Central Position Trimming when hovering

[jonfog]

Hi, I have a problem with this when hovering. It seems that there is a dead band around the center position where this Mode thinks "okay he returned the joystick to center" and immediately applies the joystick input to the newly trimmed position.

When I try to get a stable hover and apply trim, I can see that I really don't move my joystick much and after releasing the trim it makes a small jump in the direction I had may joystick in. So it's really hard to get to a point where I can apply the "Trim left button" hover hold mode without it  jumping around quite a bit before it settles.

I have a Virpil joystick on an CM-2 base with an extension, so it's is really stable and accurate. I don't need any deadzone and just a small touch of curvature.

[Marshallman]

8 minutes ago, jonfog said:

Hi, I have a problem with this when hovering. It seems that there is a dead band around the center position where this Mode thinks "okay he returned the joystick to center" and immediately applies the joystick input to the newly trimmed position.

When I try to get a stable hover and apply trim, I can see that I really don't move my joystick much and after releasing the trim it makes a small jump in the direction I had may joystick in. So it's really hard to get to a point where I can apply the "Trim left button" hover hold mode without it  jumping around quite a bit before it settles.

I have a Virpil joystick on an CM-2 base with an extension, so it's is really stable and accurate. I don't need any deadzone and just a small touch of curvature.

Can you trim in Hover hold mode....I think I do this.... I'll have to go online to check

[TZeer]

Check ypur virpil settings. There is a default dead band on all virpil analog axis.

This deadband will come on top of any deadband you have inside DCS.

So when you trim, then recenter your stick, there will be a noticable area in center where your stick does nothing.

Also check your collective. You will have to pull a little before the collective in game actually moves from it's default off position.

[jonfog]

I just tried with rudders with a hot start. I'm on the ground with show controls enabled. If I deflect the rudder pedals to one side it behaves as described. The pedals are ignored after I trim and try to make small deflections. But when I slowly move the physical rudders to the center i can see that the in game rudder input activate before I actually reach the center position and thus makes the ingame rudder do a small jump to the side I trimmed.

Say that the rudder input has a range of 0-100 where 50 is the center. I press and trim at 30 and at this stage I cannot move my ingame rudder. However when I release my physical rudder it looks like the algorithm for detecting "rudder returned to center" has a dead band of say +/- 5. So as I reach 45, going from 30 to 50, it suddenly activates the ingame rudder.  Now I suddenly get 30 - 5 = 25 as input. 
The number here are just for description. But it's pretty easy to see with the control indicator.

Just wonder if anyone else has this problem.

Yeah I can see that there is a deadband entry in there. But my joystick and rudder are as sensitive as I can ask, that's why I have a small curve (in DCS) applied to them. So it's not the control inputs dead zone that is my problem.

[Floyd1212]

I do get a minor "blip" on the cyclic input when I return my stick to center after releasing FTR.  In fwd flight it isn't enough to do much, and with ATT Hold set and the aircraft stable, it isn't enough to do much there either; it doesn't break me out of the position hold I have set.  I have always just lived with it.

If you are talking about how the SCAS will freak out for a couple seconds after establishing the position hold and then eventually settle itself again, that is unrelated, and was introduced in the 2.9 patch.

[donkeyrider]

I also have Virpil but the CM3 base. Firstly check the virpil app and eliminate the deadzone that is set by default. It's small but noticeable in the Apache. Removing it helped a lot with small inputs needed for hovering.

I only fly the Apache right now, so I removed the cam profiles and completely loosened the spring, so the stick stays where I leave it. Complete game changer and I mainly "trim" now to help the SCAS stay "unsaturated".

 

[average_pilot]

On 12/12/2023 at 11:49 AM, jonfog said:

Hi, I have a problem with this when hovering. It seems that there is a dead band around the center position where this Mode thinks "okay he returned the joystick to center" and immediately applies the joystick input to the newly trimmed position.

