My feeling is that the Elevator trim position indicator gauge is showing the position on a wrong scale. In the widest range I use the trim, the position sign moves only on a tiny part of the displayed scale. It does not really help this way to follow or set the status of the trim.
During very low speed approach it is around the middle of the scale and during high speed level flight it is only a bit upper. It is practically impossible to learn and recognise the actual or needed status by checking the gauge.
What is your experience? Am I right? Should I open a trouble ticket at Carenado? Is it possible to make a custom mod for a fast fix?
I don’t disagree with your assessment of the trim gauge. I would however like to adjust your focus a bit.
In real flying, a trim gauge is only useful to ensure the trim is set for takeoff. As the plane is not actually moving at that point, an indicator is needed to ensure it is not out of range for a safe takeoff. In many thousands of hours I would suggest I never looked at a trim gauge while in flight. Just trim as required to stabilize the aircraft. That is never going to be the same setting twice, depending on fuel, density alt, airspeed variations, even how many golf balls you lost before reloading your clubs into the baggage. An indicator while in flight, serves no practical purpose and in fact, will take away from your intuitive flying skills.
I completely agree with you regarding real flight. But this is a sim and we lack many feedbacks (for example force feedback on the yoke), so such additional information would help. However my main concern is exactly setting/recognizing the takeoff trim position. I many time struggle right after takeoff to set the trim. After that I continuously adjust, so it is not so much of a deal.
And perhaps it is really not realistic that the indicator has such a small moving range, so why not to fix it.
I further checked the elevator trim gauge using FSUIPC and FS Interrogate. With these apps I could check the actual tri variables and its value. The elevator trim value is stored as a two bytes signed integer with possible values between -16383 and +16383. The trim indicator gauge covers this whole range. I.e. if the value is -16383, then the yellow sign on the indicator is at the very bottom of the scale. If the value is +16383, the yellow sign is on the top. However based on my experience the realistic values lay between -3000 and +3000. So less than 1/5th of the complete scale is used.
Do you know any fast temporary fix possibility or could only Carenado change the behaviour of the gauge?
As long as the gauge correctly show you that you are at TO on takeoff, that’s really all that matters was the takeaway, I think. The scale might be off, but no one is going to look at that to determine whether they are trimmed while in flight. They are going to see that, and feel that through the yoke.
