Wild swings in pitch and roll

Hello all. I am brand spanking new to simulated flying with maybe a total of 4 or 5 hours behind the controls. I have a very basic setup: A pretty decent gaming PC, FSX Steam Edition, Saitek Pro Flight Yoke and Throttle Quantrant.

 

I'm experiencing something that I think is probably normal behavior but I guess I'm looking for verification of that. What's happening is when I make a small movement on any control, the aircraft (Cessna 172 is what I'm trying to learn) it seems to really overreact. For instance, if I'm trying to retain level flight and start climbing some, when I push the yoke in a little bit my altitude starts dropping more than it was climbing. So I find myself in a back and forth fight... up, down, up, down, etc. And by the time I finally get out of that up/down pattern I've spent so much attention with it that now I'm wildly off course. So then I find myself rolling left then right then left then right, etc.

 

Is this simply how aircraft behave or does it sound like maybe my controls are too sensitive? I mean obviously it's not going to be the same as tires on a road, but do these kinds of swings seem right? If this is correct behavior I'll just knuckle down and practice practice practice. But if it sounds like maybe something associated with my yoke is wrong I'll spend some time trying to dial in its settings better. I just don't want to start off on the wrong foot.

 

I certainly appreciate any help any of you can give me.

 

PS - Thanks to the admins/moderators here! I've owned and administered a popular sports forum for going on 15 years now (using the same forum software :) ) so I understand how much work it is. Thank you for doing it!

Kirk - Welcome to the world of flight simming and this forum! You will probably get many replies on your questions. I will keep mine short as you can then read others' replies and sort thru them and use what works best for you!

 

Any real world flying experience? I only ask, because when some of us learned to fly RW, we all tend to be a little heavy on the controls! Same goes for flight simming! You need to be light but positive in applying your controls; it doesn't require much effort. It will take some getting used to. You can also go into the settings section and play with the sensitivity settings which will help until you know what to expect of FSX. So, what my advice is 1) Be light on the controls, 2) Try experimenting with the sensitivity settings for the controls and yes, the biggie and you already mentioned it, Practice Practice Practice and when you think you got it, Practice Practice Practice! It's not that difficult to acquire the skills, and you will get it! Have you tried the lessons section of flight sim yet? Might be something there that will help. When you get further along such and landings and more complex flying tasks, You Tube has some excellent videos on there!

 

Again, welcome to the forum and happy flying!

 

Rick :cool:

Try Flying the Missions/Tutorials in FSX. Most are pretty short (15 minutes or so) and you will get all of the practice on your particular aircraft....C-172. Sitka Landing, Channel Crossing, etc. Most will take you through takeoff, flight and then landing. All good stuff!

Don't think of moving the controls, think instead of applying pressure, a little or a little more. That mental outlook change helps in real life, and it may help in your sim, too, though the sim controls aren't always as smooth as real world controls.

 

And as others have said above, you're probably trying to correct too quickly and roughly (a common problem). The sim tutorials may help a lot, and it will certainly benefit you if you stick to light aircraft until you do fairly well with them prior to moving to something larger and heavier, in which things happen faster and you have to think further ahead of the aircraft.

 

You might also look at the forum section below called Real Aviation Tutorials & FAQs under the segments called Basic Aircraft Control, Maneuvers, and Takeoff and Landing (you don't land the aircraft, you just get it to a foot off the ground, bring power to idle, then hold it that foot off the ground. Sooner or later it'll touch down).

Kirk, I have the CH Flight Yoke and Pro Pedals and had the same problem as you when I first changed over from a Logitech Wingman 3D Pro joystick. I installed the CH Control Manager (Saitek has an equivalent program) and calibrated my controls through that instead of Windows - most importantly I also reduced the axis sensitivity to 50% in pitch, roll and yaw in the CH Control Manager - now I have controllable aircraft! Please note that in FSX I've set the sensitivities to 100%, and it all works perfectly in all aircraft.

Thanks so much for the replies!

 

I have no RW flying experience. Unless you count the rollercoaster ride one time seated in a small commercial aircraft coming into Las Vegas with the heat of the desert rising up. That was a hoot. :)

 

As I suspected it sounds like the software and hardware are OK and that I just need to be patient as I learn something new. I did futz around with the control software that came with the yoke, and managed to mess everything up so bad that I had to uninstall/reinstall to get it back to where it was. I am messing with the sensitivity adjustments and I think I've made it a little better.

 

I appreciate the suggestions to have a lighter touch. I think that is going to be my biggest take away. That and accept the fact that I need to learn to crawl before I can expect to be able to walk. My frustration, I believe, was being caused by the fact that I was trying to fly circuits. I've stopped that for the time being and am now simply taking off, flying around some, then landing.

 

I was doing missions for a little bit. I think I'll get back to that. I also did the first lesson. I'll also continue on with those.

 

Anyway, thanks again so much for the replies. You've offered some wisdom that I'm going to take to heart.

Kirk - I just found this on You Tube, a long instructional video on FSX Steam. I blew thru it, just to see what it offers. Looks to be layed out well, might answer some of your questions, especially about Steam itself! Check it out! I hope this link works for you! - Rick :cool:

 

The link works, but you will have to restart the video back to "0" It starts at 37 minutes, tried to resend it with it starting at zero, but it is fighting me. Just manually take it back to the start, and enjoy!

 

Kirk - I just found this on You Tube, a long instructional video on FSX Steam. I blew thru it, just to see what it offers. Looks to be layed out well, might answer some of your questions, especially about Steam itself! Check it out! I hope this link works for you! - Rick :cool:

 

The link works, but you will have to restart the video back to "0" It starts at 37 minutes, tried to resend it with it starting at zero, but it is fighting me. Just manually take it back to the start, and enjoy!

 

 

Thanks for this! I've watched some youtube videos since deciding to do this but they've all been about flying (hence my decision to jump right into circuits) rather than about FSX SE. I'm going to go get a cup of coffee and settle in and watch this. I really appreciate it.

When I first flew, I was ham fisted.. I threw the yoke over like the Hulk. It changed one day when my instructor told me, " This aint nothing but a big chicken, and you're the brain! Now fly this brain chicken head!". Then he showed me how he could put the 152 through any maneuver with nothing bit his thumb and one finger on the yoke, and minir adjustments to the throttle. Since then, I've flown every plane as gently as that. It'll help with your landings also. A great landing on a grass strip will allow you to feel the blades of grass hitting the tires before touchdown. That's a good day!