Hand Flying the NGX

[B-7 5]

Diana,

 

The use of anything less than 1.0 zoom is completely wrong because the entire depth/distance perception is gone way, way off so you cannot accurately operate the by visual cues.

Yes, I understand that. But with limited resources it’s not always possible to have the best system possible... Also, don’t forget that 1x zoom level was created for the times when 17" was considered as a decent gaming monitor (at least where I live). Monitors grew larger, and on the 24" with 1x zoom everything became oversized a bit  :smile:

[kevinh 409]

Yes, I understand that. But with limited resources it’s not always possible to have the best system possible... Also, don’t forget that 1x zoom level was created for the times when 17" was considered as a decent gaming monitor (at least where I live). Monitors grew larger, and on the 24" with 1x zoom everything became oversized a bit :smile:

Zoom level is all about perspective and not monitor size. Even with a 24" monitor x1 is nowhere near full size. I don't have TrackIR and only a 20" monitor but I hand fly with zoom settings as close to 1 as practical, usually 0.8 or 0.9 depending on the sim, with no difficulty.

[fstulm 4]

Well said Kevin!

 

Diana, it's not oversized not even at 27''. Here is how you know: give or take, when you are in front of your monitor, you are roughly at the same distance as you would be say in front of a Cessna instrument panel. In that situation, if you measure one of  the analog instruments on the screen and come to 9cm (I am guessing you live in a metric system country :smile: if not make it 3.5'') then you see the correct size. Anything under that is too small either due to too much zoom out or the monitor is too small.

 

Sincerely,

Ionut (John) G. Micu

[skelsey 765]

As mentioned above, to avoid depth perspective issues you are much better off setting the zoom to 1.0 and moving the eye position rearwards to get a wider field of view in order to see more of the panel.

 

Low zoom settings, in my experience, make it very difficult to judge speed and height above ground.

[JAT 185]

How do you move the eye position.

 

nebojsa milo

[B-7 5]

How do you move the eye position.

Hold Shift, Ctrl, or both (three axles) then move with Enter and Backspace.

[Wink207 78]

Having flown a variety of aircraft in the real world, I've always been a bit frustrated hand flying aircraft in Flightsim. It's just not quite right. The aircraft are too touchy, the trim is too twitchy making the aircraft unstable. Even with quality controllers Its difficult to maintain altitude, speed etc. It's easier to fly the real thing. That having been said, I must say that PMDG has made a huge advance in this area. I can not believe how stable the NGX is. I don't know how they accomplished it but this is by far the most realistic airplane I have ever hand flown in Flightsim. It's just a joy to fly, not a constant fight. I've not had the time to fully explore the complexity of the systems which I'm sure will be a continuing source of amazement, but what good are complex systems if the airplane's flight characteristics stink. This airplane is a gem!! Great Job PMDG!!

 

For sure. And each add on aircraft is different on each rig. What I do to get around this is tweak the aircraft.cfg and .air files to customize to my rig, my controllers, and my sensitivity settings. The values I change are usually under [Fight Tuning] and the moment of inertia terms to achieve a more heavy and less "twitchy" feel as you say. Occasionally I will change the engine thrust profile in the .air file to achieve more realistic climb out as per the specs for the aircraft. Some aircraft, like the NGX, I really didn't do anything much. Flew nice on my rig right out of the box.

[JAT 185]

Years ago i played with the inlet_area size in the aircraft.cfg to adjust the climbing performance of a aircraft. I had to do that a few times to get it to match the performance table at EUROCONTROL.

It was free to download at the EUROCONTROL web sight.Now to get it you have to register and give some other info. I think the current one is BADA 3.8 which you can google search and it takes you to Eurocontrol.

All the testing was done without real weather .

 

nebojsa milo

[kevinh 409]

I wouldn't recommended tuning NGX performance, or that of any other reputable addon, based on ATC requirements. Without looking at the table, ATC requirements are usually the minimum. It's no more use than designing a flight model based on performance tables in a flight manual. These are always meant to give a minimum performance level (often with safety margins applied as well), the actual performance being rather better. Whenever I read about an addon that flies "by the book" it tells me it doesn't perform as well as the real thing.

[NM5K 1]

As mentioned above, to avoid depth perspective issues you are much better off setting the zoom to 1.0 and moving the eye position rearwards to get a wider field of view in order to see more of the panel.

 

Low zoom settings, in my experience, make it very difficult to judge speed and height above ground.

 

I think it's just what one is used to. I don't fly the sim at 1.0 for much the same reason as Diana. And I also like to see a tad

wider VC view, more of what I would expect with my normal peripheral vision. Say from judging as how my panel and dash look

in my car.  I can see from one side to the other without moving my head.  With a 737, I sort of expect to be able to see about

half the width of the panel, just guessing..

So with the wideview set in the cfg, I usually run in the 60-70 range as far as the normal view. And same with the other planes.

I have no trouble at all judging speed or height, because I'm used to it.  Actually, I don't think it would have any real effect for me

one way or the other..  :|

The outside view may well be more accurate with 1.0, but I don't like such a restricted view area in the VC. 

It's almost like I have my head about a 7 inches in front of the glareshield. Or to me anyway..  The tradeoff is my runways

will look a bit more narrow vs real world view. But I still have no trouble lining up, so...  There we are.