The DCS Spitfire - It's Too Twitchy!! . . . or is it?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 มิ.ย. 2024
- In this video I look at the "twitchiness" of the DCS Mark IX Spitfire in response to the dismay that people often express when they first attempt to fly it.
My specs:
AMD 3700x, GTX 2080Ti, 32GB 3200 RAM, Auros Pro X570 motherboard, 2TB M.2 drive
Monitor is an IIyama Silver Crow GB2730QSU
VKB SCG Joystick with GF3 base and 20cm extension
Warthog Throttle
I have MFG Crosswind rudder pedals
Track-IR for head tracking, no VR
My DCS settings/ options: i.imgur.com/EYWFBia.png - เกม
Thanks to Dietrich for checking the math for me, not my strongest suit (alongside typos).
Hi Phil, great video regarding pitch sensitivity. I do have a counterpoint regarding other characteristics of the DCS Spitfire
Before I get started I do want to say that the Spitfire in DCS is remarkably well modeled. That is not to say that it is flawless.
The yaw controls really are oversensitive and (at full yaw, near full power) the required pitch/roll inputs are almost the exact opposite of what this report states. The nose attitude at full sideslip is below the horizon, yaw overcounters roll resulting in a slight turn by far more than 7 degrees. See fig 30, 31 note this is for steady state slips. I'm happy to make a video about this to answer any questions.
The Spitfire in DCS also doesn't represent the pitching motions associated with yaw. The report you used (for the mk V) is particularly blunt about the severity of these pitching motions - they even caused the motor to starve!
Likewise the 109 has some issues (I know this is adjacent to your video, and this isn't a counterpoint to your video)
1) Stick force is simulated as a % at which stick movement completely stops. Say (pulling numbers out of my ass here) at 500km/h a pilot is tested as being able to pull 60% of the stick's pitch range due to weight on the controls. In DCS this means at 500km/h you can use 60% of your stick's range with no impingement on speed of deflection. You can't pull beyond 60% at all. This is compounded by the fact that stick force is heavy down to a lower speed than in any reports I've read (greater % restriction at lower km/h in game than in real life)
2) The stall characteristics of the 109 are famous;y stable, but the DCS 109 is so stable in a stall that it should replace the Cessna as the go-to trainer aircraft. I have, as yet, not managed an uncontrolled spin regardless of entry conditions. Even coming in, trimming full nose up and holding full aft deflection with full rudder and aileron does not induce a spin.
Well I have warthog and so tried this on the spit.....goodness me what a difference, I've adapted now to the 47 and 51 and in my opinion it's made control so much better of all three aircraft.
Thanks for the vid thus has really helped.
@@mckseal I am not sure about that. I think in DCS is simulated the pilot strenght to around 30kgf.
After 35 years, I have finally seen why they taught us Pythagoras' Theorem at school! Great clip.
Definitely one of the best explanations of why joysticks may need some adjustment from the default settings to off-set their limitations when modeling real world controls, including throttle curves.
My dad preferred flying his Hurricane to the Spitfire as it was far more stable in flight and significantly easier to fly. He could throw the Spitfire around far more but you had to "fly" it all the time, whereas he could, almost, fly the Hurricane hands-free. He flew a MkV which landed him in prison camp when the engine seized over the English Channel, I guess that experience may have coloured his judgement on the Spit! :)
Off the top of my head, the most gamey thing i can think of for setting Saturation Y (maximum deflection in other words) is to find the ideal turning speed for a given aircraft (or rather the top end of an ideal envelope) and increase Sat-Y until you can reach a max g load or the virtual pilot blacks out.
The sacrifice would be at lower speeds the pilot would not be able to deflect enough stick to sacrifice their remaining speed to get the nose on the target if need be.
So i think the person must decide for themselves where their priorities are, with their specific joystick in mind as well. Do you do a lot of dogfighting? Keep Sat-Y moderately high (85-100%) If you just enjoy flying the warbirds and doing aerobatics or airshow type flying, drop Sat-Y for smoothness or whatever application you need).
