Greeting Captains,
I’m new pilot, I’m finding the way how to maintain altitude and airspeed.
I’ve watched videos in youtube but could not copy properly cause I flight CJ 4 and it’s hard to maintain airspeed and altitude also hard to control. Could you please guide me how to in details?
Thank you
If you’re that new you need to fly something more suited to training than a jet. Unless you want to fly around on auto-pilot all the time anyway.
The tutorials aren’t a bad place to start.
If you want to do it anything close to like for real then once you can fly a route accurately without auto-pilot or GPS while reading a paper map and keeping check of your position on the map while doing your temperature and pressure checks every 10 to 15 minutes and can do that easily then that is a good time to updated to a more power aircraft. Though still probably not a jet.
If you’re new, I highly suggest you do the tutorials with the c152, then progress from there. Thats what I did first time 20 years ago, and in real life. Don’t touch the jets yet. Stick with the cessna props for start then move on.
I actually flight cessna 152 172 and g1000 as well 
but they are just for short journey
One more thing i’ve learned about pitch trim but could not understand clearly cause I could not know what did vid owner do with their controller ^^
I recommend practicing with a C152 or C172 at first.
To keep the plane at a constant speed, practice keeping the pitch constant.
If you’re flying in VFR, practice flying without changing the distance between the horizon and the dashboard.
When turning, do not change the distance between the horizon in front of you and the dashboard.
Adjust the altitude with the throttle.
Without moving the control stick, increasing the throttle will cause you to climb and decreasing the throttle will cause you to descend.
how to keep flying without changing the distance between the horizon and the dashboard? I’ve tried but could not stable flight, I’m using thrustmaster T16000 throttle and fly tick.
Not to suggest that the information provided above is wrong, I would like into clarify something I continuously read in sim forums/reddit. The practice of controlling altitude is being muddled a bit, I believe, by vague descriptions. Power is there to control airspeed and the elevator is there to control attitude. The combination of the two allow us to go up and down.
There are primarily three basic regimes in flight. Level, climbing and descending. They are all handled a bit differently. When in level flight, set power to desired thrust. Depending on the aircraft type you are flying determines how you set that power. Fixed pitch aircraft, simply adjust throttle to desired RPM. In constant speed aircraft use throttle to set the desired manifold pressure and prop/pitch controls to select the desired rpm. Turbine aircraft differ depending on configuration but generally you are simply setting thrust.
Once the desired power setting is selected for cruise, leave it. Adjust attitude only to maintain your altitude. As the speed stabilizes you will find you will need to continually make very small adjustments to maintain level flight. Use trim to relieve control pressure until the aircraft flies level, hands off. As long as you do not change power settings the aircraft will stay level. As fuel burns or people wander around the cockpit, weight and balance will slowly change and you may need to make minor trim adjustments.
If you find your altitude changes you need to do two things.
The other two regimes are climbing and descending. This is different than making small adjustments to maintain altitude. Depending on where you learned to fly and what age group you are in as well as the type of flying you do, the “correct method” for dealing with going up and going down is going to be different. They all achieve the same end. Suffice to say that there are three components but the order may differ and is always a good argument starter.
Attitude/power/trim.
Lets look at a climb. I am of the ‘attitude first’ school. I have found after 1000s of hours hauling around passengers, where the goal is maneuver in a manner that the passengers can’t feel, that this is significantly smoother than power first (Just my opinion).
To climb, I pitch the aircraft to my desired climb rate. Allow the airspeed to bleed to slightly above my target climb speed and smoothly apply the climb power setting. As the speed stabilizes I trim the aircraft to maintain the climb rate and speed. Upon reaching the target altitude, I pitch the nose down to my original cruise attitude and smoothly reduce power back to cruise setting, retrim as airspeed stabilizes and carry on.
Descending is power first to go down but attitude first to level out. Some instructors will say power first at the bottom too, but a very clean aircraft can accelerate VERY quickly if power is applied in a nose down attitude.
