Trim is sooo slow, Honeycomb Bravo

User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals
22

MS/Asobo has never stated that backwards compatibility would be maintained across updates. That is, a feature available on release Day One continues to work the same after SU8. If the feature is working differently in SU8 doesn’t mean it is broken and needs a fix. Although from the user’s POV the feature is broken and needs to be fixed. This would drive me crazy if I was a 3rd party developer.

In my opinion, Asobo is horrible at communicating about smaller issues, their status, their fixes, their workarounds. Unfortunately, I have no idea if my suggestions are fixes, workarounds, or maybe not even intended to address the trim wheel issue at all.

23

I always just edit the flight_model.cfg for the aircraft I am flying and increase elevator_trim_effectiveness. In the 172 for example I went from 1.0 to 3.0 and it is alright, but still not perfect.

24

I like it. The more slowly it is the more precise it is. If i need it fast i keep the button pressed.

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25

It could be okay if it wasn’t for how unpredictable it is. Slow turns create more trim input than fast turns and there is also a delay from when you trim IRL until it happens in the sim. It’s really not acceptable for an AAA-sim that’s been on the market for almost 2 years.

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26

The trim is supposed to be slow. It doesn’t act fast like a yoke. The whole idea is to find the sweet spot that would level the plane to a desired altitude.

Also, you have to engage the trim in conjunction with the yoke to level the plane and find that sweet spot.

And trim works differently on different aircraft depending on several factors.

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27

I know how trim works and it’s not at all accurate in the sim. Compare the rotation speed of the virtual trim wheel vs the physical trim wheel and you’ll see what I mean.

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28

This really depends on the type of control. If using electric trim then it will be fixed to the setup of the trim servo and that will be dependent on the aircraft. However if using a manual trim wheel then there should be more variance based on how fast/slow or large/small the wheel is moved. I don’t think it’s at all accurate with the real aircraft. As I just said each aircraft is different and so the time to trim end to end for an electric trim should be settable by the dev of the particular aircraft. When using a manual trim wheel it’s harder to define because the hardware trim wheels used vary but it can be based on the number of turns needed for end to end travel. The sim is not very flexible when it comes to dealing with the different hardware one may use for this so unless that improves the solution is either in the hardware or as I posted earlier an App that sits between the hardware and sim to make them play nice together. This is my solution and it should work for any popular controller.

29

Asobo please do NOT change anything here. Its all fine

30

I don’t think the default actions should be changed, but neither should the ability to change / modify stuff with 3rd party addons.

I tried the AuthentiKit + vJoy modification to turn the Honeycomb Bravo’s elevator trim wheel into an axis. I tried that and found that it was too difficult to make fine adjustments at the recommended settings. I then changed it back to the default nose up / nose down buttons and found that I was fine with the way the sim handled it. I mean, I’m glad I tried it, because it made me realize that the default button handling was fine. I’d also been playing with Auto Trim on for a long time - gonna try it manually for a while.

33

I am facing the same issues. For some reason the DA40NG seems okayish, albeit still a bit slow. The non-G1000 172 is worse, 152 even more, and Just Flight’s Warrior is making me play wheel of fortune to level off.

For those saying it’s fine, perhaps you are not experiencing the same thing, or maybe have found it to their liking. However, I am looking for a realistic experience. It is simply not how a real general aviation plane trim wheel functions. Not the 152, 172s, nor the Warriors I’ve flown. I should simply not have to spin it 10-25+ times to level off in a pattern.

A full (or even half) spin of the wheel in those planes should be WAY more than enough to level off or trim for climb. Then you make minute adjustments. How can we replicate that in game?

This product has furstrated me to no end so far. The trim feeling seemingly changes from update to update, never for the better.

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34

You can’t. Not with a consumer level trim wheel. It is not a realistic wheel, it is just the best way to do it, for the price.

It helps to understand how the trim wheel works. It works like a button press, not like an axis. So it works based on how many button clicks are registered by spinning the wheel, not by how far you move it. And slow to medium, meticulous turning of the wheel seems to register FAR more clicks per second than quickly spinning the wheel.

Some planes DO seem to work better than others.

But, I suspect you can get a more realistic experience by trusting it to work with slow to medium turns… fight that instinct to spin it quickly when you know you have to make a large adjustment. Practice on tarmac, because when you are spinning the disk at the proper speed, the trim can be seen moving quite quickly (unless it is one of those temperamental planes that doesn’t seem to like the trim wheel). I get excellent results with the DC6 and Kodiak, for example, and since I figured out how to properly use it, I don’t recall it NOT working with any plane I have flown since (although I did have a lot of trouble with some planes before I figured this wheel out).

And once the trim is properly set, fine tuning can feel quite a lot like the real thing.