Great little vid Phil
Man, your explanation is superb. Simple, clear and precise. Alongside a very cool narrative! Thanks a lot!
THAT is possibly the clearest explanation of how to smooth out your controls I've heard. THANK YOU PHIL!!!!!
As a maths noob I really appreciate the time you have spent putting this video together. I even understood it, which is as much to do with your careful and measured explanation as it does with my mathematical knowledge! I love the fact that you have used a RL evaluation paper to base your diagrams on too. Thanks Phil, really useful 10 minutes there!
Phil, great vid. I've been flying this bird for years and compared settings and extensions. This vid has made it much more clear for me and the relationship for setting curves even with an extension. I've just added my VKB extension back on and tested your curves. Did great loops, slicebacks, immelmans et al. smoothly. Thanks Mate!
Fantastic video Phil, very well explained. I loved the drawings too.
cheers fella :)
Good video! As an aside, both Johnnie Johnson (Wing Commander) and Pierre Clostermann (The Big Show) talk about nearly blacking out in Spit IXs during hard pulls, so it's not unheard of for hard turns to induce blackouts. I know the video was more on the technical side, but even though the Spitty wasn't the most powerful of WW2 fighters, she could still out-pull the pilots pretty easily.
Putting an extension on my stick was the best upgrade I have ever done for DCS. The extra fine control of the longer throw made a huge difference and suddenly I can fly like the "pros" on TH-cam :) Great explanation of the problem.
Thank you Phil for this very valuable video. That will help me a lot. 👍
Really dig this breakdown. Thanks for getting into the hard numbers.
Excellent, really useful! I was wondering why I was struggling so much with the Spit in DCS
Thanks so much for this, flying my spit is now truly a joy after tweaking my curves…I was holding altitude so well I kept thinking I accidentally hit active pause!!
That was a fundamental explanation, thanks for the efforts
Thank you Phil for this explanation. It is very helpful.
Well done, you opened my eyes to issues in getting real world aircraft to translate to PC controls which are different animals. I have always used curves in my control set up and I will look at the other controls like saturation to help fine tune to get better performance, it could even reduce my cursing, lol!
Thanks Phil.....love your work.
Pure gold. It would be great a similar comparison also for other airframes (e.g. A-10)
Really suberb video, thank you for this and all your videos.
Fantastic! Well done on the explanation
Great video Phil! The tips on how to setup curves or modify your control scheme with DCS WWII warbirds is essential "read" for anyone wanting to get into this part of DCS World.
It's also easy to figure out yourself. Either a curve, or saturation limit, is needed to fly with a short stick when the plane is super-responsive in pitch. Some people still fly without it, though--so only the smallest pitch inputs are needed, giving the 'twitchy' feel.
@@devilsoffspring5519 I'm not sure if everyone jumps to that conclusion right away when getting into DCS warbirds for the first time. I did, but then I wasn't new to the sim or simming in general. Definitely a good thing to point out to folks who may be struggling or even turned off of DCS warbirds when a simple tweak will do the trick.
Brilliant, I discovered your "sexy" 10 100 41 27 pitch on the DCS forum (I was a "gotta be pure 0 100 " guy previously) and it took my Spit flying from frustration to fun. This video makes the whole subject a lot more approachable still. I'm trying to get other aircraft to behave in a similarly more useful manner, just on the general theory that if limit the extremes of my inputs to useful outputs I'll both get better resolution and eliminate most twitch. Thanks, and your observations on the other warbirds would not go without appreciation!
Very useful Phill. Thanks.
Great video! Thanks very much
Nice video man. Thanks for this info.
Excellent video!!
Really helpful man. Thank You.
Thank you so much for explaining this in a way that normal people can understand :) Finally, after 6 years of trying, I get it.. Thank you :)
Joystick extension is not something I had ever considered before, thanks for the info, hopefully a few changes to my twitchy wee stick will work for now.
