Thanks to some connections I had the chance to play around in a Thomson 737 Full Sim for 1.5 hours late yesterday evening (I returned home at 3 a.m., ouch). First time Boeing after 4 Airbus Full sim visits. Anyway, half of time manual flying, the other half trying some AP modes and approaches. An ofter heard comment from real pilots is they find FS jet flight models are too nervous in pitch sensitivity and stability. Since the real plane yokes/sticks have higher forces and longer travel, this is no surprise and was also quite noticeable for the 737 (compared to all jet flight models I have seen so far in FS). It is easier to bank the Full Sim plane and keep it level. A PC stick/yoke with tough springs can compensate that a little, but I think we would need at least exponential stick response curves to improve this is FS. Anyway, a question for Robert : Since you fly real yourself and also have real 737 pilots for testing and announced having raised the level of flight dynamics accuracy, what kind of hardware setup do you or they use for testing ?Any comments from your side regarding the nervous pitch behaviour in FS ?And then the rough AP in certain modes, mentioned already in another thread. A pilot who was there in the beginning confirmed certain stuff shall better be avoided for comfort (same what was mentioned at pprune.org). Let the plane climb and dial a speed increase and the aggressive pitch up really put me back in the seat. Also the AP capture phase at high intercept angles was not really smooth, so I understand why some cheat this a bit with reducing angles first. However, once captured, the plane remained stable like a rock on the ILS also with XWind. But generally not really state-of-the-art, especially when compared to the smooth A320 AP. More to tell, but I stop here before it gets too boring. However, before anyone gets this wrong, generally it is of course not easier to fly a plane in a Full Sim than in FS. By far not, especially the landings : Sir, are we down now ? Sir, that was not a landing, that was an arrival :D.But at least now I have a more or less good idea what to expect regarding the "within 1% of the real thing specs" mentioned on your site ;). Taking into account it will be just a 50$ (??) product, that's a remarkable announcement.Mike

>An ofter heard comment from real pilots is they find FS jet>flight models are too nervous in pitch sensitivity and>stability. In reality, these same real "jet" pilots may also have "first time" pitch sensitivity problems with a radio control model or a real Pitt's biplane. I didn't make this up either, because I know from actual experience with them. It's something you need to get use to, considering the difference in length of sticks and forces. I'm use to the very small control movements thanks to years of R/C and a few years of aerobatics in a Pitt's S2B. This has also transferred over to a home PC simulation, in which I don't end up with PIO, as many first timers do, with someones home yoke/stick setup.IMO ---- It's not really the fault of the program, but just getting use to it. A 737 captain I know, told me that a first officer had an extreme case of PIO with elevator pitch in a full motion simulator, just because the "feel" was enough different. We can tweak exponential for flight sims, as well as R/C if needed. I personally didn't use it often, but that's up to the individual user.L.Adamson

LAdamson,can't really agree with you, it was too different just to explain it with something needed to get used to. I'm not that good in explaining what I mean, but found this excerpt at the PS1 Website. I have never used that sim, but it sums up pretty good what I experienced.--------------Beginning of quote" PC joysticks -- both

Yupp I totally agree with you, Mike.I noticed the same thing on a Class D MD-11 sim. It's really not that hard to fly a plane :-)While in FS you constantly have to play with the throttle and all other flight controls, on the MD-11, once speed is set you can forget about it. Even wild movements will have the speed fluctuate 3-4 kts max!About yoke movement, yeah, I'm pretty disappointed in FS after that sim session. With most "realistic" airfiles out there, you can almost fly a loop by just moving the yoke a couple of cm's. Just look at the amount of yoke travel during a flare! In FS you'd be in a 5000 fpm climb :-)Unfortunately, I haven't found one decent airfile out there sofar.I am really curious what PMDG have come up with!Regards,Mark

Mark,>> Unfortunately, I haven't found one decent airfile out there sofar.I haven't either. What would be theoretically possible is to grab the stick input values before they get send to FS and correct them with an exponential function (or logarithmic, depending on the point of view :)). Similar handling with the Airbus FBW/Flight Envelope protection routines, these also need to interrupt the stick input -> FS plane reaction. The downside would be it then also needs a seperate stick detection/button assignments routine, etc.Hard to imagine the airfile can be trimmed to so much stability to compensate the stick travel constraints, as the AP would probably not be able to handle this then ? But I have no idea about airfile design, so these are just shoots in the blue.However, the announcements give some hope PMDG maybe comes up with something really clever in this regard. Mike

it is precisly for the above reasons that i will wait a while before i go out and dump $70-80 . I am really hoping that MS will seriously redo the flight dynamics but that is probably wishful thinking on my part as from what i have read from people who are far more knowledgeable than me on what it would take to make fs more realistic would also make it more difficult for MS to make much money on it which is really as we all know the bottom line for companies such as MS.

