panels, where some things are (if I understand correctly) built into the model. I've not messed with this myself, but have heard a few things, not enough to help you much.

OK, this complicates things a bit. Your problem may be expectations of one thing while doing another. Perhaps you are doing an aileron roll while expecting the results of a slow roll. A barrel roll looks as if you are going around the inside of a big barrel, in a sort of horizontal spiral. It's not much more than adding aileron and back pressure together to slide around that barrel. An aileron roll will leave you with an arcing path, starting with the nose slightly up (quite a bit up on some light aircraft, such as a Citabria), then arcing until the nose is pointing a bit down as you complete the roll. Other than starting with nose up a little, it's mostly just add aileron. A slow roll is more complex, and is the only one that might leave you with the aircraft's path more or less in a straight line, though such aircraft as the Citabria don't really have enough power/speed to do this without also doing somewhat of an arc. The slow roll is the one that starts out with aileron and rudder then, at 90º has the opposite rudder to hold the nose up, then at 180º has forward stick ("down" elevator) with rudder back to neutral, then at 270º has top rudder. Note that this is not a complete description, but should give you the idea. So which one of these are you expecting to see? It appears that you are doing this from an external view (did you try the flyby view?) and may be getting caught by some of the weirdness of FS view changes. You might also try doing this from inside the cockpit. Also, have you ever read any instruction on how a roll should be done? That might help you, too. The links on roll-type above take you to Wikipedia where you can learn more.

He said: "Regardless of which plane I am flying when attempting a roll it goes to the half way point then flips back." Implying several aircraft involved. and he said: "I also have an X52 with which I have no problem with this. " Implying that "this" means the same aircraft and procedure, with only the stick changed. It would be helpful if the OP would come back and clarify all this. He's not responded to my question ( What is the "half way point?" ) in post #2 above, either.

I don't know anything about the X56, but it sounds like a calibration problem. What is the "half way point?" I'd think that would be 180º, which would be inverted, but "The plane will not go completely over." sounds as if it doesn't even get inverted. Just for grins, while you're on the ground, hold ailerons for a minute or so, watching the (virtual) stick/yoke AND the ailerons on the wings to see if they snap back neutral or something. One other thought. You don't mention roll rate, but a large difference in roll rate might have an effect, allowing speed to bleed off too much to complete the roll.

Often such a problem is because the fuel load is imbalanced- check wing tanks and make them equal.

I tried that, Rick, but you didn't have the C-170 available at that time -- made it difficult.

This is an almost year-old thread, but a couple of months ago I tried to buy the new C-170 from Carenado, and ran into something similar, except that the transaction didn't get far enough to transfer funds. They definitely have problems.

There's nothing with wrong the program in that sense, because a real aircraft will do the same thing. The problem is in your lack of knowledge of what the controls actually do. It's all about energy management, and while under some circumstances back pressure (don't think of pull, think of pressure) will, indeed, result in a climb, when there is not enough potential energy (think of speed) then that back pressure will, indeed, add enough drag (one of the four forces of flight) to make the aircraft descend. Aircraft controls are not nearly as straight forward as those in a car. All maneuvers use combinations of the four main controls (aileron, or roll; elevator, or pitch; rudder, or yaw; throttle, or power). And there are four main maneuvers, combinations of which make up ALL other maneuvers: climbs, glides (or descents), turns and straight-and-level. You MUST learn these well to do much else. I'd suggest you look below (lower part of the main menu page) at the Real Aviation Tutorials & FAQs section of the forum, under Basic Aircraft Control, especially the piece called "What are the basic flight controls? How do I use them?" It starts with this statement: "When a student starts flying in real aircraft, the first thing they learn is what each control does." It then proceeds to explain those controls and to give you some exercises to really learn what each is and how they work together (it's not intuitive). These exercises are something I've done with all my real world flight students, and it works exactly the same in the sim. Get a couple of thousand feet above the ground in the Cessna (no need to go back to the ultralight) and practice these exercises until you become comfortable with them. It doesn't have to be all in one session, but run through them a time or three, then later come back and do it again. And again, until you are comfortable with these exercises. The posts you've made here tell me that you are trying to run before you can walk very well, so forget the "missions" for a while until you can control the aircraft with precision. Just as in real aircraft, it takes time and effort to learn to fly well. It's not for nothing that soloing real aircraft takes (for most people) anywhere from 10 to 25 hours under the tutelage of an instructor (how often they fly, their inherent abilities, and other things affect the time required). Without an instructor to evaluate your performance and adjust instruction to your specific needs, it may well take somewhat longer for you to reach that same level of proficiency in the sim. You absolutely MUST spend time on the more mundane things, just as a music student MUST practice the scales to get to know the instrument. Not quite "hair sensitive," but you cannot be hamfisted with an airplane's controls, any more than you can drive a car with the grossly exaggerated movements of the steering wheel that a child might use to "imitate" driving. If you will spend the necessary time and effort to gain a reasonable amount of precision (yes it's possible, with practice), then you will find the more advanced things (with practice) will also be attainable. Without that basic practice you'll never gain the more advanced abilities. You can give up or you can practice getting precise and learn how things work -- your choice.

