Fixing Roll

[BlackbusheFlyer]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

Neither of us have time on a spitfire, and I'm not sure what time you have on vintage, but the stearman I fly has a 'huge' prop with a 220hp radial driving it, it is fairly torque'y, I think a 1,000hp merlin driving a 10' prop even at cruise will produce lots of torque and even more gyroscopic effect, without aileron trim I don't see how an aircraft can be hands off and in balance.

Well I stand to be corrected, however it just doesn't feel right to me. The rigger should adjust manual trims to counter for the cruise. My current CAA examiner has flown the spitfires for the BoB memorial flight, I mean to ask his opinion on this.

[BlackbusheFlyer]

Just to add a heavyweight to the argument:

"The Spitfire looked good and was good. But my first reaction was that it was bad for handling on the ground; its long straight nose, uptilted when the tail wheel was on the ground; its long straight nose, uptilted when the tail wheel was on the ground, made taxing difficult since it was not easy to see ahead. It was necessary to to swing from side to side to look in front. The view at take-off was restricted in the same way until you were travelling fast enough to lift the tail; only then could you see over the nose.

Once accustomed to these minor inconveniences, they were no longer apparent, and once in the air, you felt in the first few minutes that here was the aeroplane par excellence. The controls were light, positive and synchronized; in fact, the aeroplane of one's dreams. It was stable; it flew hands and feet off; yet you could move it quickly and effortlessly into any attitude. You brought it in to land at 75 mph and touched down at 60-65 mph. Its maximum speed was 367 mph. You thus had a wide speed range which has not been equalled before or since.

It had eight machine guns of .303 calibre each, mounted four in each wing. The guns were spaced one close to the fuselage, two mid-wing, one further out. The eight guns were normally synchronized to 250 yards. In other words the four in each wing were sighted so that the bullets from all eight converged at that distance, in front of the Spitfire. Experienced fighter pilots used to close the pattern to 200 yards. The successful pilots succeeded because they did not open fire until they were close to the target."

Douglas Bader in 1940 on the Spitfire Mk1.

[bongodriver]

It always has been described as a 'pilots dream' in flight, the gound handling aspect is not an unfamiliar scenario for alot of taildraggers, again I put the stearman into it with its very high ground angle and large round front end it is impossible to see ahead until the nose is lowered, the spitfire pilots I have spoken to would describe something similar to your extract....but hands off might be a bit of interpretation, I consider the Stearman to be more hands off than the Tiger Moth but it is only a relative term.

[Voyager]

On prop torque, I recall descriptions of the the F4F Wildcat having enough torque that if you ran up the engine all to full power on the ground, that the tire on the down side would be pressed flat.

I seem to recall that being in the book "Ace", the one about the Hellcat night fighter ace pilot. I believe that one also involves the story about going inverted for the first time to discover that the ground crew had left a wrench in the plane.

Even jets have torque effects. The F-16's engine has enough momentum that if it suddenly stops, it will kick the plane over about a quarter roll before the fly-by-wire compensates for it. The early GE engines when installed in the F-16 had a tendency to vent all of their oil overboard. It's not a feature, just a bug.

[BlackbusheFlyer]

Alex Henshaw wrote:

"After a thorough pre-flight check I would take off and, once at circuit height, I would trim the aircraft and try to get her to fly straight and level with hands off the stick ..."

Yes I agree it is relative (I too have flown more than 1 moth) however it would be stretching the term a bit far carrying quite as much deflection as present within CoD. I wonder if DB or Henshaw would use those same terms after flying the CoD spitfire (which after-all is what we aiming for right, that those same highly emotive comments could come from the CoD spit as the real thing).

I am not suggesting that the principal implementation is wrong, just that the curve needs some further examination. Possibly more benign in the middle and more extreme at the end, for example... stalling the spit then shoving in full power would (I can very well imagine) torque roll like a beast.

[bongodriver]

I should have mentioned I don't seem to be struggling with the same problem on my hardware, in actual fact I have been cruising the spit almost hands off, so I will grant that I may be making an assumption and some of you guys may be experiencing a problem, seems there are a few 'bugs' that affect some more than others.

[BlackbusheFlyer]

Fair point, perhaps it is caused by a controller issue. I use the CH Products fighterstick, Pro Throttle and the Pro Pedals I have the input curves set to be linear in nature and have calibrated them use the CH Control Manager. At the moment I find I need to use about a quarter of the movement range to counter the roll with no slip/skid for level flight at cruise power (so 25% deflection), would be interested to hear if others with these controls also find the same.

[onchas]

I took a quick scan through this post, and the forums and I haven't found any way to fix this.

The prop-head nerd talkie (although it always warms my heart) seems superfluous.

This same roll occurs with torque and gyro turned off in realism settings, and when the config is set to easy flight mode in fact.

That makes this more than just awesome realism goodness.

Has anyone got a fix yet?

A bit of opposite rudder trim helps, but it's not exactly a great solution since it puts the airframe out of coordination.

[Space Communist]

Originally Posted by jimbop

Cable ties on your joystick spring helps wonders. Great on my x52 pro!

Hah actually that's exactly what I came up with too (though I am just using an old Saitek Cyborg.) I have to keep my hand on the stick at all times now but it allows for much more precise and fine control.

[jimbop]

Originally Posted by Space Communist

Hah actually that's exactly what I came up with too (though I am just using an old Saitek Cyborg.) I have to keep my hand on the stick at all times now but it allows for much more precise and fine control.

Good to hear. It's surprising how much more control you get for the fine adjustments isn't it? Thanks to recoilfx here http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...t=19222&page=2 at post 20 for pointing me in the right direction.