FFB Problem Planes? -SOLVED

[tvcasualty]

Can anyone confirm some of the older planes don't work correctly with FFB?
Specifically any of the IL2s and I-16 seem to be full front stick no matter what trim.

I also have some issue with the trim setting on BF109-F2/4 and the Yak1 which require +2 trim or excessive back trim (98-99% to level) on the Yak.

 

Thanks!

Edited August 19, 2024 by tvcasualty
Fixed my hardware issue!

[R33GZ]

Have you checked the response curves to make sure there's no problem with your stick?

[tvcasualty]

Yes I have, all pitch response curves are also default.  I actually tried to change the response curve and it didn't help, still had to fight the full forward stick just to get off the ground and stay level.

 

Also, if I load a newer plane, ie La-5FN the response was completely different and the plane was a bit of a handful to fly almost as if it was tail heavy and a bit unstable. quite a bit of fun really.  While the P-47 handles different still and the stick response is very nice towards the edge with good feedback and different than the 51.  (All in same session, all default pitch curves).

 

It's seems to be the older/oldest models that have issue.  Still testing aircraft... But the IL2 and Donkey are definitely bugged for me.

Edited November 20, 2023 by tvcasualty

[Comrade_Weng]

I cannot comment on the earlier aircraft, however on the p51d and the c47 I have noticed a sudden jump in trim when on final approach with full flaps. I believe it to be an il2 feature. I'm using a homebuilt rhino ffb stick with the vpforce software. It's present with or without the vpforce software.

[migmadmarine]

I have a G940, and trim on these aircraft (pretty much any of the ones without adjustable stabilizers) manifests as a reduction in stick pressure required to hold the nose down, rather than shifting the neutral position. 

[tvcasualty]

7 hours ago, migmadmarine said:

I have a G940, and trim on these aircraft (pretty much any of the ones without adjustable stabilizers) manifests as a reduction in stick pressure required to hold the nose down, rather than shifting the neutral position. 

This is all helpful.  And I am not seeing this at all. 

The stick goes full forward and requires constant pressure to keep the nose up.  If relaxed, the nose will drop into a steep dive.

I will assume you have confirmed this after the latest patch, so its most likely my home brew laserwing / openffb setup.
 

I know as flaps are brought in, typical aircraft will tend to change pitch as the effective 'AOA' of the wing changes.  (But if I remember right the nose tends to go up and you have to hold more forward pressure, I'm having the opposite effect no matter the configuration; flaps, gear, speed, etc).

[LF_Mark_Krieger]

On 11/20/2023 at 4:32 AM, Comrade_Weng said:

I cannot comment on the earlier aircraft, however on the p51d and the c47 I have noticed a sudden jump in trim when on final approach with full flaps. I believe it to be an il2 feature. I'm using a homebuilt rhino ffb stick with the vpforce software. It's present with or without the vpforce software.

I think this is a general problem of most flight models in IL-2. The amount of trim they require with flaps down on final is excessive. A pilot who piloted the P-51 about 20 times said that the amount of pitch trim that the plane needs in IL-2 GB is absolutely excessive. I'm looking for the video right now, but I can't find it. So at least in this case we can know certainly. I'm not pilot, but for example in the P-38 and much other planes I have to compensate with the trim at max and I think my landing pattern is correct.

[HR_Tofolo]

14 hours ago, migmadmarine said:

I have a G940, and trim on these aircraft (pretty much any of the ones without adjustable stabilizers) manifests as a reduction in stick pressure required to hold the nose down, rather than shifting the neutral position. 

 

Same here, since day one. Trim rotaries do not seem to work at all with FFB.

[migmadmarine]

But isn't that how trim works in reality with a lot of aircraft? Reduces pilot fatigue by reducing the amount of force they have to exert rather than shifting stick center? Only aircraft with trim I've flown was the Schweizer 2-33, and as I recall putting in a couple notches of trim would move stick center marginally, but dramatically reduce the effort needed.

 

[edit]

 

Thought about this more while taking a shower, think I have my head around it now. Firstly, I misremembered the trim function on the 2-33 (it's been about 8 years since I've flown). Since the aircraft has no trim tab on the elevator, it does in fact function by adjusting the length of the control rod to the elevator from the stick. I guess I never thought about that much since with a glider you're adjusting your pitch so regularly to control speed that trying to trim for hands off level flight doesn't really happen, at least with the system the 2-33 had. 

