MSFS 2020 Trim, options?

[wain71]

I currently have switches on the top of my X52 Pro for trimming, would I benefit from an independent trimwheel? If so which?

[Matt McGee]

I just use my joystick's trim hat for pitch and roll trim. 

I also have a Saitek Multi-Panel which has a trim wheel.  It works, but I still normally just use the trim hat.

 

Having the trim wheel mapped to the pitch trim axis is realistic when flying something with a trim wheel IRL.  However, it doesn't free up any extra buttons for me.  Since a trim hat is realistic for a lot of the aircraft I tend to fly, the hat still needs to be mapped to trim as well.

 

IMHO a trim wheel is nice, but nothing to spend a bunch of money on unless it is part of something with a bunch of extra functions and/or buttons that you also want.

[yanlaoge]

5 hours ago, Matt McGee said:

I just use my joystick's trim hat for pitch and roll trim. 

I also have a Saitek Multi-Panel which has a trim wheel.  It works, but I still normally just use the trim hat.

 

 

What do you mean by "trim hat"? Do you mean the 8 direction hat switch on X52 Pro?

[Crom UK]

The POV2 hat on the X52 Pro is often referred to the trim hat.  I have the JustFlight Hawk in X-plane, when you look closely at the control column there is a hat switch modelled and that is marked as Trim on the aircraft and many other military aircraft are similar afaik

 

The MB-339 in MSFS has exactly the same.  And my Thrustmaster Warthog is also physically marked as trim on the "hat switch.

 

I think if you look at mappings for the X52 you will see it marked a POV2

[Matt McGee]

11 hours ago, yanlaoge said:

What do you mean by "trim hat"? Do you mean the 8 direction hat switch on X52 Pro?

Yes.  The silver "coolie hat" shaped switch on the top of the X52 joystick.

Crom UK is correct about the sticks on many military aircraft having the hat switch labeled both IRL and in the sim. 

In real aircraft, the hat is normally just 4 positions (up down left right) and not an 8 position "POV"  hat.

I use Thrustmaster joysticks and both the Viper and F-18 sticks have their trim hats labeled "Nose Up" , "Nose Down", " LWD", and "RWD" (Left / Right Wing Down).

 

[wain71]

thanks for all the input, I tried the wheel on the Saitek panel and it's just way to slow......I have gone back to the switches on top of my X52 Pro as that seems a little better...I had hoped the wheel would be more precise but it's doesn't seem to be.....

[ravenn22]

Trim varies greatly per plane, as well... Some are super twitchy, some not at all. I use the trim wheel on the Honeycomb Bravo ( and have it mapped to the Alpha as well ), it "feels" like you have finer /smoother control with the wheel - but still, the difference between the trim wheel on the Carenado C182 and the CRJ is 20x difference in sensitivity.

[Crom UK]

You can set up your mouse wheel as a trim wheel if needed, although you do have to remove the zoom bindings otherwise it gets very messy.  The other issue that you have to watch out for, is if you move to another screen (e.g Littlenavmap) and zoom in there, if you have not first clicked away from MSFS then you are still changing your trim whilst zooming in/out.

[yanlaoge]

On 3/15/2021 at 1:44 AM, Matt McGee said:

Yes.  The silver "coolie hat" shaped switch on the top of the X52 joystick.

Crom UK is correct about the sticks on many military aircraft having the hat switch labeled both IRL and in the sim. 

In real aircraft, the hat is normally just 4 positions (up down left right) and not an 8 position "POV"  hat.

I use Thrustmaster joysticks and both the Viper and F-18 sticks have their trim hats labeled "Nose Up" , "Nose Down", " LWD", and "RWD" (Left / Right Wing Down).

 

 

Thanks. I used to use the hat switch as trim, but I didn’t know it is meant to.