[JVM]

Hello Team Daidalos!

I would like to give propose my thoughts on a subject which is rarely talked about (and generally to say "you have to use it all the time") in an useful way: the issue of trimming in a PC sim...

To begin with, it must be remembered that the only function of any trim is to decrease as much as possible the efforts the pilot has to exert on his controls. The most important one is the pitch trim, just followed by the yaw trim and then the roll trim.
All flying machines by WWII and after had at least the pitch trim, many the yaw trim (notable exceptions being for instance the Bf 109 and the I16) and much more rarely a roll trim.

To fly properly (=efficiently), tirelessly and to be able to shoot precisely you must be in trim at all times, as it allows you to fly the aircraft with very little effort on the controls (around the control "trimmed" or "zero effort" point) hence with maximum precision.
It is easy to recognize when you are in trim: when letting the relevant control free (or more simply relaxing the effort on it), there is no change in the aircraft attitude; if the aircraft tends to adopt a different pitch or yaw, you were not in trim: you were maintaining the aircraft in its then-attitude by exerting an effort on the control(s).

The difficult thing with the trim is usually one is barely conscious not being in trim, for many reasons like very busy with the environment (someone is shooting at you, you are making a complex maneuver, or are preparing your machine for landing and whatnot...) or not feeling your own force!
It is not second-nature for would-be pilots to trim all the time and in real life their instructor will spend long amounts of time to explain and cram the necessity of trimming, and I can tell you it is sometimes still needed to give reminders even to career pilots since a very long time...

I am sorry for people who did not need these explanations as I know many of you are aware of trimming value!
You must be wondering by now what is my point?

It is very simple: the "controls" we have available as PC simmers make a terrible job of helping the virtual pilot trimming properly its plane...to the point of abomination in my eyes, and it has always been a killer of immersion for me! I see already the dust cloud made by the battalion of "people who have no issue with trim in Il2" running at me, so let me take cover first and don my armor...OK done!

In real life you meet two sorts of trim control:

- the manual one, usually a wheel the size of your hand (or sometimes a sliding lever like in many gliders which have only pitch control), for all trimmable axis’s

- the electrical one, usually a simple rocker switch.

The latter will be found in many light aircraft and transport aircraft: it is precise but slow (it controls an electrical motor itself adjusting the trim control) and not suited for rapid attitude changes;

The former one can be emulated by, well, only a wheel!

The problem here is the only possibility to emulate a wheel which has a range of 270° rotation (or sometimes much more) and which is moved by hand with extreme precision and quickness is only a pair of keys, a hat-switch or at best a minuscule rotary moved by a thumb on 45° range with disproportionate efforts...and we are supposed to fly properly that way?
There is no hope to have the requested precision and ease of use any real life aircraft would grant you...

So what can we done (be patient we are almost there)?
Ideally a trim control block would be ideal, but there are few in existence and they are, if you want something realistic, expensive...but I think there is a way to give the virtual pilot the desired effect, but it requires some programming by Team Daidalos:

I propose to create two "auto-trim functions", kind of...for yaw and pitch.

- My goal here is not to ask for an "always trimmed" button or config choice: this is not realistic at all; only modern fighters like F-16 or Rafale have this kind of feature (and I am not sure this can not be deactivated on request?),

- not it is to get an "insta-trim" (but that would be a lesser evil) where you get trimmed immediately when pushing a button,

- but a "delayed auto-trim" emulating the real life action of turning a wheel until you feel the aircraft is trimmed (in real life, by feeling the effort decreasing on the stick or rudder, in virtual life by letting the stick back to center without the aircraft changing attitude).

It would work this way: as long as the pilot pushes his "trim" button, the trim value goes at a certain "realistic" rate of change from the value it had when the button was pushed to the value it should have for the stick position to be centered to maintain the pitch or yaw angle value of the aircraft had, again when the button was pushed. When the button is released, the change stops at the value which was obtained at this time.

This will in essence replace the hand movement you cannot have on a trim wheel which does not exist by a push on a single button, with the same resulting trimming precision, obtained in the same time as with a real trim wheel...
For pitch trim, for instance, the pinkie button when present would be ideal (as a matter of fact the real life Glasflügel gliders have exactly this type of trim: a pinkie and instant trim at release...if the computation above is too complex to program this would be an acceptable solution also).

I think such a function will help virtual pilots a lot in landing easily (trim position is paramount here!) and also helping them shoot a lot better...this would also free the rocker-switches, keys or hat-switches for functions for which they are better suited.


Again sorry for having been so long...

Cordially,

JV