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Why is artificial horizon so badly wrong at times?


imacken

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I can be in level flight, and the Artificial Horizon can show me in a 30-40 degree bank and way above or below level.

I'm sure there is gyro drift in these instruments, but to this level? Seems odd.

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Artificial horizon uses a gyro which can get really messed up if you perform acrobatic flight.

 

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Somebody asked this in the past, and a video was posted of a real spit taking off with an artificial horizon that was practically upside down :D

 

The current behavior is probably not far off, these instruments are notorious for drifting over time.

DCS modules are built up to a spec, not down to a schedule.

 

In order to utilize a system to your advantage, you must know how it works.

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I haven't checked if it's modelled in the DCS Spit, but I would guess the Spitfire had a vacuum driven gyro horizon. These only work after the engine is started and the vacuum pump is running. This also means that the gyro will start spinning in the direction the gimbal happens to have at the time of startup, so the gyro needs to be erected manually.

Like I've sai, I don't know if this is the case with the Spitfire 9 or if it's modelled, but the behaviour of the horizon described in this thread may very well be correct.

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I haven't checked if it's modelled in the DCS Spit, but I would guess the Spitfire had a vacuum driven gyro horizon. These only work after the engine is started and the vacuum pump is running. This also means that the gyro will start spinning in the direction the gimbal happens to have at the time of startup, so the gyro needs to be erected manually.

Like I've sai, I don't know if this is the case with the Spitfire 9 or if it's modelled, but the behaviour of the horizon described in this thread may very well be correct.

 

^^^^ This !

Flight Simulation is the Virtual Materialization of a Dream...

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I haven't checked if it's modelled in the DCS Spit, but I would guess the Spitfire had a vacuum driven gyro horizon. These only work after the engine is started and the vacuum pump is running. This also means that the gyro will start spinning in the direction the gimbal happens to have at the time of startup, so the gyro needs to be erected manually.

Like I've sai, I don't know if this is the case with the Spitfire 9 or if it's modelled, but the behaviour of the horizon described in this thread may very well be correct.

In my experience, the horizon is OK on first take off, but goes completely wrong after a certain amount of flight time.

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Normal gyro driven instrument error, the artificial horizon is modded properly, the directional gyro on the other hand should be the same and both should be reset/erected during the flight. It's a beta change and improvement will happen :)

 

Some small reading http://www.pilotfriend.com/training/flight_training/fxd_wing/di.htm


Edited by Decibel dB
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Sorry, I don't really understand what you are meaning! Are you saying the artificial horizon is not modelled correctly in DCS Spitfire, but will be improved?

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The subject was discussed before. Yes, the Spit gyro is so dodgy, as it was the real deal. One can't erect it because there is no erection knob. It's supposed to auto-erect after a while of stable flying and a real vídeo where that was clearly seen was posted. Should one keep doing aerobatics it will never again settle. And no, Spitfire is not an IFR suited aeroplane.

 

 

S!

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Do you both mean that the real life error is correctly modded in the artificial horizon?

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Exactly, well sort of ;)

 

Thanks. Why was the error not corrected in real life? Seems like a fairly useless instrument in practice!

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Thanks. Why was the error not corrected in real life? Seems like a fairly useless instrument in practice!
It was stated in the OP that RAF didn't want pilots to be tricked by the possibility of erecting the gyro by themselves in a wrong position (sic) :doh: . It's clearly seen in P-51, where gyro doesn't erect to the actual horizon, but to the wing position you are currently flying at the moment of pushing the knob. So they did prefer the auto-erecting gyro, it just doesn't erect as fast and precisely as one would like. Then again, Spitfire is not an IFR suited aeroplane.

 

 

S!


Edited by Ala13_ManOWar

"I went into the British Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I believe now that if you prepare for war, you get war."

-- Major-General Frederick B. Maurice

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Then again, Spitfire is not an IFR suited aeroplane.

 

I'm quickly beginning to realise that! :)

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The Spit, like the P-51 and F-86, are day fighter/interceptors with very limited instrument flying capabilities. The gyro instruments are really to assist you when climbing and descending through cloud to get to visual conditions above or below. We're talking 1930s technology here, light years from the information the average light aircraft is capable of providing these days thanks to electronic nav gear.

 

The Spit and Hurri were pure interceptors, they were point defense aircraft that were never designed to do anything but scramble, shoot down bombers, and land again, very short range aircraft. Tooling around in the weather was an occupational hazard, if you read Geoff Wellum's excellent book First Light, he describes a lone bomber intercept in horrible weather and scud running home afterwards that will have you on the edge of your seat when you realise just how scary it would have been to fly these aircraft in poor weather. All in a day's work for a 19 year old in 1940!