That wheel, and the way MSFS accepts trim adjustments will never work exactly like the real thing. You would need a wheel axis and a trim axis button you can assign to the wheel axis for that to work, or some real hardware trickery to work around the current MSFS settings and that could make a realistic hardware trim wheel quite pricey.

But if you don’t fight it, and use it for what it is made to do, the way it is made to do it, understanding you are repeatedly clicking a button by spinning the wheel rather than moving an axis, it will quickly vecome better than other available options in the same price range. It is VERY workable. Especially when you find the best speed to turn the wheel (medium slow) for maximum clicks per second to be registered.

And remember, you can always just pop into AP for a few seconds to let the plane trim itself.

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35

Mentioned above, but I too abandoned the wheel and mapped the trim to an axis. I use the “spoiler” lever and put it between the prop and flaps lever. The button push behavior of the Bravo’s trim wheel creates disappointing limitations. I find using a lever instead and mapping trim to an axis to be much more realistic feeling compared to the real thing, even if it’s not wheel shaped. :stuck_out_tongue:

The downside is that the physical lever won’t move if the AP or something else changes the trim in the sim, so trim instantly jumps when you nudge the lever. It can be quickly corrected though, and I do hand flying almost entirely so it’s not an issue depending on the plane or type of flying.

Not sure why the Bravo’s trim wheel isn’t on an optical encoder that would let you quickly spin it into position and with high precision, or if the “button presses” could be buffered such that it counts them all and does effectively the same thing. There’s probably some technical limitation somewhere I’m sure, and hopefully not just because they’re cheap.

36

Price is certainly one of the reasons.

But it is also how the other major commercial wheel, the Saitek Cessna Trim Wheel, works.

37

Yeah, that is disappointing. However I’d easily settle for anything more sensible than spinning it 20 times to level off.

I do understand how it works. As a pilot and software engineer myself, those are poor excuses.

It’s a rotary encoder. A cheap jellybean (common part) rotary encoder has 12-24 pulses per rotation. That’s more than enough to get some kind of resolution. You could easily have a sensible curve for fast repeated pulses and slower for finger adjustments.

We either need Asobo to fully support rotary encoder trims with the whole range of adjustment sliders, which is obviously what Honeycomb is waiting for them to do. Or either Honeycomb stops playing “fix it chicken” and writes proper drivers with velocity control settings.

I’m not even asking for one to one. I don’t want or need an axis. This is a sensible way of doing a trim wheel. The software side is heavily lacking.

I’m sort of betting all sides are waiting for things settle.

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38

Yeah, that’s pretty much where we are, and someone could make some money if they figured out how to make a cost effective trim wheel that worked like a real one. It doesn’t seem like an insurmountable task.

The way I look at it, the wheel is better than everything else I have. It is usable. But I had to stop fighting it before I could get any use from it. Now, I am pretty used to it.

But I won’t pretend it is a great trim wheel, or realistic. I’m glad the Bravo came with it instead of nothing at all. It would be around another $100 to get a similar, Saitek unit, if they still make them.

There’s just nothing else out there that is consumer grade, and affordable.

39

Strange but I was just having the same thought as I read through these last few comments. I have managed to engineer a solution that turns a digital (button or encoder) input into a configurable axis. Configurable meaning the user chooses the sensitivity. For a rotary trim wheel that would be selecting how many turns of the wheel you wanted for full scale. The other benefit over a purely analog trim wheel is it accounts for autopilot trimming so no jumps upon trimming after AP disconnect.
I worked this up to use with a home made wheel but currently using with just buttons. I’d be interested to see how it performed on a Mass produced trim wheel. Yes indeed this can be done and not sure why the mass market struggles with this.

40

I tried the Arrow III yesterday after some time away from it and the trim seemed so much better. The in-game trim wheel almost matched the rotation of my physical trim wheel. I don’t know if it was improved in the world update or the latest Arrow III patch but it is indeed good enough in that plane now.

41

Analogue wheels work pretty much like a real one UNTIL you turn on autopilot, then you get this crazy mismatch when you turn AP off,

There are better trim wheels about but they are not cheap.

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42

I am playing with the thought to try out one of Simmax trim wheels, has anyone of you tried it already?

One like this: https://www.simmax.it/negozio/prodotti-for-home-cockpit/hardware-switch-panel-cessna-c172/elevator-trim-cessna-c172-pp-ver-2/

43

If it’s analog I wouldn’t touch it if you like to use autopilot from time to time for the reasons just given. Doing what I said earlier with a digital input driving a sim axis with the autopilot compensation is what’s needed for a nicely rounded solution IMHO of course.

BTW I believe the Flight Velocity one suffers with the same issues as the Saitek and Bravo to some degree or another although from memory I think it does convert the encoder rotations into an axis like I explained but I think people were complaining about the AP step as a result I don’t own it but did some research a while back when thinking about getting a trim wheel and I came to the conclusion that I needed to roll my own so I could combine what’s best about both methods, that’s what I did.

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