I think he was asking about vor because of the post where vor was typed instead of top, not because of navigation. And for the OP, VC stands for Virtual Cockpit, which is also called the 3D cockpit. The A or SHIFT-A can switch you between them.

So why are you trying to discourage folks from using a program that you don't much like? It's like saying that I should be driving a Honda instead of a Toyota, just because YOU like the Honda better. Quit being a pest and go back to your FS98 without all the "eye candy."

The airspeed gauge doesn't register at slow speeds. If you do a SHIFT-Z a couple of lines of red text will show in the upper left corner of the screen. One of several things it shows is airspeed, which with no wind is the same as groundspeed, and reads from zero and 1 on up, rather than starting at 40 or above as typical airspeed indicators on the panel do.

One other consideration is to possibly try lower settings in the sim, to further reduce it's workload. However I'd also think about which aircraft cause the most problems, since certain aircraft require a lot more system resources than some other aircraft do. Traffic and weather settings, as well as the scenery settings themselves can also have their effects. These things can sometimes cause a bit of jerkiness, even though the frame rates themselves seem pretty good. Note that even graphics card settings, both for the card itself and the parameters for the card within the sim may have effects to some degree. And it's possible that the DX10 preview mode, if you're using it, can have odd effects. The above are just additional thoughts about possibilities, and are in no sense definitive.

Did you try limiting your FPS to 25 or 30? Keep in mind that FSX is very demanding on a computer, and each additional frame it renders in a given time period takes time/resources that otherwise would go into filling in details in the scene, so that might be at least part of your problem.

You might note that this 76 year old "kid" who is a real world pilot also, is one of those who truly appreciate that "Worthless ‘eye candy’," since it helps the immersion factor when you're actually looking out the window -- often I'll remark about how real it looks (though not so much in the cities). Granted that I've got ORBX, which helps a lot. And why is that mandatory for everyone who uses the program? Isn't it permissible for others to enjoy different aspects of the program without your scorn? Is what you want to see mandatory for everyone?

No guarantee, but some of them may operate just fine, others won't. Generally, yes, though there may be some variations. Some may work OK, much of it may need modification. Someone else will have to answer that -- I don't even know what they are. It's a guarantee that you'll have problems moving some things over, but some stuff may make it OK. So much depends on the specific item though. But you're in for a lot of changes in how the program is structured, especially in V4. Others will have more complete information for you.

I'll disagree with Jorgen about ORBX. UT is pretty good, but it doesn't do anything for textures, and it's only in the US (or Canada too). FTX global is worldwide, which helps. If you don't do FTX Vectors, then UT is not a bad idea anyway, since it does get roads, railroads, rivers, etc. corrected and added, but Vectors does that world wide. Personally, Since getting all of the ORBX North American regions, I fly outside those regions very seldom, since I get spoiled having aircraft and people, along with dumpsters, light poles, tool boxes, vehicles and other scenery objects, plus improved mesh throughout the region; even some of the smaller, non-paved airports have sloped runways. On occasion you'll even find farm implements in the fields and deer, cattle, horses, etc. ORBX has a free demo of the Olympic Peninsula (Washington) available that lets you explore just how well it suits you. All that being said, you'll probably want to pick up things a little here, a little there and explore what you have before getting too much stuff installed.

