Amazing sim, I must first add, wow, congrats, thanks, from someone who started on FS when it was still green screen only! I’ve mapped elevator trim up and down to my Saitek X52 trim hat but it is miles too insensitive. I had a private pilots licence in the 90s, long expired sadly, and trimming a plane quickly is a vital tool in any phase of flight - after take-off, level flight and on approach when you’re bouncing around in turbulence. It usually just requires a just a little up or down pressure on the trim button. I use other sims (DeeCeeEss) where it works properly but in FS 2020 it is way too slow. Do others have the same issue? Any tips appreciated. So many places left to explore in this amazing FS world…
I’m pretty new to flight & a beginner …was wondering what the trim meant.
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Trim Systems are considered to be a “secondary” flight control system. By definition , to “trim " an aircraft is to adjust the aerodynamic forces on the control surfaces so that the aircraft maintains the set attitude without any control input
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I did set buttons for trim and tried to use them cause I thought i read somewhere it helps with holding the nose of the plane slightly up or down…
But had the feeling these buttons do not do much for me ,so i just keep pulling the stick back & forth
instead
Hi there,
How is trimming on your Saitek now?
I think the general consensus is that trim is too sensitive:
I’m wondering if this is something Saitek-specific.
Hi, the trim discussion confuses me as some say it is too fast and some say too slow. There are two possible mappings in my view:
Firstly Elevator Trim Nose Up and Down is mapped to the up and down buttons on the silver hat on the joystick where trim is usually situated on a real plane. This is way to slow. It takes forever to get any reaction. In DCS for example a few presses on the same button trim the plane like in real life. I don’t think this is Saitek specific as it is just a button press. Three or four presses should stabilise you but it takes too many to get any reaction. I’ve taken to ignoring it and using the yoke but that’s not realistic. The Saitek X 52 Pro yoke is nice and heavy so that helps.
Secondly I recently have mapped the Elevator Trim Axis (-100 to 100%) to the small wheel (no 31) on the throttle handle, trying to emulate the trim wheel in real planes. This is way too sensitive, slight movements lurch the plane up and down but I use it as a ‘major’ trimmer to try to get some trim control, mainly in the outside view so that you can watch the trim indicator, usually a bit trim up. It is extremely sensitive though and induces rocket like climbs and dives which are not aeronautically sound. This is the R axis in the sim and over sensitivity could be a Saitek issue. I need to play around with the sensitivity settings on this. If I get it to work nicely will post a reply.
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Hi TripsyTipsy, when learning to fly you have an instructor hollering ‘Trim, trim trim!’ in your ears all the time:-) On take off it’s usually set slightly up or neutral but the minute you’re in the air and stabilised you adjust trim to keep climbing at the best climb speed to take the pressure off the yoke, otherwise you are forever fighting it. Same in level flight and on landing. To check it you adjust it and then take your hands off the yoke to check. In level flight the plane tends to dip down or climb slightly so you tend to adjust trim rather than use the yoke, usually climb a little higher, than adjust it slightly nose down and it sort of captures the ‘step’. It is used hugely and the reason people moan about it so much as it affects every phase of flight.
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Ye I do get the feeling I’m forever fighting the yoke when flying the plane & during the learn to fly tutorials I did notice the constant repeat “trim,trim trim” or while landing “dont sink,dont sink” a few days ago,during a regular flight with airbus.
But maybe “don’t sink” is more a question of adding more throttle/engine power than trim up/down,or a combination of both? Adjusting throttle too much is sometimes dangerous while landing I found.
Sometimes even adding more throttle slightly makes the plane go full throttle causing the plane to be at a too high altitude to actually land (& i can’t decrease trottle immediately when that happens,even pulling back the stick that normally decreases it,it does not respond then) ,then i cancel landing intention & go around
I have the trim set to the F3 up,F4 down used this tutorial to set up my joystick for flight sim
https://youtu.be/M7obRZuwwpc
I used the trim buttons while the instructor said “trim,trim” but was wondering if they were set to the right buttons because I didn’t notice them doing anything.Also not while flying the airbus. Maybe it takes longer.
Do i have to keep pushing the trim button? or do it multiple times?
You never ever trim when flying an Airbus (and incorrectly not even the MSFS 787).
The FBW flight path stability and autotrim don’t require trimming of the aircraft.
F3 and F4 are perfect for trimming (except that the buttons are reversed when you are used to real trim switches IRL.)