Definitely helps to have extensions on your flight stick..I have the winwing super libra and the extension making it much longer and is much more realistic with less need for adding any curves at all.. my super libra is about 44cm long.. still not as long as the real spitfire stick but noticeably better than regular length joysticks
Very helpful vid, thanks.
minor update: This has been so helpful for other modules too. I kick myself daily I didn't think of it earlier ;
It’s so crazy how different the IL2 spit feels compared to DCS. When in a 2c rate coming over the top of the egg, I am full aft deflection with 100 percent trim. When I hit the little “speedbump” of elevator authority on the way down, I need only to re-add nose down trim or bump the stick forward a bit.
Full aft deflection in the DCS spit at any time is not a good idea 😅 20cm extension feels perfect for the DCS spit.
Thanks for putting this on video for the record. i can't remember how many times I've explained exactly this on ED forums, and not only with regards to Spit but any other warbird too. 109 comes instantly to my mind for some "control problems" people complain about, but they never think of getting a better controls' set. Not to mention the regular sentence it pops up immediately after that, "this has to be wrong, the real aircraft would be impossible to fly", but they don't think on the actual size of the real deal controls compared to their cheap joystick sitting on the desk…
After your diagrams I had to check my own controls, and I can see in numbers why I am so happy with my Warthog setting, ~45cm length from hand to pivot point and ~14cm travel on the top. Not bad compared to stock Warthog XD.
Yeah, you've been a bastion of reason among that sea of silliness :)
@@philstyle HAHAHA, I wouldn't say so much, but it's been a real struggle so many time just trying for people to understand what's going on. I kind of gave up some time ago on ED forums, so your efforts keeping on it are really welcome mate.
So many times key to warbirds is "just" understanding the physics of what happens, when and why, and this matter is no different. GREAT vid and visual explanation mate, really great. Thanks.
Great vid. Thank you for using centimetres
Great Vid! Every flight simmer should watch it!
We obviously need joysticks and rudders that at least get stiffer with the airspeed. Now there’s no difference between pushing your rudder when on the ground vs at 200 mph. Air combat in those days was very much a test of the strength of the pilot.
Unfortunately force feedback seems to be a thing of the past...
One option you haven't mentioned is a yoke. I fly the spit with a yoke and it transforms it from a wild runaway horse (using a joystick) into a pussycat. No need for curves. Use a yoke for all the warbirds and it even works exceptionally well with some jets (tames the F-5). It's also very pleasurable to fly with a yoke as you can control the aircraft with literally two fingers and a very light touch.
Excellent video! I have the DCS Spit and also the MFS2020 Spit too. They both handle about the same, which is awful. I understand that MFS2020 has now more setup options than before, so I'd like to have a play to see what I can do...
I have a Thrustmaster Warthog Stick with a 20cm extension. Using a protractor app(phone rested on the joystick's hand rest) back pull max was 22 degrees. Throw length from center to back pull max was about 160mm (measured from the top red button on the joystick).
Hey ANZAC brother Phil (calling in from Oz). Thanks for this. I gave up flying the Spit because of the crazy twitchiness of it. Glad to know why this is happening & how to fix it. Perhaps you might also now look at recording a version of this video from the Mossie (which is also fairly twitchy in its own right)? Keep up the good work.
Great video Phil..
Obviously, the main problem is that with a simulator we "can't feel the aircraft"..
Since the beginning I fly with a very old Microsoft Force Feedback 2,
who give me some physical inputs which helps to understand what's happening...
Try the Jetseat mate. It's a game changer. I can't fly without it now.
don’t know why I’m watching this, don’t know what dcs is, guessing it’s a sim. I’m now engrossed
Hi mum !
Yes, DCS is Digital Combat Simulator. The base game is free, but you'll need to buy the aircraft modules. There are free mods available, like the A4 Skyhawk and others.
Thanks a lot for this explanation. I'm a new by & still learning the process on flying in DCS in solo mission. I don't feel confident enough to play online yet. Just a question. Is it possible to adjust the same way for the rudder pedals? Keep on with your tutorials. Philippe.
