December 23, 200421 yr Today I did something unusual (for me). I flew a bigger plane out of a big airport - namely the FSD Navajo out of KSFO. While I enjoyed the flight which only took me to KSTS I did encounter a few surprises and problems.1. AI traffic / ATCa)As I was taxiing along, this suddenly happened:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/101403.jpgNow I'm running PAI and a considerable amount of traffic. It seems the FS ground controller simply can't handle the load. The solution? I hit the grass and drove around the two aircraft. They in turn got stuck and to my knowledge thay are still sitting where I left them. Guess the pilots passed out in shock when a Navajo drove past them at 100 kts :-lol:(It's a shame I didn't get a screenshot of this because it looked darn funny. As I was holding short of 28R, no less than five AI planes approached the airport, closely behind one another. What happened then is this:The first aircraft in the line landed. The others overflew my position, after which two of them made a sharp turn to the left, one continued straight forward and the fourth turned right. It was like being at an airshow as they flew past me and banked sharply :-lolc)I had to wait like 10 minutes at the runway before I was allowed to take off. There were several "openings" where no aircraft were landing for several minutes but ATC still had me wait. While the AI airshow entertained me for a brief moment I was quickly bored of staring at an empty runway and not being allowed to take off from it. I was very close to just taking off anyway when ATC finally got back to me and cleared me for take off.Basically I have had very few problems with AI and ATC on my "usual" flying adventures. Those flights usually happen between uncontrolled or small towered airfields. At uncontrolled fields I'm given much more freedom - if an aircraft reports base, it's up to me to decice if I have enough time to take off or if I should wait. Sometimes stupid things happen, for example, I may report final and 10 seconds later some idiot taxis onto the runway and tries to take off - but then again that could happen in real life as well (though not as frequently as it does in FS...). Bsically I'm quite happy with FS ATC for those flights.My question to those who fly out of big airports using FS ATC - how do you deal with those probles? I could easily turn down the traffic level but that wouldn't be very realistic. Or do you all use Vatsim for those flights nowadays?2)My next observation is re. handling. I actually find the FSD Seneca much easier to land than many of my smaller GA aircraft. It was just incredibly stable, especially during approach and landing. It basically flew itself down the glideslope and the flare and touchdown was incredibly smooth. What made it so easy was that the controls were sluggish and especially so during the approach and flare. Many small GA aircraft like the Carenado Cherokee, all default planes, Aussim Warrior etc. are very *touchy* and twitchy especially in the pitch axis. Even if flying close to stall speed, the slightest back preassure causes the plane to quickly pitch up. It's hard to describe really but it basically causes me to pitch up too quickly and too much during the flare even after lots of practice. If I'm unlucky this can lead to oscillations as I then over-correct and head nose-first toward the runway.This did not at all happen with the Navajo. I was able to smoothly increase pitch angle over the runway and didn't even realize right away that I was on the ground.Is this just a case of the FSD flight model being "better" than that of Carenado, Aussim, DF and so on or are the bigger aircraft easier to land. -
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