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disastrous problem


Robert1936

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I have managed to get myself into a bit of a mess: after a few weeks flying my Carenado Navajo in FSX it developed a tendency to turn to the right – not a lot, but enough to make some adjustments necessary on coming out of autopilot to land. I noticed the aileron tabs were permanently deployed, so I tried to adjust them using the aileron trim wheel. The result has been to produce a steep right bank, nose down, almost impossible to recover.

Managed to get up to height with some silly flying with the autopilot and then tried further adjustments in flight. It seems that the trim wheel was not actually adjusting anything – in whatever position I had it. I tried small, incremental adjustments (up to 100% either way) the outcome was always down and right, only just recoverable from height. Next I tried the default Cessna 172. This now displays the same issue (but never before). Restoring default settings for the control had no impact for either ‘plane.

It looks as if adjusting the aileron trim wheel in the Navajo has caused a problem right through the system. Can anyone help get me flying again?

Thanks for any help

Robert

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Have you checked your fuel loading? Sounds as if you might be burning fuel from the left tank only, causing a considerable imbalance (the sim is much more sensitive to this than most real aircraft). Try switching fuel tanks, but first you might go into the aircraft menu and make your wing tanks have the same amount of fuel, then during flight switch tanks every 20-30 minutes. OR, if there is a BOTH position on the fuel selector, use it.

 

Larry N.

As Skylab would say:

Remember: Aviation is NOT an exact Science!

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after a few weeks flying my Carenado Navajo in FSX it developed a tendency to turn to the right – not a lot, but enough to make some adjustments necessary on coming out of autopilot to land. I noticed the aileron tabs were permanently deployed, so I tried to adjust them using the aileron trim wheel. Next I tried the default Cessna 172. This now displays the same issue (but never before). It looks as if adjusting the aileron trim wheel in the Navajo has caused a problem right through the system.

Since this trend didn't occur at first but increased over time, this looks like a joystick calibration issue to me.

Have you re-calibrated/checked the joystick axis?

What do you mean with 'deployed aileron tabs'? If you haven't touched aileron trim, they are in their neutral position.

Furthermore trim resets when restarting the flight/sim and it can't affect all aircraft.

Since this is only s slight tendency, it could be the fuel imbalance Larry mentioned as well.

 

Sounds as if you might be burning fuel from the left tank only, causing a considerable imbalance (the sim is much more sensitive to this than most real aircraft).

That's one of the reasons why I always move the fuel tanks far more inboard than IRL on my FDEs, including the Navajo.

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Thank you both for the help.

Little joy I’m afraid. I had done the joystick calibration a number of times and everything seemed perfectly OK. I followed advice and made sure I was taking fuel from both sides.

A clarification: I thought the Navajo had trim tabs on the ailerons, but my mistake, it was the ailerons themselves that were permanently stuck for turning right – and unresponsive to the controls in the sense that viewed from outside the aircraft they didn’t move with the joystick. I managed to fly the Navajo, but this time it has a slight left-hand bias, but I was able to control this and get into straight and level flight, with a good landing hand-flying.

Then tried the Cessna 172 again, this now had an uncontrollable right-hand bias, I thought the plane was going to turn over but attempting to control the turn resulted in a nose-dive! Very puzzling, so I went back to my plane of choice – the Navajo. Back to square one. This now had its hopeless right hand turn restored with no way to correct in flight. Before finally closing down I did check the fuel settings and joystick calibration again – all OK.

 

Robert

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..it was the ailerons themselves that were permanently stuck for turning right – and unresponsive to the controls in the sense that viewed from outside the aircraft they didn’t move with the joystick.

Sounds like the AP is engaged. Very strange.

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He DID say the C-172 was also misbehaving.

 

If the ailerons are locked to the side, that is often, as mentioned above, because the autopilot is turned on -- that would generally also affect the elevator though, unless heading/wing level was engaged but not altitude hold. Check the yaw damper, too.

 

Also, as Luke said, check your axis assignments. There's also a chance that some keyboard key associated with the controls is stuck. Or perhaps it would help to unplug any stick/yoke/pedals from their associated USB port, wait a minute or two, then plug them back in -- a friend had to do that periodically.

 

If you're using FSUIPC there's a slight chance something there could be messed up, though I think it's not very likely.

 

Larry N.

As Skylab would say:

Remember: Aviation is NOT an exact Science!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Reporting later than expected!

Have tried with a variety of aircraft and all have the same issue: left aileron up, right down. An additional issue is that yoke full-right/full-left flicks back to centre after a second or two, while manually still in the hard-over position.

Unplugged yoke, relaunched FSX and got identical issues with joystick. Calibration with both yoke and joystick (separately of course) suggests both are working perfectly.

Stumped!

 

Robert

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Sounds like he is starting from a "saved" flight that is imparting this unusual behavior on all aircraft.

 

Have you reset your default flight as suggested above? When you save a default flight, more settings than the selected aircraft and location are saved.

Tim Wright "The older I get, the better I was..."