All axes can be adjusted, yes
Hello Phil Style. Vielen Dank für all Deine guten Videos. Ich hätte eine grosse BITTE an Dich, und zwar : Wäre es Dir möglich oder wärst Du bereit Deine Configurations Deiner DCS - Planes mit Uns ( Mir ) zu teilen ? .
Ich fliege sehr gerne DCS . Aber ich habe immer noch das Gefühl NICHT die RICHTIGEN Einstellungen gefunden zu haben.
Phil mach weiter so. Jedes Video von Dir ist ein lehrreiches Video. Dankeschön. Und ganz wichtig : BLEIBT GESUND
Boy! That turned on a lot of light bulbs here. MSFS2020 has addressed this with a different but similar option for the sensitivity. I already figured out that the stick movement was way off, but not by that much! I'll be doing new curves immediately - the Spit for certain has been way too sensitive to fly, and the P-51 isn't so easy, either. Thanks!
Wow very helpful!
I'm happy with my curves for all the warbirds I have in DCS, the Spit though, just pitches up all the time, it doesn't really respond to trimming, and if I let the controls go, I just do loop the loop. So in order to maintain level flight, I'm constantly pitching forward on the stick. It's only the Spit that does this, and it's irrelevant what speed, altitude I'm flying at.
I'll admit she was a bit twitchy out of the box, but being far from my first DCS module, I went right to testing curves. Granted, I had a Warthog when I started, I'm on a VKB Gladiator NXT now which took a little more tuning. Once you find the right curves, she's one of the more stable warbirds IMO. Right there next to the Jug. The 109 and Mustang are just jumpy messes... lol
I’m still beginning on dcs so my hotas is the thrustmaster used for the Xbox (I’ll be getting a winwing hotas f18 stick later). But I didn’t feel the spitfire difficult to fly. It was actually quite a joy. I do find it rather difficult to taxi…almost impossible…any slight input on the rudders and the spitfire turns uncontrollably, eventually going close to a 270 degree turn, catching angular momentum and then having the plane tip over to the opposite side…kind of frustrating (any tips?)…love the plane though!!
I laughed when I heard "83 cm", for some reason 33 inches hadn't quite sunk in. I suppose it was necessary, because they're not just fighting springs but manually pulling control surfaces.
Thanks for the very informative video.
I wonder if you have any advice o how to fix a trimming issue with the Spitfire. I always have to have forward pressure on the sick to maintain level flight even with full down trim. I have checked the calibration in windows and it centres ok and works fine with all my other simulators. Cheers
That's not normal. I don't know what is going on, but here are some checks you can try:
Recalibrate your joystick.
Check that your forward and back trim are correctly bound.
Check also that your cure mapping on your elevator follows your stick. Open the axis settings and make sure the indicator follows what you are doing with the stick.
Don't fly with your flaps down.
@@philstyle Thanks for the reply.
Yes it calibrates ok and is centred correctly. The trim is going the correct way and fully to the end of the full down position. When looking in DCS at the fine axis tuning, it is centred correctly and moves smoothly along its full range. Very strange.!! As I mentioned my other simulators all work ok (Xplane 11 and MSF 2020)
@@stewartlunney6749 So it might be something specific to your setup. This isn't how it should behave.
I suggest asking on the Storm of War discord. There's around 700 DCS warbird players there. Someone is bound to have had the same issue.
link: discord.com/invite/4Csg6E7
@@philstyle Ok thanks again
Nice one. Might be the same as everyone else but I tend to use the same axis commands for every aircraft I have (though I am struggling with the F-16 so I've left that for now to spend more time on the Spit)!
One question though....what are you doing tomorrow as my son's got trigonometry to do and it's one part of math I struggled with. This home schooling is not fun say all 😞 (we're in Scotland incase you were wondering why we were still home schooling, sorry. I'll pay for your lunch and a haggis pie if you can do it 👍🏼).
