Questions about control sensitivity and twitchy aircraft are quite common on here and a recent video I watched raised a question in my mind
When you drive a car, the steering wheel turns the wheels by a fixed amount per rotation. But as you go faster, it feels more sensitive and you have to keep the movements small
The same idea applies in aircraft. At low speeds, the controls feel sluggish as there is less air travelling over the control surfaces. It takes big movements to make small changes in aircraft direction at low speeds and small movements to make big changes at high speeds
How well is this modelled in the sim? I ask because it barely feels like it is modelled at all. Most aircraft are uncontrollably twitchy with 0% sensitivity and 0% extremity dead zone, especially at very low speeds during landing
If you watch a real life cockpit video during landing, you see these big movements that the pilot has to make of the controls to make the aircraft respond. I seem to remember seeing something about this being dumbed down in the sim to not make flying too hard for people. But excessively twitchy aircraft is maybe a step too far?
I find that the best way to fix it is to use extremity dead zones to create a flatter, linear response. But this doesnât work on high wing aircraft where you need full aileron deflection on the ground in a crosswind to stop it from flipping over. Also doesnât work in tail draggers where you need full elevator deflection on the ground to stop the brakes from plunging your nose into the dirt
How do others feel about control sensitivities? Would some kind of a sliding scale of control effectively be a thing where you can replicate real world response if you wanted to?
Remember that most YT videos show landings that are not easy, glide to the runway, types. I have been on many flight decks where the PF only had to do very small corrections and was not trying to make whipped cream. There is also a big difference between FBW and stick-cable-flight control aircraft. On as FBW aircraft you can do big movements that are impossible on a non FBW aircraft. There is not a single setting that would be okay for all aircraft. There is a BIG difference between a 737 and an A320 in this aspect.
Personally, with my experience on small GA aircraft, I find the control inputs to be pretty accurate (at default settings).
Yep, same. Some time as an SP - the small a/c, both Asobo and 3rdP feel ârightâ from a handling view.
Also, folks tend to overcorrect a lot if they donât fly the sim often, or spend time in a specific type a/c. The muscle memory to teach someone not to overpitch on T/O for example - that only comes consistently with practice.
Agree that you would rarely have to make whipped cream
But if we take the elevator controls on the PMDG 737-800 as an example as I have not only flown this aircraft a lot in the sim, but have also flown this aircraft in a fixed, full size training simulator. If I set default 0% sensitivity and 0% extremity deadzone on the sim for a linear, full range elevator response, the slightest touch causes huge changes in attitude, especially when trying to flare on landing. Meanwhile in the full size simulator, you pretty much have to pull the yoke into your lap during the flare. First couple of landings I did in that, the instructor had to give a lot of extra pull on their yoke to make it actually flare as my movements were far too small thanks to the sim
Of course much of it could be hardware related so Iâll make it clear that I have a HOTAS one with TFRP pedals. Not ideal perhaps but trying to work with what Iâve got
I am simply not seeing that and I dare to say an aircraft with such a massive flaw could not have been voted best aircraft of 2023. I suggest you contact our support so they can assist you will solving this.
Iâm not really saying itâs a flaw in the aircraft, because itâs not. Iâm saying that it doesnât feel right that people (including me) are always asking the question of how much negative sensitivity you need to set to make our hardware feel more realistic due to the default settings making aircraft too twitchy.
More a quirk with the sim in general rather than the aircraft
What hardware you use makes all the difference in the world.
Unless you use a âlong throwâ yoke or some other controller with a large range of travel then using a 1:1 elevator response curve (except itâs straight) will inevitably cause excessive movement. This is true for all the primary controls. Likewise with Reactivity - setting it at default 100 will give bad results in some aircraft.
If you are lucky the developer will say what hardware devices they used to flight test and tune to the FM with and give suggested settings for different controller types.
Setting up the right sensitivity settings for each aircraft you fly is one of the most important things you can do to improve your flying experience.
Some simmers want it that you can just use default for every aircraft and device combo. But this is not a realistic expectation given the nature of the MSFS SDK.