Constant Twitch Adjustment

I have never flown a Sim or a Video. I have twitched myself into embarrassing situations in the Skylane, however. My favorite flight instructor was Kathy Frank, at O17 in Grass Valley. She had a theory about flying that I haven't forgotten. First, the Drama. Flying a long Final into San Jose, Ca., I experienced what I thought was turbulence, and was constantly "correcting" my flightpath to smooth things out. Despite several reminders from Tower:"Triple Seven Lima Juliet, altimeter 29.96, winds CALM". I couldn't resist "adjusting" for what was obviously "Turbulence". Kathy called that "Chasing the Cat". One "correction" caused the need to make another, until I was "manouvering" all over Final, in dead Calm. She also had a prejudice against military pilots, especially fighter pilots. "Ham-Fisted" she called them. I saw an example of what she meant at our airport one day when George and "Gunfighter" flew formation in two 152's down the runway at 50 feet. George was lead, and "Gunfighter" was wing, all over the place, chasing the ball and looking foolish. Kathy was all smiles, but graciously let Gunfighter off the hook by saying an F-14 isn't as stable as a 152.

Of all the Instructors I've had, (an even dozen), it is my considered opinion that women are far and away better pilots and for a very simple reason: They are gentle. They haven't anything to prove, certainly not to an airplane.

bill

 

Well, like I say my experience is with the actual airplane; my first instructor went to some pains to show me how stable and dependable our little 150 was.
We'd take off, fly to the practice area, then set up straight and level, and he'd fly, Hands Off! Really, no hands, stable, straight, no climb, dive or turn. Do not try that in, say, an F-104. This airplane is built to be Unstable in straight and level flight. Seriously, if you didn't make constant manual inputs, the jet would drill a hole in the ground. The F-16 is a "fly-by-wire" aircraft, meaning if the computer that controls the aircraft farts, you couldn't make that plane fly no matter what you did in the cockpit. This is all to say that I don't know what you're Flying, but if you dialed up, say Cessna 182 on your menu and you need anything but very subtle commands to get perfect behaviour, somethings wrong with your computer. It isn't about airspeed either, except to say that if you're above ground effect and faster than your wing's stall speed, you should have no special difficulty at any given velocity.

 

I think you just nailed your problem. "Nose" position is called "pitch". You are trying to set your attitude with the Elevator. That's the way to do it, but to capture a nice cruise, you need to add some power. What you seem to be struggling with is "Trim". Ghetto slang aside, trimmed flight is a balance of airspeed and attitude that allows you to relax and let the aircraft do what it does best. I'm sorry to say I've not flown a Cub, I assume it has a trim tab on the elevator, that's the little beast that you want to use to establish an attitude that you want to remain constant. The more complex the aircraft, the more trim devices it needs to maintain a balanced cruise or lengthy manouvre. A C-152 has one, My 182 has two (Adding Rudder trim) other more complex machines have three (Adding Aileron trim for Roll Stabilization)
There are modified Trim devices that have other functions, some jets have trim provided by thrusters (Harrier). Trim is necessary, but not generally critical; your "hunting" for stick placement keeps you flying but your hand isn't accurate enough to be smooth (No one's is) so the Tab inputs a constant pressure you can't duplicate.

I'm guessing, and I don't know the first thing about video flight, but if I was designing a virtual aircraft, I'd "leave in" some instability. Balanced flight isn't boring, but it also doesn't want you to "do" anything with the Yoke or throttle, that would be boring on a computer, I think.