Sorry, I've been off FSX for several weeks now, and in the meantime I've watched lots of aviation videos. When I compare those from real world with others that show the same or a similar situation in FSX, I almost always have the impression that in reality, turn radii are much tighter than in the sim.

 

E.g. the visual circling approach to Innsbruck rwy 08 (after leaving the ILS to rwy 27): Whereas in reality, a 737-800 makes such a tight right turn that it ends up well to the right of the centerline of rwy 08, in FSX, you find yourself displaced a good amount to the left of it. Bank angles are similar and not excessive in the real world videos.

 

This corresponds to my own personal experiences, where I always felt that those curved/circling approaches look very different from what I see on real world videos, and which frighten me to a certain degree because it's more a fight with aileron and elevator, and the plane (I speak only of airliners and not of smaller aircraft) never seems to turn fast enough.

 

Those approaches look a _lot_ easier to do in real world than they do in FSX, for me! Is it really so that FSX models turns badly or is what I see just a result of the missing peripheral view on my monitor and the restrictions the 3d-to-2d world imposes?

 

Andreas

there are a LOT of things that are easier to do IRL than in the sim - and yes, mainly due to peripheral vision and the feel of the controls. Not sure what you mean by FSX turn radii are to large though - I assume you mean if you let the autopilot fly the approach. You control the approach and you copntrol the bank and turn rate. Also, in that type of approach, speed is a critical factor - the faster you go the wider your turn. Circling approaches require a bit of skill - also remember that if you were carrying passengers you would probably be keeping shallower bank angles for passenger comfort.

 

Vic

I would test fly the plane in use and record the path it flies. If you set the FSX weather to 'clear all weather', there's no disturbance factor in place and you can measure the turn rates.

 

We had some disccussions about this on a Realair Duke topic not too long ago. There is a chance that the flight model pulls a few tricks which, in the outcome, lead to a slightly altered turn behaviour. However, I would doubt that the airliner flying incorporates some of those.

 

Your turn radius is very much dependant on the true airspeed(v^2). The other factor is the bank angle, so while you may fly the same (assumed) bank angles like in rw videos, your speed may differ more or less. Maybe this leads to the error. A definitive answer only comes from measuring it though.

 

I'd aim for a standard rate turn (3°/s), so if you wanted to keep your bank angle at around 25° you can fly a max TAS of 170kts. That's for turning coordinated of course. The Yaw Damper may help to achieve this. The default one may react a tad slow though, so this could be another error source.