Pitching down at Low level

I have written a mission which involves an F-16 taking off from Sukhumi, flying north over the sea at low-level (250 ft 420kias, before coasting in north of Sochi to attack Maykop - the load is a C/L tank, and 8 Snake-Eyes.

I have flown this mission about 4-5 times, and each time I have experienced the same phenomenon. As I cross the hills, the ac starts to suddenly and randomly pitch down. The pitch is fairly severe, but very short lived and now that I am used to it quite controllable, although I give hill tops a greater margin that normal. After 3-5 minutes it tapers off and eventually disappears. The effect is similar to a terrain-following radar, except that this pitch is down and not up.

Because it happens around 20 minutes into the sortie, any Track that I try to check on, has long since flown the ac into the sea. I use the autopilot over the sea but disengage it before turning to coast-in.

Can anyone suggest a possible cause for this, or has anyone experienced anything similar?

I have written a mission which involves an F-16 taking off from Sukhumi, flying north over the sea at low-level (250 ft 420kias, before coasting in north of Sochi to attack Maykop - the load is a C/L tank, and 8 Snake-Eyes.

 

I have flown this mission about 4-5 times, and each time I have experienced the same phenomenon. As I cross the hills, the ac starts to suddenly and randomly pitch down. The pitch is fairly severe, but very short lived and now that I am used to it quite controllable, although I give hill tops a greater margin that normal. After 3-5 minutes it tapers off and eventually disappears. The effect is similar to a terrain-following radar, except that this pitch is down and not up.

 

Because it happens around 20 minutes into the sortie, any Track that I try to check on, has long since flown the ac into the sea. I use the autopilot over the sea but disengage it before turning to coast-in.

 

Can anyone suggest a possible cause for this, or has anyone experienced anything similar?

Have you reduced your speed before crossing the mountain?

Speed has not changed significantly, other than that resulting from climbing and descending while crossing over hills and valleys.

What were you thinking?

Well, I had about 3-5° changes in flight vector from throttling up and down. But I guess that's not it.

If you don't have a track file, could you make a video of it?

Out of curiosity, did you have altitude hold on at any time before this? Sometimes it doesn't click off and you end up fighting it until you realize it's still on.

Just a thought.

Falcon87. Spot on!

I did use A/P over the sea, and I did operate the switch to disconnect it before coasting, and I confirmed visually that the switch was in the "A/P OFF" position. Unfortunately I checked the switch on my Helios panel, which did show OFF , but I did not check the switch on my main display, which showed ON. This does seem to be a recurrent bug, with both Helios and a hard-wire switch failing to be detected first time by DCS.

Stupid mistake on my part, but thanks again.

I just wish there was a way to delete this thread before anyone else spots it!

Falcon87. Spot on!

 

 

I just wish there was a way to delete this thread before anyone else spots it!

No way--you're obviously not the only person to have this happen (it happened to ME!), so maybe it'll help somebody else. :)

Glad it worked for ya!