Realistic Rudder Pedal Feel?

[Bino]

So the rudder pedals in the Cessnas and Pipers have a distinct "detent" so you know just by feel (with your feet/legs) when the rudder is centered?  This would be in addition to the self centering pressure you feel even when in the landing pattern?  Put another way: When you take both feet off the rudder pedals while flying (all airspeeds) do the pedals always "self-snap" to a perfectly centered position?

Well, no.  There's not a "click" that I felt in the middle of their travel, but if I relaxed all pressure on the pedals, they centered.  Maybe not a "self-snap" as you put it, but they did return to center.

[Tigger29]

Well, no.  There's not a "click" that I felt in the middle of their travel, but if I relaxed all pressure on the pedals, they centered.  Maybe not a "self-snap" as you put it, but they did return to center.

Which reinforces my post.. there is no PERFECT solution that dbh991 is wanting.

He's being entirely anal about the whole deal, and the benefits of the experience to be gained by flying a sim (albeit with somewhat unrealistic rudder controls) GREATLY OUTWEIGHS any 'bad habits' that would be formed by using those somewhat unrealistic rudder pedals.

DBH, as I stated before.. it's not that I'm disagreeing with you here.  The detent in the center *IS* unrealistic, however for an affordable device using springs it's a necessary evil.  What do you want me to do here?  Post a link to a magical set of rudder pedals that will PERFECTLY EMULATE how they work in real life?  It's not going to happen.  I would imagine that there are some commercial-grade feedback rudder pedals available somewhere, but I have a feeling that most flight sims don't even process the feedback signal on the rudder axis (although I could be wrong), so chances are that even if you shelled out thousands of dollars to get a set, they still wouldn't work!

No matter how 'unrealistic' the controls may seem, a simulator is still going to be sub-par as compared to real life.  Yes, certain things can be done to make it closer such as feedback controls and head tracking... and with the invent (check that.. it's been around for a long time... I should have said affordability) of 3-D technologies.. yes it's getting closer but no matter what you'll NEVER have a perfect reproduction of the real thing.  Then you have the lack of external inputs.  In a simulator, you're sitting in a chair.  In real life, you can feel the g-forces.  You can feel the plane move.  You can feel if the 'ball isn't centered'.  In a simulator you have to use visual cues to determine all of that.  Reading the ball becomes a lot more important, because you don't have the 'feel' of it to go along with it all.  Even if you have one of those simulators that moves around, it's still not quite the same.

THAT IN ITSELF can cause you to develop 'bad habits' as far as actual flying goes, so by using your logic, you shouldn't be flying any kind of sim at all.  Period.

I don't know what you want here.  Neither flying with the springs installed nor flying with them removed is realistic.  We can argue all day as to which is 'closer' to being realistic but really it comes down to what YOU WANT.  If you want to fly around with the springs removed from your rudders, then by all means do so... just remember, flying powered aircraft is different than flying gliders.  You're also forgetting about trim forces.  The rudders won't return 'to center', rather they will center themselves based on where your rudder trim is set.  Think of that center detent as being a 'cue' to tell you something that you would normally be able to feel in real life.

Let's be realistic here though... if you have real life piloting experience, then playing a sim with an 'unrealistic' rudder pedals isn't going to make you crash and burn during low speed landing maneuvers in real life.  I've driven racing games with a non-feedback steering wheel that had a bit of detent at the centered position and so far that hasn't made me wreck my car.  Like I said before, give your brain more credit and quit second guessing this.

[shdo]

having some time in singles, twins and a little in an AT6 I can give you my experience.  You will have pressure (and can be quite a lot in a twin with one engine out) unless and until you "trim" it out.  At slower speeds you tend to have less pressure on all the control surfaces as there is less air pressure on them.  Many times weights are added to give you enough stick force to let you know you are moving them. 

I used to use the old (big) ThrustMaster peddles that when i had my FCLS setup and that gave me a pretty realistic feel and the same habits crossed back to real planes.  I never found that the CH stuff had enough pressure.  I've never flown a glider so I have no idea what those feel like but I can tell you that Cessna's, Mooney's, Piper's and Beechcraft all can have quite a lot of peddle (and stick) pressures.  As an example when doing my multi-engine they didn't want us to trim out the rudder so we would know how much rudder we were using with one engine out and how it varied depending on the power/airspeed we were using at the time.

shdo

[Dragon Tamer]

From what I can tell, most WWII fighters and bombers had a tendancy to self center becuase the control surfaces were directly linked (or through a series of gears and pulleys) to the flight yoke/ stick or pedals that controlled the respective serfice.  The confusion that I see going on is that in your glider, your control serfices are a bit smaller than in other types of planes.  You are also not fly at such high speeds so your controls tend not to center themselves.  Realisticly the force you would feel would be a result of the speed of the plane, the air density, the size of the control serfice, and any transfer ratios between the controls and the control serfice.  So to answer your question, there would be some degree of centering force expected with the flight controls, but since most planes have different sizes, speeds, and ratios the force will be different.  If you want to overcome this, buy a force-feedback joystick which will simulate a more realistic feel.

[pembquist]

I think pc flight sims help with RL flying.  They act as procedure trainers and they are usually a lot more sensitive, (P in the A,) then real AC this helps greatly with the tendency to overcontrol that a lot of new pilots have.  The rudder thing is never realistic.  The biggest problem with PC sims I would argue is the lack of anykind of realistic trim.  As for overall realism I know if I was pulling 5gs and other such stuff I'd be sitting in a puddle of vomit or at least breaking a sweat.  I think they can only help, not hurt.  Now, that Nintendo Wii thats another thing altogether.