Keyboard and controller combination works well on flight sim
It’s just when flying towards a circle destination icon airport on the horizon at cruising altitude - I am drifting left and right from the target destination icon - and not flying in a straight line towards the circle icon on the horizon which is my destination airport
Question is when flying at between 2000 and 3000 ft in Cessnsa 152 - cruising altitude - what should my flap value be in degrees and what should trim % be - to get stable flying I terms of altitude speed and direction ?
Find that trim using number 7 and 1 on keyboard changes very well - far better than controller
Once your in the air no flaps unless your flying very slow. Other then that you flaps should be retracted while in cruise. As for trim that will change due to speed weight and weather.
The way I set the trim is fly to altitude, level off, set my speed to what I want to cruise at, at that point I release the stick momentarily, to see if I go up or down and then adjust the trim accordingly.
If your using the keyboard to set your trim, the keys will be ‘time sensitive’ ie the longer you hold down the key one direction, is the same amount of time you will have to push it on the opposite direction to negate the effect.
If your drifiting left or right of you line of travel, its more then likely the wind moving you, and you will have to manually compensate for that.
So flaps at 0 degrees when at cruise altitude I guess
What flaps should it be when landing at runway ?
Is it 30 degree flaps when landing ?
What I am finding is that altitude is going up very quickly 2000 3000 feet etc when flying to my target destination. I am having to pretty much continuously compensate for this by pitching up and down etc but this is affecting speed a lot with massive swings
If I want to say fly at 2500 feet going at say 80 knots how do I do this - stable altitude speed and direction towards my destination
My trim is keyboard input and controller for everything else
The problem is if I am too high - I pitch down and speed goes up, and if I am too low I pitch up and speed goes down
Assuming weather and wind etc is switched off - how do I do avoid doing this to get stable flying conditions ?
Noticed trim on dial goes in degrees with negative and positive values - don’t know what the impacts are on your flight of different trim values
Do I need to to reduce throttle as well
There is a vertical speed indicator to the right of flap and trim indicators- haven’t got the hang of how to change other parameters to get this to work in your desired way
There are a couple things you need to know.
Speed gives lift. The faster you go, the more you climb. To increase altitude, increase throttle.
The opposite to descend.
When you reach the altitude you want to be at, throttle back some.
What you then will have to do is use the trim to keep the plane level.
It is difficult to get the feel for trim in the simulator because when a plane is properly trimmed, just a light touch on the yoke is all that is needed. One finger will often easily move the controls.
As a plane gets out of trim the controls become harder to move.
In the sim, you don’t have that sense of feel.
The only way to trim in the sim is by noting the plane wanting to climb or descend on its own at an altitude.
When you level off, if the plane wants to climb you need to trim down. If the plane descends you want to trim up.
Every time you change the throttle setting, the plane will react by climbing or descending.
If you want to go faster at a given altitude, you increase throttle, and then trim down to prevent the plane from climbing.
Opposite if you lower the throttle to go slower at a given altitude.
It takes a LOT of practice in the sim to get the feel for trim.
Flaps are used to increase lift at lower speeds.
The slower you go, you will need to extend the flaps further.
At what speed you do this is dependent on the model of aircraft you are flying.
They are all slightly different.
When you extend flaps, you will get more lift and start to climb.
You will then need to trim down to prevent this.
Again, the opposite when retracting the flaps.
I hope this is some help!
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Thanks for the info
My plane is cessna 152 - same make as that in tutorials
So the flap settings at cruise altitude is 0 degrees I think - is that right ?
Should the flap settings be at 30 degrees when I land ?
Do know what retract ot extend flaps means in terms of what the flap dial should show in terms of degrees.
It’s a case of say when flying to 2500 feet at altitude this what I do I think to get level flight
1 Fly to 2500 feet
2 Reduce throttle a bit once at this altitude
3 See how the plane reacts accordingly - if plane wants to descend trim up, and vice versa
Think this should help hopefully
Yes, you have the idea.
Extend flaps means to increase the angle.
Retract means to decrease.
Here is a speed chart for the 152 which may come in handy.
Thanks for the detailed info
So for Cessna 152 it is flaps 0 degrees or 10 degrees on take off
Then cruise to whatever altitude and speed you require
Then on landing it’s flaps 30 degrees
It’s really knowing how to gradually reduce my cruising altitude without increasing speed but by bit on approach to landing
Yes, you have the idea.
To descend, reduce your throttle( you don’t necessarily need to go too far), and then trim to get the rate of descent and speed you want.
You will need a bit of trial and error to find the right throttle position and trim settings.
It is kind of a balancing game!
Apart from the speed and altitude indicators which I can see how they are changing - there is another dial to the right of flaps and trim I think on the Cessna 152 which shows an important parameter - not sure what it shows
This is in external camera mode
It might be rate of descent possibly - guess I need to learn how to use this dial or possibly others
After awhile it will become 2nd nature to you, you wont even have to think about it to do it, as for flaps at 30 when landing I personally use 10 for landing as well as taking off, I can keep a bit higher speed on approach, and if something does happen where I’d have to abort the landing I still have enough air speed for the go around.
The only times I use full flaps is when taking off and extremely overloaded, or landing on an extremely short landing strip.
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That is your vertical speed.
It tells you how quickly you are climbing or descending, measured in feet per minute.
Guess I need to keep an eye on vertical speed - especially when going from cruising altitude gradually descending down towards landing
How many miles out from the landing runway on Cessna 152 do I need to do this - that’s descend from cruising altitude gradually - about 10 km out ?
The easy way is to multiply by 3
So if you are are at 10,000 feet take the 10, multiply by 3 and that gives you 30 miles away.
For the start I wouldn‘t care about formulas, descent path and top of descent too much. Fly around in the cockpit, keep an eye on the speed and get a feeling for the airplane. And get to know the distance between the nose f the airplane and the horizon :D. And for god‘s sake invest a few bills and buy yourself a joystick with twisting shaft (z axis) and throttle. The increased travel of a joystick will make your life a thousand times easier.
Fly straight ahead and search yourself a point in the distance and fly there. Once you are there look for another landmark and fly there. Play a bit with the throttle and understand the reaction of the airplane. Go into wide turns, compensate the loss of altitude with the throttle and elevator and do that until you can predate what will happen. Might take a few hours but it‘s the very basics that every student pilot should start with. Drop some flaps and notice what the airplane will do. Anticipate this behaviour and learn to counter it with the elevator. Alone for this you already can‘t really fly with the thumbstick, sry… waaay too twitchy.
That trim topic.
First and furthermost trim is not a flight control. You don‘t change trim to hold a flight attitude but to neutralize forces on the flight controls. If you have to continuously pull back the yoke or stick you trim back until the force is gone, in the sim it means until your yoke or joystick is centered. You already undestand: you can not trim by a value, that‘s total nonsense and IMO the percentage display in this inglorious HUD is a totally wrong approach on teaching flight. Trim is nothing but a force neutralizer. And that is why I said „trim back“ and not „trim up“. Up is wrong. You don‘t trim up, you trim nose or tail heavy. If you add your heavy suitcase in the back seat your center of gravity shift backwards (the tail becomes heavier) and your plane starts to raise its nose. So you have to push the stick forward to get the nose down. You don‘t want to hold the stick there all the time so you trim forward to get rid of the force and relax your arm. The force is strong in aircraft controls, I tell you.
Same with speed: higher speed, more lift on wings, more „down lift“ on elevator/horizontal stabilizer, ergo more nose up moment. —> push the stick forward. Same procedure.
Have fun 
learning is the most fun in aviation.
Great insight. Thank you.
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