I would leave the Viper alone, since its flight control system changes the input gains, depending on the situation.
Applying curves on top of that, can make things quite messy.
Also heads up with the trig.
@@kilianortmann9979 I'll give that a go when I next jump on it. Thanks 🙂👍🏼
Tried it out today and i figured it works for P-51 and P-47 aswell. The settings might vary
The first thing I did was adjust my joystick axis controls. While I probably fly the spitfire more than any other airplane in DCS it is a pain to fly and a bigger pain to land. Even with the axis tuning, it doesn't take much to blackout or depart flight, especially when you have an enemy fighter on your six pulling lead for a shot. I wonder if a real spitfire was that much more difficult to fly than a P-51? If so, I have even greater respect for the pilots that flew them.
its important to mention, that in War Thunder, for some strange reason, their Default sensitivity is much like the long stick, giving the players the spitfire problem on all their planes ,
The only people who dislike this video are the ones who refuse to learn it and should just go fly Warthunder :D
thanks also the p47 is so sensitive will set it as you did now. ... i only did the bottom one..
Does anyone know the command to get the pilot out of an aircraft after shutdown? I have been searching since forever , I had it before and would use it whenever I flew the P-51D Mustang and the Spitfire LX-MK IX ...I've since built a New Gaming Pc and for the life of me I can't find it anywhere. any help will be appreciated immensely. thank you.
Could you post a link for the NACA study?
Is it only the pitch or should one make the same axis tune on the roll too?
Adjust to what you are happy with.
ASMR phil style. 😉😎👍🏻
ОТЛИЧНО!!!
So is this only for Pitch? or for everything?
wow... thats so ironic... i feel the Spit is actually the most stable of the warbirds
It's stable in level flight, but not in dogfights.
the problem with twitchiness in DCS and FS2020, for that matter, is that your joystick has no feedback (at least the vast majority of sticks don't). Having flow quite a bit in a 172, the FS2020 172 feels about right, but if you yank on the simulator stick / yoke it does "weird things", because you'd never do that in real life... you couldn't. You get too much resistance from the control linkages. The same is true of DCS.
Russian pilots were hating on british planes because of the chain eleron system
I wonder how the Airbus 320 resolves this issue with its tiny joystick.
Totally different bird. It's fly by wire not direct connection as the starting point.
Bf109 pls
Hi Phil. I was playing around with my joystick, measuring throw and angle (which I posted earlier). Anyway, while sitting in the cockpit of the DCS MK ix, I noticed that the control column pivot's in roughly the middle, a little above the pilots ankles. th-cam.com/video/PIFBoVGQT9g/w-d-xo.html I've linked a very short video highlighting this. Is this a factor the equation?
Mark-ix is just mark-5 with mark-xiii engine
How twitchy is the p47 in your opinion
I don't have an opinion. I don't own the P47.
Why am i even watching this. I dont fly the spitfire haha.
guys remember that an extension requires the base strenght to support it. Case in point, a Warthog base will explode on you fast with any decent extension, and it's just a bad idea even with a small extension : it will kill the base.
You need a sturdy mechanical base for extensions. Even Virpil's WarBrd is not meant for long extensions, and it's a machined mechanical base of the highest quality. Don't extend the cheaper bases - X56, Warthog - don't touch them.
Mate you never answered my Q wether or not 1440p still makes problems in spotting as it is 3yrs ago at this point
It's more the size of the pixel on the monitor itself that will make it hard......the smaller the pixel the harder it will be to spot. But for the most part higher resolutions make it harder to spot right now.
Higher resolutions continue to reduce individual pixel size on the same hardware.. The principle remains the same and will until the laws of physics change..
@@philstyle yeah I know its just that Ive heard IL 2 Sturmovikh managed that pretty well so I thought there was hope
@@rama7267 As a result of your comment I have just tried IL2... Oh dear.
I watched an He111 fly away from me, after a short while it started flicking in and out rapidly and then, all of a sudden it quadrupled in size and became a large 3D object facing the wrong direction!
