I have a quick-n-dirty “model” of a certain friend’s plane livery that a person made for me to use in memorial service video. It’s based on a generic/template plane. The model has major trim issues and the creator has moved on to other projects. Whenever I fly the plane I have to give it 50% down trim and a bunch of right rudder to get it to fly straight and level.
Is there a way in MSFS to save the trim settings on a plane so that I don’t have to go through the extensive trimming each time I open MSFS to work on the video clip? Alternately is there something I can do in flight_model.cfg to make it come up trimmed for S&L? For example, maybe change center of gravity?
I have tried using AI-Pilot, but it can’t seem to find a stable setting probably due to being so far out of whack. I don’t need to really fly the plane. I just want it to fly S&L into the sunset for the video clip. Related to that do I need a starting and ending waypoint for AI-Pilot to fly S&L?
No one responded yet to your post. You should have received 2 notifications because I have added tags and I guess another one because I assume @Hester40MT moved it from category.
For the elevator trim, it’s into flight_model.cfg.
[AIRPLANE_GEOMETRY] section, line “elevator_trim_neutral”.
The value sets the default trim.
0 = neutral.
A positive value sets the trim to nose up.
A negative value sets the trim to nose down.
Unfortunately, the result obtained (in percentage or degrees of trim) is not the same from one aircraft to another. i.e. a value of 1 on one aircraft will give 10%, while on another it will give 7%.
In the absence of further information on the aircraft you used, you’ll have to proceed by trial and error.
For rudder trim, it’s into the .FLT files.
Section [Controls.0] line “RudderTrimPct”
0 = neutral
A positive value sets the trim to the right
A negative value sets the trim to the left
Note: you must set the value to 1/100th of the desired result. i.e. 0.1 = 10%, 1 = 100%.
Edit: To find out what values are needed, the easiest way is to fly, trim as best as you can and use MSFSHudBar wich with many other things will show you actual elevator and ruddertrim values. https://flightsim.to/file/16604/msfs-hudbar
Waiting for your results.
Two more things:
During tests, disable all kind of AI and assistance as they can interfere.
You can also try this workaround:
Once in flight and trimmed, use SkyDolly to record 10/15 seconds.
Save this record and replay it.
If it’s not a “too exotic” plane, controls and trims should be as you recorded them at the end of replay.
Hope it helps.
Solved the trim problem by changing the CG. I made the following changes to flight_model.cfg
empty_weight_CG_position = 1,0.4,0.2
rudder_limit = 75
elevator_trim_limit = 75
elevator_trim_effectiveness = 3
aileron_trim_effectiveness = 3
rudder_trim_effectiveness = 1
After this the plane flies straight and level from the start. “AI Pilot” flies it straight and level without problems, which is what I need.
Thanks! I was looking for the word “gravity”.