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The Spit, like the P-51 and F-86, are day fighter/interceptors with very limited instrument flying capabilities. The gyro instruments are really to assist you when climbing and descending through cloud to get to visual conditions above or below. We're talking 1930s technology here, light years from the information the average light aircraft is capable of providing these days thanks to electronic nav gear.

 

The Spit and Hurri were pure interceptors, they were point defense aircraft that were never designed to do anything but scramble, shoot down bombers, and land again, very short range aircraft. Tooling around in the weather was an occupational hazard, if you read Geoff Wellum's excellent book First Light, he describes a lone bomber intercept in horrible weather and scud running home afterwards that will have you on the edge of your seat when you realise just how scary it would have been to fly these aircraft in poor weather. All in a day's work for a 19 year old in 1940!

Sounds like a must read! Thanks for that.

I'm still confused though, as I don't see how an instrument that can be 60 degrees out can be helpful in any way, especially in bad weather or cloud cover!

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Sounds like a must read! Thanks for that.

I'm still confused though, as I don't see how an instrument that can be 60 degrees out can be helpful in any way, especially in bad weather or cloud cover!

You weren't supposed to fly in bad weather or cloud overcast. These aircraft are mostly daylight interceptors, not all-weather day-and-night aircraft. Even F-5E module we have in DCS is still a daylight fighter-attack jet. Night operations were meant only for experienced pilots willing to put themselves into such a kind of threat, but aeroplanes weren't suited for the purpose.

 

 

S!

"I went into the British Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I believe now that if you prepare for war, you get war."

-- Major-General Frederick B. Maurice

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still today although combine with laser technology gyro have errors. ;)

 

Absolutely! And the first time the instructor fails the artificial horizon in the sim, you get why you can't rely on just that instrument and need to develop a scan pattern :)

 

Late 2015 there was a CRJ-200 that crashed in Sweden because the artificial horizon told the pilot he was climbing... They were in a level cruise, at night. All of a sudden the horizon shows a pitch up and the autopilot cuts out. The pilot pushes the nose down, and things start to happen very fast from there. The standby horizon and the FO horizon were good. Speed indicator, altimeter and VSI all told the same story; straight and level. One horizon goes bad, and the jet crashes.

Learn to fly on other instruments! It's becoming a lost art.

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Learn to fly on other instruments! It's becoming a lost art.

 

So true, we have a young generation of pilots that struggle to get back to basic when the shit hits the fan. Some company with the help of government agency take the lead into forcing change and implementing new training method like EBT and more hand-flying and stuff. Anyways that's another story and sorry I don't want to hijack the post :)

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Sounds like a must read! Thanks for that.

I'm still confused though, as I don't see how an instrument that can be 60 degrees out can be helpful in any way, especially in bad weather or cloud cover!

 

In that case, It's not helpful. But never fear, you have other instruments you can rely on in the cloud...

 

There's an archaic term that was still floating around when I learned to fly (when the earth was still cooling...):

 

Needle-Ball-Airspeed

 

Meaning, you have a way to tell if you are wings level and you can monitor your turns with the Turn and Slip indicator, the up and down arrows thingie at the lower right of the panel. One arrow shows a bank left or right as long as you are flying coordinated (the other arrow, or ball in non-British types)

 

You can also tell if you are climbing or descending by watching your airspeed. At a constant power setting, an increasing airspeed means you are descending and a decreasing airspeed means you are climbing.

 

Put them together with the compass and altimeter and you can do anything. The old instructor's trick of "failing" the artificial horizon by putting a suction cup over it was always questionable to me (even when I was the instructor), because a failure in real life could be far more insidious than a suction cup, and more distracting as the failed instrument remains uncovered and must be ignored by the pilot during his instrument scan.

 

Have fun...


Edited by jocko417
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The old instructor's trick of "failing" the artificial horizon by putting a suction cup over it was always questionable to me

 

It is...

It was a huge difference experiencing a horizon fail in a simulator compared to the aircraft. A real eye opener! I had mastered flying the aircraft without the horizon, but I could always tell when it failed, for the same reason you specify. In the sim the horizon gyro slowly lost speed and the horizon started to drift, slowly at first. Damn hard to catch it!

 

Learning a engine setting (torque, RPM, boost...) and a speed, will save your life one day.

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