This piece was written by Hitech to explain combat trim in Aces High.
(snip to pertinent)
Under 1.04 we have changed the control setup slightly. We now scale the elevator/stick deflection to the same ending angle no matter where the trim tab is positioned.
There is another misconception that trimming your plane perfectly gives you a flight advantage. Trimming your plane or just holding controls and pressing rudder to center the ball is exactly the same thing, and the plane will fly the same under both methods.
Now on to how the combat trim works. The best way to describe how it works is to take your plane and trim it constantly in a dive from slow speed to high speed. Now make a table of trim positions at all speeds. All the combat trim system does is use this table to set the trims based on your speed. Everything else still functions the same; you pull back on the stick you still get adverse yaw, you turn you still will need to add in rudder. You change throttle settings the plane still rolls due to torque. Add flaps trim settings will be completely different and the system won't account for it. Drop gear you will again be out of trim. If you’re climbing or diving your plane is still out of trim. In the end, all the combat trim system does is keep you in a trim envelope that you can override with normal controls.
Use Ctrl-X to toggle the combat trim on and off. Touching manual trim will always turn it off. Under the Flight button in Setup you can set whether you want combat trim to always be on or off when coming out of existing auto pilot mode.
(snip)
We have spent alot of time researching and changing pieces of the flight model that were not hitting real world numbers. Now these changes really won't affect the "GAME" much, they will change tactics used. Things like horizontal to vertical transitions will be much more effective. Things like lead turns will be more effective because after a 180-deg turn you will have more speed left to take the shot on the b&z bogie. But in the end, neither combat trim nor the flight model affects the game play in any way. It's still who can fly the plane to the edge, knows ACM best, who knows his planes abilities vs. his opponents, who can shoot well, who can choose his fights or which plane to shoot first. All these things still make the best pilots what they are.
