Rob, You know I have absolutely loved your work, and the latest freeware offering is no exception...You and Steve Small set the benchmark for flight models. I have said it before, and I will say it again. I would even pay $2-5 for freeware accurate flight models for planes.. Especially the baron, King Air, and C182 again. But, just a small issue. Having just completed the commercial, I had to do a lot of slow flight, stalls, and Chandelles, lazy eights, etc. The one thing that I learned for the first time in flying(which is why going for advanced ratings is good), is what the true performance envelopes of a plane are. No longer am I timid when the plane falls below 60 knots.. No longer am I timid at extreme bank angles, pitch angles, etc. at low airspeeds. The commercial maneuvers really enhance your respect and ability to handle a plane at the edge of it's ability. Anyway, with this said, I tried a couple of things with the 172. Yes, it spins...and it spins well. But, just a couple of thoughts..1. Straight ahead flight should be able to be maintained at speeds just above Vso and Vs, with the appropriate configurations...without losing alititude. The stall horn is coming on too early, and staying on too early after the recovery effort. In fact, it stays on all the way to 80 knots...and trust me, I know that if I keep the angle of attack too high, that is stil possible. But, I am not.. I push the nose over...It is impossible to get a power on stall, and recover with the stall horn off, and in the proper amount of altitude...say a couple of hundred feet at the most. I don't know if this is necessary to get the wings to stall correctly for the spin in the sim.2. In general, if you try to do the commercial maneuvers by the PTS standards, the plane cannot hold itself without stalling. It is stalling too easily..the plane is more stable than that.. For example, in the chandelle, you first get a 30 degree bank, and hold it, as you gradually increase bank and increase power to full. The pitch is increased to the point, and held, at the point right above the stall....usually with the horn just coming on intermittently...and you hold it within +/- 5 knots. Then after the first 90 degrees of the turn, you begin to roll out to wings level, with the pitch held near the stall level. Sim plane will dive to the left or right, if it is taken within 20 knots of 55-60..doesn't have the lift at the edge of the envelope in lower airspeeds..Could this be because of the elimination of angle of attack in FS9? Lift seems to be accurate everyhere else in flight.3. Anyway, in general nose has to be lowered too much to recover from stall, and it is not that hard to maintain slow flight within 5 knots of stall in a particular configuration....full flaps and gear for Vs0, and clean for Vs...obviously need a higher power setting due to the higher drag from the higher angle of attack.Anyway, just a couple of thoughts...mainly in the stall area...I do love the effort that you put into this hobby, especially these FREE tweaks...But, especially for a training plane, for a flight school in AUS, just thought that might be helpful. Enjoy!ChristopherP4 2.81024 DDRAM800 Bus36 gig SATA hardrive80 gig harddriveATI Radeon 9700 ProCH yoke/pedalsElite Multi quadrant- serial19" inch monitor-Soundblaster PCI 512Win XPCommercial ASEL- Instrument 285 hoursAOPALawyerPilots Bar AssociationNTSB Bar Assocation"Men without dreams are never free, twas thus this way and thus will ever be."

HI Chris,Delighted to hear from you, and of course I read many of your posts.First, can you tell me what loading you have? Am I right in saying that most of the manoeuvres you describe are done in a Cessna either solo or with an instructor, without passengers in the back seat, and without a full fuel load.The sim C172sp loads into the sim with two passengers - I'm assuming that you have emptied the sim Cessna appropriately then I will answer on the basis that you are not loaded to the gills.First, the FS stall warning is not the greatest piece of sim equipment, and we set it to buzz at a few knots before the stall in fairly bland and normal flying circumstances. You may have noticed that trim position profoundly affects aircraft behaviour in FS where it shouldn't, because far from acting as just a labour saving device, it actually does ADD elevator lift. So the stall warning and stall onset is affected by trim, especially UP trim. It shouldn't but it is.One of the major problems in Fs is pitch stability. On balance we wanted a pitch stable aircraft that didn't bob up and down all over the place. But there are bi-products of this desirable thing in FS. One of them is that the stall horn is more reluctant to switch off during stall recovery, the other is that stall recovery is *slightly* longer than true. We have a dillema here: Which is MORE desirable, a stall horn which instantly goes off at the "right" time and a wing that recovers in 150 feet, or an aircraft which doesn't buck like a bronco and recovers in 200+ feet? I hasten to add that none of this is affected by the stall routine. If there is an influence it will probably be pitch stability. On power-on stalls: Again if we take the stall horn out of the equation, and you judge the right point where the "mush" starts occuring, you should be able to "hang on to that state" though I concede it is maybe a little more difficult than it should be.Of the many attributes the flight school wanted from this aircraft was a demonstration of what happens if you turn tight and slow. If you fly most FS aircraft, and certainly the defaults, it is very hard to provoke a stall in a tight turn. Invariably the turn collapses and there is insufficient elevator authority to hold the turn at slow speed. We programmed our aircraft to punish a carefree tight turn at low airspeed without regard to angle of attack or attitude. We may perhaps have gone a little too far in order to demonstrate the reaction. Finding the balance between a totally bland f/m and one that reacts appropriately if you push the envelope is a difficult challenge, and of course we are constantly looking for the ideal compromise.If you were loaded a bit heavy, try again with a lighter load and see how things go. But in most respects I hope in comparing what we have produced with what is there by default is overall an improvement for you!Best Regards,Rob