 

But this brings me to my point, since most trim (especially the trim on the majority of the aircraft in game) works via a tab on the control surface, it should not be aligning the neutral stick forces position to having the stick perpendicular to the base by inputting trim. So for example, the majority of aircraft in game seem to require forward stick to maintain level flight at speed. So I input forward trim, which moves the tab on the elevator up, kicking the elevator down, and helps hold the nose level. Since nothing has changed about the length of the control cable, rod or whatever to the elevators, in the cockpit the stick will still be forward, but be resting there with little input. This is how it feels with the G940, but with a couple of drawbacks. Firstly due to the length of the stick (I've not got the setup for an extender yet) this still means I have to have my wrist bent to keep the nose down, so yes, I'm still sort of having to continue to push forward to hold my attitude, but it take less effort to do so, but I think not to as noticeable a degree as it would be with a full length stick, and secondly, because of how the FFB functions I can't take my hand off the stick and have it maintain that position. I don't know about other designs, but the 940 has a light sensor that detects if you're holding the stick and when you're hand is on it it has it's fully feedback. If you take your hand off it goes to the mechanical neutral position, straight up from the base, so I can't trim for level flight and just walk off for a minute. 

 

When it comes to the adjustable stabilizer aircraft my assumption is that the stick "forces neutral" postion moves as I input trim because all the adjustment is happening via the moving stabilizer, and the elevator position doesn't have to move at all. 

 

So yea, I think something is probably wrong with your setup tvcasually. And you're wrong Tofolo, the rotaries absolutely do work with FFB, but on most aircraft they won't mean you're not going to have to give forward stick, just you'll have to push less hard to do it. I wouldn't be surprised though if we did work out that the trim amounts required can be excessive to reality however, I usually am putting in something like 2/3rds forward trim (unfortunatly I don't generally look at the numbering on the in-cockpit controls, and have technochat turned off, I've done it all by feel) to maintain level flight, and have virtually never needed positive trim. 

 

Again, my setup is a logitech G940, running full S-curve on pitch, and no external FFB software, just what is built into the game. 

Edited November 21, 2023 by migmadmarine

[tvcasualty]

This is all very helpful information for me.  It does sound like I have a problem with my stick, but I do not understand why some aircraft are correct and others are really broken, especially in the same session with the same settings.  This is why I was thinking maybe a patch broke some things???  (The IL2 was correct at one point, but I've adjusted a lot of settings since then, and there have been a handful of patches).  I'm stating to wonder if maybe there is some file cleanup that needs to be done?

 

Regarding Trim rotaries, here's my experience...
I'm running an Authentikit P-40 trim setup with encoders that are setup to a home brew Arduino. 

By default, these simply pulse one button when rotated one way, and another when rotated another.  This gave me problems because there is a timing issue, ie: how long of pulse is correct, do many pulses equal a constant signal...  and each aircraft seemed to respond differently so it was impossible to get just right.

Enter the Joystick Gremlin app.  I've written a custom script that converts encoder button pulses to a simulated analog axis.  This works very well because the axis is sensitive to the speed in which the wheel is rotated (pulse timing) via the script.  The bad news is that because IL2 defaults trim at mission start, and the "position" of the axis is remembered by the Gremlin, often the first adjustment causes a large trim jump and often it's in the wrong direction.  (I can maybe fix this with a reset button and chatgtp now that I'm thinking about it to recenter the simulated analog axis).  And then there is the 190 with it's switches (they don't work with analog)! ?

 

I'm happy to share the Gremlin script if anyone wants it.

 

============================

 

From my experiences in real flying, on the ground the stick doesn't really center so to speak as a joystick does with a spring... In fact you check for "free and correct" in preflight.  Not sure if a moving stabilizer would have an effect on changing the throws... If I ever sit in a 109 that will be the first thing I check, after my pants.

 

At least with modern GA aircraft, I can say with a very high degree of certainty, that when you trim the airplane, the stick does not move center.  You are holding the stick in a position to keep the altitude/attitude you want, and as trim is adjusted, the pressure required to do so changes with the trim.  Hands off is one way to look at it, the other is making it easy to fly with minimal effort to make small adjustments for a given power, speed, and wind direction.

[LukeFF]

I'll ask about it and see if something's changed.

[tvcasualty]

VERY much appreciated Luke!

I tested a few more aircraft tonight... Here's what I've made it through so far:

P-39L-1: No Issues.

P-51: No Issues.

P-47: No issues, very well done.

I-16: Pitch Not trimable, strong nose down all times

IL-2 (all versions): Pitch Not trimable, strong nose down all times

La-5FN: Sine like effect in the air on the trim, craft seems unstable (maybe by design?) handful to fly, but fun.

La-5F series 38:  Very nice job on this one, what a handful to fly.  Truly an unrefined (and at times violent aircraft) it must have killed a lot of new pilots.

Noted that aileron rolling did not recenter the stick.

