New to Flightsims - Trim?

[molotovb]

Hi, new to flight sims, absolutely loving IL2 so far, have been able to fly around in "normal" difficulty and even shoot down a couple of planes.

 

One thing that's still confusing to me is the concept of trim - could someone give me a brief explanation?

 

Is it simply an adjustment to level out the aircraft during long travel times so that I'm not constantly manipulating the stick?  Is it something I do once and and then forget about for the rest of the flight?

 

What about during combat?  Should I maintain the same trim settings during maneuvers that I've set for level flight?

 

Thanks for any help!

 

[barndoor]

The control surfaces of your aircraft (wings, elevator, rudder..) all work by air passing over them and react to other forces too (load, alt, temp,etc). So for instance, when you fly fast more air passes over the wing and makes more lift than flying slow. So, trim is usually set for flying at a certain speed in certain conditions.

Yes, you should set trim to level out on a cruise but also better pilots will adjust trim during combat. Most of my experience is in il-2 and I can say that having sliders/wheels set on your joystick for trim (particularly elevator) makes quite a lot of difference in combat.

Imagine going from a 450kmh level flight where you are trimmed in balance through a hard turn in combat that leaves you at 225kmh. Now your aircraft has only half the air passing over it to making half the lift it had before. Unless you trim the elevator up you will naturally nose down. This is a simple explanation and there are other changes as well, but the pitch change is the largest normally and the most noticeable.

 

 

[molotovb]

Great info, thanks very much both of you!

[ParaB]

I constantly trim the aircraft, at least as far as elevator trim is concerned.

[W_Braun]

We have trim nao?

[Rama]

Regular trims are not yet in. Bf109 Stabilizer adjustment is in from the start. That's what's used for elevator trim on the Bf109.

[Sokol1]

There is some debate over the use of trim during combat. The general consensus is that in RL there would be too much else to concentrate on.

 

 

Bud Anderson disagree:

 

" There were three little palm-sized wheels you had to keep fiddling with. They trimmed you up for hands-off level flight. One was for the little trim tab on the tail's rudder, the vertical slab which moves the plane left or right. Another adjusted the tab on the tail's horizontal elevators that raise or lower the nose and help reduce the force you had to apply for hard turning. The third was for aileron trim, to keep your wings level, although you didn't have to fuss much with that one. Your left hand was down there a lot if you were changing speeds, as in combat . . . while at the same time you were making minor adjustments with your feet on the rudder pedals and your hand on the stick. At first it was awkward. But, with experience, it was something you did without thinking, like driving a car and twirling the radio dial."

 

 

Sokol1

[FuriousMeow]

And other pilots didn't touch it. One quote from one pilot isn't the end all.

[ShamrockOneFive]

Trim is huge for me as I like to trim the plane out so that the inputs I'm making are the directions I want to go and not where I + the plane want to go. Right now the nose is always going skyward when I'm trying to fly level and man is that annoying

 

But it's Alpha. Things to be expected.

[andyw248]

Also, the trim (or stabilizer) wheel in the 109 is currently too sensitive. It should work in conjunction with the flaps wheel, both should take between 4 and 5 spins end to end. I filed a bug for that a while ago.