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?
Thank you very much for the detailed exaplanation!
trim, trim, and more trim
Look at the artificial horizon, try and keep the wings level and the nose pointed right in the center not above or below the horizon, right on it. Hold the plane this way and check your airspeed every 5-10 seconds to see if it is increasing or decressing, this will happen for a bit and eventually the airspeed will be stable and about the same speed, now you’re maintaining Airspeed. Great!
Now, look how much manual holding is needed to keep this, are you holding the stick backwards, or forwards? lets say youre holding it pretty far backwards and not near the center. This means you need some nose-up trim to maintain the altitude. So, slowly start adding some elevator trim in, but each time you increase it you will notice now the position you have to hold the joystick in is changing, moving closer to the center and you may need to relax your grip a bit and its getting easier to hold this altitude.
Throughout this whole process, make sure the airspeed is stable and you’re holding the altitude using the atitude indicator and scanning the alitmeter as a cross reference. Now, back to trimming. Keep slowly adding in trim, wait about 20 seconds for the plane to react, adjust your hold to maintain altitude again, then repeat this process little by little until you eventually end up with the joystick centered, and no more trim is needed. Now, you can relax and let go of the yoke, and you will be maintaining altitude and airspeed.
It doesn’t always work out perfectly, a lot of times you will let go of the yoke thinking that you’ve got it trimmed nicely, only to find that when you let go, now your altitude is increasing or decreasing. This takes a lot of practice to get perfect, and you have to repeat the trim process when this happens, it is tedious! and in real life no where near this hard because you can get a “feel” for the plane’s response to your trim changes. But we only have the pressure needed on the yoke to tell us if we are in trim or not, sadly. So it is one of the hardest parts of this SIM, i think!
and, these steps only help with straight & level flight. Trimming for a climb, or for a descent, is even harder! You go through a similar process, but instead of trying to keep the attitude indicator level with the horizon, you try to keep it at one of the lines above or below (climb or descent).
It takes a lot of practice, and I don’t think it comes naturally to anyone at first. I would spend hours just trying over and over again to get a plane in trim for a climb, for level, and for a descent. The best advice i can give is to make sure to wait at least 20-30 seconds before making any big changes with the trim setting. It’s not obvious at first, but the plane takes a while to react to trim adjustments and if you don’t wait for it to do that, you will just end up chasing the trim up, down, up, down, over and over.
Worth saying also, some planes you will never be able to maintain an exact altitude. it is very normal for a plane to be considered “trimmed” but still it is moving maybe + or - 100ft up or down from where you want it to be, this happens in real life too. You will never have it at exactly 6000feet for more than 20 mins hands off, for example. For that level of precision, you will likely need autopilot.
The CJ? The irony is there most people venture into something like a jet well after many hours in smaller GA aircraft learning the basics of flight. By the time you ‘move up’ to the CJ, the vast majority of the flight is management of automated systems. You’re not really trimming out a CJ at 41000’, Things are happening way too fast. Maintaining honest alt/airspeed in a C152 is plenty challenge enough to get started. Even the circuit lesson for the 152 isn’t the easiest for a seasoned pilot to nail it.
Moved to User Support Hub Aircraft & Systems that is more appropriate for community support.
You are flying with a T.16000 flight stick.
This stick with buttons mapped for trim along with the keyboard buttons mapped for trim will not give you the fine control you need to adjust the trim properly.
If you try, you will be up & down.
To get the proper control, you need an encoder wheel (knob)
or an axis that will let you set the trim to exact level flight.
Don’t expect to be able to trim to level flight.
The encoder must be mappable as an Axis, adding this because I have a “rotary encoder” wheel built into the logitech AP panel, which does not solve this issue at all as it only sends a button press up or down when scrolled up or down. Moving it fast just holds the button down. So yeah you’re right but hopefully OP know’s what you mean by this. Do we know what off the shelf hardware meets this criteria? Maybe good recommendation if OP can’t get it with buttons.
Not sure OP has the $ to drop on a peripheral to solve this.
I have the TCA Sidestick (T.16000M based) and using the built in Elevator Trim Up & Elevator Trim Down keybinds mapped to the hatswitch ontop of the joystick works fine to trim out most planes. I really don’t have any issues with the buttons and use them more than my trim wheel, then use the wheel to dial it in.
Sure you might not get a 0.0000001 level precision with buttons alone, but you can always move the throttle a tiny bit to compensate for that if you’re stuck in a slight climb or a slight descent.
Do expect to trim to level flight. Lots of people out there without rotary encoders achieving level flight with throttle & default keybinds for trim. I have flown the Blackbird PC-6 at 11,000FT over terrain for a full 2 hour flight without any autopilot at all. I didn’t deviate more than 200ft altitude. I did have to retrim a few times but was straight for at least 15 minutes at a time, it was very enjoyable.
OP, keep trying! I promise you will get it with practice 
and its very satisfying when you do! Another piece of advice is to do this over open water. The terrain affects turbulence significantly in this sim and if you’re going over constantly changing terrain, it can make trimming harder.
It would be worth learning in a less complicated plane though, as if the plane has rudder & aileron trim as well, these trim settings can inadvertently cause elevator trim to be more difficult. For example with a stick, if your aileron trim is not set for wings level, then you will be holding some slight left/right stick and its near impossible to do so without affecting the pitch of the plane as well. Once all are trimmed happy days though. You can leave that stick alone for some time
** oh wow sorry to necro this post just saw the date. Hope my posts are useful to someone.
