terry writes:

I know you are supposed to use the stick to adjust to the correct
altitude and then trim but I must admit to cheating a bit and just
playing with the trim only until I get the altitude nailed.

With the stick I have on the sim, I usually use the stick first to get close
to the right altitude, and then gradually adjust the trim. There is no
changing control pressure in the sim, so I adjust the trim, back off on the
stick a little bit, and watch the result. Little by little I can get it
trimmed out, but I suspect the process is a lot slower than it would be if I
had proportional pressure on the stick that I could directly trim off. I
suspect the real aircraft is easier to fly, at least in this respect.

And I am very curious about what you use for ballast in the right seat Mx? Are
you using one of those "Skyguy" co-pilot dummies with the uniform
that you get from the pilot shop? I used to have one myself but it
was a pain carrying it around , so now I just use an 80 kg block of
lead, since it was the densest object I could find. Do you know of
anything denser so it wont take up as much room in my flight bag?

Depleted uranium is almost twice as heavy as lead. Osmium is about 20%
heavier than DU, but it smells bad (and the smell is toxic).

I've considered this issue, and decided that my ballast is jugs of tap water,
because I can empty or fill jugs as required to adjust the ballast, and I can
move individual jugs about the cabin as required. I put ballast on the
opposite side of the cabin and behind me, in most cases, to center the CG and
move it back a little (when I'm flying alone).