A remark in the "CLS 767" thread about the LevelD 767 flying "like the real thing (within the confines of FSX)" has made me curious.

 

How much du you expect of flight dynamics?

 

Is it enough that, say, a heavy plane feels heavy and that it roughly delivers published performance figures?

Or do you throw a plane away if real world performance charts aren't matched by, say, 2% within all flight regimes?

 

Are there any add-on planes that are right on the mark in terms of real world numbers (at least the NGX and Q400, I suppose)?

 

How do you conclude that a FDE of an airplane is good or bad?

By (not) matching approach speeds and/or climb speeds and/or V1/VR/V2 tables and/or turn radius and/or engine settings and/or fuel flow and/or something else?

When it has a PMDG/LevelD logo on it.

A very good question, that most of us can't certainly answer properly...

 

How many of us have a commercial pilot license, and, even "worse", are rw airline pilots?

 

Of course there are some figures we can check to see if an aircraft is being modelled plausibly, some flight dynamic effects can also be tested and plausible bahaviours expected, etc..., but it's really very difficult for someone who never flew the real thing to be able to compare.

 

I, as far as I am concerned, am limited to give my oppinion on gliders, and far from being acceptable for many gliders I never flew IRL.... yet, I keep arguing at the forums about prop effects and the like :-/...

I don't care too much for realism there, as I can't check it anyway. But I still consider a few things when judging the flight dynamics, e.g.

the size: simple physics - an AN225 accelerating like an F-18 with full afterburners is simply unrealistic, and there's going to be a significant difference in the response to control inputs

the behavior under certain circumstances, flight conditions and configurations: I had some planes that would start a severe dive when extending flaps, which I doubt happens on the real thing, at least to the extent I encountered

stall speeds: well, that's only an educated guess, but I think the "high-fidelity addons" I have can be used as some kind of benchmark for similar addons

the aircraft type: I expect a helicopter to behave entirely different from a plane, and depending on the plane's design and power generation, there should be some differences as well.

 

And that's actually all - I don't think about the fuel consumption, whether the pitch trim is wrong for a certain load scenario and other performance data. It just needs to convince me, and if flying my C208 feels nearly the same as flying my C172, so be it; after all those two are too close for me to notice a difference.

When the performance numbers match the real thing.

 

More important - and harder to find - when the aircraft feels like a physical object with mass and inertia.  Only the best flight dynamics designers achieve this.  Try anything by Rob Young (of RealAir) or Alexander Metzger (current and recent: the Aerosoft 4X Katana, the Sibwings AN-2, and Manfred Jahn's freeware C-47, C-117D and BT-67) and you'll see what I mean.

Don't forget the Leonardo Maddog. It's probably feels most realistic, and all numbers are right. It's still my best purchase ever!

 

PMDG MD11 is excelent too, near perfection. Watch a real MD11 landings on youtube and your replays in FSX and find the difference

 

Leo Maddog, all PMDG's and Majestic are best airliners.

 

And yes, hats off to Rob Young and  Alexander Metzger. If you like GA, go for RealAir Duke, DA piper cheyenne or anything else from them and from A2A.

 

I flew cessna 172 and some other GA in real life, and 737 and A320 in Lufthansa full flight simulator. They(above)are the best available flight simulators for desktop in my experience. 

Flying by numbers is just first important step.

I.e. Sibwings AN-2 has nice performance by numbers, but other flight dynamics are just bad. What I mean it is how it performs stalls, spins, slides, changes in configuration (gear, flaps), torque etc.

 

For me RealAir planes have the best flight dynamics available for FSX. A2A is also quite impressive, although I am not convinced in 100% to C172 model.

When Are Flight Dynamics "good"?

 

 

 

When they're done by Rob Young, Alexander Metzger, Majestic, or PMDG....   :wink:

What a depressing thread for all other flight dynamics makers. Seems to me, given the narrow views espoused here and the contradictions that no one really knows. That being true,I wonder why we like to complain about them so much?

I don't fly tubes, except the NGX, so my answer is aimed at GA aircraft, but although I want aircraft to rotate, approach, land and stall at the appropriate speeds, realism isn't about performance numbers for me. It's about whether the planes handle the flight envelope in a way the feels like the real aircraft. It has to do that first in a general sense, faithfully reproducing the feel of ailerons and elevator sluggishness in slow flight, and the normal behavior of coordinated and uncoordinated flight at cruise, and the gyro, p-factor and other effects of take-off and landing. Then it needs to respond to turbulence in a realistic way and feel like wings moving through the liquid we call air. Finally, then, it needs to feel like the kind of plane it is, heavy and solid, twitchy and light, driven mostly by thrust as in many warbirds, etc.

 

In short, it has to feel as much like when I'm actually flying as a graphical representation can.

 

There are at least 30 planes in my permanent hangar that do most or all this. There are many more I have bought that do not, and are no longer installed.

 

It's amazing to me that some developers have managed to capture all these dynamics on a 10-year old sim that never did a very good job of any of it by default, but some have certainly done so. It sure raises the bar high for everyone else.

Then it needs to respond to turbulence in a realistic way and feel like wings moving through the liquid we call air.

 

:blink:

Add .... Mr. Stolle .... he has done a looooot FDE for diferent Designers..... with colaboration or alone... some of that the best feeling of "flight" in the fsx.. 

 

Redgars from Venezuela

Robert Bernard

I try not to make blanket statement of the nature "anything by Company X has good flight dynamics".  Case in point, the Majestic DHC-8.  I am currently enjoying this aircraft and believe that it has accurate flight dynamics, primarily based on thousands of testimonials to that, and despite the fact that there is little performance information available or provided along with the airplane.  However, when it was released, there were numerous reports of it not interacting correctly with the weather and turbulence.  This caused me to not buy it originally, because like the poster above noted, I think realistic interaction with the medium of air, is a pretty big deal!  In other words, I saw that as a major demerit on it's flight model.  This problem was subsequently addressed, and all seems fine now.   Next case in point, PMDG 777.  Current version has an incorrectly modelled FBW system.  To me that's a fundamental flaw in it's basic flying characteristics, and again, I wouldn't buy it based on that alone.  This problem too, has or will be addressed in a service pack, at which point I likely will go get it.   So while some companies are generally noted for their superior flight dynamics, I still look at it cautiously, on a case by case basis, realizing that even the flight models of the best companies with the best reputations might take a little time to evolve.  I've stated it a million times, and will say it again, there is no such thing as an insta-buy for me.

I have never flown a real world aircraft, so I am not in a position to make any definitive statements. In fact, I think it is probably easier to identify flight dynamics that are "bad", simply because they do not seem "logical". I have stated the following several times elsewhere, but I will say it again here.....

 

The CS 737-200 does not behave as I believe it should when banking. If I am in stable level flight in an aircraft, and then I put it into a shallow bank, I expect the nose to drop. So far so good. However, the plane should then start to pick up speed, and (assuming that I do nothing else) it should slowly start to pitch up again once the speed has increased sufficiently. This theory works perfectly in something like the PMDG 737NGX. However, it does not work properly in the CS 737-200. That plane will simply spiral down in a shallow bank until it either hits the ground, or you do something about it!

 

To me, that is an example of "bad" flight dynamics.

"When Are Flight Dynamics "good"? "

 

Any time they're better than acceptable.

 

I think the question is when they are "great". For me, it's performing close to the numbers plus its "physical" behavior between the numbers. It has to be both.

 

"Good" is not good enough

 

Andrew