Well, I don't see why making planes more stable or AP functions more believable would make it more difficult for MS regarding sales. But well, eye-candy rules, not flight itself :(But it's not that negative, since we have some Addon developers squeezing as much out of FS as possible. Rare, but really enjoyable jewels around like A320 PIC or the Piper Meridian. And hopefully soon PMDG join the rare jewels club ;)Mike

>Unfortunately, I haven't found one decent airfile out there>sofar.I don't think you have to... Get yourself a Jetliner Yoke from Precision Flight Controls. You then will have perfect pitch control even in MSFS. Of course its an expensive solution, but I for myself wouldn't want to give that yoke away anymore.I'm not an airline pilot myself, I just flew MD-11 and MD-80 (A321 as well, but obviously they do not have a yoke installed in there ;) ) for some hours in the leve-D Sim. And compared to that the Jetliner yoke does a great job!And knowing that PMDG will give as a top-notch flight simulation product I am glad I bought that piece of hardware.Of course the air file should be a good one too. And I'm sure PMDG won't disappoint us on that matter.Best regards,Markus

Okay.....................I've just read these back and forth replies, and have decided you guy's might have a bit of simulation time, but no real actual flight experience. I see statements such as no decent flight dynamics for FS2002, eye candy rules....... but not flight itself, and the most absurd part, which is trying to compare home P/C stick & yoke hardware -------lenght & travel, to the real thing.It's obvious that some of you have "over-control" and blame it on the sim. Well surprise, surprise-------------- jump from a Cessna 172 into something like a Lancair 360 with short little joysticks, and the same thing will happen! It will be sensitivity & over-control to the max! What it amounts to ----------- if you plan on flying real life aircraft of many different types, then either get use to the sensitivities which can have completely different ranges ............. or perhaps die...Truth is, there are some fantastic air files (payware) out there for FS2002. Good enough in fact, to beat any other P/C simulation. You can't compare travel range of home type stick or yoke to the real one. Either learn to adjust, or forget it....And let's get away from this "eye candy" rules crap. MSFS is one of the most authentic "do all" flight simulations to ever come along. Especially for the very small cost of it. With some additional add-ons, it's the closest yet, in all aspects of flight, navigation, airport data-bases and topography.L.Adamson

Additional info. If you feel the joystick and travel is much too short for FS2002, the tape a dowel to your joystick, and adjust if needed. It will then have the same effect as a real airplane..No more short movements to get them rolls!!!L.Adamson

Mike,I have been thinking for years that the transmitters (potentiometers) in the joysticks should be logarithmic and not linear, and I still wonder why the producers are not aware of this? The component cost is the same...

L.Adamson, it's always good to see some light at the end of the tunnel sir, i'm glad I am not the only one who thinks it's silly to compare 100 million dollar simulators to a 50 dollar computer game. I've said it before and I will say it again, if you want perfect flight dynamics, please go fly the real deal, nothing else will work.[h5]Best Wishes,Randy J. SmithSan Jose Ca[/h5][h3]" A little learning is a dangerous thing"[/h3] [h5]AMD XP 2200 |MUNCHKIN 512 DDR RAM |ECS[/b ][i] K7S5A MB[/i] |GF3 64 MEG @ 215/545|WIN XP PRO |MITSUBISHI DIAMOND PLUS 91 19"[/h5]

L.Adamson and Randy,>> who thinks it's silly to compare 100 million dollar simulators to a 50 dollar computer game. Sigh, the same over and over again. That nice sentence to try to keep people quiet that ask for improvements. So, as usual the same answer : NO, I do not compare them. I only take partial features of the Full sim to look for solutions to let FS come a LITTLE bit closer. And that also involves Microsoft. I think no one would disagree MS has gone the pure entertainment route with FS 2002 and will continue this with FS2004. The optics are the most improved. Ask some developers and they will confirm e.g. the AP routines have partially worked better in FS 2000 than in FS 2002. An unnecessary step back, so to speak.As for control input, look at this: I would assume the slightest control input you can give in FS is one trim keypress (somewhat equivalent to a slight movement of the trim wheel in the real thing ?). Switch off the AP for FS jet airliners, then you get a well trimmed plane. Now hit the trim down key just ONCE and you get most of them in a 500 fpm descent. If you think that's fine, then I know what to expect from further answers of you guys. >> I've said it before and I will say it again, if you want perfect flight dynamics...then we look what PMDG comes up with, don't we ? In fact, they have made the announcement their flight dynamics will be within 1% of the real specs, not me.Some say yes to everything and some ask for improvements, so what ? I am aware MS will not listen to ME, that's fine. But I got the impression PMDG listens to such concerns and a flight experience as close to real as possible is one of their primary goals (and not eye-candy !). Exactly that's why I brought this up.Mike

Markus,are you the same Markus from the Swiss Flightforum ? I never had the chance to try the PFC yoke and before I would spend 1100 Euro, I would at least like to get my hands on one first.But what you describe sounds great. Maybe I should visit you in Switzerland ;)Mike

Mike,It wasn't my intention to compare multi-million dollar simulators to a 50 dollar game or sim ------ depending on point of view.You quoted the folowing:>The simulation takes the lack of back pressure>into account by using a logarithmic rather than a linear>translation of the incoming joystick signals. For example,>when you rotate during the take-off roll you don