Li-2: No issues noted.

Pe-2 Series 35: Trim switches much like FW190, no issues with trim beyond that.

A-20:  This one was a complete mess for me, not currently flyable (for me at least).  Strong sine effect started going on take off roll resulting in heavy stick shaking.  (Possible cowl flap related??? EDIT: Yes, the top 'inlet flaps' are know to cause violent elevator buffeting)  I thought (at first) maybe it was due to low speed and short runway, but it did not go away.  I will try again with auto control of cooling and on a longer runway.  As soon as inlet cowl flaps are closed, buffeting goes away and aircraft is trim-able like normal.

Ju-88: Interesting slow sine in pitch similar to new La-5FN, required 100% trim to fly level much like the 109s.

He-111 H6: Flew fine, required almost 100% trim to stay level, similar to 109s.

BF-109 (All versions from E to G-6AS): No issues, but noted they require +2 to stay level (anyone else see this?)

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by tvcasualty

[migmadmarine]

Yea, the A-20 spawns on the runway with top cowel flaps open, if you don't close them you get awful buffeting over the elevators. 

[LukeFF]

3 hours ago, tvcasualty said:

VERY much appreciated Luke!

I tested a few more aircraft tonight... Here's what I've made it through so far:

P-51: No Issues.

P-47: No issues, very well done.

I-16: Pitch Not trimable, strong nose down all times

 

IL-2 (all versions): Pitch Not trimable, strong nose down all times

La-5FN: Sine like effect in the air on the trim, craft seems unstable (maybe by design?) handful to fly, but fun.

A-20:  This one was a complete mess for me, not currently flyable (for me at least).  Strong sine effect started going on take off roll resulting in heavy stick shaking.  (Possible cowl flap related???)  I thought maybe it was due to low speed and short runway, but it did not go away.  I will try again with auto control of cooling and on a longer runway.

Ju-88: Interesting slow sine in pitch similar to new La-5FN, required 100% trim to fly level much like the 109s.

He-111 H6: Flew fine, required almost 100% trim to stay level, similar to 109s.

BF-109 (All versions from E to G-6AS): No issues, but noted they require +2 needed to stay level (anyone else see this?)

 

 

Thanks, I'll add this to the report.

3 hours ago, tvcasualty said:

A-20:  This one was a complete mess for me, not currently flyable (for me at least).  Strong sine effect started going on take off roll resulting in heavy stick shaking.  (Possible cowl flap related???)  I thought maybe it was due to low speed and short runway, but it did not go away.  I will try again with auto control of cooling and on a longer runway.

 

2 hours ago, migmadmarine said:

Yea, the A-20 spawns on the runway with top cowel flaps open, if you don't close them you get awful buffeting over the elevators. 

 

Yes, the upper cowl flaps (aka the inlet flaps in the list of commands) need to be closed when not taxiing on the ground, due to the real-world documented effect of severe tail buffeting when they are open.

[tvcasualty]

I stand absolutely corrected on the A20.  Amazing attention to detail.
This makes me think I'm missing something on the IL2 and I-16 as they are the only two now that I have found an issue with, although I will continue to test.

(I've added several to the above list, including the new La5 which I really can't wait to put some time in after testing it).

 

This really makes me appreciate just how many planes there are to fly in IL-2 BOX.

[tvcasualty]

Has there been any progress on the FFB situation with the IL-2?
I have been able to confirm that another user of the same LaserWing FFB joystick I have, also has a very strong pull in the Y direction...
"I only have the Il2, and it has such a strong force in one direction on the y axis that it is really unflyable." - Strikkflypilot

 

I've tried reinstalling the software and clearing out my profile settings multiple times and the issue with the IL-2 (and I-16) persist, but as I fly the IL2 almost exclusively with my father thanks to the Ice Ring campaign I would really like this plane to be addressed if possible.

[tvcasualty]

I recently upgraded my Laserwing setup and ditched the stock RMD-X8 Pro Driver boards (mcx clones?) for legit Odrive S1 drivers.  I'm happy to report that with the latest firmware the openFFB board and associated configurator work perfectly with IL2 BOX series.  If I had to guess the issues I was having were due to poor centering calibration with windows.  I think it was impossible to get the stick into the same place twice with the old drivers, and there are many more calibration options with the S1 also.  Hard to say exactly what setting fixed the issue, but the bottom line is that the Odrive was able to be tuned to fix the constant force issues that I was having for a long time now.  Additionally the Odrives are much more stable and I don't have the same issue were occasionally for no reason the FFB would just go nuts breaking the stick before I could shut it down. 

 

I'm happy to report that all tested planes now fly as expected!