1. #11
    Buzzsaw-'s Avatar Senior Member
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    Salute shc89

    I just replied to two other queries regarding stalls not too long ago, so here it is again. I am going to have to disagree with Dirkpit's profile, I used to use a profile exactly like that, but after much examination and experimentation, that profile results in a situation where you move your stick a lot for almost no virtual result, then about halfway through the travel small amounts of stick movement suddenly have a big virtual effect. Such a profile amplifies the potential of a stall. It took a while for me to get my head around the facts, but I am convinced, (and many others too) that the best way to create a profile is not to follow Dirkpit's suggestion.

    If you consider the reality of virtual air combat, most stalls happen when the stick is about halfway through its travel. Ie. you are in a turn, pulling back on the stick, you try to add just a little more elevator, and the plane stalls.

    The best scaling for a stick is one which modulates the jumps in the virtual input at that critical middle section of the stick.

    It's all about transitions, if you do not have smooth transitions between each step in the 10 programmable units in the scaling of input for the elevator, you will have a tendency to stall more easily. The same applies to Rudder and Aileron, although poorly setup scaling for these last two cause less problems re. stalls.

    If you doubt me, take at careful look at the movement of the joystick as shown in the game's input section, ie. the twin axis setup, where two marker squares move along the axis of the joysticks movement. The red square follows exactly the physical movement of your joystick, the green square is the virtual movement you are inputting to your aircraft's controls. Compare Oleg's ideal profile, with the one I list below in my suggested profile, and notice how smoothly one moves compared to the other. Olegs profile has the green box jumping quickly in the middle range, making those fine adjustments when you are on the edge of the stall very difficult to input.

    Here is an excerpt from the RAF74 Pilot's guide, showing how to setup INPUT for your joystick:

    >>>

    Pilot Handbook Part 1 (continued)

    >>>

    2) Scaling the Joystick


    A Joystick must now be set up so that the Elevator, Aileron and Rudder are easily and smoothly controlled by the pilot. Incorrectly setup Elevators, Ailerons and Rudder will cause the pilot to stall his aircraft more often and also to maneuver less efficiently.

    A Pilot scales his Joystick by using the INPUT interface. Access the INPUT interface by selecting HARDWARE SETUP from the main menu and then INPUT.

    You will see on the upper left a box which allows you to select one of three Axes: Pitch (Elevator), Roll (Ailerons) and Yaw (Rudder). Each selection then can program a ten step scale of input degree for each of the three potential Axes. Step 1 must be at least 1, and Step 10 can be a maximum of 100.

    The idea for the scale is that a Pilot will want to have a slightly finer set of inputs available to him when he is using the initial few centimeters of movement of the joystick, but at the same time, a set of smooth, non-abrupt transitions in the middle range, where stalling typically happens. This is to allow him to make fine adjustments to allow for accurate gunnery, with larger, but smooth adjustments to input in the middle and upper range.

    Normally a pilot will program, by entering a number between 1 and 100 for each of the ten steps, a rising scale, that takes the form of an initially gentler slope, slightly steepening as it approaches 100.

    Each pilot will have to determine what best suits him, but as an example of what I program here are my 10 steps for each of Pitch, Roll and Yaw.

    50-55-60-70-82-88-90-95-100-100

    What this level of scaling means, is that when I have moved the joystick the physical equivalent of 7 of the ten steps, or 70% of the movement distance available to the Joystick, I am inputting electronically just slightly over 63% of the virtual control. At the low end of the scale, I am inputting less electronically with a greater amount of joystick movement. With movement equivalent to 3 of the ten steps, or 30%, I have inputted only 18% of the virtual control. At the 10% step, I am inputting 5% of the virtual control. At 9 of ten steps, I am inputting 90% of the virtual control. The whole key to setting the input is to make the transitions between the steps as smooth as possible, otherwise you will not be able to fly the aircraft as accurately as you wish.