To descend I will reduce power and allow the nose to naturally drop to my desired descent rate and adjust power to maintain the target airspeed, usually cruise spd unless I am wanting to slow down for approach. Again trim out the control pressure once things have stabilized. Once reaching my target altitude I simply bring the nose back to cruise attitude and smoothly return power to cruise setting and a minor trim adjustment has me back flying level.
As you have probably noticed, I am using attitude/pitch to control my altitude and power to control my airspeed. That is how we fly in the normal ‘power curve’. This is the region of flight where we are managing a minimum of drag and the aircraft is its most efficient. There is another side to the curve. This is what we call ‘Slow Flight’. It is the backside of the power curve where smart pilots normally don’t fly but must learn to transition.
When taking off we pass through the slow flight envelope as the aircraft lifts off. It is creating a large amount of drag and only the mill pounding out full power will keep us from falling out of the sky. We also pass through this envelope on landing. As we slow to landing speed, we raise the nose. In your 172 you keep pulling the nose up until the stall warning beeps (hopefully only a couple feet off the ground) but the aircraft keeps descending. The harder you pull the slower you go. No amount of control input will get the aircraft to climb at this point without significant application of power. You are now in the world where ‘Pitch controls airspeed and power controls altitude’.
BONUS: Extra credit…
This can be used to your advantage if you want to softly touchdown on a muddy dirt strip out in the bush one day. Just as that stall is about to chirp, add some power to hold the aircraft just off the muck then without changing pitch, gently reduce power to settle the wheels to the ground. When they touch pull the nose up to kill more spd but maintain power so the wheels don’t sink into the mud. When at a safe spd you can reduce power, settle and mush to a halt. You now have plenty of time to re-read this long post. You won’t be taking off again 'til the strip dries out.
This is really only true when you are already trimmed perfectly for level flight
yes, I still don’t know how to trim perfectly for level flight.
Thanks for your advices. When I pitch trim up about 3 degrees to gain altitude after go to 2000ft I trim to 0 position but aircraft still not stable, up and down and could not keep 2000ft. Could you please explain?
Yup.
Ignore the trim numbers.
They are of no interest to a light aircraft pilot.
Trim should be thought of as a way to hold the attitude you want. It is not a control surface in itself.
When you hit 2000 ft, level out with pitch (elevator) using your stick or yoke. Initially you will need to keep holding forward pressure to hold the altitude. The amount of pressure needed will increase as the speed increases. Once the speed has stabilized, start adding nose down trim one notch at a time and slowly reduce the amount of pressure until you can let go of the stick and the altitude remains steady. Likely you will have to add and reduce a couple notches a few times, back and forth until you find that sweet spot. It is a lot harder in the sim than IRL because you can’t feel the pressure change in your hand. With practice you will be able to level out, make a small adjustments and go get a coffee.
The same when climbing. Don’t pay any attention to the trim numbers. Pull the nose up gently with the stick until you see 1500 fpm on the VSI and hold it there. Assuming you are flying the 172, let the airspeed drop to about 70 then add enough power to keep it there. Once the speed stabilizes, trim nose up in small adjustments until you can let go of the stick and it will continue climbing at 1500 fpm at 70 until the air gets too thin.
MSFS is not so accurate that things will remain stable indefinitely so minor trim adjustment will be required occasionally. Just remember to make very small changes, wait for things to stabilize then adjust again if required. I have trim mapped to my hat switch on my stick so that quick single clicks allow me to make little changes or hold for a second to make bigger adjustments. Trim on a sim takes a while to get the feel but it will come. Again, don’t fly with trim, use trim so you don’t need to fly.
And also because In it’s current state, it’s quite inaccurate. Planes in the sim are currently not very aerodynamically stable. Because when you set the trim and let go, it oscillates up and down for way longer than it does IRL before settling into a fairly constant speed at pitch.
How do you use the trim in this case? The trim is not meant to use as a flight control. You should use trim to remove control forces, how can the aircraft enter a phugoid if there is no change in pitch moment?