When I try to get a stable hover and apply trim, I can see that I really don't move my joystick much and after releasing the trim it makes a small jump in the direction I had may joystick in. So it's really hard to get to a point where I can apply the "Trim left button" hover hold mode without it  jumping around quite a bit before it settles.

I have a Virpil joystick on an CM-2 base with an extension, so it's is really stable and accurate. I don't need any deadzone and just a small touch of curvature.

I've noticed the same thing and wondered if the area where "Central Position Trimming" consideres the stick has been returned to center can be modified. I can imagine the values are in some lua file somewhere, probably. Although so far I haven't noticed a problem controlling my the aircraft to bother looking for it. It'd be interesting knowing where it is anyway and experiment with a narrower area.

Edited December 20, 2023 by average_pilot
grammar!

[DD_fruitbat]

On 12/12/2023 at 1:16 PM, TZeer said:

Check ypur virpil settings. There is a default dead band on all virpil analog axis.

This deadband will come on top of any deadband you have inside DCS.

So when you trim, then recenter your stick, there will be a noticable area in center where your stick does nothing.

Also check your collective. You will have to pull a little before the collective in game actually moves from it's default off position.

 

On 12/13/2023 at 1:19 AM, donkeyrider said:

I also have Virpil but the CM3 base. Firstly check the virpil app and eliminate the deadzone that is set by default. It's small but noticeable in the Apache. Removing it helped a lot with small inputs needed for hovering.

I only fly the Apache right now, so I removed the cam profiles and completely loosened the spring, so the stick stays where I leave it. Complete game changer and I mainly "trim" now to help the SCAS stay "unsaturated".

 

I had no idea Virpil had deadband enabled by default in their controllers, Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Not only has it made the Apache wayyyy better, but AAR is also so much easier in Jets! 

Thanks

[donkeyrider]

Glad we could help! 

[pii]

On 12/12/2023 at 5:49 AM, jonfog said:

Hi, I have a problem with this when hovering. It seems that there is a dead band around the center position where this Mode thinks "okay he returned the joystick to center" and immediately applies the joystick input to the newly trimmed position.

When I try to get a stable hover and apply trim, I can see that I really don't move my joystick much and after releasing the trim it makes a small jump in the direction I had may joystick in. So it's really hard to get to a point where I can apply the "Trim left button" hover hold mode without it  jumping around quite a bit before it settles.

I have a Virpil joystick on an CM-2 base with an extension, so it's is really stable and accurate. I don't need any deadzone and just a small touch of curvature.

Go to the special option under  Ah-64d and set your trim type. 

[average_pilot]

On 1/1/2024 at 7:33 PM, pii said:

Go to the special option under  Ah-64d and set your trim type. 

When using "Central Position Trimming" the new trim is not applied until the physical joystick returned to center. But it's not really dead center, rather a region around the center. OP is asking if it is possible to reduce the size of that region because when doing very small adjustments the physical joystick is always inside that region making the trimming method equivalent to "Instant Trimming".

[Longiron]

8 hours ago, average_pilot said:

When using "Central Position Trimming" the new trim is not applied until the physical joystick returned to center.

I have noticed that unlike the other helo's when the force trim is pressed(momentary) the ah64 does not ignore inputs like the other helo's until the stick is centered.

with the ah64 you can continue to apply inputs to cyclic after a FT press, other helo's implementation of "central positions trim" the cyclic goes dead until you "pick it up" again at center.

I would like to know if this is intentional, a issue with FT in ah64 or this could be a bug?

[Chic]

On 1/3/2024 at 11:17 AM, Longiron said:

I have noticed that unlike the other helo's when the force trim is pressed(momentary) the ah64 does not ignore inputs like the other helo's until the stick is centered.

with the ah64 you can continue to apply inputs to cyclic after a FT press, other helo's implementation of "central positions trim" the cyclic goes dead until you "pick it up" again at center.

I would like to know if this is intentional, a issue with FT in ah64 or this could be a bug?

The pitch and roll axis are trimmed independently.  You might be observing movement of one axis while the other is waiting to be “centered”.