    There are also scalable settings availabe for FILTERING and DEADBAND. Filtering is used when a Joystick is slightly prone to spiking, and can moderate such wild inputs. For those with a good joystick, this is unnessesary. Deadband creates a dead area around the center of the joysticks physical movements and thus prevents small, involuntary movements of the pilot's hand from affecting the plane's control surfaces. I prefer to set both to zero, but many like to have a deadband of 5 or 10. However, when you allocate a percentage to deadband, you are actually reducing the amount of physical movement of your joystick, which is actually dedicated to control. Therefore the whole scale becomes less fine, and less movement of your hand results in more movement in the virtual aircraft.

    <<<

    Some other suggestions:

    It takes a while for an aircraft to get settled into a turn, a pilot has to have the patience to allow it to. I almost always used to find that I had to back off on the elevator input once I got into a turn, but now am disciplining myself to add just enough.

    Putting aside elevator inputs, in many ways though, using just the ailerons and rudder to set the aircraft into a bank, thus initiating a turn is a better solution than over-using the elevator. Aileron turns use the natural lift of the aircraft's wings without the extra drag of the elevator, thus speed stays high. So you set the aircraft into the turn with ailerons and rudder, and only then do you think about adding any elevator. In some cases, you may find you don't need any.

    RAF74 has a number of elements in our training program which can help less experienced pilots move more quickly into flying and fighting more effectively.

    RAF74 homepage is here:

    http://www.raf74.com/
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  2. #12
    R_Target's Avatar Banned
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    Here are my rudder and elevator trim settings for X52 Throttle rotaries:



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  3. #13
    A lot of people find great success setting elevators and ailerons to all 100's on the X52, give it a try.
    Yeah I think that was the default setting, I totally forgot that. If all else fails I'll get back to default.

    Thanks for the reply buzzsaw. What the dirkpit was talking about are settings for the trims, not the primary control surfaces. You were talking about the sudden transition, well that's just what was happening to me. I'll try your setting. I see you used the in-game setup for setting it up. It's the same if I set it at Joy Control,right ?
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  4. #14
    Correct.
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  5. #15
    R_Target thanks a lot for the help. I'll make sure to try it out. So it's not a bit too sensitive around the center ?
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  6. #16
    As trim is different from the other controls, it makes sense that you might consider trying the trim setting as all one number instead of graduatiing it.

    Try all '50' or all '40' which would make for a smooth consistent amount of movement with the wheel or lever you are using for trim.
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  7. #17
    I have X52 Pro too, but I don't use all 100's. I found it too sensitive. I have a linear line between ~30-100 for both elevator and ailerons axis with a little deadzone and filtering.

    R_Target: By setting the last value for less than 100, can you still use 'full trim', i.e. maximum trim deflection?
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  8. #18
    "Try all '50' or all '40' which would make for a smooth consistent amount of movement with the wheel or lever you are using for trim."

    As dirkpit asked if you set it all to 50 can you use the full trim or it's limited because you've set it to 50?

    "I have X52 Pro too, but I don't use all 100's. I found it too sensitive."

    I've tried it at all 100 but actually to me it doesnt seem to be too sensitive at all. That's what I don't understand about the program, how come that if you set it all to 100 it doesn't get too senstive, isn't that like the highest sensitivity possible?
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  9. #19
    All the input curve does is influence how much of the joystick output is sent to il2, so if you set the first slider to 50 then when the stick starts sending a signal il2 will only see 50% of that input, when set to all 100% all that means is that il2 is seeing exactly what the joystick is sending, it's not influencing the input at all. The X52 has a linger range of motion than most sticks so it's not as sensitive to small movements as some sticks are and does not need to be adjusted. It's also very subjective to how you like to fly.
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  10. #20
    R_Target's Avatar Banned
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    Originally posted by dirkpit7:
    R_Target: By setting the last value for less than 100, can you still use 'full trim', i.e. maximum trim deflection?
    No, I can't get full deflection, but I can't say that it's bothered me. The way I have it now, I can get enough to correct for just about any flight attitude I find myself in. Having said that, I may tweak the last two sliders for elevator up a bit.
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