Greetings All,
I am looking for a way to tweak roll/pitch response and ground effect in some of the jets. I fly real world jets and I have light, medium and heavy experience. I am current and qualified in the Gulfstream 5/550. I am looking to recreate the feel and ground effect I experience when flying real world. Though this is also impacted by sim control setup, I find some jets, like the Lear 45 to be just a tad bit sensitive in pitch and roll. In most jets I've flown, the yoke is rigid due to artificial feel springs and cartridges.
Roll and pitch rates are more sluggish during takeoff and approach/landing. In other words, the yoke has a heavy feel to it.
The aircraft is stable/more resistant to input. On approach in gusty winds, you will find yourself doing what I call yoke cardio. You will have to put in large inputs to counter the aircraft's rolling and pitching moments. In essence, there is a slight delay in control response. Flying straight and level, I can quickly put in 45 degrees of yoke left and right and the plane will hardly move. This is why on gusty/bumpy approaches, you will see a lot of quick yoke movements and little aircraft response. I've demonstrated this to new guys during air refueling. They would close in on the tanker furiously pumping the yoke all around and back and forth. By the time they are in the contact position and plugged, they are so wore out from cardio that they fall off the boom quickly. That's when I take the jet. Back out to 300ft. I then have them watch and rock the yoke 45 degrees left and right and show them that the jet barely moves. I tell them the jet takes time to respond. I drop my armrests and demonstrate how I can close on the tanker using finger tips and wrist. I use small inputs, leaving them in until the jet responds and adjust. I fly to the contact position without yoke pumping cardio/PIO. So I am looking for a way to adjust the pitch and roll input in the flight model to simulate more stability/resistance to input.
Last thing I would like to adjust is the ground effect. In a nut shell, ground effect is about a 200 to 300 feet per minute decrease of sink rate in jets. Should start happening at half of the jet's wing span. So for me, 93.6ft is my wingspan, effect starts around 45ft. So lets look at the typical approach in a jet(MD80/737). Normally, you are looking at a sink of about 700 to 800 feet per minute on a 3 degree glide. The text book procedure, similar to most, is to start a flare at the 20ft call out. At 20ft, you pull power to reach idle by wheel touch down. You add 2 to 3 degrees to your current pitch and hold it through the flare. The aircraft will touch down close to your aimpoint about 1000ft down the runway. Here is the approach with ground effect. The aircraft is trimmed to the approach with a natural tendency to stay on glide path requiring slight pitch corrections. As you start to enter ground effect, the nose will want to drop, requiring some slight back pressure on the yoke. If your aircraft's procedure is to cross the threshold at VREF, you will require a little more back pressure as the speed you are carrying bleeds off(I.E. bleeding off wind additives). For each 5 knots of speed change, the aircraft pitch will change about 1 degree to maintain glide path. At your flare height, you add in 2 to 3 degrees to your current pitch and allow the jet to fly onto the runway. As you add your flare input, that back pressure will be maintained through touch down. You may have to add just a little tad more to maintain your attitude because the jet is losing speed in the flare. You start your power pull at the same flare height and should reach idle by the time the mains touch. Your touch down should be 1000ft down, possibly 1200 to 1500 if you are one of those fight for greaser types. Of course, long bodied aircraft such as heavies will touch 1200 to 1500 down the runway due to using long body VASI/PAPI(2 pinks/2 whites) and higher flare height.
In the past, I did adjust the left/right aerowing ground effect factor/scale. There seems to be 2 sections containing these and i'm unsure of which of the 2 sections to adjust.
I know these adjustments are not for everyone, but I love when I get into a sim and the aircraft has the same feel and effect that I experience in the real aircraft. I feel right at home. Your help is appreciated.
Rick