I know for a fact that the Spitfire did have trim tabs on the airlerons for trimming but they could not be adjusted in flight. When the pilots lands he made his own corrections using a block of steel and a malet.

Small excesses of metal on the airlerons surface could be bent up or down to counter act any trim issues the pilot was having on his next flight, the problem would then hopefully be solved for his next hop.

Here is a video where a Spitfire is shipped form Duxford to the USA and it shows when they are doing the flight testing after it is rebuilt the pilot trimming it. Go to 40 minutes in. He trims it just after he lands. Sorry for any adverts on this video, it's a TV Channels on demand service.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24eu9cQJ0cY

Cheers
Mini

Rudder trim should be different for changing speed! And in combat how care if you going a little left or right? Rudder always apply rudder. It was even worse for the BF109 pilots were there was not in flight rudder trim adjustment.

Have a more realistic game.
:-D

What he says is not unrealistic, lot's of aircraft had trim tabs that were only adjustable on the ground (the 109 and 190 had it too for the rudder i think).

It's just not particularly useful for the reason you mentioned: trim changes when speed changes.

What they usually did was adjust these trim tabs for an aircraft's cruise speed so that the pilot wouldn't have to "fight" the controls during transit. That's also the default trim value most flight sims use for ground adjustable trim tabs.

The reason people usually have problems with this in flight sims is that they tend to fly faster than the cruise speeds specified for the real aircraft.

I cruise hands free all the time in the Spits. I change rudder and elevator trim when ever I change the throttle setting... At full throttle I also use manual aileron too. Doing all these things is called FLYING THE PLANE. It's what the real spitfire pilots did too.
I wonder if you would miss the feed back if you could fly hands free. I would certainly would miss it.

Makes me wonder if the Force Feed Back guys have and trouble with this?

I doubt the flight model is perfect but I also doubt the real spits flew perfectly straight and hands free with no side slip at all.

+1

I have 2 axes on my CH Quadrant assigned to rudder and elevator trim which works well (elevator trim is VERY sensitive, though). In this respect I've found ForceFeedback works fine - I simply adjust the trim axes to relieve pressure on the stick.

I do have an issue with FF in other areas though: engine trouble causes the stick to jiggle violently -- which sends unwanted pitch & roll input back through the stick resulting in greater oscillations occurring. Ditto for firing cannons -- lots of "recoil" feedback which caused the aircraft to buck, sending your gun site everywhere BUT on target. If future patches don't enable the various FF forces to be tuned, I'll be reluctantly considering retiring my venerable MSFF2 stick for a less "excitable" one. But I'll miss "riding the tickle" during stall fights! :(

And this is why the P51 Mustang won the war;

http://www.cubpilot.com/Tspin/P51-pit8.jpg

It had pilot controlled trim on all three axis. We didn't just beat the crap out of its control surfaces with a mallet after landing in hopes it will fly in a strait line on its next combat sortie.


http://www.cubpilot.com/Tspin/slamdoor.gif Tailspin exit’s stage left in fear of retaliation for posting a smart-ass reply…

The Mustang needed aileron trim for for long distance cruising. It's a long range escort fighter. The spit is a short range interceptor. Not so important to cruise for hours comfortably.

I always assumed it was prop torque I was ruddering against to fly straight. Now I'm reading about a whole range of factors that influence the plane.

Experimenting I've found the spit mkII rolls left at low power and right a full power. With 2lbs of boost at 200mph it doesn't roll either way.

It would be great if the game allowed us to tinker with the fixed aileron tabs in the load out section. The tail tabs are animated now :)

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/6699/trimtabs.jpg

Trimming the plane
 

I am new to the CoD, got it really cheap..$11.00...humm But I can tell from flying the sim and the topics here that the uber realistic boys will fight the fact that the plane should not ever fly straight. They like it "HARD" I have the Wart Hog Stick and I gotta say it is a real chore to fly the CoD..A real "pain in the ARM!"... You would think...there was a way to make it fly without having to ressel it during every aspect of the sim.. no joy for me! but hay thats just me...11 bucks what the hell right?