Maintaining altitude

Mxsmanic wrote:
Dudley Henriques writes:

Generally speaking, you will establish level flight with pitch, adjust
the power, and trim the airplane. At this point level flight is
maintained by extremely subtle and ever constant "caressing" in pitch.

How sensitive is the trim? I find myself wondering this as I adjust trim in
the sim. The sim seems a bit coarse, although I'm doing much better at
holding altitude in the C182 (which has no altitude hold for the autopilot)
than I was doing a week or two ago.

When I leave the runway, the aircraft (C182 or C172) seems to climb very
briskly with take-off trim set. After climbing a few hundred feet I find that
I must hold the stick forward and trim nose down significantly in order to get
the aircraft to level off a bit. This is with full throttle (and pitch all
the way forward, in the C182). I'm not sure if I should just continue
trimming to level flight with the throttle set forward, or back off on the
throttle substantially to maintain altitude. I also don't know if this brisk
climb behavior (with full tanks but just me and equal-weight ballast in the
right seat) is typical of the actual aircraft (I have had mixed replies to my
various inquiries).

The trim setup in MSFS is sensitive as you have noted. Basically you can
compensate as you would in the actual airplane. If you note the trim
causing a bit of over rotation in pitch on takeoff, ease back a bit on
the takeoff trim setting.
In real airplanes, trim sensitivity can vary slightly from plane to
plane even in type. I've found that starting with the recommended
takeoff trim setting works initially. Then if I'm flying the same
airplane again, I'll "adjust" that setting a bit as the aircraft has
told me it needs through it's prior performance.

The sim in my opinion is very hard to trim out properly depending on the
stick sensitivity and how you have the wind set up.
Basically it's not written in stone, and of course you don't have
control pressure present on a joystick as you would in the real airplane
(even with force feedback which in my opinion is not accurate anyway) so
just remember to set up basically by leveling off, watching the nose
attitude carefully, HOLD a level flight nose attitude visually with the
yoke, and trim off until you get a stable altimeter hands off the
controller.

--
Dudley Henriques