IRL you push the trim switch up with the thumb to trim nose down because you push the yoke forward as well to pitch the aircraft down.
You pull the trim switch down to trim nose up and you ‘pull’ the yoke back to pitch the aircraft up.
That’s the way you should trim IRL and in the sim;
First you establish the desired pitch attitude with the stick and then you push the trim button to remove the force required to hold the stick in its off center position.
If the stick is way off center, depending on the aircraft, you need to keep the button pushed for a loooong time.
Once the stick is centered, stop trimming and let go of the stick.
If the pitch attitude changes, readjust the pitch attitude and continue trimming.
The DON’T SINK should only occur when you are loosing altitude after takeoff.
Unfortunately there’s a bug since day one which means that the DON’T SINK warning also comes on if you are climbing after e.g. a touch and go.
Your throttle assignment seems to be wrong. If you apply ‘slightly more throttle’ exactly this should happen, nothing else.
If you are flying the A320 and this happens, the reason is most likely that you are simply flying way too slow. In this case the A320 stall protection will apply full thrust on its own.
To avoid this, simply stay clear of the amber area on the speed tape.
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Oh that explains, I was trying the trim on an airbus 
I’ll get in a smaller plane one of the days & see how the trim feels there.
I"ll be swapping the F3 & F4 before I get used to the reverse & have to unlearn it.Will have to do a few test flights to try out the trimming.
Maybe the French Alps,its a beautiful area.Flew over it going from Paris to Rome.Not sure if Italy has had the world update yet though.
Perhaps I better go for longer flight to test out trimming if it can take such a long time to center.Maybe I lack the feel of trimming to give feedback about it &
since Im not real pilot have no clue what feels realistic.I didnt even know its not needed in Airbus etc
But I did had the feeling trim wasnt doing much for me,logically it didn’t on an airbus then
The don’t sink happened in a landing attempt in bad weather where i had to land in a square pattern in my approach.Maybe i accidentally selected touch & go when my intend was a full stop landing.
Looks like i’ll have to recheck trottle assignment next time im ingame.
Its possible I was flying way too slow too. I find landing the hardest.
Thanks for the feedback,
Gonna test the trim on a small airplane & will report if it works then.Ofcourse as a real pilot you can compare it to trim in reality.
Which aircraft did you fly when this happened?
if this was your first landing of the flight, the DON’T SINK warning shouldn’t be triggered.
Are you sure that it wasn’t a SINK RATE warning?
Landing is by far the hardest IRL as well!
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Tripsy Tipsy, it’s great that you are trying to get your technique right for flying and not just hacking around. I would recommend one of the smaller aircraft eg the C152, C172 or C208. They have great cockpit visibility due to the high wings and are much more responsive to the joystick. I would map the trim to your black hat switch as that is where it usually is on a plane, single up and down switch. Does not really matter in FS2020 as the trim is so broken though.
The Alps is the most amazing places to fly. I attached two missions I love flying in the C208 or any of the other regular aircraft. All the airports are a bit tricky but stunning. The missions were generated in Simbrief and are not that long between small Alps fields.
For landing practice try some of the landing challenges in the smaller aircraft. You can usually reduce the recommended airspeed quite a bit as I find them too high. If you can nail Bugalaga in the C208 you’re doing great! On final try to trim to the approach airspeed aimed at the threshold and use throttle to climb or descend. When you cross the threshold pull up a bit and aim at the opposite end of the runway and cut the throttle and let the plane settle gently onto the runway. It’s just a repetitive exercise and the landing challenges restart quickly.
LFLJLFHM_MFS_08Jun21.pln (2.7 KB)
LFHULFLJ_MFS_06Jun21.pln (2.8 KB)
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@Maxax3 I tested the trimming in one of the flightplans you shared.Thousand thanks.Loved it but you won’t believe how often I crashed before I even took off I think the airstrip had a slope to it which caused me not to get enough speed in the uphill direction it spawned me for takeoff when I tried the other side of the airstrip it worked fine.
Managed to land eventually ,after several attempts
though the landing aid acted as if I didn’t land yet.It was a challenging landing & I did have to add throttle at the end not to end up in the trees.Maybe descended way too quickly & had to make it up with throttle to make it to the landing.Wasn’t a soft one either But a fun flightplan you shared there ^^ @ PZL104 maybe it was Sink rate after all…I do seem to have a tendency to descent & slow down too much during landing.
