The stall horn came on at about the right time but the actual fully developed stall was not very realistic imho. The nose *always* dropped way too slowly and the aircraft *always* banked sharply to the right, even while in perfect coordination.

You can adjust the stall characteristics by altering the airfoils in AirfoilMaker.It actually annoy's me that Austin doesn't fix the flightmodel on the default aircraft or quality checks them better.Atleast the GA's which millions of people fly in real. In the old days, the core flightmodel was updated all the time sotrying to keep a flightmodel up to date at all times then was an impossible job. But since v9 it has been pretty stable,and the individual aircraft should atlleast be close in the beginning of a version run.I havnt flown any of the default GA types in real, if I had I'd fix them so we didn't get these posts all the time - whichmost likely are correct observations. The sad part is that the sim gets blamed for sloppy aircraft design and bad quality control.M

Excuse the somewhat belated response :

How many times have you seen Bill Gates defending MSFS?

Based on my knowledge and understanding, Laminar, to date, is essentially a one product, one man company, with Austin Meyer as the head and perhaps Ben Supnik as a lead scenery engine developer, among other things, hired as a paid contractor/employee. Every body else is a paid or unpaid contractor, low level part time or full time employee or seasonal help, and a bunch of people loosely "associated" or "working with" Austin/Ben/Laminar. With that in mind, surely it is not unreasonable to expect one or both of the top two guys to address the issues raised and of concern to current and potential users of X-plane v10.They are the coders of the X-plane program and it's scenery engine, two people primarily responsible for the current state of X-plane v10. If anyone can answer questions about X-plane, THEY CERTAINLY CAN.It's time to stop hiding behind the betas and updates and tell us about "the roadmap and the timeline" for X-plane v10.Here's a thought :How about showing up and "xplaning the roadmap and timeline" at the International Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas, January 10th to 13th, 2012. M$ will be there and Laminar should be there too, since it regards M$ in such high regard !

Nice to hear Morton-and I agree and am totally perplexed. If I only tried the defaults I would be probably once again walking away from xplane-now that I have experienced an aircraft I am extremely familiar with its excellence it has made me a convert. Considering how others have remarked that first impressions count for a lot-I would think greater effort would be put here, as you point out. Seems such a shame to lose potential xplaner's due to this factor.

I suspect that Laminar's mentality concerning the default aircraft is "Good enough." As I've said elsewhere, you can take a real-world checklist and do a "by the numbers" flight using the default 172, so while the default aircraft aren't great, they're also not terrible. That's not to say there isn't room for improvement, but I think some of the criticisms on this point are exaggerated.

Edited January 2, 201214 yr by Mountain Man

Bernt, you and Larry are obviously in the category of minimal to no add ons and haven't experienced CTD's. But you cannot deny that the CTD's and OOM's exist and people are experiencing them. They have existed from day 1. You run FSX between 5 and 10 hours a day?????I'll be lucky if I run X Plane between 5 and 10 hours a MONTH.

Actually I never had a CTD myself in FSX, and I use a number of addons. The only issue I had was with the Original release of the PMDG 737NGX with OOM's (The Original NGX was a memory hog, but the SP packs have really helped in this area.) which I corrected by not loading unused (In the session) addon DLL's. Other then that I use FSUIPC, EZDOK, UT2, UTUSAX, UTEuropeX UTCanadaX, GEX, REX textures, ASE, FS-Recorder, MCE BSSM Moving Map and AISmooth. Aircraft addons include the PMDG NGX, 744X, MD-11X, Ifly 737NG, CS-707, 727, 757, 767, Level-D 767, Wilco/feelthere Airbus Vol1 and Vol2, EJets, and EJets2, Real Air SF260, Flight 1 Super , Super 80Pro and A2A P-51D. Detailed Airport scenery, include FSDT, KJFK, KDFW, FlyTampa, KTPA and TNCM, Cloud-9 KMCO, UK2000, EGLL, EGCC, and EGKK. When I record video externally use GameCam or FRAPS.. I do this all on a E6850 3.0Ghz system running 32bit Vista OS, with decent frame rates in most situations with 100% Airline traffic, scenery extremely dense, Autogen dense, and water set to 2X low. I think a number of CTD related issues with FSX are more related to user specific 64bit OS configuration issues. (some 32bit Apps/addons still do not play well with a 64bit O/S yet)

Edited January 2, 201214 yr by tf51d

Bernt, you and Larry are obviously in the category of minimal to no add ons and haven't experienced CTD's. But you cannot deny that the CTD's and OOM's exist and people are experiencing them. They have existed from day 1. You run FSX between 5 and 10 hours a day?????I'll be lucky if I run X Plane between 5 and 10 hours a MONTH.

