Wacko needles

[Pappy_Gunn]

Many of the needles on the instrument panels are all over the place.  RPM, manifold.  Most of the other warbirds (like the P-47, Spit and P-51)have steady needles, allowing you to set RPM and manifold to a set value.  F4U?  Sure, there is a bit of vibration, but this feels like a prop blade has a  foot missing or the engine is missing a few cylinders.  Well you'll just have to guess.  I doubt very much it was this bad in real life.  

[Rudel_chw]

I'm sure this will be tuned by the developers, as this is an early access bird where the development has not yet been finished.

[PL_Harpoon]

Here you can just about see the MAP gauge in the bottom right. It looks very similar to what we have in DCS (meaning it's probably not a modern gauge) and doesn't shake at all.

Also, this is how much shaking I would expect from a period instrument:

Notice that not only it's very small but it also disappears as soon as the engine reaches 1000 RPM.

Edited July 17 by PL_Harpoon

[TacticalOni]

That's been how it goes with these older vacuum driven instruments, especially ones produced during wartime, which, even for peak American quality control there was still some wobbles from loose fittings, maybe an imperfect casting on the spindle of the needle, sometimes a tiny leak somewhere. 
I'd say that it's very, very accurate to the real thing taking that into account. You're mostly going to be setting things roughly anyway, if you're flying as number 2 for a flight lead, you're going to be spending more time holding formation with them than looking down to make sure you're setting the engine at exactly 2550 RPM at 42" MP anyway. Could it be tweaked a little to move less at higher RPMs where engine vibration and the variability of suction isn't as typical, absolutely, I'd be game for that, I personally don't mind where it is right now. 
My first car was an 86 Chrysler which had a stuck sprocket in the odometer, which would cause the speedometer to bounce in a 30mph arc back and forth like a metronome, I got really god at gauging my speed while doing that so it may just be something I'm used to doing and am comfortable with 

[banjuska92]

Pour ma part j'aime beaucoup ces petits tremblements 

Edited Sunday at 12:41 PM by banjuska92

[Art-J]

20 hours ago, TacticalOni said:

I'd say that it's very, very accurate to the real thing taking that into account. 

It's not, however, that's the point. Needles in pneumatic flight instruments don't shake, vintage or modern, doesn't matter, physics is the same. Whether the gauge has diaphragm or bourdon tube inside, the air filters out small pressure irregularities quite well. Granted, entire insrument panel shaking from engine vibrations or stall may induce wobble indeed (after all, panels were usually mounted on rubber dampers, not bolted stiff to the fuselage), but not to the scale present in current module version.

Mech-driven instruments, like engine tachos - sure, depending on how they're driven exactly they can be a bit more shaky than pneumo ones.

I'd say if Corsair module needle animation is here to stay, it should at least be toned down.

Apart from th vids above, here are a couple of warbird examples showing how much wobble one can expect in various phases of flight:

 

 

 

[CF104]

On 7/26/2025 at 11:47 AM, TacticalOni said:

That's been how it goes with these older vacuum driven instruments, especially ones produced during wartime, which, even for peak American quality control there was still some wobbles from loose fittings, maybe an imperfect casting on the spindle of the needle, sometimes a tiny leak somewhere. 
I'd say that it's very, very accurate to the real thing taking that into account. 

That's a very broad group of assumptions you've made. In my 43 years of aircraft maintenance, I've worked on many WWII and post war era aircraft and the lack of quality you speak of is very incorrect. Some of the best engineering and workmanship came out of the war effort and that's a fact. Instruments, in particular, are very precision. My Father-in-law is a watch maker and has repaired dozens of warbird instruments over the years and I can tell you from first hand experience that the quality is way better than you surmise.

The way the F4U RPM and MP gauges are operating now is not right. The constant vibrating needle is incorrect and setting a manifold pressure of 44.5" is impossible when the needle is bouncing between 41 and 48 like an oscillating saw. IRL these 2 instruments are critical for proper power management and engine life and operate rather smoothly as posted in the videos here.  Magnitude 3 LLC needs to correct this behavior in a future update to bring it closer to the expected realism.

Maybe it's the same programmer who decided to make the folded wings shake while parked on the carrier and the antenna post to whip around like a sword in flight. Both equally unrealistic and immersion breaking. 

Cheers,

John