Flight Dynamics Fixed?

[Guest byoung]

With a CFI as the program manager, I expect the Flight Dynamics to be greatly improved!Will we be able to:(A) Fly an aircraft without needing to use the auto pilot?(:( Realistically Trim aircraft for Straight and Level Flight?No more careening please!!!© SDK Develope standards for Aircraft Development!(D) Put heat on the Windows XP Team to fix the USB problems!That is allBarry

[LAdamson 240]

>With a CFI as the program manager, I expect the Flight >Dynamics to be greatly improved! >>Will we be able to: >>(A) Fly an aircraft without needing to use the auto pilot? I do all the time........................ in FS2002L.Adamson

[Guest byoung]

What aircraft?What Controls?I use the CH Products USB Yoke and Pedals.. Is that my problem?I must be missing something obvious here...Barry

[frantzy 4]

There have been real-world pilots on the MSFS team for a long time. Even some of the marketing guys are accomplished pilots. I don't think the flight dynamics issues are the result of the team not knowing what real flight feels like.

[LAdamson 240]

I want to expand this subject....A- flying without auto-pilot?They're have been other's who have flown or tried to fly my PC simulator. I've seen much porpousing during the climbout with great variances in speed & climb rate. Same goes for the landing sequence.Yet................ my climbouts are smooth & I can peg the speed or climb rate. It would look quite straight on a graph. I can nail the landings too---------------even with the default GA aircraft. I can even do the same from spot or tower view!I attribute this to the fact, that I learned to fly R/C aircraft (great for spot & tower views), and real aircraft. The other people I've mentioned, have not obtained pilot licenses, or have very little time behind real aircraft controls. They never learned how to control speed & pitch, which is a learned & practiced response. I've always said that even the default GA aircraft of FS2002 (Lear is an exception) can get from point A to point B with normal pilot imputs. One of the main faults IMO.............. is the stiffness in roll & pitch that didn't seem to have the right dampening effect. The 3rd party fixes took care of this quite quickly. Contrary to other beliefs, I always rated the default models as okay, not great, but certainly not bad; as I have flown some terrible ones in my simming life!When it comes to the perfect engine out sequence, spin, or other aerobatic manuver, then let the 3rd parties deal with these aspects of the flight envelope.L.Adamson

[LAdamson 240]

All, with exception of the Lear, just because it was a hand me down from FS2K which was extreamly pitch sensitive.Saitek X45 USB and my older Saitek. Thrustmaster analog pedals.See my other post..

[Guest JonP01]

I put flight modelling down as a very low priority in FS9. I really don't care at all how any of the default aircraft fly, so long as the physics engine remains unchanged from FS2002. I agree with Larry that the 3rd party developers have already demonstrated that MSFS can showcase top drawer flight physics in a PC simulation so long as the flight modelling is developed in a skillful, knowledgeable and above all patient manner. Where I don't agree with Larry is that any of the stock flight models are acceptable. I personally feel they are truly abysmal and I would totally lose all interest in the MSFS franchise if those flight models were the only ones available, or if they could not be edited in any way. That said, the point is a decent physics engine is already "in there", it's just that it needs an expert level of attention that seems beyond the capabilities of the current developers at Microsoft. I don't really expect this to change for FS9, as I think there are more important priorities like the core engine itself. 3rd party developers and users can do very little to the core engine of the simulation, but they can do an awful lot the flight models.

[StoneC0ld 5]

The *biggest* part of flight dynamics I would love to see fixed is ground handling in winds.....Last few times I've landed the b307 stratoliner with moderate crosswinds, the aircraft skids diagonally on the runway like a car skidding and spinning out. Seems to me that if that happened in a real aircraft, it would probably end up doing a barrel roll, or at least breaking the landing gear or blowing tires. Or, having to turn the nosewheel on a tricycle gear aircraft hard to the right in order to possibly go straight. Would take a *lot* of wind to make this happen on dry concrete, but FS2002 does this as if concrete were ice..... Did this in the yeodesigns 737-200 too, just to name a couple specific aircraft...I know it should be hard to make a crosswind landing, but once the rubber hits the runway in some situations the realism goes out the window..I hope flight dynamics are fixed in general too, but primarily I'd like to see more realistic crosswind landings..... Of course, my realism settings may just be set wrong...

[someone 0]

>With a CFI as the program manager, I expect the Flight >Dynamics to be greatly improved! >>Will we be able to: >>(A) Fly an aircraft without needing to use the auto pilot? I do that already.>(:( Realistically Trim aircraft for Straight and Level >Flight? And I do this too.>(D) Put heat on the Windows XP Team to fix the USB problems! What USB problems? My CH Flight Sim Yoke USB works just fine.

