There is very noticeable lag between control inputs and actual control surface movement when an aircraft is airborne. I’m not talking about the natural delay that is always present, but an actual slowing down of the control surfaces.
Here is a video demonstrating the problem. To show that it is not a hardware issue, I am also showing the properties window for the controller showing a clear discrepancy in the speed I am moving the yoke and the speed that the aileron moves (compared to when on the ground when the control surfaces move correctly):
This is in the Just Flight Arrow but the issue is present in the default 172 as well.
I have reactivity set to 100%, and have verified in the controller sensitivity settings in MSFS that the ouput moves just as quickly as the input.
I suspect that this is some sort of intentional slowing down done to simulate the difficulty of moving surfaces with airflow, but it is really uncomfortable when what’s actually happening doesn’t match the input. Furthermore, this doesn’t seem to apply to rudder inputs, so making coordinated turns requires turning the yoke about half a second before applying rudder, which is really difficult to anticipate.
I suspect they have implemented that in an attempt to combat the twitchiness. Could you do another test where you pull the power all the way back while in active pause with the nose up a bit so the airspeed falls to zero? See if the controls react quickly. If they do, then that would mean the reactivity is a factor of airspeed.
It’s not a matter of sensitivity, it’s reactivity. Changing the sensitivity just changes how far the surfaces move in relation to how far the inputs have moved, but not the rate at which they do so.
All of my settings are at their defaults, importantly with reactivity at 100%
Yes, it seems to be a factor of airspeed. The effect appears to be less when I let the airspeed drop in active pause.
Out of curiosity, what is the twitchiness you are talking about? I’ve never experienced any twitching on the ground, so I’m not sure why I would in the air
Maybe twitchiness is the wrong word. It’s more sort of the aircraft being perceived as hyper sensitive to control inputs. Most yokes, and especially joysticks have a lot less range of travel than a real yoke or stick. Since there’s no force feed back, how far you move your control is the only tactile feedback you receive. IRL you have force applied as well. When flying a Cessna at cruise speed, the yoke pitch axis is very firm. The distance the yoke has to travel for fine pitch adjustments is almost not perceivable in your hands. The amount of force you apply is the biggest thing you pay attention too.
In the sim, this means that someone moving their physical yoke a small distance by applying 3lbs of force could inadvertently be applying 10-15lbs of force to the yoke in the virtual aircraft. This disconnect between force applied to the physical and virtual yokes combined with noisy and sometimes coarse potentiometers in the physical yokes can make the aircraft feel extremely touchy. To make matters worse, the amount of disconnect between physical and virtual changes with airspeed. For properly trimmed slow flight, the force applied physical and virtual yokes is probably very similar.
A lot of people were complaining about it and I think they may have added the reactivity vs airspeed inverse relationship to help combat this. There might be better ways to do it, I dunno. Maybe at least give users the option to control this reactivity vs airspeed ratio?