ADE is an excellent (and free) program that lets you modify or build airports, but you can also do a certain amount of scenery in the same area -- one piece that I did was over 10 miles from the airport, and 5,000+ feet higher, as well, in the same .bgl as the airport mods I did. There are other programs out there, but I'm not familiar with them.

I'm not aware of a limit, and I've got 18 of them in FSX. Just keep adding, tracking what you've done, until you have enough for you -- tracking so it's easy to back out if you need to. But I suspect you can add what you need just fine.

That's very true. But you said, "A turn coordinator is an instrument the pilots can read. Similar to a compass." and the TC is not similar to a compass. With your clarification above I see you were intending to say something like, ""A turn coordinator is an instrument the pilots can read, just as a pilot can read a compass or an altimeter, but it has nothing to do with autocoordination." But it didn't come across that way.

That describes a slip. I think you mean slipping isn't possible. Crabbing is just turning into the wind to give a desired path over the ground, and is done in coordinated flight, not cross controlled. You're probably thinking of crabbing down final then kicking it straight, or crabbing at first, then going into a slip on the latter part of final. This link has an excellent description of crabbing, then changing to a slip or kicking it straight (it calls it Decrab). And they can. But a very few cannot slip, such as the two-control version of the Ercoupe/Aircoupe, which have no rudder control -- it's tied to aileron deflection, and not in a linear fashion, though it is mechanical. In a crosswind, the Ercoupe actually lands in a crab (the gear is designed to take it). Jets with the engines slung below the wing often don't have enough clearance to slip when next to the ground, thus must crab down final and then kick it straight at the last second. A very few aircraft have some sort of "crosswind landing gear" which turns in respect to the aircraft itself. On certain Cessna singles (tailwheel type, C-185 for example), the crosswind gear (when so equipped) snaps into position on touchdown, letting the aircraft continue to crab. Reportedly not many folks like that gear (I've flown 180/185 but not with xwind gear). The B-52 has crosswind gear, but the crew turns the gear sideways (to parallel the runway) before touchdown. You've got the right general idea, but it had nothing to do with a twist grip. Rudder pedals were, indeed, available. The autocoord was for people who had no means of rudder control, except for the keyboard (awkward is being kind). A turn coordinator is an instrument that replaces the turn-and-bank instrument, and has no relationship to a compass. Its tilting "airplane" shows rate of turn, with the marking line in either direction showing the "standard rate turn" which is 3º per second, or a turn rate that will turn 360º in 2 minutes (thus the 2 MIN label on many of them).

OK, thanks.

I'd still like to know why you think "and the lack of other basic flightsim features which come as standard with FSX and even FS2004..." That's what prompted my post above, your statement with nothing to back it.

Hmmm, that's a new one on me. Perhaps you could enlighten me... So you'd rather have stick figures? Resurrect FS for the TRS-80? For many of us the so-called eye candy and smooth operation are rather important items. Aircraft shadows, cloud shadows, vegetation, buildings and many other things help my immersion in the sim, help my imagination to put me closer to "real," enough that I can really enjoy it. Did FS-98 have "frivolous eye-candy?" Do you have add-on scenery? Where are you drawing the line of "eye candy?" At what point does it become "frivolous?"

In the sim, the need for yaw correction varies with each specific implementation, but the autocoordination feature works on all fixed wing aircraft, piston or turbine. In real life, there's no such feature (ignoring Ercoupes and such, which are mechanical), but jets generally require little rudder input for a turn or normal maneuvers since the adverse yaw is minimal due to wing/aileron design.Many jets and turboprops, and some others, have a yaw damper, which isn't the same thing.

A barn door is symmetrical, and can generate lift. You might think of it as deflecting the oncoming air downward, which it does (though there's a little more to it). Pretty much anything like that, so long as it has a sufficiently positive angle of attack will generate lift (think paper airplane). You might also want to see this Wiki article. You might also find this article helpful. Wing incidence is merely the angle of the wing with the fuselage and generates no lift at all, by itself. Angle of attack, the angle of the wing with respect to the relative airflow is the lift generator, whether the wing is symmetrical or not, but cambered wings are more efficient at generating lift than the symmetrical ones. A wing can generate lift in any pitch attitude (relative to the earth), even straight down. You might look in the Real Aviation Tutorials & FAQs section below at the Glossary (there's more good info there too).