I’ve been leaning into learning more about rudder and aileron trim (no issues with elevator/pitch trimming) and want a reasonably realistic experience with these.
I think I’ve got the hang of it, but I want my trim availability per aircraft; as in, if the aircraft DOESN’T have these controls available (for example the Cessna 152 or the JMB VL-3), I DON’T want to be able to use it, thus forcing myself to fly it as I might in the real thing.
As it stands, rudder trim is usually available this way accurately, but it seems I can use aileron trim in ANY plane I’ve tried, regardless of whether the plane actually supports this.
Is there a realism setting I’m missing or something that is giving me the ability to trim regardless of which aircraft I’m in, or is this just totally normal behaviour?
The other issue with this, is if I trim the aileron at all in an aircraft that doesn’t have this control in the cockpit, I have no visual indication of what that trim is set to and no control option to reset it to 0 (as I do with the rudder trim).
Yeah, it’s just kinda wonky iirc – some planes respond to rudder and/or aileron trim events but don’t have in-cockpit controls for them.
You could disable the inputs on those planes for yourself by using an external input manager like spad.next or axis and ohs or fsuipc – these can automatically switch profiles based on selected aircraft, so you can have aircraft-specific profiles that simply disable those controls for those planes only, without having to manually switch profiles every time you change planes.
Alternately it may be possible to edit the aircraft.cfg files to disable unneeded trim features, but I couldn’t tell you how.
To my knowledge, some planes don’t have aileron trim in the cockpit but there is a trim tab set to a constant deflection throughout the flight. It is not totally unrealistic for such a function, unless you reached out from your cockpit and grab them inflight.
I believe there are GA planes that allow recentering the yoke in the air but cannot recall exactly.
I can’t add anything about how to disable the trim, but there is another aspect worth considering.
IRL if a plane doesn’t have trim in a specific axis it’s often (though not always) because it doesn’t need it.
So, I’ve flown in some bent Cessnas for example. But the control forces are so light in every axis but pitch that you wouldn’t notice it any more than driving a slightly misaligned car.
But almost all joysticks have some centering force, some quite stiff. As such, flying a slightly bent bird (or more likely having a slightly non-calibrated or noisy joystick) can be a bit of a chore in a way that flying that busted old rental 152 isn’t.
So, if it was intentional, that’s why I think many MSFS planes have additional axis trim that they might not have in real life.
@Vibstronium I might have to look into these. A didn’t even know there was such think as an input manager! I think the .cfg editing might be overkill in this scenario.
@Zwen0416, @Deacon8tor this is sort of what I’ve been reading around the place. Once in cruise, most trimming becomes almost irrelevant in aircraft that were designed without it. Interesting that MSFS includes it across the board (for the most part) to compensate the joystick action, as you mention.
@Bluesman4730 definitely the approach I’m taking now. If it’s a new plane, I simply navigate round the cockpit and if I can’t find rudder or aileron trim, I just won’t touch it. I guess I was wanting confirmation that this was normal MSFS behaviour, and not a realism setting I had missed that would disable them for me.