I dont have CTD either ....

I suspect that Laminar's mentality concerning the default aircraft is "Good enough." As I've said elsewhere, you can take a real-world checklist and do a "by the numbers" flight using the default 172, so while the default aircraft aren't great, they're also not terrible. That's not to say there isn't room for improvement, but I think some of the criticisms on this point are exaggerated.

The handling issues I see most common are in things like slow-flight/stall behaviour and ground handling. The ground handling is aweful aircraft wide when you add in 5+ kts of wind in any direction and when you're in light turbulence or a slight <5kt gusty wind, forget about being anywhere in PPL altitude/heading tolerances as the aircraft gyrates way too excessively to be realistic (most times, pitch/roll/yaw fluctuations of 5-10 degrees ever few seconds). I cannot run with any real weather on as I want the weather in-sim to change as I fly. I can't disable turbulence in RealWx, so I'm stuck with a canned flight. It wouldn't be bad if the wind didn't hit like a ton of bricks. Real wind ramps up over time, maybe building to a 5 knot gust over 2 or 3 seconds and dropping out as quick. The wind in sim seems to just appear out of no where, thus causing the aircraft to react to the new slipstream. Slow-fligt/stalls are based on in-depth airframe/engine torque/slipstream characteristics that could take a lot of tweaking and I don't expect the defaults to be perfect at out-of-normal flight envelopes. When you have to shut off the engines of the king air to get it to stop moving, even with brakes at full, how is that realistic and doesn't need fixing? Or the Baron at idle creeps forward under it's own power? The default aircraft aren't terrible once in flight, but I'll be damned if I don't hate the process from the ramp to the threshold.The gripes about the "out of the box" not being adequate comes from the fact that once you install the MS titles, you don't have to tweak the controls much unless you have an exotic piece of equipment that behaves differently from all others, like an Elite or PFC controller or the Hall Effect sensors in the A-10 HOTAS. The aircraft, with the same settings for joysticks, will behave differently from each other. The fact that the C172 can do a roll rate near to that of the 747 with the same sensitivities is just rediculous. The 747's ailerons are 1/8th as effective wingspan versus that of the C172 plus it has to compensate for all that mass in the wings and cargo hold (fuel and dead weight) and overcome inertia. The controller with the same deflection should yield different results based on the control surfaces of the aircraft.When you install a piece of software, you don't want to spend hours configuring and getting it "just right", you want to start enjoying it from moment one. That experience should be extensive enough that minor tweaking is something done over time because you're fine tuning, but there is no FINE tuning at the outset, you have to heavily tune everything, from graphics to control options and EVERYONE has to do it, not just those looking for a slightly better experience. The gripe is that it should just work out of the box with reasonable results across all facets of installation without necessitating user action. This is the gripe that cannot be ignored as it will drive away people who want a sim they won't have to fiddle with just to get a good experience. They want that from the moment they're done installing +30sec.Simplicity is key for user satisfaction. It is a damn difficult beast to tame, but not impossible.

Edited January 2, 201214 yr by fvapres

I also never ever had a CTD in FSX and it's running between 5 and 10hrs each day. Looks like if CTDs suddenly start to increase with the PMDG 737, it's due to the plane and not FSX.A reason might be because I'm running FSX as it is, without any special tweaks, cfg changes, bojote shader, russian bloom, REX, etc....just the himemfix due to the GPU memory.

Well Bert, between the 5 to 10 hours running FSX, the same amount in cruising this forum to find ways to criticize XPX, when do you sleep? :(

The gripes about the "out of the box" not being adequate comes from the fact that once you install the MS titles, you don't have to tweak the controls much unless you have an exotic piece of equipment that behaves differently from all others, like an Elite or PFC controller or the Hall Effect sensors in the A-10 HOTAS.

It's been a while, but I do remember when FSX first came out that a primary complaint was that the default aircraft were too stable, giving the impression of driving on an invisible road requiring one to adjust the settings if they wanted more realistic flight characteristics. I recall a number of experienced simmers and real-world pilots being frustrated by this and making exaggerated statements about the suitability and accuracy of the flight modeling. I also remember telling them the same thing I'm telling people now: "Then go ahead and adjust things to your liking and stop whining about it."

