Question about F/D AP

[GunnDawg]

So I have noticed that when F/D AP is enabled it makes the aircraft very unstable and rather difficult to fly. I flipped it off and the bird flies smooth as can be. So What exactly is F/D AP used for, and why is it so much easier to fly the aircraft when its disabled?

[PhoenixBvo]

The Flight Director disables the heading and altitude hold channels and only provides damping on roll and pitch channels.

Additionally it gives the pilot cues as to the best attitude to reach the current waypoint/target point.

When you disable Flight Director with the roll, pitch and heading buttons turned on, the autopilot has a certain percentage control authority (don't have the exact value handy) within which it will try to control the aircraft to fly straight and level in the direction of the selected target. You can still fly yourself by using greater control deflections than the autopilot is able to make, but you'll be fighting the autopilot in that case.

 

The Flight Director should NOT make the Black Shark unstable, try flying without any channel switched on and you'll notice the difference...:D

 

Edit: Also check your trim settings. If necessary reset trim, then manually stabilize (until attitude and speed is constant) and then trim again. Now with and without F/D (but always with roll and pitch enabled) the sShark should be very stable. I can go and get coffee in the kitchen and she'll be happily flying straight on when I come back.

Edited October 8, 2010 by PhoenixBvo

[GunnDawg]

Again I have a different experience with that. With all the auto pilot buttons on except for Alt Hold I find I can fly the aircraft without a problem, trims perfect and performs perfectly. When I try to fly the aircraft with flight director on, it becomes harder to control, and seems as though I have to really fight the aircraft to get it to do what I want it to, and even then I can hardly get it to do what i want it to.

 

So for me its almost an obvious choice to fly without flight director. I guess to each their own.

 

Having a blast though, that's what matters :)

[PhoenixBvo]

Hmm, well interesting :). One other tip though. If you'd like to fly manually without the flight director, then try disabling the heading hold channel. It should make it easier to change direction and to fly on a heading of your own choosing without a tendency of the flight control computer to turn into the target/waypoint direction.

Many players will fly manually with heading hold on and simply trim away the autopilot "bias", but this is of course not operation "as intended" by Kamov and it requires more retrimming when you change your own heading or select another target.

[Dejjvid]

There are many different styles of flying the shark. My preferred style is to press and hold the trim button everytime i move the cyclic.

 

Sometimes when performing insane ninja-moves, i can keep the trim button down for 1-2min, after im done ninjaing, i just set desired pitch, bank and rudder and release trim, and the shark continues to fly in the new direction.

 

Explained in steps:

1. Press trim button and keep it down.

2. Do your thing with the cyclic and/or rudder.

3. Release trim button

4.Return both cyclic and rudder to neutral position! (This is really important)

 

I never use flight director, i simply don't have time to fly the bird manually, the workload gets to high in combat situations.

[PhoenixBvo]

With the trim button pressed, the behaviour is equivalent to having the flight director turned on. It just saves you from having to keep the trim pressed all the time ;)

[Dejjvid]

It's saves you from flipping F/D on and off, AND trimming.

 

It's like turning the lights off when you need light and light up a candle instead...

[PhoenixBvo]

:), yep there are different views on this, but maybe the best is to put a macro in your HOTAS profile: turning off FD automatically retrims as well? Haven't tried that yet actually.

[zdXu]

Again I have a different experience with that. With all the auto pilot buttons on except for Alt Hold I find I can fly the aircraft without a problem, trims perfect and performs perfectly. When I try to fly the aircraft with flight director on, it becomes harder to control, and seems as though I have to really fight the aircraft to get it to do what I want it to, and even then I can hardly get it to do what i want it to.

 

So for me its almost an obvious choice to fly without flight director. I guess to each their own.

 

Having a blast though, that's what matters :)

 

Post a track.

[GunnDawg]

Yeah I will post a few tracks a bit later. One with FD on and one with it off and see what you folks think. Its still a pretty obvious choice for me to fly without it on. Call me weird :)

[Bucic]

There are many different styles of flying the shark.

And there should go a ban :music_whistling:

[Lio]

Yeah I will post a few tracks a bit later. One with FD on and one with it off and see what you folks think. Its still a pretty obvious choice for me to fly without it on. Call me weird :)

 

Your properly still learning to fly it.

 

If you switch on all the AP channels except FD then you can trim it easly so it flys on its on within the 20% authority. In the mean time you can fiddle with the instruments.

 

If you have to do acrobatic stuff like flying very low in cannyons or around buildings in a city etc. its much easier to get precise input with FD on because you dont have to fight the AP then. But like others have said some just press and hold the trim which gives the same effect.

 

Everyone who plays DCS:BS for the first week will with 99% certain be utterly confused about the AP. I was too mysefl :music_whistling:

[PhoenixBvo]

As a matter of fact, as you become more comfortable with the coupling effects and nonlinearities of the natural motion of the shark you may want to try flying without any AP... When I want to be really aerobatic or for "dogfighting" nothing beats direct control!

 

You'll have to actively stabilize 6 degrees of freedom and that's a handful but also a lot of fun and I found that it gave me much better feeling for the machine. Give that a try! ;)

[GunnDawg]

At some point I may, but for now just flying simple missions and getting to and from point A and B its easier without it :)