I have a Fulcrum One which has the longest travel pitch axis of any home use yoke I know, super smooth and high res contactless sensors. Sadly it looks like they are out of business now.
They had a lot of supply issues - combination of COVID and Brexit.
I use a Fulcrum and it is fantastic - I have zero issues with the Kodiak, other than the obvious - do not go full throttle on take off and yank back on the Yoke/Stick like your in a 172 or maybe a Hollywood movie - it will bite you.
I hadnāt flown it in a while, been on a CJ kick and the new to me C414. Going from straight 10 hours with jets back to the Kodiak, did some ātestyā bush stuff and a couple by the book little fish in big airports flights. Smooth as silk to operate no issues at all. Less twitchy than the C414(twitchy not in a bad way). Actually felt amazingly easy like comfy shoes. Reemphasizes how well this model represents getting tugged around with the power of a TP and you can feel itās aerodynamic profile pushing air molecules and weight so instinctively.
Had to land it a couple times, first time at Ft Lauderdale I set it in like it was St Barth and had to make a long drive to the first taxiway. Had to deprogam to accept thereās an actual real runway available.
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I havenāt flown the Kodiak in a few weeks, so today I decided to try flying in South Florida again.
No autopilot today.
I have a short flight from North County airport, heading directly south, then turning east for a direct approach to KPBI.
I have custom weather set for light clouds with a 5 mph per hour wind, set slightly from the southeast, for a light crosswind landing.
After taking off, then turning south, I pull back the power, and level off at 2,000 ft.
After about 40-60 seconds In level flight, the Kodiak acts as if Iām flying through huge downdrafts. It will start to suddenly pitch down, then level off.
After turning east, on my final approach to KPBI, Iām going about 95 knots, flaps partially extended, vertical speed at about -450 FPM. All a sudden my VS increases to about -1400 FPM, but my forward velocity is still at 100 knots.
I increase power more, to slow my descent, as Iām nearing the runway, Then I reduce power a little and fly the plane down to the runway, and make a decent landing, using reverse thrust, then brakes.
Iām flying the Kodiak with the cargo pod, just me and the co-pilot, but it feels like the CG is moving around, causing both level flight, and the descent, to be unstable.
A few days back, when flying the pilatus Porter, at the same location, with the same custom weather, The plane flew straight and level, and descended, predictably, without any instability.
I always start my Kodiak and Pilatus flights on the runway, with the engine running
I still have no clue why the Kodiak is flying as if I have huge gusts programmed into the custom weather.
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I am not doubting your description of events but whatever the issue is, the cause is not going to be a CG change.
The CG suddenly moving forward (in real life that would probably be due to loose cargo sliding forward) would result, if not corrected with elevator, in a nose down change in attitude and as a result an increase in indicated air speed. ( Correction would involve more down elevator to counter the increased moment from the CG change by creating more down force on the elevator. If you run out of elevator authority you are in serious trouble)
I do not doubt your observations.
Just pointing out that your final approach with a sudden increase in descent rate with no change in attitude or IAS cannot be the result of a CG change. Whatever is going on, the explanation is not CG.
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This sounds like a controller binding or mod conflict.
Itās certainly not normal behaviour for the Kodiak and far far beyond any sort of flight model sensitivity (if you doubt me, go watch one of my live streams using live weather on my YT channel).
I also fly the PC-6 extensively and in fact developed the latest iteration of itās flight model for BlackBird. It is more stable than the Kodiak (as in IRL) , but again not to the degree of difference you describe.
Problem sounds like itās at your end. Iād try a reinstall of your Kodiak and scrub over things to look for a controller conflict.
The Kodiak starts with far too much elevator nose down trim set by default (wheel at 9 oāclock position - needs to be more like 10.30 for a standard payload) Are you correcting this?
Iām also quite certain that it is not CG. I was just trying to describe that these spontaneous episodes of the plane diving down, or changing its rate of descent, could be approximated by a sudden change in CG, or very strong wind gusts.
Yesterday I watched several Kodiak 100 videos, by real pilots, showing slow speed flight, STOL characteristics. One pilot had the Kodiak fully loaded, climbing at a steep angle at 67 knots, retaining full control of the Kodiak. So, in real life, the Kodiak is super stable.
Check out this video, from last year, showing serious bugs, with yaw, near stall speeds. This video clearly indicates the possibility for serious white model bugs, either in the Kodiak model, or the MSFS API, for third-party aircraft.
For my next step, I will pick a location with cooler weather, higher altitude, just to see if thereās something going on with the SIM when flying in subtropical South Florida.
