Fokker D.VII. Flying straight and level N. Wind 6m/s from the west. I have to keep constant right aileron pressure to keep from rolling left. Turn 180 degrees and go back straight and level S. Need to keep constant left aileron pressure. Weird. The amount of aileron pressure required is roughly inversely proportional to speed. Even weirder. I try to compensate with rudder, thinking I might have some horrible auto-rudder thing to keep the nose in the direction of flight, but no, kicking rudder causes major sideslip and speed loss.

My settings are without any flying aids (some visual aids, though.)

Flying pleasure gone, except in wind free conditions. Sigh.

This has been discussed before, hasn't it? Half a year ago or something?

Don't take this the wrong way but I thought there was always wind in here. That's why the wind sock is at the base. You did not say if you were on line or off. If on line you're at the mercy of the map builder as far as the wind goes. If you're off line check your settings maybe you had the wind set to blow and didn't catch it. I don't know if you fly in RL but I would LOVE a windless day! Crabbing to land feels strange no matter how much I do it!

Oh just re read what you posted..you knew the wind was on and its doing something strange..opps. I don't know I guess testing needs to be done. were you on line or off?

Although it has been said otherwise I read somewhere that wind could effect aircraft in flight.

First off, the fabric covering, as opposed to open struts, of the tail unit could cause weather cocking and secondly because the wing on the fuselage side downwind of the wind (does that make sense ?) was partially shielded can cause an imbalance of pressure from side to side.

Or at least something like that

@Damocles - I have enough RL flying hours to have an idea of what effects wind has on aircraft, and this is not one of them.

@Logan - offline. Beta career.

I just tried to replicate what Swingman was doing, in QMB I could only set the wind to 5ms. If the wind is out of the west are your flying north its blowing at your left to right so you should need left ron not right, if you turn 180 you should need right ron not left. So his is backward from what my test did. Very strange.

ok so my test was offline with QMB so maybe it is a bug in that one mission.

Actually, I should not need any aileron at all to keep wings level, but when flying with wind from the left, my nose should be pointing leftish from the path of flight (i.e., the plane should drift to the right.)

Should I want to keep the nose in the direction of flight, e.g. when strafing ground targets, I'd need left aileron and right rudder.

Right, That's kind of what I meant, your drifting right and would need left input to compensate for the right pull, not right. I wonder if the mission is written to say winds at the west when its really from the east? Could be a typo, maybe?

Ok here's some info, how relevant I don't know.

Lateral stability, instability etc

Page 161

Nice compilation, Domocles, but not really relevant here. Lateral stability (or lack of it) is about the planes ability to recover from a departure, for example because of a gust or a jerk on the stick or kick on the rudder.

My experience mentioned above is that the plane is very stable indeed, but wants to roll into the the wind, which is completely absurd. When flying straight and level, the plane flies relative to the air only, and behaves no different in no wind (but it looks different when you look over the nose, since the air moves sideways across the landscape, and you see the ground and not the air.)

If you want more in depth info, have a look at http://www.av8n.com/how/ It's a treasure trove, and the material is widely used in many flying schools.

This is a long known issue that is not easy to fix.

Jason

Jason,
Is this just in the off line campaign area or does it continue to the on line? I have never seen this on line or in QMB. I admit I don't use the campaign side..yet so I wouldn't know. Just a bug to be squashed? I hope, and thanks for the reply.

Well Swingman..at least we know we are not crazy ..its a bug of some sort. Party on!

It's a physics modeling issue, so it affects both offline and online. I think online they typically have 0 wind because of this.

I also hope this wind vector bug will be resolved someday. It touches a very fundamental aspect of modeling flight.

Sorry to hear that it's difficult to fix, but glad to hear it's not my mental health that's on the blink (well, at least one plausible symptom eliminated.)
_
/Bjorn

This has been stated before. The response is this: an airplane in flight is not affected in any way by a steady-state wind. An airplane, bird or butterfly can fly perfectly easily in a steady wind of 1000 knots and be completely unaffected and unaware of anything other then the relative wind passing parallel to the flying object's direction of flight in reference to the airmass in which it resides. Now of course once you look down and see your path over the earth you will obviously see that there there are consequences to the wind, just not aerodynamic ones. Gusting winds and wind shear have obvious aerodynamic effects on the flying object. As does taking off or landing in a strong wind. In that case you are transitioning from a fixed point relative to the earth and joining a moving air mass. But after a few seconds of flight ( depending on your mass) you've joined and are back to the state of being unaffected. The sim has this wrong as Jason stated but it is virtually un-noticeable and doesn't have significant side-effects other than to make you doubt the rest of the aerodynamics of the game. I for one have stopped being bothered by it and still believe they have flight 99% right.

You got that right!

Last time I went up in the Champ the wind was 16 MPH gusting to 24 and "variabling" all over the place. Oh, and it was sunny, too, so lovely thermals were thrown into the mix.

Coordinated flight wasn't in the cards as I did the whole S.S. Minnow thing for an hour. I guess I'm sick but after awhile I started to dig it - I was doing all sorts of pilot-y stuff to keep straight tracks over the ground and even some ground reference maneuvers for good measure.

My usual swooshy-dip-swoosh adjustment on final was followed by a completely anti-climatic three pointer, much to the chagrin of the standard airport rats and the relief of the guy I rent the Champ from.

The ultimate praise from a group of pilots that have just watched one's landing is absolute silence about said landing when one walks into the FBO.

Usually they have lots to say to me....

No kidding. Here's a thread from June 2010:

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3043451/Why_does_my_plane_roll_INTO_th.html#Post3043451