The following article is reproduced from the latest FlightSim newsletter from www.flightsim.com where subscribers receive news of all the latest commercial add-ons, hardware, shareware and often some fantastic free software to enhance many of the mainstream flight simulators. I am very grateful to flightsim.com for their kind permission to bring this item to ModelFlight readers. 

FlightSim Talk by Peter James

I'll slap your hands! As an instructor for many years I can say without a doubt one of the hardest thing for student pilots to learn is the relationship between pitch, power and trim.  The same difficulty real pilots have is just as noticeable in a flightsim. In fact, it is harder to learn in a sim when your stomach doesn't feel the awful violence you're imposing on your airplane! It's simple if you know the basics:

For every power change you do, it will cause the airplane to change its altitude. You must overcome this by using trim.

When flying on your sim, be sure that each flap addition is accompanied by either a power reduction to counteract the nose up tendency - or more trim down. Mostly, when adding flaps, you'll want to power down slightly for the first flap, a little more for the intermediate flap and then by the time you add the last flap, you may have to power up slightly to maintain your airspeed you want.

Plan ahead! On downwind if you're flying with no gear or flaps down and you're about to do something, plan ahead! For instance in a Cessna 182RG on downwind at 140 kts the first thing you'll want to do is to lower the gear. Well, reduce power some to slow to gear- dropping speed. Then pick a speed in your mind you'll want to keep on downwind. Let's say it's 100. When you lower the gear it will slow you down and pitch you forward.  So as the gear drops, be ready to trim up a bit! Now, if you're planning to add the first flap at gear letdown, do the following.  Gear down. Flap down. Adjust power if speed or altitude deviates from your mental "goal". The gear will add the drag and nose down tendency you need to overcome the sudden lift and nose up tendency you'll get from the first flap! See how it works?

Whether you're flying a 757 or a 152 the same principals apply. Try not to bob your nose up and down too much and take advantage of planning ahead and the realistic drag and lift forces that our favorite flightsims are fortunate enough to have! Whatever trouble you're going through tackling this, keep in mind real student pilots are too!