Rob you have once again answered so many questions...some I didn't even ask...I will try with just two passenger stations, and full fuel, as in a lesson. Interesting to hear about the trim....but not evertyhing can be the same in real life. And, you are entirely correct, it is 1 hundred times better to have a stable aircraft in pitch and bank, than one that stalls 100% accurate, and is incredibly jittery.Once again, I extend my kudos to you and your team for a job well done! ChristopherP4 2.81024 DDRAM800 Bus36 gig SATA hardrive80 gig harddriveATI Radeon 9700 ProCH yoke/pedalsElite Multi quadrant- serial19" inch monitor-Soundblaster PCI 512Win XPCommercial ASEL- Instrument 285 hoursAOPALawyerPilots Bar Association"Men without dreams are never free, twas thus this way and thus will ever be."

Rob, your suggestions work like a dream...have to use some trim, but you do in real life too...removed the two rear passengers...GREAT JOB!>>P4 2.8>1024 DDRAM>800 Bus>36 gig SATA hardrive>80 gig harddrive>ATI Radeon 9700 Pro>CH yoke/pedals>Elite Multi quadrant- serial>19" inch monitor->Soundblaster PCI 512>Win XP>>Commercial ASEL- Instrument 285 hours>AOPA>LawyerPilots Bar Association>>>"Men without dreams are never free, twas thus this way and>thus will ever be."P4 2.81024 DDRAM800 Bus36 gig SATA hardrive80 gig harddriveATI Radeon 9700 ProCH yoke/pedalsElite Multi quadrant- serial19" inch monitor-Soundblaster PCI 512Win XPCommercial ASEL- Instrument 285 hoursAOPALawyerPilots Bar Association"Men without dreams are never free, twas thus this way and thus will ever be."

Rob, your suggestions work like a dream...have to use some trim, but you do in real life too...removed the two rear passengers...GREAT JOB!>>P4 2.8>1024 DDRAM>800 Bus>36 gig SATA hardrive>80 gig harddrive>ATI Radeon 9700 Pro>CH yoke/pedals>Elite Multi quadrant- serial>19" inch monitor->Soundblaster PCI 512>Win XP>>Commercial ASEL- Instrument 285 hours>AOPA>LawyerPilots Bar Association>>>"Men without dreams are never free, twas thus this way and>thus will ever be."P4 2.81024 DDRAM800 Bus36 gig SATA hardrive80 gig harddriveATI Radeon 9700 ProCH yoke/pedalsElite Multi quadrant- serial19" inch monitor-Soundblaster PCI 512Win XPCommercial ASEL- Instrument 285 hoursAOPALawyerPilots Bar Association"Men without dreams are never free, twas thus this way and thus will ever be."

HI Chris,I've prepared a flight video for you, which I will send after finding your current e-mail address.I think removing the rear passengers makes all the difference. In it I hold an incipient stall with a little power at 51 knots for about 5 minutes. It is perhaps slightly more tricky than in the real thing perhaps because of the lack of "being there" and forces missing. But she held steady with the stall buzzer on nearly all the way. Finally breaking at 47 knots.I then did a power off stall. Buzzer at 52 knots, break at 48 knots, recovered in 170 feet. Please note the buzzer does last a bit longer than it should, but you can actually almost fully recover before the buzzer goes off.It's probably a little less forgiving than the real C172 but not far from it.Cheers,Rob

Just had to butt in....You know the stall horn comes on right before the stall. Never the stall horn and the stall at the same time. Being you are working on your commercial, and I am just a private license holder, you probably knew that. It might be Microsoft that did not. Sometimes it seems like when I am recreating slow flight with FS9 that the stall horn comes on and the plane stalls immediatly. In the Piper Warrior which is completely different from a Cessna 172, the stall horn would come on and you could make turns in slow flight. I love flying on the back side of the envelope.

Rob, thanks for describing your tradeoffs...especially interesting to hear about the focus on sharp, slow turns. Definitely an area of my flying that's gotten sloppy using sim for 99.9% of my flying.Last night, I took your 172 up to do some spins. My 9 year old has flown for 1.5 hr in the young eagle program and thinks a lot about flying. He wanted to see what a spin looked like, after about three times around, I kicked opposite rudder and recovered the spin, just like it should. Very nice.Landed, and Joey took the controls. His flying is amazing for a 9 year old, and he was able to do an excellant landing on his first pattern. Speed control is tough when its not second nature yet, so he ofter flys on the edge of too slow. On his second pattern, I watched him attempt to correct his turn by tightening it up, and he lost control. An excellant model to learn some good habits with.Thanks very much for your contribution to the sim. Bob Bernstein

>Just had to butt in....>>In the Piper Warrior which is completely different from a>Cessna 172, the stall horn would come on and you could make>turns in slow flight. I love flying on the back side of the>envelope.A bit off topic but....The only time I got airsick was when I had to fly the entire lesson with the stall horn going off continually. The goal was to try not to gain or lose more then 50 feet in altitude, all the while doing turns. The slow mo wallowing about made me sick as a dog. That was in a Cessna 150, so it behaves much the same as the Warrior as far as being able to do turns with the stall horn blaring away. I assume you are talking real flight, as I never flew a Warrior. Jon