Control surface movement speed

[Pocket Sized]

Something that has always bothered me about the fishbed is how the control surfaces are capped to a certain deflection speed.

 

While sitting on the ramp hot you can watch the stick and surfaces lag behind your joystick while doing large, sudden movements.

 

This also happens in flight, giving the plane a heavy and sluggish feel (which may be realistic!). Is this an actual limitation imposed by the hydraulic system or is it a simplified way to simulate a heavy stick in flight?

[Spacehamster]

Just a wild guess, but it could be possible that the ingame aerodynamics code moves the invisible surfaces at a different speed than what is seen. The displayed 3d model is not the one used for collision and aerodynamics.

[Frederf]

Usual construction is to have damper systems built into the control linkage either fluid or eddy current-electrical as well as a direct physical linkage to the surface that makes excessively rapid inputs beyond the physical strength of the pilot.

 

It would be unexpected for the surface linkages to be disconnected from the control stick so movement of surface and stick not-in-sync should not be possible (notwithstanding effects of autopilot, stabiliator ratio arm, etc. which are normal adjustments from 1:1 stick-to-surface relationship).

 

The MiG-21bis is an interesting mix of controls with the rudders being mechanically linked, the ailerons being power boosted as an option added to later models of MiG-21, and the stabiliator having always been hydraulic from the original design.

 

The current DCS module doesn't appear to be hugely sophisticated in modeling control inputs as a finite human strength applied to limited physical controls. Instead it appears the control input mechanisms are exactly reflecting their input device values as an animation of the input.

 

One could imagine the interesting complaints about the controls lagging or otherwise not being instantly and exactly what the joystick input is but that's how it should be.