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Hud Heading Diamond Symbol Doesn't Recenter After Trimming


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Hi,

 

In OB 2.7, I noticed that the hud diamond symbol doesn't reset to new heading after pressing the trimmer button. E.g. I hold the trim button while turning to the right with the rudder. Next, release the trimmer but the diamond symbol doesn't recenter.

 

Can someone confirm this issue?

 

Thanks. 

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  • ED Team

Do you have an active point selected on the PVI-800?

 

IIRC, the heading diamond only snaps to the present heading when the force trim is released when there is no active PVI point selected.

  • Thanks 1

Afterburners are for wussies...hang around the battlefield and dodge tracers like a man.
DCS Rotor-Head

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  • 4 weeks later...

There's an option in DCS for the trimmer to more often affect the heading.  It's near the trimmer option (with three choices) in the settings, if I recall correctly.  I believe you also need FD off and may need to have those two switches near the SAS channels in the appropriate positions, otherwise you might end up just with your heading channel trying to follow the waypoints.  Without the aforementioned option active under settings, I believe you need to toggle the heading SAS channel off and on to get it to set a new heading caret position.  Again if I'm recalling this correctly, I believe that option setting lets the trimmer release/set button reset the caret all the time in non-FD mode with the appropriate switch positions. 

I personally don't like trimming the heading channel, and think this should only be a strong rotation rate damper channel except when you have the route or heading following explicitly activated that would normally be called 'flight director' in ordinary, correctly-translated aircraft with full autopilots.  Right now the FD mode is essentially acting on the shark like a kind of Control Wheel Steering mode that can be used to bypass the route/WP-following full autopilot, and substitutes the full attitude guidance with some unfortunately-weak rotation rate damper channels.  In contrast, the clunky manual caret designation of the heading, the route/WP-following, and the turn-to-target stuff is all much higher authority than FD mode.


Edited by Reticuli

X65 and X52, Glide, Winx3D, and GlovePIE Profiles http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=reticuli&CatID=miscmisc

 

http://library.avsim.net/register.php

 

X52 + Silicone Grease = JOY stick

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  • ED Team
13 hours ago, Reticuli said:

There's an option in DCS for the trimmer to more often affect the heading.  It's near the trimmer option (with three choices) in the settings, if I recall correctly.

 

The option you are referring to is the "Rudder Trimmer" checkbox in the Special options tab.  All this does is enable a "trimmer"-style control logic to the Ka-50 rudder pedal input, in the same manner/logic as the cyclic.  With this option off, the player needs to maintain their pedals in a constant position, regardless of trimmer use, which can be tiresome with some rudder pedals that are spring-loaded to a neutral position.

 

13 hours ago, Reticuli said:

I believe you also need FD off and may need to have those two switches near the SAS channels in the appropriate positions, otherwise you might end up just with your heading channel trying to follow the waypoints.  Without the aforementioned option active under settings, I believe you need to toggle the heading SAS channel off and on to get it to set a new heading caret position.  Again if I'm recalling this correctly, I believe that option setting lets the trimmer release/set button reset the caret all the time in non-FD mode with the appropriate switch positions.

 

In the situation the OP mentions, the HUD diamond isn't snapping to the current heading when the trimmer is released because (most likely) the OP has an active WP/airfield point selected on his PVI.  When there is an active waypoint or airfield point selected on the PVI, the HUD diamond corresponds with the heading to that point.  If there is no WP/airfield point selected on the PVI (and assuming the HUD is in navigation mode), then the HUD diamond will snap to the current heading each time the trimmer is released.  This logic is independent of the FD on/off, as well as the switch position for Desired Heading/Desired Track below the FD button.

 

The Flight Director simply inhibits the higher autopilot functions such as Route mode, Hover mode, or Auto-Turn-on-Target, etc from affecting the flight control servos, while retaining the stabilization functionality of the autopilot channels.  This can be demonstrated by selecting Hover mode with the FD turned on.  The appropriate symbology for Hover mode will appear on the HUD, and the Altitude autopilot channel will also come on, but the aircraft is still required to be flown by the pilot in all axes including altitude, and will not automatically maintain a hover.  This is why the Bank/Pitch steering cues (and if Altitude channel is on, the Assigned Altitude indicators), the little = signs, are present in the HUD, "directing" the pilot what attitude he needs to fly in order to accomplish the assigned PVI task; or if there is no PVI task, the "=" Bank/Pitch steering cues simply snap to the current Bank/Pitch values each time the trimmer is released, just as the heading diamond snaps to the current heading with no PVI task.

 

The two switches you are referring to below the Flight Director button (one being Radar Altitude Hold vs Baro Altitude Hold) only affect the manner the autopilot attempts to navigate when Route mode is enabled, either by Desired Heading or Desired Track. Or, in the case of the FD being engaged, the manner that the "=" steering cues direct the pilot to navigate the aircraft in lieu of the aircraft doing it for him.

 

To summarize, the key factor that determines whether the HUD heading diamond snaps to the current heading on release of the trimmer is whether or not a PVI task is selected.  The state of the FD (on or off), or the position of the DH/DT switches, have no affect on this logic.  Nor does the setting of the "Rudder Trimmer" option in the Special tab.

EDIT: I should have clarified that the BR/RD (Baro/Radar) switch below the FD button has nothing to do with the Route mode, it just selects what altitude source the Altitude Autopilot channel uses to assign a hold value; whereas the DH/DT switch is associated with the desired navigation method.  So even though these two switches are right next to each other, they affect completely different systems.