Xbox Series X, Asus Prime H510M-K, Intel Core i5-11400F 4.40GHz, 16Gb DDR4 3200, 2TB WD Black NVME SSD, 1TB Samsung SATA SSD

NVidia RTX3060 Ti 8Gb, Logitech Flight Yoke System, CH Pro Pedals, Acer K272HL 27", Windows 11 Home x64

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The first thing I would do is unplug all joysticks, pedals, etc and try flying the 172 with the "mouse yoke" or the keyboard. You may not get very far - it takes some practice - but you will be able to see whether it's something about the program or something about your control setup.
[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
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This is just the usual malarchy. They throw modern hardware at an ancient PC, hook it all up to a amplified USB hub, and nothing works. Dah! And what are your sensitivities and nulls? Do you jiggle the yoke to 'find' the '0' position? If the software can't find '0' position it doesn't know what 'full' left/right is as it doesn't have a SET '0' reference point. Yada, yada, yada. Drivers? Windows 7,8.1,10? Version of FSX? New or Used yoke? Using both joystick and yoke? Plugged in at same time or one at a time and plug the other AFTER the 1st one is aligned and working good? It's a craps (roll of the dice) game sometimes. Cheesh!

Chuck B

Napamule

i7 2600K @ 3.4 Ghz (Turbo-Boost to 3.877 Ghz), Asus P8H67 Pro, Super Talent 8 Gb DDR3/1333 Dual Channel, XFX Radeon R7-360B 2Gb DDR5, Corsair 650 W PSU, Dell 23 in (2048x1152), Windows7 Pro 64 bit, MS Sidewinder Precision 2 Joy, Logitech K-360 wireless KB & Mouse, Targus PAUK10U USB Keypad for Throttle (F1 to F4)/Spoiler/Tailhook/Wing Fold/Pitch Trim/Parking Brake/Snap to 2D Panel/View Change. Installed on 250 Gb (D:). FS9 and FSX Acceleration (locked at 30 FPS).
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I've only just found some free time to look at this again.

 

As suggested, I tried a range of aircraft and all showed the same feature of locked ailerons.

With only yoke and pedals connected: Calibration indicated that yoke was working perfectly. But, in the aircraft when the yoke was turned left or right, it flicked back to centre after a second or two (the yoke in my hands still left or right). From outside the aircraft this could be seen in the ailerons reverting to their one-up one-down position moments after rotating the yoke and holding it there.

Disconnected the yoke and tried joystick after a relaunch of FSX; again calibration OK, but in action the results identical to the yoke.

 

Yoke was tried with about six default a/c and the Navajo.

Joystick also with same a/c.

 

So, the mystery remains unsolved.

 

Rober

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Robert, please open your fsx.CFG file with Notepad and search for "SITUATION=".

Please delete everything on that line after the "=" sign.

Save the fsx.CFG and launch FSX again.

Your default flight will now be the Air Creations Trike at Friday Harbor.

Select your Navajo (for example) and your local airport, and test the ailerons again.

Edited by tiger1962

Tim Wright "The older I get, the better I was..."

Xbox Series X, Asus Prime H510M-K, Intel Core i5-11400F 4.40GHz, 16Gb DDR4 3200, 2TB WD Black NVME SSD, 1TB Samsung SATA SSD

NVidia RTX3060 Ti 8Gb, Logitech Flight Yoke System, CH Pro Pedals, Acer K272HL 27", Windows 11 Home x64

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It doesn't HAVE to be the trike. It can be the C-172 at any airport. The trick is to make THAT the 'default' flight THAT LOADS WHEN YOU START SIM. Solves a lot of problems. Also Sim should not be installed in 'Program Files' folder but on root of HDrive (whether C or D, E, F, etc drive). Also having joystick AND yoke / pedals both plugged in may not work as expected due to 'xyz' (can of worms). Reality trumps Expectations (everytime).

Chuck B

Napamule

i7 2600K @ 3.4 Ghz (Turbo-Boost to 3.877 Ghz), Asus P8H67 Pro, Super Talent 8 Gb DDR3/1333 Dual Channel, XFX Radeon R7-360B 2Gb DDR5, Corsair 650 W PSU, Dell 23 in (2048x1152), Windows7 Pro 64 bit, MS Sidewinder Precision 2 Joy, Logitech K-360 wireless KB & Mouse, Targus PAUK10U USB Keypad for Throttle (F1 to F4)/Spoiler/Tailhook/Wing Fold/Pitch Trim/Parking Brake/Snap to 2D Panel/View Change. Installed on 250 Gb (D:). FS9 and FSX Acceleration (locked at 30 FPS).
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I've posted a response twice - but it has not appeared.

Just to say that I followed advice and tried other aircraft - about six of the default a/c as well as the Navajo.

I tried with yoke and joystick - each with the other unplugged - on each a/c. In all cases left aileron defaulted to up and right aileron down.

Calibration for each test showed yoke/joystick as working perfectly.

Interestng variant on the problem: with yoke/joystick hard right or hard left, the ailerons followed momentarily and then flicked back to default positions. Yoke/joystick in the cockpit on screen similarly moved back to centre position even though the control in my hand was hard over.

 

What next? I'm begining think I should just wait for the new FS - but I might have to wait a very long time, meanwhile paying for Navigraph data! But I don't like giving up.

 

Robert

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Have you followed advice about clearing everything after Situation= in your FSX.cfg? Have you followed advice about starting FSX without any hardware controllers plugged in?

 

Have you tried setting everything to default in your control buttons settings?

Still thinking about a new flightsim only computer!  ✈️

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I followed all your advice - edited fsx.CFG, set everything to default and re-launched. Success!

Have done a couple of touch and go flights around Liverpool airport in C172 and Navajo - no problems.

 

Thanks for all your help folks, it took a while for me to sort it out - but I wouldn't have done it at all without help.

 

Robert

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