Roger writes:

It's almost impossible to do a coordinated turn just looking out the
window in FS9 or FSX. However they are "usually" good enough.

That's part of my question. Yes, the ball moves a bit, but does that movement
correspond to a really bad turn in real life, or an okay turn, or is the error
so small that I wouldn't perceive it in real life, anyway? The ball seems to
move just from looking at it the wrong way, so it must be quite sensitive (if
it's like a spirit level or something, it must be quite sensitive and perhaps
also prone to brief overreaction).

OTOH if you have a foot get heavy on one of the rudder pedals, unlike the real
world you will never notice it until you remove your foot and the
nose abruptly swings back.

How would you notice it in the real world?

I have to be careful to keep the rudder centered when I don't need it. I set
the sensitivity to maximum and removed the dead zone, because I want it to
work like the real thing (in which, apparently, there is rarely a perceptible
"neutral" position for the rudder).

I think *most* pilots who fly the same plane for years will eventually
adjust to the amount of rudder pressure required to keep the ball
centered on climb out and in turns. Not all, but most.

I'd expect coordinated turns to be learned very quickly indeed, since so much
of it can be done by feel alone, and many people learn more quickly that way
than they do in a purely intellectual way (as by following the ball).

However I'll
defer to those on the group who fly with far more pilots than I do.
I would add that after having flown the same plane for many years I
decided to rent a 172 just to play. The first time I made a turn I
rolled left and the nose seemed to go right. The instructor checking
me out sat over there laughing. He remarked, you fly like that after
how many thousand hours?

Would he laugh if you had just changed cars?

Another interesting phenomena. In Real Life (IRL in simmer talk) is
the slip. IRL they are easy. With no tactile feed back in the sim
they can be very difficult. OTOH they will tell you how well the
flight dynamics have been modeled. In the sim they are done strictly
by what you see outside.

It is perfectly possible to do slips in MSFS and I've done them to lose
altitude quickly when landing (after studying how to do them). It's true that
you don't feel anything, but you can recognize the proper attitude visually.
It can be difficult to hold a steady slip in simulation, and it's particularly
awkward to come out of the slip, but I don't know if it's that way in a real
aircraft.

For instance, in the Deb I'm used to doing full deflection slips. Slow
to maneuvering speed, roll left and add right rudder to keep you
pointed straight. Use just enough aileron to require full rudder
deflection. This takes a fair amount of strength both to over come
the aerodynamic loads and the aileron to rudder interconnect.

It's awkward in the sim as well. But it is possible to do it well with
practice. You do need independent rudder control, of course, and preferably
pedals (with a twist throttle it's challenging indeed).

In the
sim there is no such feedback with stick and rudder pressure remaining
unchanged.

You can see what the aircraft is doing, though. If it's properly coordinated
things are steady outside the window.

BTW it can give some pretty spectacular rates of descent in
the Deb. If you are only interested in losing altitude in a hurry you
drop the gear and do as above, but you will find a bit more aileron is
available. This puts you in a steeply descending fairly slow turn and
I'd not recommend it except in an emergency. For one if you have any
passengers along it'll scare the crap out of them along with the
likely hood of dinner as well, but it's described in the emergency
maneuvers section of the POH.

I get very rapid rates of descent in a Baron with the technique, and the
airspeed stays the same, which is very handy. My passengers trust me
completely.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.