Video above for reference. Extreme veer to the right during taxi and takeoff. Even full left rudder and it still happens. Let up just a bit off the rudder and the plane goes into an uncontrollable veer as you can see in the video. Everything just wants to go hard right. It doesn’t happen ALL the time, but most of the time. Sometimes a bit less severe than shown here…but still clearly not right.
Logitech Saitek Pedals
50% sensitivity and 10% dead zone
Rudder control is not mapped to anything else by mistake. Just the axis on my pedals.
I can’t see the video, it says mime type not found. But as Solo said above, make sure you correct for crosswinds. Also know that different aircraft can handle different amounts of crosswind so it is possible that you do not have enough rudder authority to be able to take off.
In the real world we would have to wait for the winds to die down or change direction before taking off if they are too nasty. I’ve had days where I just had to go home because the winds were outside the legal limits for my aircraft and were going to stay that way all day. This is a reason why many airfields have multiple runways at different compass directions.
Most aircraft have more horizontal surface are behind the center of gravity/yaw rotation point, then in front. This is due to the large are of the tail and empennage. The crosswind hits this surface, and in your case pushes it left, causing the nose to turn right. The stronger the wind the more rudder is required to keep the nose straight. Eventually you reach a point where it requires full rudder to keep the nose straight. If the wind becomes any stronger, there is no longer enough rudder authority to overcome the yawing motion the wind creates. This is the reason aircraft state a maximum crosswind for takeoff and landing.
The maximum demonstrated crosswind component for the Cessna 172 is 15kts. The wind in your video looks significantly stronger than this. Possibly 25kts.
Your only option at this airport, in these conditions, is to find a more into wind runway.
i think the cross wind effect is a little over done in the sim which does not help with directional control on the takeoff roll, basically you have to be super precise with your cross wind correction on take off and landing, at least thats what I have found with the honeycomb yoke and CH rudder pedals
As explained above, the normal reaction for an aircraft subject to a strong crosswind is to turn into the wind. This, combined with the forward motion already present, means that most excursions from the centerline in crosswind conditions actually occur on the upwind side of the runway, or into the wind.
Before they changed the sensitivity settings I had my CH pedals around -75% or something sensitivity and it helped, still didn’t look the smoothest with the 152. Haven’t found a sweet spot with the new settings yet.
Regarding the video, I’d think that Boston would have a runway option available that wasn’t a 90 degree crosswind.
Thanks for the tips everyone. I feel silly for not realizing it, but after a few tests with calm winds, I do believe this is being caused from strong crosswinds. Hence why it happens sometimes, and not others. I guess we all start somewhere!
Most of my departures are from Logan, and surrounding airports…a typically windy area in general. That would explain why it happens frequently.
I guess I never realized just how much of a factor cross winds can play in takeoff. Happy to know it’s nothing wrong with my setup.
Yes, I believe the winds were 22 kts to be exact in the video. I never really took that into consideration. Still learning the ropes! Appreciate the easy to understand explanation!
Check to insure you do not have ailerons linked to control rudder under the “Assistance” settings. (This would normally be used only when your flight sim setup does not include separate rudder pedals).
When taking off in a crosswind, you need to hold aileron into the direction the wind is coming from. I.e. right aileron with a right crosswind. Rudder inputs alone are not sufficient to maintain the runway centerline with a crosswind.
Yes, left rudder to stop the wind blowing the tail to the left, and thus the nose to the right, then right aileron to stop what happens later in the video as the plane tips over to the left.
This is just a crosswind situation as you say.
Other than maybe tweaking your controls so you are more comfortable with making precise rudder input. You mention -50% sensitivity. I have mine at -29%. I also have no deadzone configured. It might be worth tweaking both those settings until it feels more comfortable. Try manually configuring crosswind weather at lower speeds, then slowly work up while being able to maintain the centre line.
This sounds like a good idea. I have never really felt 100% comfortable with my rudder settings…I’ll just have to put some time in and tweak them more.
Just tagging on here.
I have the logitech pedals and am having difficulty in setting up toe brakes. My foot travel does not allow for getting full effect of the brakes. Even moving the pedals closer has helped only a little. Messing with sensitivity makes changes but hard to know exactly what is happening on xy axis.
I wouldn’t fly in a C152/172 etc with a crosswind of more than 12 knots either in sim or real world. That’s my personal minimum. Having said that, it can be done, if an experienced pilot is doing it. Look up in youtube and see how easy it is to destroy your aircraft and your life by not respecting the wind.
Tried to do two touch n goes and a full stop at the handcrafted ROKR in Japan few days ago while there was a 20 knots crosswind gusting up to 35 at that time. Was a complete failure. Couple that with MSFS’ mechanical turbulence in and around mountainous area/terrain.
Either disable live weather and then choose the calm weather preset, or wait for the live weather (both in the sim and real world) to calm down.
