Speed - Realistic or Not?

[Guest]

Can any real pilots out there enlighten me as to whether FS2002 actually captures accurately the speed of the planes over the ground. I've been flying everything from the Cessna 172 to the BAe Hawk as flown by the Brittish Red Arrows. The latter (Hawk) seems to 'handle' as quickly as I'd imagine it would do in real life but it's speed over the ground seems incredibly slow (i.e. looking out the side window) even when hugging the ground at around 50 feet while doing 500 kts. Is this a limitation of the programs rendering engine?I'm not running the program at maximum graphic levels etc. and I'm running it on:WinXp HomeAthlon XP1800256mbGeforce 2 64mbDuke

[Guest]

I would imagine that the problem lies in how you have adjusted the zoom and angle for your window. FS accurately models groundspeed, so i would imagine that the sim shows the ground sliding by at the correct rate. (Obviously if your ground speed is different from the speed at which the ground goes by your aircraft, there's a problem, because you'd be in two seperate places, right?) If you don't like how the sim looks, try adjusting the seat and the zoom until it's more to your liking. Personally, i feel that the hardest part about flight sim is ground reference, but that's a function of being stationary and only having one monitor (sometimes two or three) to look at instead of having a full 360 degree view and actual movement. -Rob

[Geofa 108]

This applies to a typical Ga aircraft-but next time you are going down a two -three lane highway in your car (about the width of a major airport runway) look straight ahead and see how fast it looks-55-70 mph is around the speed you start to lift the nose of a typical Ga airplane and the typical landing speed probably in the 70-80 mile/hr. range. In the car when you look straight ahead going 70 mph on a two-three lane road it doesn't look that fast-when you look to the side it looks faster-I think MS is pretty realistic for the Ga aircraft I fly,at least. Narrow down to one lane and it will appear faster-just like a narrower runway will also.Of course wind will change your speed also-a big enough one you may be crawling when you land.http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/Geofdog2.gif

[Guest]

I wonder when you mention about zoom and position, does it have anything to do with what's real or is it a problem of perception. To explain myself, I also have Grand Prix 3 and it goes plenty fast, except...when you are rushing toward one of those overhead gantries it kind of soars over your head at a constant rate from out in front till going over you. Now my perception of doing something similar on the highway is that as the gantry gets nearer it seems to go faster until it zips over your head. Maybe that's what's wrong with my perception of FS2002, when I look out the side window I expect to see things zipping past like they would in real life. It's not that they should be it's just that I've always perceived them to.Does any of that make sense????Duke

[michal 44]

>I wonder when you mention about zoom and position, I imagine there is nothing wrong with FS2002 but in order to "perceive" speed correctly you need correct zoom setting. If the zoom is too wide - you will be going 'fast' if zoom is too long - you will be going slow.I am not sure about watching through the side window. But I once spent a few long evenings calculating the correct zoom to see things "right" through the main front cocpkit window. This is the key view since it gives pilot correct sense of speed on final approach.The calculation I performed was based on the 767PIC product since the zoom setting may differ depending on the cocpkit. But for the 767 the correct zoom I found was 0.71. This will not only give you the correct perspective through the front window but will automatically guarantee the proper feel of speed.Also, unless you piloted some aircraft yourself you may have a slightly skewed expectation what kind of speed you can sense from the aircraft. Michael J.

[Guest]

Thanks! I'll play about with the zoom settings and see what happens :)Duke

[LAdamson 240]

>>I am not sure about watching through the side window. I confess :)............. There have been "many" times, where I've done a takeoff or really great landing, and wanted to see it again from a passenger side window view. I just hit replay, and put myself in the back seats. It really does look quite authentic, both visually and speed wise!L.Adamson

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Another item of speed is a point of reference against the ground. I get a greater sensation of speed when a wing can be viewed from inside the cockpit. Even the Dreamfleet Cardinal with standard zoom looks quite fast to me when looking to the side. But the default 737, which has no outside point of reference, seems to crawl by comparison... Fast Forward to POSKY's CRJ with its wing views, and I feel like I'm going down the runway at a good clip...Anyway, that's all I can write for a couple of days. I have to fly (real, that is) to California tomorrow. My chance to enjoy the real, rather than the virtual view :)-John