Edited by Raptor9

Afterburners are for wussies...hang around the battlefield and dodge tracers like a man.
DCS Rotor-Head

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I believe in FD mode the yaw SAS channel was just a weak rotation rate damper regardless of anything else... at least when the rudder trimmer was off in options.  In non-FD mode, I recall it used to be that with that heading type switch next to the SAS channel buttons in its middle position essentially to 'neither' then you end up in a situation where when the rudder trimmer in options is off you had to toggle the yaw channel to set a new heading diamond.  At least that's what I did, but I was also often not using the in-sim trimmer and instead doing autotrimming with PPJoy and GlovePIE.  Maybe I was toggling the heading SAS channel simply because I didn't want to use the in-sim trimmer but still wanted to use non-FD mode sometimes.  It looks like at least later Blackshark has releasing the trim button now always reset the heading diamond when in non-FD mode and that switch position is in the middle even if the rudder trimmer option is off.  Not sure, then, why they're still giving rudder trimmer as an option in DCS World, though, unless that's now an override that allows the heading caret designation all the time... possibly even in FD mode? 

Yeah, that makes sense some of this is influenced by whether there is actually even a waypoint selected in the PVI, since if there's no waypoints it has no heading or track to turn to in non-FD mode. My recommendation, though, is not to clear the waypoints on the PVI just so you can fly manually.  If you want to fly manually and also manually set a heading for the SAS to yaw to when releasing the trimmer button, I also think they need to be in non-FD mode, either because FD mode is still just rate damping (which personally I prefer) or because its authority to turn to that designated heading is too weak.  It sure looks like FD mode is just an unfortunately-weak rate damping, though, and the caret is just informational as to the non-FD mode heading designation you're not using while actually in FD mode, but I could be wrong.

Edit:  Yikes.  The rudder trimmer option is holding a pedal position and indeed effectively overrides every other behavior including FD mode's yaw, but not within the shark's own SAS.  Rather it's holding virtual pedals in the background as seen with the red controls indicator box (ctrl+return).  I don't recommend it, for one because it's coded similar to Dodosim's 206 crude cyclic trimmer, meaning if it's trimmed to an extreme, you first have to trim back to the middle before you can go further.  Now that I'm looking at this again, I can see the entire helo trim system in DCS is coded like this.  There are better ways to do it, though with the Dodosim I admittedly use a manual GlovePIE trimmer button for just the Y pitch and have a rotary for the X roll trim.  Maybe the rudder trimmer option for DCS helos is still mildly useful on the tail rotor helos that lack any mechanical auto tail-mixing or SAS/AFCS, or on the shark if you've got pedals with horrendously-strong spring centering and you like flying with the SAS heading channel off. Still, even if you're a masochist, I think you're probably better off just using GlovePIE (or something else) to create a yaw trim rotary on your a throttle/collective to supplement your pedals. 

In non-SAS/AFCS helos, a GlovePIE script could still do this manual controls magnetic lock style trimming better than DCS currently is.  I'm not entirely sure anymore if DCS BS is doing manual attitude hold designation in non-FD mode when the cyclic is trimmed within certain limits (i.e. you're not inducing a rotational moment when the trimmer button is released that overwhelms the attitude hold authority) or is just a much stronger rate damping authority than FD mode with no real SAS attitude hold at all.  For sure in non-FD mode with that aforementioned switch in the middle position, the sim certainly designates a specific heading with a given amount of yaw authority to turn towards it.  Assuming, just to be safe, you were in FD mode and had that newest third cyclic trim option (joystick without springs and ffb = basically no trimmer) selected under options, then the following might be useful for those who don't want to bang up against pre-trimmed cyclic limits, and pedal stuff could be added, too.

 

//X and Y manual helo trimmer (I'm using X65F and pedals now)

if HeldDown(joystick2.button4, 0.25) then {  //this is my pinky button C
var.x = 0
var.y = 0
var.lag = 0
}

if var.lag = 0 and released(joystick2.button4) then {
var.x = EnsureRange(var.x + Joystick2.x + Joystick2.x, -1, 1)
var.y = EnsureRange(var.y + Joystick2.y + Joystick2.y, -1, 1)
var.lag = 1
}

if (var.lag = 1) and ((abs(Joystick2.y) > .01) or (abs(Joystick2.x) > .01)) then {

PPJoy1.Analog0 = var.x
PPJoy1.Analog1 = var.y
} else var.lag = 0

if var.lag = 0 then {
PPJoy1.Analog0 = EnsureRange(var.x + Joystick2.x + Joystick2.x, -1, 1)
PPJoy1.Analog1 = EnsureRange(var.y + Joystick2.y + Joystick2.y, -1, 1)
}

PPJoy1.Analog2 = Joystick2.z    //collective using HOTAS throttle
PPJoy1.Analog3 = Joystick2.xrot //currently ministick X
PPJoy1.Analog4 = Joystick2.yrot //currently ministick Y

var.nlzrots = sign(Joystick1.zrot)       //pedal nonlinear curve
var.nlzrotm = abs(Joystick1.zrot)^(1.5)
var.nlzrot = var.nlzrotm * var.nlzrots

if var.nlzrot = 0 then {  
   var.nlzrot = -1
else
PPJoy1.Analog5= var.nlzrot - (Joystick2.xrot * .5)
}

PPJoy1.Analog6 = Joystick2.slider //currently thumb rotary

 


Edited by Reticuli

X65 and X52, Glide, Winx3D, and GlovePIE Profiles http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=reticuli&CatID=miscmisc

 

http://library.avsim.net/register.php

 

X52 + Silicone Grease = JOY stick

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