C172 Pitch Stability

[cessnap]

I've been trying to eliminate an annoying plane characteristic - the plane pitches up or down without any apparent reason, either with autopilot on or off. Using x-plane 10. Changed joystick sensitivity to linear and pitch to most smooth. Happens on landings and during flights so when tracking an altitude or vs, the plane has to hunt to find its way back to stable flight.

 

Maybe it's just a characteristic of x-plane GA 172??

[OT2]

Check your power settings.  It sounds like it might just need a little more power and is porpoising in an effort to compensate.

 

Also, check for weather problems.  Go to the top of the screen and a bar of commands will appear.  Click on environment (I think - not at a XPX computer right now) and choose weather.  Either the first or second tab will allow you to reduce all weather conditions to 0 or whatever you want (try full left (0) until you determine what's going on.  There are three levels of altitude and about four sliders each.  Move them all to the left, try it, and adjust to your own preferences.

 

John

Edited January 11, 2015 by OT2

[mldavis2]

Someone in another forum thread said they had a similar problem - it had something to do with the measurement settings being changed to or from metric.  Don't know how that affects the AP, but if you made any such changes, try going back.

[ScreamingBreeze]

Have same problem with wild, continual pitch swings that diminish gradually and may suddenly reoccur.  Have been trying to isolate what control surface/power settings or AP changes prompt this, to no avail.  Weather conditions are at zero, all sliders left.  Suspect this might be a processor problem.  Will shortly be moving from X-Plane 9 on a four year old MacBookPro to X-Plane 10 and a new, faster MacBookPro with more RAM.  You can almost get air sick just watching the screen pitch up and down!