When you install a piece of software, you don't want to spend hours configuring and getting it "just right", you want to start enjoying it from moment one. That experience should be extensive enough that minor tweaking is something done over time because you're fine tuning, but there is no FINE tuning at the outset, you have to heavily tune everything, from graphics to control options and EVERYONE has to do it, not just those looking for a slightly better experience.

Let's go ahead and toss graphics out of this complaint because any piece of gaming software is going to require some tuning depending on your hardware -- the older your hardware the more tuning it's going to require to get acceptable results. In the case of FSX, you were pretty much required to crack open ini files and change undocumented settings if you wanted things to run acceptably on even the best hardware available at the time. So let's not fault a modern piece of software like X-Plane for this.As for controls, yes, I agree that Laminar could take steps to make a better first-impression, but then they run the risk of running into the problem that FSX had with planes acting like they're on invisible rails, and then you'll still hear people complaining about the "horrific" flight dynamics and that you shouldn't have to adjust the controls to get a decent flying aircraft. Pretty much a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Well Bert,....

Bert (Pieke) is a different guyRegardsBernt

Edited January 2, 201214 yr by bstolle

LOL, sorry Bernt...my apologies.

It's been a while, but I do remember when FSX first came out that a primary complaint was that the default aircraft were too stable, giving the impression of driving on an invisible road requiring one to adjust the settings if they wanted more realistic flight characteristics. I recall a number of experienced simmers and real-world pilots being frustrated by this and making exaggerated statements about the suitability and accuracy of the flight modeling. I also remember telling them the same thing I'm telling people now: "Then go ahead and adjust things to your liking and stop whining about it."Let's go ahead and toss graphics out of this complaint because any piece of gaming software is going to require some tuning depending on your hardware -- the older your hardware the more tuning it's going to require to get acceptable results. In the case of FSX, you were pretty much required to crack open ini files and change undocumented settings if you wanted things to run acceptably on even the best hardware available at the time. So let's not fault a modern piece of software like X-Plane for this.As for controls, yes, I agree that Laminar could take steps to make a better first-impression, but then they run the risk of running into the problem that FSX had with planes acting like they're on invisible rails, and then you'll still hear people complaining about the "horrific" flight dynamics and that you shouldn't have to adjust the controls to get a decent flying aircraft. Pretty much a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't.

I agree. It's safe to say that no sim is going to satisfy the "real experience" of flight. FSX is too stable, and X-plane is to wild. Thank god for 3rd party add-ons. I also agree with the fact that, when FSX came out, everyone basically had to run out and buy new hardware to make it run. If XPX excels anywhere, it is here, it just flat out runs great. Maybe it's because it's "lacking" in complex scenery, or maybe not, but it does.

...once you install the MS titles, you don't have to tweak the controls much unless you have an exotic piece of equipment that behaves differently from all others, like an Elite or PFC controller or the Hall Effect sensors in the A-10 HOTAS.

Even when I switched to the Thrustmaster Warthog, I didn't have to do any adjusting in FSX. It gave me a much more precise response - for example, I was able to hand-fly the A2A Stratocruiser to an IFR standard, which I hadn't been able to do with my CH or Saitek hardware. But settings didn't have to change.I get the sense - and it's only a sense, I haven't really measured it - that in addition to having a different control "bias" than FSX (i.e., toward greater sensitivity), X-Plane 10 also alllows you to adjust responsiveness across a much wider range than FSX. That is, the difference between high and low sensitivity setting seems to be much bigger. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you know what you're getting into, or become aware of it, and tune accordingly.

Even when I switched to the Thrustmaster Warthog, I didn't have to do any adjusting in FSX. It gave me a much more precise response - for example, I was able to hand-fly the A2A Stratocruiser to an IFR standard, which I hadn't been able to do with my CH or Saitek hardware. But settings didn't have to change.

Which is to say that you could have had better results with the CH and Saitek hardware if you had actually tuned things appropriately and that it's with some luck that the Warthog worked to your liking with the default settings. Think about it.

I have thought a lot about it since I think it was version 3 or 4-and I never got a plane to fly right with any kind of joystick setup, tweakings, etc.All of the Carenado aircraft fly great without any tweaking or changing at all from the default joystick settings-as does Morton's which he provided a link for above.Therefore I have to conclude it isn't and hasn't been about joysticks, and more to what Morton said above...p.s. nice plane Morton!