Horizontal stabilizer axis - German aircraft in particular

[USSR]

What is neutral in percentage terms?

What does it look like in cockpit indicator?

Why does it shift in mission? Maybe I should move it fron a hat switch on my X56 to a keyboard or throttle quadrant?

What the percentages actually mean?

Is 0% Neutral?

51% slight tail down or tail high?

This is not how I remember it a few years ago.

Can anybody explain it to me? 

 

 

Edited April 16 by USSR

[Gutholz]

In Fw190 cockpit it is to the bottom left, near gear indicators.

There is a little electric switch, it is labeled with "Schwanzlastig / Kopflastig." (tail heavy / front heavy) You can see it move.

Next to it is a indicator instrument in the form of a circle with a quarter scale and a pointer. It is just labeled with the letter "T", middle is marked with 0 but no numbers otherwise.

 

In Bf 109 cockpit, to the left there is a hand wheel with chain drive. Parallel to the hand wheel for flaps.

A bit to the front of the handwheel there is a piece of metal with a hole. As you turn the wheel, different numbers become visible in the hole.

I do not remember the percentages but you can check ingame how the indicators moves and compare it to technochat.

 

Quote

Why does it shift in mission?

Do you mean the trim adjusts itself? Maybe a difficulty setting, no idea. It should not do that.

Or do you mean the plane pitches up/down after a while? As the weight of the plane changes, it behave differently, you need to adjust trim. Most notatibly is when dropping bombs, but also using ammo or fuel. For example in Fw 190 with three 250-bombs, I put trim fully back and then more forward as bombs get dropped.

[AndyJWest]

2 hours ago, USSR said:

What is neutral in percentage terms?

What does it look like in cockpit indicator?

Why does it shift in mission? Maybe I should move it fron a hat switch on my X56 to a keyboard or throttle quadrant?

What the percentages actually mean?

Is 0% Neutral?

51% slight tail down or tail high?

This is not how I remember it a few years ago.

Can anybody explain it to me? 

Like the trim on more or less any aircraft, 'neutral' will vary with indicated airspeed (and TAS too above say Mach 0.7, though that isn't relevant here), with aircraft weight, and with CG position. 

[Dash,Polder]

Yeah, what Andy said, there are three ways to describe trim positions physically, position where the stab is horizontally level with the aircraft's water line on a moving stabilizer, which is probably what you are thinking.  Than there is flush for a trim tab with a flight control surface itself, and than as Andy described trimmed for level flight hands off the controls.  

What it looks like is always going to be dependent on each individual type aircraft design.

Ignore the game % outputs and use the cockpit indicators, for the size aircraft we are flying, mostly single engine fighters the horseshoe's and hand grenade principle applies, close is good enough.  The game % read out indication is telling you your controller axis positioning and doesn't necessarily correspond to the aircraft's trim characteristics, but it is still usable feedback for a virtual pilot using gaming devices.