What a horrific system. I hope DCS never does that.
Can't they build a software / dynamic curve that includes the maximum amount of Gs a pilot would feel, limiting the amount of pulling in high G turns
Probably. I'd not use it though. Turning until you black out was something pilots did frequently. Maybe for "easy" mode they could have something like that.
@@philstyle spot on why on earth would you want a fake setting other than "game - arcade" mode. DCS spend a fortune getting the flight model realistic because that is what 99% of us want..
The DCS Spitfire, like the real thing, is hyper-responsive in pitch because it has large elevators and a rearward center of gravity compared to most aircraft. So, it's pretty 'twitchy' in flight especially when using a short desktop control stick, which most flight simmers use.
It's no worse to fly than any other WW2 module, you just have to get used to it.
Flying a plane with a desktop joystick is like racing Formula 1 with a gamepad. No, not a small wheel. A gamepad. Because in a real plane you use biceps/triceps to move the stick around, and on your desktop joystick you use your wrist. A completely different and waaaay less precise set of muscles. Not only does your desktop mini stick have less precision/resolution, but your wrist does too, compared to your arm. Once you go extension, you never go back. Unfortunately, along with a 20-100$ extension, you'll need 50-150$ desktop mount, for now...
Aircraft are not 'twitchy', they are more or less responsive to control input. Birds are twitchy. If an aircraft is highly responsive to control inputs, the pilot should handle it accordingly.
Twitchy is just a word people use. Language is fluid. If people all use that word to describe the same thing, then it is the right word to use.
I think we can all be a little relaxed and accommodating to that.
@@philstyle In aviation we always aim to work as objectively as possible. The word 'twitchy' is not the correct word to use as its meaning does not describe the characteristics. Just because lots of people use it incorrectly does not make it correct.
@@Chief-Instructor
This isn't aviation . . . this is gaming. Twitchy has been used in gaming for a long time, it's an established term among gamers to describe a scenario where the outputs from a modeled machines (be it a car, or boat, or spaceship or aircraft) feel uncomfortably abrupt and or exaggerated in relation to the player's inputs on their hardware. Curtis Pitt's, famous quote sums this up nicely when he said that there was "no such thing as a twitchy airplane-only twitchy pilots.”
In PC gaming, that's exactly the point. Simulated (NOT REAL!) aircraft seem "twitchy" because their extreme responsiveness does not translate well onto default hardware setups. So, the word Twitchy is applied. You'll notice, if you're really paying attention that this is why I said that the aircraft which are simulated "seem to be" twitchy. Not that they actually ARE twitchy.
Now, if Aviators don't know how the term twitchy is being applied in this context then that's really of almost zero consequence. It's kind-of irrelevant here what "aviators" talk about over their lunch-breaks.
However, just for the sake of being a little thorough here and putting this attempt at gatekeeping to the test - aviation communicators and pilots DO use twitchy to describe aircraft handling and have been doing so for at least 40 years.
- The FAA themselves use the term "twitchy" as short-hand for "overly sensitive to control inputs" in circular advisory 90-109 issued in 2011.
- August 2016, General Aviation News used "twitchy" to describe the handling characteristics of the Cirrus SR22T vs Cessna TTx
- November 2011, Air and Space magazine used "twitchy" to describe modern FBW jets
- September 2015 Flying Magazine made reference to the Tri-Pace's Twitchy reputation
- Flying Magazine in 1986 described a whole class of aircraft as twitchy
- Oscar Taylor Pilot of the Aerostar 600 used "twitchy" in reference to aircraft handling for the AOPA, reported in Sept 2011
- in May 1975 Flying magazine used the term "twitchy" in direct reference to highly response fighter aircraft
- Pilot magazine referred to the Extra 330LT as twitchy in 2014
- Dynon Avionics use "twitchy" as shorthand for the frequent, fast, aggressive adjustments that might result from an overly sensitive roll servo
youre being a bit twitchy over the usage of a word lul