50% of my Kodiak flying is either the Caribbean or Southern Florida/Keys, have zero issues with this plane. The rest is Hawaii or Alaska Only thing I do is coming off of autopilot I give my trim wheel a tiny wiggle to āwakeā it and it matches whatever AP had it set to(which is infinite trim axis - click/stop trim settings probably are different). But thatās with every plane. And I run far less down trim on T/O. Maybe -10% to -15% and zero rudder trim, I fly it off the runway.
Videos from last year donāt really help - the flight models have gone through several changes since then.
Now the Kodiak is a very stable aircraft IRL as you say which is largely down to itās patented spilt wing geometry and the FM could definitely do with some improvement in this regard (p factor in particular is too high). Iāve made my own mods and have it flying very sweetly wherever. But even without these changes itās not normal to suddenly pitch down and drop out the skyā¦
What would really help are videos of your experience, a description of your controllers in use at the time and the sensitivity settings for you have used. Otherwise itās pretty hard for any of the experienced users to make an objective assessment.
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Update: Using my Turtle Beach yoke, with Flight Simulator 2020, on the Xbox series X, I flew the Kodiak 100 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Temperature is about 80 degrees. My custom weather is set to calm with 5mph gusts. I have very good internet bandwidth (70-100 Mbps). Flight Simulator 2020, on the Xbox series X, produces excellent graphics quality and stable frame rates. I level off and fly at 2,000-3,000 feet. I backed off the power, slowed down, then extended the flaps fully. Now I am flying at about 70-80 knots. With autopilot off, the Kodiak occasionally goes into a dive.
I contacted Ryan (Missionary Bush Pilot channel), to discuss the stability issues. Ryan confirmed that a ālightly loaded Kodiak 100ā, with flaps fully extended, should not stall until slowing to about 47 knots!
Can anyone fly the Kodiak that slow?
Here is a video that I recorded. https://youtu.be/G2aOo3s2KWo?si=NUJDXyWIbuhaR2Zj
Thanks for the video - speaks 10000 words!
Iām going to make my own video and explore this issue further (which is to do with the static and dynamic stability of the aircraft and whether it is positive, neutral or negative).
But there is one immediate issue - the custom 5knt ground-level wind layer you create will also create gusts and these scale with altitude. So unless you have consciously turned off those gusts in your custom layer, that is what is pushing you about. EDIT - watching your video again I can see that you have removed gustsā¦so not sure what is making the aircraft move aroundā¦looking more and more like a controller issue/conflict to me. Make sure there is no ānoiseā coming from the controllers on the ptitch/yaw axes and if so, set a small deadzone.
Also (and this is very important), make sure all the primary flight control inputs are turned off on your Xbox controller 
. Those are very noisy and will cause random inputs as shown in your video. But I think you use a mouseā¦curious!
But an aircraft with positive stability, like the Kodiak, should not be too affected by such gusts if it has been properly trimmed.
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Here is part 1 of my stability tests (using the existing FM)
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And part 2 using a modified FM. Interestingly the wind gusts seemed stronger over West Palm compared to Key West (video 1) , although I think thatās because I set a higher gust-frequency.
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Sounds like you have a pretty good understanding of the flight models used in the Flight Simulator. When I get a chance to fly again, I will try flying again, in WPB, Florida, using the default calm weather conditions, and also fly close to the best case stall speed (47 knots) with flaps extended.
There is definitely some issue effecting your Kodiak flight behaviour, but it is not the FM.
My top two contenders would be the:
-
duplicated primary flight control inputs from some other control device; or
-
ghost inputs from your TB yoke that only present with the Kodiak. On a PC this can often arise with controllers that donāt have an adequate power supply /use of an unpowered usb hub, but not sure how that would be on an Xbox.
It could also be that your Kodiak install is corrupted somehow. There is custom code and a WASM module and sometimes this can happen. Try a reinstall.
If it persists, Iād open a support ticket with SWS.
As for flying at Vso. Itās tricky with the current FM due to the amount of P-factor induced by the high AoA - uncontrollable yaw may develop. Thatās one of the reasons why I developed the modified FM and if you look at the last part of the 2nd video above you will see that I was able to fly with control right down to Vso and with a fairly gentle wings level stall at 46/47 KIAS.
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I was having fun with the Kodiak after a while and I noticed the glitch in the overlapping gauges in the MFD. On the PFD, the same engine section and gauges are Ok. I think on the MFD they are pushed down. I wonder if this is related to the latest WT / SU14 Garmin systems updates vs Kodiak requiring an update itself
And I love this Kodiak addon except that it is a scary aircraft. The moment I reduce power, it drops like a rock
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Here are the gauges ok, but Iām not using the GTNS-Mod. Try the default G1000NXi.
The issue with the powerlever and ādecendingā is here the same. Hoping for an unpdate too.
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Yes I have this Mod, I will disable it and try, thank you!
I confirm that the GTNS Mod was the cause and now I have the default NXI and looks lovely. thanks again!