Slidding and Lost ???????

[ChiefRedCloud]

Remembering that some flyers who flew out of Maidstone stating that they slid around, I decided to give it a fly. Well I arrived there and noticed something that I think many of us have experianced with certain games, i.e. BF3.

When your joystick is cantered or off center things seem to move or not move. I seemed to detect a slide sliding so at an off chance I tried centering my joystick and the sliding seemed to stop.

Now this could just be on my end OR my imagination.

Now after launching from Maidstone I suddently relised, I was lost. I did not know which way to fly. I looked at my compass and it just sat there doing nothing. (sorry I didn't say what I was flying (a spit).

In the 109 this does not seem to be a problem. But how do I get directions, other than knowing my surroundings or knowing land marks? IF the sun is setting or rising I can pretty much tell which way is which. If I'm flying off the coast, I have no problems either. But inland, forget it. Any help or links on this would be appreciated.

[Dutch]

Hi Chiefy.

I've not experienced the sliding you mention, but the compass bit intrigues me.

Sorry if you already know this, but the outer ring of the compass is a course setter, and doesn't move on it's own, but if you manually line up north on the course setter (click on the ring) with North on the compass needle (the 'T' shaped end), the reading on the course setter closest to the instrument panel is your heading.

If you do this on startup on the ground, you can also set your directional giro to the same heading (click increase or decrease on the knob below the giro), so the two are then 'synchronised'. It's worth redoing this in flight every few minutes because of giro 'precession' (not sure if this is modelled properly yet though).

Once it's set up like this, you can turn the course setter to the heading you require, then turn the aircraft to line the compass needle up with the parallel yellow bars, check your giro heading and you're on course.

If your giro reads 180 degrees off, and the 'T' is pointing at South on the course setter, you turned in the wrong direction!

However, this is something I've worked out for myself, so if anyone says I'm wrong, I'll happily stand corrected! :Grin:

[ChiefRedCloud]

Thanks so much ..... I'll give it a try real soon .....