The trimming will require a lot more training for me. I do get the feeling its not always as responsive.At some point trim up/down works perfectely but at other points I was wondering if I set the right button.Or can it be that due to wind the trim does not respond or is cancelled out if you try to trim down against a strong upwards wind? I used the live setting in the flight & did encounter strong winds.
Wind doesn’t affect trim.
With light-moderate turbulence trimming doesn’t make sense do to the rapid changes.
You have to accept momentary speed changes and prevent the aircraft from climbing/descending with with the stick/yoke.
In severe turbulence you don’t even try to maintain altitude.
You maintain the present power setting and aircraft pitch and roll attiude.
Manual flying in a desktop sim is more difficult than IRL, even more with strong wind and turbulence.
Hitting the correct buttons in the sim is next to impossible as well.
Hence 90% of my flights are with all wind levels deleted in wonderfully smooth weather 
For a beginner and even experienced pilots Courchevel (LFLJ) is a very bad choice without specific airport training.
It’s one of the most dangerous and difficult airports in the world.
You can only takeoff downhill and land uphill.
Even landing uphill can be a challenge…
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Hi TripsyTipsy, apologies, I should have warned you that take off is only downhill, landing uphill, the missions are examples of nice but tricky Alps flying rather that easy ones to fly:-) I just love the scenery though. There are a lot of airports in the Alps in valleys you can try that are easier. Best is to select the correct runway in the world map before loading the plan or taxi to the correct end. Don’t bother too much with trim as it is very broken, I can’t get it to work properly, annoys the ■■■■ out of me. The turboprops like the C208 have more power for quicker take-offs too so they are better for the Alps. A good thing to practice is circuits and landings at an easy airport until it comes naturally. Enjoy!
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Care to explain? Trimming is essential.
@PZL104 it did take me like 5 landing attempts at Courchevel
When i did succeed I guess my speed was way slower as the airplane in the video because i came to a stop on the uphill part & had to increase throttle by a lot after landing to make it to the flat piece of the airstrip ,taxiing to the spot where that aircraft crashed in the snow in the video.
If wind doesn’t affect trim, I guess something was off for me as trim up/down wasn’t always as responsive.
at certain times it was & it did take some time holding the button up or down as mentioned earlier. But at other times during the flight i pushed the button
& nothing happend.& at one point suddenly the trim went downwards very fast without me pushing the button.So maybe there is some input lag there or so?
Maybe I should try the fight again in good weather without wind& live weather
@Maxax3 Its ok,it was the game that spawned me at the wrong side of the airstrip I was thinking “if the game spawns me here it must be possible” & since there
were hills at the end of the take off at that side I initially thought it was part of the challenge not crashing into them using trim or so.
so kept trying & crashing for a while It makes sense not being able to get enough speed to take off uphill ,it took me a while to realize it had a slope to it too
But at the side I kept crashing I realized after a while it had a slope & figured it would help me gain speed taking off towards the downhill side
It was lovely flight once i was able to take off.Maybe I was using trim too often,as I saw it as a way not having to pull/push the joystick back & forward that often using trimming to maintain altitude
so I was using trimming constantly next to pushing the joystick forward & pulling backward to maintain altitude…Maybe I overused the trim in that testflight
But if its broken maybe I shouldn’t bother that much with it for now. The question is if trim is not always as responsive,is it due a bug in data transfer or an input lag?
at one point i was pushing up very long without anything happening & then suddently the trim went all the way down without me pushing the button any longer ,even while pushing down to try to get it back up.Which didn’t help. Overusing trim might cause stall issues too ?
@PZL104
I went with a similar plane as in the crash video to recreate the scenario & couldn’t turn off live weather :d but made it eventually after 5 landing attempts
on this plane it felt like trim was more responsive could it be plane specific?While it felt more responsive doesnt mean its realistic yet per se I guess.Only real pilots could compare there
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Trimming in flight sim has always been a nighmare, when a developer manage to release a product that fix this it’ll sell like crazy
Yes, trim is plane specific and differs a lot.
Forget the comment about broken trim.
You simply can’t really fly without trimming, expecially not when you are using sensitivity curves.
Can you explain what the ‘nighmare’ is?
Btw, I wouldn’t buy it since it’s working without problems for me.
no issues wth trim here too, i think its mainly a question of what controllers(quality) and
hwo they are setup, and yes it will differ in different aircraft ofcourse.