Riggins piloting Cessna Skyhawk 172SP ended Friday, March 30, 2007 at 19:42
FSFlyingSchool Version 1.5 (Friday 23rd February 2007)
Using: FS2004
Visibility: 70.41 Miles Wind: 0 Knots
Aircraft: Cessna ID: N324CR Airline: Flight: 1
Flight plan: NAV1:
Failures: None at landing
Landing Score:0.00
Landing was successful in the following areas:
Gentle touchdown.
Good landing speed - not too fast.
Wings were level.
Good pitch control after touchdown.
Good pitch at landing.
With flaps - good job.
Good controlled final descent to touchdown.
Landing included the following problems:
No glideslope information was available on visual approach.
No runway alignment information was available on visual approach.
No glideslope - could not compare flare to glideslope.
Touch down not aligned with the runway - let's point down the runway.
Throttle(s) forward - should be idle.
Poor steering after landing - stay on the centre line.
Definite room for improvement...
Flight Score:88.06
Flight commended in the following areas:
Smooth turns.
Nice banking.
Correct matching of flaps to speeds.
Comfortable G forces.
Smooth pitch control.
Flown within aircraft's maximum speed limit.
Gentle taxi turns.
Good take off steering.
Rotation was not late.
Appropriate position of flaps during taxi.
Smooth braking during taxi.
Well coordinated turns.
No stalls.
No flying dangerously close to stall speed.
Smooth comfortable descent rate.
Pitch not too high.
Pitch not too low.
Flaps down on time.
Approach speed not too fast.
Low altitude speeds not too fast.
Good clearance of obstacles.
Flight included the following problems:
Poor attention to taxi speed - dangerous to yourself and others.
Loss of altitude during takeoff - climb smoothly.
Wings not level near ground - danger of clipping a wing.
Definite room for improvement...
So for a while now, I guess since I built the new sim rig, I noticed everytime I'd take off my Cessna would veer to the left. For a few days I figured this was due to the yoke/peddles needing calibration. So today, I calibrated them, and calibrated, and calibrated. No luck. Still, heads to the left.
"Torque effect is the influence of engine torque on aircraft movement and control. It is generally exhibited as a left turning tendency in piston single engine propeller driven aircraft.
According to Newton's law, "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction," such that the propeller, if turning clockwise (when viewed from the cockpit), imparts a tendency for the aircraft to rotate counterclockwise. Since most single engine aircraft have propellers rotating clockwise, they rotate to the left, pushing the left wing down.
Typically, the pilot is expected to counter this force through the control inputs. To counter the aircraft roll left, the pilot applies right aileron.
It is important to understand that torque is a movement about the roll axis. Aileron controls roll. Prop torque is not countered by moving the rudder or by setting rudder trim. It is countered by moving or trimming the aileron.
This correction induces adverse yaw, which is corrected by moving or trimming the rudder (right rudder).
On aircraft with contrarotating propellers (propellers that rotate in opposite directions) the torque from the two propellers cancel each other out, so that no compensation is needed."
To further backup the theory that Flight Simulator was actually doing this, I googled "fs2004 torque effect" and found this post:
http://flyawaysimulation.com/postt25992.html
Which confirmed that yes, my left banking is single engine propeller torque, cool!
(Note: Someone in that post mentioned you could "Press 5" to correct it) But since I want it to be a realistic as I can possibly make it, I'll let it torque left and use right airleron to compensate.
