Ive been playing il2 for awhile now. I dont really use the rudders alot. For turning, i just use my ailerons and tilt my plane. Does anyone know if its better to turn with a bit of rudder or none at all. Is there other applications for the rudder in the air? Another thing, does trimming the plane make it slower than letting it fly naturally (ex at the start of an qmb the plane wants to go up so i just let it to gain altitude). And should i decrease the throttle when diving? Thanks alot.
I mostly combine rudder and ailerons to turn. The rudder also helps you in aiming and in aerobatics for example a barrel roll = ailerons to one side, rudder to the other side. Trimming your plane properly makes it go faster, you may also wanna learn to get use to setting the right propellor pitch.
Now, I have to say that unless you have rotary buttons (good ones), trimming with the keyboard is a pain.
Good luck.
~S~
Aircraft always turn more efficiently with the use of rudder, because of adverse yaw created by the ailerons in a bank the nose of the aircraft tries to yaw causing the fuselage to be a very large air brake. The rudder is used to counter this adverse yaw and keep the fuselage streamlined while turning. It is also used for slipping the aircraft during crosswind approaches. And during takeoff to counter asymetrical thrust,p-factor and gyroscopic precession. And of course on landing to keep the aircraft lined up with the centerline of the runway. Trimming does not make the aircraft fly faster or slower it just relieves stick forces in straight and level flight and decreases pilot workload. Aircraft are normally trimmed for long climbs also. Actual trim wheels on your joystick are the best way to accomplish this.Hope this answers your question.
This isn't about turning, but you can ''dance'' the rudder which means, to move the rudder back and forth when you're shooting an enemy. Cheers!
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Using rudder help you to avoid incoming bullets
I didn't use the rudders much until I bought a joystick that let me use it just by twisting the stick left or right. Doing it on the keyboard is indeed a pain, as already mentioned further up.
Now I don't entirely depend on rudders yet, but I find them to be very helpful to keep the enemy in my sights.
Before I would get hit and get the message that my rudder controls were damaged. I would scoff and think to myself : Hit something important next time, you moron... (usually before the next round disabled my ailreron controls =/ )
Still working on trim though.
HaHa，thanks for all the replies. I have a crappy logetech attack 3 so the best i can do is make buttons 4 and 5 the rudder controls, still inconvienient. Another question is should i decrease the throttle on dives?
I too hardly use the rudders except for long sweeping turns and evasive manoeuvres. Even for aiming, I find it most useless, as it usually throws it off instead of smoothing out the motion like it's supposed to.
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I've noticed that I try to turn around with rudder pedals in a hockey game.
Rudder is important for the turn in that you should do your best to center the slip ball. This helps retain energy and extend speed after dives.
Of course, 109s, 190s and handful of other planes need not worry about it so much as they dont have trim rudder. In fact, you can quickly reach top speed in a dive with either plane even if the slip is off center.
Rudder helps aim and can also offset your flight path in a skid or slip, with out banking your wings, which can be helpful at dodging enemy shots.
Bill
I can't believe the replies I am seeing here. You *can* turn without rudder but not nearly so well. The reason I cannot believe that nobody here seems to think it that important is that it is so easy to demonstrate the huge difference it makes.
Try it:
Bank your aircraft 45 degrees left and wait a few seconds to see how fast the compass is moving.
Now add left rudder until the nose is tracking across the horizon. You will see your turn rate has increased by 2 or 3 times!
If you just want to make a small adjustment while landing then by all means ignore the rudder but if you want to do a 180 or outturn an enemy you need rudder.
One problem with the rudder: It reacts EXTREMELY sensitive. So, for aiming you need very fine movements of the turning stick, otherwise it'll throw you off.
To summarize it, rudder is great for:
- FAST dive landings (rudder left, aileron right, nose down - slip until you almost hit the runway, then move rudder left/right to reduce speed. Land.)
- reducing speed (like a handbrake)
- all sorts of direction corrections
- fast TURNING (needs very fine rudder movements)
- advanced maneuvers (barrel roll, slipping attack to confuse the (human) enemy's gunner etc)
- accurate bombing with the TB3 (it has a slight slip to the left in Level Stab which you can counter by trim - or reducing the leftmost engine thrust to 97%)
Believe me, there is a reason why aerial engineers ALWAYS build in a rudder into every single airplane on the world. It's not just a redundant leftover from the old Wright plane.
As for trim - USE IT. Usually, you trim your plane to avoid movements of the big parts like ailerons because they always eat more energy than just proper trim. Trimming can help you go faster, climb automatically at a desired rate, steer with damaged controls etc. The aileron trim against engine momentum is very helpful, too.
My opinion about thrust in a dive is rather biased since I mostly fly the Gladiator... breaks apart rather quickly, so I usually dive at 0-30% throttle.