[LAdamson 240]

> Where I don't agree with Larry is >that any of the stock flight models are acceptable. I >personally feel they are truly abysmal and I would totally >lose all interest in the MSFS franchise if those flight >models were the only ones available, or if they could not be >edited in any way. For the record, I use Steve Small, Ron Friemuth, and Rob Young 3rd party airfile updates for the defaults. Like I've said, I've run into MUCH worse default flight models. Examples: The orignal FLY.... until the updates from Rob Young were available. A number of FLYII aircraft. Some models from FUII/III. Pro-Pilot had the first real dampening effect I ever noticed. But then later updates for some Pro-Pilot aircraft even got terribly screwed up!And PS------- The MS single engine models have much better "left drift" tendencies for the takeoff roll & climb, than ANY other sim besides IL-2 Sturmovik (which is great). But rudder pedals are a MUST to appreaciate it!! Some third parties have improved on this also............ or made it worse.L.Adamson

[Guest]

WinXP-CH Pro Yoke USB-yeah works great. I agree with Larry completly about the flight models, passable with the default but even better with some payware aicraft.The CH yoke is certainly able to fly a well modelled plane and achieve pretty accurate trim in level flight.However too many poor aircraft are produced for the MS-FS range.You can get every imaginable plane, just see the number uploaded to Avsim each week, but they just aren't like real aircraft at all.Take care to only use the well document truly realistic planes, you'll soon know what the great ones are by the comments others make in these forums.You must also take your 'new plane' up and 'learn the numbers' for it.Set up the standard cruise setting and learn the trim setting for that (how many 'clicks' nose down say), then back off 250 rpm and see that you get descent, it will be about 500 fpm. Put it back to the cruise,trimmed again, now up 250 rpm and we should be climbing (about 500 fpm?).Learn settings for fast and slow descents and of course with various stages of flap. Only when you can fly a well made GA plane and trim it correctly should you progress to say that great new Meridian or the Big Jet you'd love to fly.The tools are here to experience realistic flying, my beef with the sims is the lack of the correct experience of viewing out from the cockpit. Can you really judge that 'turn onto final' like in a real plane!DaveT

[Guest]

Any aircraft almost, including most of the defaults...I too use a CH yoke and pedals.The 172, Mooney, Caravans and Baron fly very nicely, the 777 decently. The 737 and Lear are indeed not the best.

[Guest byoung]

Based on the responses, I must have something configured incorrectly.Maybe someone can comment who is flying real airplanes and FS 2002 currently. As far as not having any problem with flight dynamics, I do recall that people were complaining about the Standard MS Aircraft when FS 2002 first came out. Steve Small fixed and posted the corrections and the aircraft dynamics vastly improved.Maybe I have defective pedals or something. There have been numerous posts regarding VIA chipsets and Windows XP. I even upgraded my hardware to Intel based chipset and still I seem to have issues.Sensitivities, could this be the issue? Could it be the trim sensitivities? Do I need to change some something in the configuration. I have played with null zones and sensitivities for hours and hours. During taxi with no wind, without touching the controls, the aircraft will start to pull to the right. Kind of like bad alignment in a car. I have been beating this to death as far as forum posting, still I don't have a real solution (in my mind unless I am setting my standards too high?) Maybe we need to define straight and level? In my case I can get the airplane trimmed for about 10 seconds then it starts to descend or climb. I make throttle adjustments, etc with no luck. The autopilot keeps it at the correct altitude, because the control is coming from internal processes, not input via the USB device. I realize that you have to make minor (maybe every few minutes or so depending on conditions wind, etc) adjustments. I will give CH Products a call and start from scratch with the configuration. My question is what is NORMAL? I can ask some of those questions to CH Tech support when I call them.I have the CH Products Control Manager loaded. I have tried with CM loaded, without CM loaded with the same result. The calibration via the CM seems smooth. Thanks for everyone's comments...

[Guest SoarPics]

Hi byoung,Indeed, alot of folks having problems with the FM's in the sim might be wise to inspect their controller hardware before blaming Microsoft.Case in point... for most of FS2K and the first 7 months of FS2K2 I flew with the Saitek X-36. My aircraft constantly did the "hunt" routine... though Steve's .air files helped a great deal. Then the X-36 died, and I bought a Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar. It was better with regard to "stability" and smoothness of the FM, but I still thought there was room for improvement. I finally decided to build my own gimbals and centering system for the Cougar. The gimabls are precision machined and fully bearing supported. I also replaced the stock pots with Hall Effects Sensors (much higher resolution... and good to go for at least 1 million cycles). This complete rebuild wasn't cheap, but the flight controller I now fly with is incredibly smooth. Even the Lear is much easier to fly now (though, clearly the stock .air file needs some work). I also fly with a set of Thrustmaster Elite pedals. I've cleaned and treated the pot on these, and they're very smooth and precise.Your CH gear is top quality stuff, no doubt about that. But I would recommend that you insure all is working well with it. Once you've eliminated the hardware as a possible cause to your problems you can start looking at other factors.Hope this helps... good luck with getting it all sorted.

[Guest byoung]

Hi Greg,Thanks for your comments.What I don't understand is why some people have no problem with the CH Yoke and Pedals even running on VIA Chipsets under XP.And then there are people like myself that do have problems. Even after switching to tested hardware like Intel.So many factors involved. How do you determine where the problem is?It is very hard to pin-point the problemThe best aircraft I have FM wise is the FSD Cheyenne LS 400. Taxi down the same runway or taxiway (No surface winds) at the same speed from 15 to 100 knotts. If the aircraft pulls to the right or left (with no control applied) with the pedals centered is it because (a) Bad flight model of the aircraft (I know this isn't true with the Cheyenne). (:( Sensitivity too high or not adjusted correctly © Some aircraft have P-Factor which would cause some careening (d) Hardware problemThe CH Control Manager Calibration indicates the pedals and yoke are working fine. They center with no deviation or spiking. So what do I do? Should I go buy another type of controller to see if I have the same problem?Barry