Guys, I am using the default C152.
I have Gyro Drift switched On in the Assistance settings.
However, my DGI doesn’t drift.
I fly IRL in France where there should be some. I don’t know how much exactly but normally I recalibrate my DGI every 15-20 minutes I think roughly. In the sim, I can fly for 2 hours and the DGI hasn’t move at all.
Any idea ?..
I just flew around for a bit (much less than two hours) and got some gyro drift.
Ok that’s encouraging.
In addition to toggling on Gyro Drift in the Assistance settings menu, is there anything else obvious I should check ?
I don’t know if it matters but I fly in VR with the PSVR2.
Shouldn’t need to. Where exactly are you flying?
Alright. Mmh…
I fly in France. Normally there is quite a bit of gyro drift there. In our PA28 and C172 at the club, I will recalibrate the DGI every 15’ or so. Depending on if I use it or not…
But doesn’t seem to work in the sim. Wondering what it is I am doing wrong.
I do not have the version of MSFS2020 that has the C172 with steam gages so I use the C152 instead. Close enough for my purpose.
By the way, I also own the PA28 Warrior II from Just Flight and same issue.
I can try it again later if you want me to make double sure it works with the vanilla 152. I fly the 152 mod often and never had issues with it.
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If you don’t mind, yes please I would appreciate it.
And thank you for the reminder about the 152 mod, I forgot to reinstall it, it’s a great one. I have now done so but as it’s getting late here I will have to try tomorrow morning.
(do you happen to know how to remove the pilot/copilot in this mod ?)
I flew around for 10 minutes. After that I zoomed in on the heading indicator and then pressed D to quickly align the heading indicator with the magnetic compass and it did jump to the corrected heading.
On the tablet under settings.
@Maki152 Thank you for the response and the testing, appreciated.
I did some testing this morning with the 152 mod (latest version which took me a while to find on Discord !).
Where I fly is at latitude 44 so the apparent drift should be 15xsin(44)=10°/hour.
So, I left the aircraft at the parking for an hour with the engine iddling and hold and behold… when I came back the DGI had drifted by exactely 10°. So MSFS indeed models properly the apparent drift.
What I “think” is happening, is that I expect much more drift from the DGI because the airplanes we use at the club are old and the gyros must have large additional drift that compounds with the apparent drift: instrument drift due to frictions, precession etc which I presume MSFS doesn’t/can’t model. In other words, MSFS models (accurately) the apparent drift, due to the Earth spinning, but in reality gyroscopic instruments such as the DGI are subjet to other types of errors that MSFS doesn’t model.
I think I’m all good. Thanks again !
If you’re talking about “wear and tear” then yes. Microsoft doesn’t model that at all in MFS2020. Something that will hopefully be addressed in MFS24
Gyro drift is implemented extremely poorly in MSFS. Try my add-on that does it properly :
@ElectronVolt714 Thanks for pointing me to your addon.
I have tested it over a 4h flight this morning in JustFlight’s PA28 Warrior. Coincidentally it was entirely Noth-South so there wasn’t any transport wander, but the apparent wander+random drift did equate to the 10° circa I was expecting at the average lattitude of 45°. Personnally, I would like to see more random drift. As I explained earlier, I try to replicate what I have at the club and our DGIs drift a lot more than that, personnally I think the random drift can be a lot more than the 1° advertised, in the real world.
Is random drift something I can change myself in one of your config files, or is it hardcoded to 1°/h ?
Also I have a comment: I can’t talk for other airliners but for the B737, the RMI hasn’t been updated manually to the magnetic compass since… I don’t know but it must be many many decades, possibly never. Older B737 align automatically to the magnetic compass via a flux valve, and newer ones via the IRS/INS. In fact, I would be very surprise if any airliner must have its pilots realign its DGI/HSI/RMI manually… I would think that anything bigger than a PA34 must be equipped with a flux valve nowadays. In fact, even our PA28 has been equipped with one a few months ago. What I’m saying is, you need to worry about PMDG’s 737.
edit: ho, I have a suggestion, but I don’t know if that’s doable. In MSFS, in light aircraft that don’t have a flux valve, when you start a flight (cold and dark at the parking stand), the DGI/HSI is always aligned with the magnetic compass. In reality, that shouldn’t be the case, the DGI/HSI should point to a random position until manually aligned with the magnetic compass. Is this something that your addon can fix ?
That’s a good point. The Comanche does this very well. It would be nice for it to be simulated globally on non-slaved directional gyros.
I’m not sure about the PA28, but in some of the DR400s I’m used to IRL, there can also be a lot of “random” drift as well. This is particularly noticeable in situations like joining a circuit and performing multiple maneuvers at mid-power (like 2100 RPM or below). In such cases, the vacuum pump may not be operating at its normal efficiency, and the directional gyroscope might not perform its job properly.
I remember returning from uncontrolled airfields after making multiple slow turns, only to find the compass was off by about 10 or 15 degrees. If you forget to recalibrate it in such cases, there’s a good chance you’ll end up somewhere other than where you planned to, and of course I did forget a lot of times with my instructor chuckling next to me 
So this is one thing I’d like to use the simulator to train for, just to maintain an habit, but it doesn’t seem to replicate the issue accurately yet.
This aspect isn’t mentioned in the RealGyro documentation, so I’m afraid it’s not implemented. It would be great, but it seems rather designed for larger aircraft. When I have some spare time, I might create a specific addon for the DR400 or similar planes I’ll let you know if you’re interested.
Hey @CountedFan57061
Thanks for the feedback! RealGyro is a real niche application with very few downloads and even less users. So far, none of the payware add-on developers seem to understand / acknowledge this issues and want to implement a proper solution.
The random drift is presently hardcoded, but I could change it.
The start-up value being different from the mag compass is difficult, because i cannot influence the DG before the aircraft is loaded.
BTW Aerobatics are also known to upset the gyro. This is currently not implemented in Realgyro.