Fly by wire 101

This guide is an introduction to the fly by wire system in this game. I don't claim to be an expert, but after some asking around and many tests I feel confident enough I have basic understanding of how to set it up.

What is fly by wire?

For a long time, an aircraft's control surfaces were actioned by cables and rods hooked up to the stick. This worked well enough but had the main drawback of the control surfaces locking up under high speeds as the air's resistance became stronged than the force the pilot could physically exert on the stick.

Fly by wire, instead, actions the control surfaces through electronics and hydraulics. The pilot suffers less strain from intense manoeuvering, and the control surfaces can sustain full deflection under higher speed. And, the fact that electronics are involved means you can add a stability program to your system, the set up of said system is we will discuss below.

In flyout, control surfaces don't seem to have reduced deflection at higher speeds yet, and there is no cables and rods models, the pusher rods that you can enable on the wings are purely cosmetic. In effect, all aircrafts use fly by wire, it doesn't need to be manually toggled on or anything.

Settings description

You can find the first part of your FBW settings by clicking on Jimmy the pilot. In the cockpit's settings, you will find the following:

- Pitch, roll, and yaw gain: As the tooltip says, gain applies a multiplier to the corresponding input. I personally haven't found a use for it but I'm sure someone out there has or will.

- Pitch, roll and yaw damp: The tooltip for this one is a bit misleading, it implies some kind of auto control of the surfaces to keep the aircraft steady, but in practice, it makes your control less sensitive. This is especially useful for planes like the Spitfire in which applying the tiniest amount of input may result in significant pitch due to the aircraft's flight characteristics. Raising this number will allow you to more easily make small adjustment without restricting the plane's full capabilities at 100% input.

- Pitch, roll and yaw pressure damp: The tooltip correctly describes this function. Raising the number for the corresponding axis will make that axis less sensitive at higher speed. This could be used to artificially recreate the limitation of a cables and rods system, or to limit the capabilities of your aircrafts if it respons too well to inputs at high speeds. Sadly it's not quite clear what this setting considers to be "high speeds"

- AOA damp: This setting will add pitch input in order to reduce your angle of attack. I've found it to be rather unreliable personally although I'm sure there are use cases if you know to put the right number in.

- G damp: Does the same as AOA damp, but instead tries to reduce the G number instead of the angle of attack.

- Slip damp: Does the same as the last two, but instead uses the rudders to correct slip.I've found this one very useful, especially if your aircraft has post stall manoeuver capabilities.


At first glance, the following two may seem simillar to their dampener counterparts, but they do not work the same way. The value you input here will be used as a comparator.

- AOA limiter: The control surfaces will be used to prevent the aircraft from reaching the AOA value you set here. The start value defines when the elevator start being used, and the limit value defines the point at which the aircraft may completely override pilot input to not go above it.

- G limiter: Works exactly like the AOA limiter, but measures the G number instead of the angle of attack.

- Pitch and roll autolevel: This settings will induce a tendency for the aircraft to come to a rest at 0° pitch and 0° bank. Someone useful when your nose tends to bob up and down in a feedback loop but there exists a better setting to correct that issue. Still pretty nice to have, it's an auto trim of sorts if you will.

- Speed limiter: I haven't been able to get this to work but in theory, it would reduce/cut throttle and action airbrakes to prevent you from going over the indicated air speed limit you set there probably?

And lastly you will find the warnings, these only control at which point you get a red warning message about the corresponding issue. For example, if you set the G warning to 8, the over G warning will pop up at and over 8 G in flight.


That wraps it up for Jimmy settings, but we're not done yet. Another important part of setting up FWB in flyout is through input responses. In the list of possible responses you will find the classic pitch, roll and yaw, and they do need to be set up so the pilot has control over the surfaces, but they're not what we're interested in them for the purposes of a stability program.
In the list you will also find much more interesting responses such as Alpha response which will match your control surface to your angle of attack (this is the setting you use for canards), Airspeed_Z which gives control surface input in relation to your IAS, Mach response which does the same but uses your mach number as input instead of IAS etc...
There are plenty of ways to be creative using all the different response input available, feel free to experiment!

Tips + various issues and how to fix them

How do I know the right value?
You don't, you just have to test some numbers until you find something that works. In general, don't input too high of a value, aside from the limiter settings, you mostly want a value between 0 and 1, and most will be closer to 0 than to 1.

- My pitch is too sensitive and I stall the aircraft from small inputs !
Your center of lift is probably very close or in line with your center of mass. This is a highly manoeuvrable but highly unstable setup, picture a chair with a single leg and no base. Add a small amount of Pitch damp to make the stick less sensitive

- My nose keeps bobbing up and down !
Your canards are likely overtuned, reduce the Alpha response until the issue is resolved

- My nose slings back and forth to the sides after harsh manoeuvers !
Adding a small amount of slip damp will help the aircraft to recover and remain stable on the yaw axis after harsh manoeuvers.

- My nose keeps falling towards the ground and I don't want to move the center of lift!
Adding a small amount of pitch autolevel will help keep the nose upright but will not completely eliminate the issue. You could also use a pitch attitude response on your elevators to help.

- I want to limit the pitch authority but I don't want to have to disable the FWB to perform post stall manoeuvres!
Use a G limiter, but no AOA limiter, that way you won't be able to pull too hard, but since your angle of attack is not limited, you will retain full agility at lower speeds.

Closing notes

As I stated in the beginning, I don't claim to be an expert, if you spot something wrong please do let me know so that I can correct it!

If you have a specific question, ask away and someone else or I may be able to help, and I can add your case to the tips list for future readers.

I'd like to thank user NoG, for explaining some of those settings whose purpose and effect weren't quite clear even in testing, for inspiring me to make this guide.

[Paying Alimony to Reality]

Yeah replace the DOT with a .
I wasn't sure if steam would block the link so I split it

[S-Array 03]

Hey, your link seems to be broken or probably private. TBH I haven't touched this game since initial EA release months. Not surprised that I've ended up writing some bull in this guide lol. By all means you should make a more up to date and accurate guide if you are more knowledgeable, I'd be happy to link such a guide at the top of this one to redirect people. As for me, can't be bothered reading up on the stuff to correct my guide after that long especially with the dev on radio silence.
But thanks for bringing it up!

[Paying Alimony to Reality]

hey are you in the discord server? there's some major problems with how you define the settings. if you're not in the server this is my response
https://cdn.discordapp DOT com/attachments/1341956231828607016/1349126275196911646/image.png?ex=67d1f741&is=67d0a5c1&hm=06613799869b8c8f90a8ef395ad05abd677a2f221439ebd339e888517043fde1&

[Magnedoodle]

and i need help with rolling and pitch.

[Magnedoodle]

i makeing a vtol that has a similar set up to a harrier.

[Dantilas]

how do i turn off FBW though

[Regilis]

My biggest issue with the current system is that it doesn't actually tell you what the numbers mean . How much effect does a pitch damp of 0.2 have? Who knows. I certainly don't. Nice guide though.

[AVGwiking]

[ArizonaBLACK]

thanks for the guide very informative

[S-Array 03]

Trim is adjusted in flight. You can either do it using the controls tab in the bottom right or by holding the trim key and pushing the stick in the direction you want