Interesting, I have not any issues with getting the aircraft to stabilize at a specific altitude not using autopilot. However, it does take some handling and trimming. How do you approach an altitude?
When I am about 50ft from altitude, I start to level off and then let the speed pick up before setting cruise power…
EDIT: I also usually set my cruise power base on the POH, I usually set power for about 65% I find tha give me the best cruise speed and range.
I believe the rule of thumb is to start levelling off at a height difference of 10% of your vertical speed before you reach your desired altitude. For example if your cruise altitude is 10000’ and you’re climbing at 600fpm, start levelling 60 feet before final altitude (e.g. 9940’).
Generally I didn’t have issues with P28R even during 2-3 hour long trips, obviously without using the AP hold (which isn’t in the real aircraft anyway). Some minor trim adjustments had to be used now and then, but it didn’t resemble porpoising. Not sure about the latest version and SU8, as I haven’t tested either.
I just tried that power setting of 65% (I assume you mean the propeller?) and then minor adjustments with throttle and trim. It worked, thanks for the suggestion.
My attitude indicator failed shortly after take off, Im using Randfailures2020 to generate random failures, which meant the autopilot couldn’t hold level flight, so instead of returning I pushed on and just hand flew it for the 1hr 20min flight and didnt have any trouble holding altitude with just minor corrections every now and then.
Is it normal on climb after takeoff to have to push the nose down to maintain a vertical speed of less than 1000ft/min? Max power, max rpm airport not far above sea level. I can’t be sure but I don’t recall it being quite like this before SU8
The Arrow is notoriously nose down at cruise. Makes for great views. I think this is how it really is. Wonder what others who know more have to say.
When did you last update the plane? There have been some changes to trim.
Running 0.10.3 direct from JF.
Only other thing I can suggest is open the fuel and weight page before takeoff and fix the negative max payload bug introduced in SU8. I think I’ve seen it affect performance.
Otherwise I don’t think I ended up quite with nose down trim during climb, but I use a lot less trim than I previously did.
Thanks I’ll give that a whirl
That definitely seemed to help so 
Much more controllable in the climb. Need to find the post the beta forum to make sure I’m doing the right workaround
It’s pretty simple, just adjust the slider a bit to get it to realize that no, you cannot have a negative max payload, and then input your desired weights again.
Good job fixing the bugs that were found during the beta, Asobo 
It probably messes with CG calculations.
Maybe this is a GTN750 question, but here goes. The docs for the GTN750 say that the approach is activated when the transition is reached. Didn’t seem to happen for me in the Arrow III - going to KTOL there’s an RNAV approach to Rwy 07 with transition RANDL. The AP sailed the plane right past RANDL so I had to activate the approach myself, then the AP turned the plane back to RANDL to get on the right path. It seems that the approach needs to be activated just before the transition point is reached, which doesn’t seem right. I had the AP switched to ‘Omni’ by the way.
No replies on this, but a workaround is to put a waypoint in just before the transition waypoint and activate the RNAV approach just at the point. This keeps the AP on the righr track.
Hi,
I really love the Arrows but the horizontal yaw-oscillations have been a bit irritating and eventually pushed me from the Turbo to the standard Arrow III that at least for me is less affected by this.
Just stumbled across this tip and tried it, must say it worked out really well for me and the nose of the Turbo III is now more stable during for example approaches!
Noticed that the line-items in flight_model.cfg to be disabled are now called:
aileron_up_drag_coef
aileron_down_drag_coef
I realize that the original behavior might be realistic if not still connected to some sim-bug but I’m really enjoying the Turbo III a lot more now.
Thanks for the info!
Thanks for the tip!
I too became fed up of the Arrows, despite JF’s PA28 being my favorite GA in MSFS, only due to their monumental (to say the least) propensity to oscillate and yaw left and right like crazy at the slightest change in aileron during approach. No other plane in MSFS, third party or otherwise, and back when I was using Xplane 11 ever did this to me. Those Arrows turns themselves into dangerous pendulum on final.
Has anybody here ever flown a real PA-28? I hardly believe it’s realistic and they behave like this during approach, because I would tend to think that they would then be notorious for their ■■■■■■ landing maneuverability.
Is anyone sure these oscillations is not the core sim itself? I have started to notice this is a trend in SU8… With recent changes most of my planes are flying loose and yawing all over and twitchy or at least more so then they used to be even. I started debugging rudder code and various other stuff to see if it was a general issue and EVERY dev I have ever asked just ignores me lol.
I said very early on (and several times since) that the yaw axis is one of the weakest points of the core flight model. Introducing adverse yaw appears to have highlighted the problem, but as a developer I look at the fuselage which is defined as not much more than a cylinder, coefficients which no longer have any effect and am still wondering how to deal with the elastic band effect caused by the core flight model.
The only time I have noticed this, in what I might call an excessive display, is in the BN2 Islander when on final, or at slower speeds. It’s nose tends to want to waggle from side to side a lot. I can’t say I’ve noticed it in the Arrow.
I think the main problem with oscillations is the irregular terrain, over flat terrain is easy to keep altitude.
It is very common to see instant (not gradual) pitch in that conditions.