I have the Logitech pro flite pedals and am having a heck of a time keeping aircraft under control after landing and takeoffs. I can make a perfect approach, but once I touch down, trying to keep the aircraft centered during rollout is like a roller coaster ride! lol. I’ll land, and the plane will go one direction, and when I compensate with rudder, it’s so over sensitive, it jerks back in the other direction I’m applying rudder and I end up swerving back and forth, rolling down the runway until I slow down…Same thing on takeoff…Building up speed, the rudders are so sensitive, that I end up swerving back and forth as I try to keep the aircraft down the middle line.
Watching videos on YouTube, people make landings and takeoffs, and they get these straight rollouts with minor adjustments and well, with rudder pedals. I’ve tried all kinds of sensitivity adjustments on the rudder pedals without much luck. I’ve tried just focusing on making small rudder inputs while I rollout but again, but it’s never smooth…
Maybe it’s the rudder pedals themselves or a combination of things but any suggestions would be appreciated…
A lot of this is down to technique. Instead of pushing the pedal the direction you want to go, put pressure on both pedals, and release pressure on the opposite pedal to the desired direction. This technique gives you a lot more control, and helps prevent rudder or ground steering PIOs. Any real-life pilots flying taildraggers will know just what I mean! It works just as well with tricycle gear.
Also, when making a rudder or ground steering correction, as soon as the aircraft starts to respond to the correction, put in a smaller opposite correction. Repeat. Your feet should be ‘dancing’ on the pedals. Some call it ‘happy feet’!
Ground handling is MSFS is poorly modeled, especially taildraggers.
I use zero sensitivity and zero dead zone. As you can see, there is a bit of an offset to the right pedal, but I’m working around that. I may have to take them apart and clean the pots as these pedals seem to attract lots of dust under my desk.
Some people are changing their rudder profile curves (which are configurable). You are correct, the inputs are way too sensitive. The only other choice is to use a very light touch on the rudder pedals.
On takeoff a slight rudder input into the wind with just enough opposite rudder to keep the plane going down the middle of the runway works. Use the same when landing, and after the nose comes down back off on the cross wind correction with the rudder pedals, just enough to keep the plane going down the runway, and apply full deflection into the direction of the cross wind. If you don’t alter your rudder curves, it does not take much pressure to do this.
I have the Logitech G Pro pedals as well. I’ve found that you just have to be really light with the input. It’s also been counter intuitive for me that you push the left pedal forward to turn left and right to turn right. Since both slide I feel like together the axis of rotation should go the other way - ie. slide right pedal forward and left back to turn left (like the front wheels of a car). But, I refuse to reverse the axis cause I want to learn correctly how it really is.
That said, if I can ask a question here to real life pilots… are real world rudders also as sensitive? If so, I will leave them at default. But if not, I would also dial back sensitivity. I just want to keep them as close to real world response.
Perhaps snug the tension down a bit. A major problem with MSFS controllers is that they provide no feedback, which you would have in a real airplane. You can simulate this with a bit of tension. Also, avoid stiction, which is the controller ‘sticking’ while you’re moving it. Obviously, higher-quality rudder pedals make the experience a lot better, but you can get good results with cheaper pedals with a good sensitivity setting, good technique, and practice.
New pilots always have the same issues with rudder whether sim or real. Some pilots never get the hang of rudder.
Simply, understanding WHY the plane isn’t going where you want is a requirement of good rudder control. If you step on the right rudder because the plane is swinging left, you are already too late. In real life you can feel the lateral forces in your butt. My first instructor told me that “stepping on the ball is too late, you need to clench your cheek.” I know, you just said, “WHAT??”. what he meant was that if the inertia is shifting to the left, your body is left behind and there is pressure on your right butt cheek. If you clench that butt cheek it forces your leg straight and you are now applying pressure to the right rudder. (Try it next time you are in the car. Turn and you can feel your weight shift to the opposite cheek.)
How does this translate to a 0 motion sim? It is about anticipation and controlling those forces that make the plane go the wrong way. If you apply the throttle to accelerate down the runway and the plane wants to veer off to the left, you need to know that it is the application of power that is causing it. If you know that the power lever is the culprit then input rudder pressure as you input power. It won’t take long before you know how much pressure to apply for a given increase in power and you will roll straight down the line. Now, as the aircraft accelerates and the rudder becomes more effective you slowly decrease that rudder pressure and you stay straight. Notice this is not ‘nose goes left, steer right, nose goes right, steer left’, this is ‘anticipate the motion and input a correction before it happens’. Taildragger pilots will tell you that if you respond to the nose turning with a rudder correction you are too late and likely going to ground loop anyway.
This is all based on 0 wind. If you have a x-wind, you need to think of the tail being just like the weather vane on the barn. it is going to want to swing so the nose is pointing straight at the wind. You know it’s going to happen so correct for it before it starts to move. The rudder is there (when on the ground) to HOLD the plane in the direction you want to go, not to correct after it goes a different direction. Just like a dog, if you keep it under control life is good. If you just keep correcting it after you let it get out of control, it WILL bite you eventually.
No not really. Besides, IRL you feel the forces on the plane which makes it a lot easier. I hardly use rudder during flight. Only when landing with crosswind you may need to use quite some rudder in order to align the plane just before touchdown. I do remember taxing for the first time. That was weird. Overcompensating a lot.
Anyway, the rudder on the ground in FS is way more sensitive than IRL. There should be more inertia. (Like the force you feel when trying to tilt a spinning wheel). For me it helps keeping my heels on the floor only applying pressure with my toes. Just like you handle the gas pedal in a car
I often have one foot as “reference” … I press this one foot to e.g. 20%, shortly before the moment the airplane reacts to much, and then I never change this foot and make all with the other foot.
“Dancing” as mentioned, is possible, but needs a bit training. You need to steer in the oposite direction, before the airplane realy moves in this direction.
( sorry , not native english speaker )
Update: and forgot, there is not big diff to e.g. DCS
All good answers below…but I have used rudders for weeks with no problem and yesterday they went crazy with wild uncontrol able swings during runway acceleration and immediately after landing. Clearly a bug somewhere has crept in. I recalibrated my peripherals in windows settings, replugged in my usb ports & rebooted my PC and things seem to have gone back to ‘normal’. I have not completely troubleshot this but both locations where I had maximum problems had marginal winds blowing so it might have played into the ‘go crazy’ takeoff landing scenario somehow. Will let you know if I run into the problem again.
Not much point in this sim, at this time TBH, The stick and rudder handling is attrocious. It’s like all of the planes have auto-rudder on, all the time.
Ive had this issue day 1 … a320 pulling right big style… now I seem to have the problem that it goes very light at the point I release pressure on the stick at 80 knots… and I mean so light it flips the plane onto its wing at times… sometimes the best solution is just to leave the rudders alone!
Another Wimp mode here. Still haven’t got the hang of Rudder Pedals. But yesterday, for the first time, I couldn’t even take off. I was on a TBM930 and midway through the runway the plane was just uncontrollable and steered all the way to the right into a spin. In my case I think it was the weather at that particular airport. ATIS was reporting winds at 18 knots and 30 knots gusts. In real life, does people take off with a plane like a TBM930 with winds like this?
