Acceleration comparisons

[horseback]

Regarding the trim characteristics of a certain airplane, this will have to do with stability and control. While contributing factors of the control surfaces can be modeled, the peculiarities of inception mechanisms (sticks, yokes, pedals, hydraulic augmentators, balance weights,... ) scarcely can be. Luckily, one can assign trim to axis and than use IL- 2 Joy proggie to adjust the response curve of the trimmer to one's liking .

While I'm all for maths and technobabble in their proper places, I feel that in a forum like this, they usually do far more to obscure than they do to explain.

As I've pointed out, the trim issue seems to be confined to a relatively small group of aircraft, and I've done extensive experimenting over the eleven years I've been playing this game and its predecessor with trimming methods and controllers. Button trim usually is the more accurate of the two, since it is input in quite tiny increments (about 160 clicks from one extreme to the other), and on most aircraft it is more than adequate, in the sense that you can get to a 'zone' where one more click up or down makes no discernible difference. However, on some aircraft the transition from one click down or one click up always seems to be excessive at any throttle/pp setting; you will either be climbing or losing altitude, in a slight skid or slide or rolling to one side or the other unless you hold your stick absolutely rock steady precisely at angle X/Y. On these same aircraft, I also notice that you need to trim precisely for very small changes in speed and power, or the penalties in performance and speed loss can be severe.

When it consistently happens with aircraft I know were easily trimmed for hands off or at least reasonably stable flight, I have to wonder why, when so many other aircraft described by contemporary pilots act as described in the game (or considerably better). If the programmers can simulate the trimming characteristics of plane A (the P-40 series) from records 70 years old, then how is it that planes B, C and D need to be adjusted at least 150% more often than the acknowledged worst trimming aircraft in the US inventory?

cheers

horseback