Strider posted March 13, 1999 01:18 PM            

Hi all,

I finally took the plunge this week and bought a set of CH rudder pedals... the cheaper version, not the 'pro' ones.

In the past, the only times I used the rudder keys ('asd') were in taking off and for final adjustments on a killing pass. My question: how often do you 'rudder'? This week I noticed that in a turn, a little bit of rudder in the turning direction seems to make the turn sharper and faster. Also, when reversing after a pass, they really help in getting around quicker.

Any other instances where I should be applying a bit?

Dumb question I know but man, these things really add to the immersion of the game... give me tips!

Strider

zDom posted March 13, 1999 07:55 PM            

Tip 1: Your feet are going to be spending a lot of time there. Make sure the regular pedals are comfortable. For me, they were not, and I went to the Pro Peds. Others are fine with the regular pedals. CH will probably let you trade up.

Tip 2: GUNNERY! Adjust your aim with yaw control. Avoid the HO, but kick rudder as you pass and give them burst. Drex gave me one of those in his FW shortly after I got my pedals. Or roll over 90 degrees and kick low rudder to spray a canopy below you

Tip 3: Flight--tighter turns, fine adjustments as IAS changes to stay in trim, etc., but I really like that with pedals you can now do the VIOLENT rudder manuevers, kick rudder to bring nose around--or to counteract the torque and hang it on your prop, then kicking rudder to whip it around.

Tip 4: Defense Trick : Uncoordinated flight manuevers. Change the direction of flight from the angle of the fuselage, and your flight path is harder to predict, to paraphrase Shaw.

Kobra posted March 13, 1999 09:44 PM            

To really get a good feel for the possibilities, I'd suggest trying some offline practice, with smoke on. Fly an airshow, including some hammerheads, 4 point rolls, etc. and using some external view to see what happens. Use a runway for alignment, making passes over that runway with each maneuver. Try making a pass all the way down the runway, with the plane on it's side, maintaining alt and heading.

The 4 point roll might not seem like it has much application to fighting, but you can fake a turn by rolling the plane on it's side while maintaining the same course and altitude. The bogey might be tempted to pull to that turn angle, blowing his E. At this point you have plenty of speed for something upward that he probably will not be able to follow. From there, you can convert your alt to angles and punish him for daring to shoot at you.

Even in a low turning fight, you'll probably find yourself working the pedals. At times you'll want to reduce pull and use some 'up' rudder to get a little alt, then go down and gain speed for better turning rate.

Once you've spent some time experimenting with what you can do, you'll wonder how you could have won a fight without pedals.

=kjbl=

funked posted March 15, 1999 11:13 AM            

Remember to keep your frontal area (drag) at a minimum you want to keep the slip indicator in the gunsight centered. There is also a ball below the artificial horizon which displays the same information. If you keep them centered you have a coordinated turn.

Duckwing6 posted March 19, 1999 07:40 AM            

To center the ball (e.g. flying coordinated) do:

"STEP ON THE BALL"

e.g. use rudder to the side where the ball is to get it back to center .. same is true for the slip indicator on the gunsight.

You'll need this when you got an engine out in one of the Multiengine airplanes. Plus you can help yourselfe in this situation with some degrees of bank into the good engine.

Phil (Dw6)

buile posted March 21, 1999 10:15 AM            

Howdy,

You wont regret the pedals! You use them all the time. Keeping your turns coordinated (center the ball located under the artificial horizon) makes your turns faster and more energy efficient. Practice, practice, practice. Eventually, i think, you will learn when using opposite rudder in turns is beneficial for keeping the nose above the horizon: usually in extremely vertical manuevers like high yo-yos and rope-a-doping they help keep your nose high, and add extra snap to your final turn when you engage the other rudder to pull your nose through the turn.

I bet you'll quickly find that using rudder during firing will let you keep the bullet stream on target longer than if you just use ailerons. Rudder gives you one more tool to aim; in most situations, use rudder for fine tuning your aim, not as the main instrument of aiming. The HO situation zDom described is the only one right now where i would say the rudder is the main instrument for aiming.

Certain situations will have you smoothly engaging full rudder as a target passes to keep your nose at the aiming point for a longer stretch of time.

Dont use rudder for maintaining formation though; although rudder does change flight path, it mostly just changes where your nose is pointing without affecting flight path. Once you release rudder, your nose just goes back to where it was before.

buile-

p.s. unfortunately right now, violently walking the pedals creates warping Once all that situation is improved, i'll feel much better about quickly reversing full rudder deflection in defensive manuevering. Unfortunately, i tend limit my defensive ACM because of this.

Kevdog posted March 22, 1999 11:16 AM            

Anyone else with rudders find they can't hit the broad side of a barn once their rudders been knocked off in flight? I've lost my rudder and I just rtb immediately because I can't hit anything anymore (Not to mention it's hard to do good ACMs without it

zDom posted March 22, 1999 08:28 PM            

Yes, I'm very fond of my rudder,

and miss it so much I usually go home for another if I suddenly find myself without one

Spitfire posted April 09, 1999 12:29 AM            

Rudder will not help you turn faster in the horizontal, but will help you keep better control at the Critical Angle of Attack, the angle at while the relative wind hits the wing.

Basicly slow speed an high G is what makes turns tight however, instantaneous turn rate is at its best at corner speed.

Rudders help considerably. Aim percentage will increase, controlling the aeroplane will become much easier, and maneuvers will be much quicker with the faster response time.

-spit-

Kevdog posted April 09, 1999 01:01 PM            

Spitfire: hate to disagree there, but rudders do help you turn faster in the horizontal. Use the rudder up or down to adjust speed to keep you at corner speed and you will turn faster than if you let speed raise or drop too much. Heh, now I still don't have the hang of this, but I know you're supposed to do it