For my 73rd Birthday treat I flew the 737-800ng simulator here https://plus.google.com/115408563554081290929/photos?gl=uk&hl=en  and quickly realised that, the real thing is nothing like I thought it was.

 

The rudder and flight yoke was extremely sensitive and a lot more than the hardware we are all used to.   I use the Saitek Yoke and pedals at home and as soon as I reached home again I adjusted ALL my controls to very sensitive and it has made a lot of improvement for me.

 

I would strongly advise others to do the same.

G"day Dave,

 

I've spent about 4 hours total in a full motion airline 737-800 sim and have to say I agree. Despite years of flying the PMDG 737's this was nothing like it. The feeling of hand flying was different, but so was the concept of operating the systems. Its very different when you're sitting in the real thing.

Please remember that even full motion Level D simulators are more sensitive than the real aircraft. The simulators differ from facility to facility also, so for example, you can go to ABC FlightSafety and train on the 737-800 then for recurrent 6 months later go to XYZ FlightSafety and train on the 737-800 and have a totally different experience. The systems should work exactly the same but the feeling will be different. Simulators have "Sim-isms" they're a little crazy at times

My controls are also perhaps 2 million dollars cheaper.

How sensitive? Anything that you can quantify so we can understand and try to match it in our simulators...

G"day Dave,

 

I've spent about 4 hours total in a full motion airline 737-800 sim and have to say I agree. Despite years of flying the PMDG 737's this was nothing like it. The feeling of hand flying was different, but so was the concept of operating the systems. Its very different when you're sitting in the real thing.

 

After you flew the full motion, did you make any changes to your home sim?  Was there something about the way it handled that you think is not modelled so well in your home sim?  Momentum...thrust...?

How sensitive? Anything that you can quantify so we can understand and try to match it in our simulators...

Yes, how much sensitive? Via FSUIPC I suppose....

If only we can have yokes with proper artificial feel systems....I always felt that the hardware yoke is the biggest limitation in terms of realism in flightsim.

 

 

If only we can have yokes with proper artificial feel systems....I always felt that the hardware yoke is the biggest limitation in terms of realism in flightsim.

 

The one thing I would suggest, no matter what yoke you have, is to go to youtube and look for videos for the airplane that you're flying and watch how their hands move and the plane responds and compare it to yours in the sim.  Use FSUIPC to adjust the slope until it's right.  You may not get the right 'pressure feel feedback' but your hand will have the right movement.

For my 73rd Birthday treat I flew the 737-800ng simulator here https://plus.google.com/115408563554081290929/photos?gl=uk&hl=en  and quickly realised that, the real thing is nothing like I thought it was.

 

The rudder and flight yoke was extremely sensitive and a lot more than the hardware we are all used to.   I use the Saitek Yoke and pedals at home and as soon as I reached home again I adjusted ALL my controls to very sensitive and it has made a lot of improvement for me.

 

I would strongly advise others to do the same.

So glad you enjoyed it Dave, so envious! I'll take on board your feedback - no pun intended!

Happy Birthday!

Jude

Please remember that even full motion Level D simulators are more sensitive than the real aircraft. The simulators differ from facility to facility also, so for example, you can go to ABC FlightSafety and train on the 737-800 then for recurrent 6 months later go to XYZ FlightSafety and train on the 737-800 and have a totally different experience. The systems should work exactly the same but the feeling will be different. Simulators have "Sim-isms" they're a little crazy at times

 This.

 

For my 73rd Birthday treat I flew the 737-800ng simulator here https://plus.google.com/115408563554081290929/photos?gl=uk&hl=en  and quickly realised that, the real thing is nothing like I thought it was.

 

It wasn't the real thing.  The "real sim" is more sensitive than the "real thing".  This is true for most (all?) Level-D,C, etc. sims.

 

At any rate, FSUIPC is the most powerful tool for tuning sensitivity on your hardware.

The one thing I would suggest, no matter what yoke you have, is to go to youtube and look for videos for the airplane that you're flying and watch how their hands move and the plane responds and compare it to yours in the sim.  Use FSUIPC to adjust the slope until it's right.  You may not get the right 'pressure feel feedback' but your hand will have the right movement.

 

In my view you will never really get 1:1 movement in a homesim on the pitch axis.  Roll yes.  The distance between full forward and full aft yoke position in a real sim or real aircraft is at least double that of the fwd-aft travel distance in a homesim.

Please remember that even full motion Level D simulators are more sensitive than the real aircraft. The simulators differ from facility to facility also, so for example, you can go to ABC FlightSafety and train on the 737-800 then for recurrent 6 months later go to XYZ FlightSafety and train on the 737-800 and have a totally different experience. The systems should work exactly the same but the feeling will be different. Simulators have "Sim-isms" they're a little crazy at times

It depends how you define sensitivity. It should be the response compared to the input. More sensitive means more response for a given input. A Level D simulator cannot be very different in sensitivity to the real thing, otherwise it would not get Level D qualitification. The main difference is the motion response, which is of course less in the simulator. that should make it feel less sensitive, not more sensitive. However the sensitivity in terms of the control force to produce a given response is very close.

 

Boeing provides the same data to all simulator manufacturers and they are all tested against the same Boeing flight test data to the same tolerances. They aren't perfect of course so if you see something happening in a simulator that doesn't mean that is exactly how the aircraft works.

 

 

The rudder and flight yoke was extremely sensitive and a lot more than the hardware we are all used to. I use the Saitek Yoke and pedals at home and as soon as I reached home again I adjusted ALL my controls to very sensitive and it has made a lot of improvement for me.

I've always argued for using 100% sensitivity in FSX, even when PMDG have recommended reduced sensitivity in the past. Reduced sensitivity in effect reduces the rate of response of the sim. If you watch the control surfaces move in the external view with a low sensitivity setting and apply full control deflection you will see the surface moving slowly to the full deflected position. Increase sensitivity and the surface moves much faster.

 

If the aircraft has a slow response to controls in real life that should be simulated in the air file, not by reducing control sensitivity.

 

The real problem with control sensitivity in FSX is that hobby grade control hardware doesn't provide enough force feel. So you can easily apply full deflection and so get an oversentive response. The answer is not to reduce control sensitivity but to apply less control input.

 

 

In my view you will never really get 1:1 movement in a homesim on the pitch axis. Roll yes. The distance between full forward and full aft yoke position in a real sim or real aircraft is at least double that of the fwd-aft travel distance in a homesim.

 

But, you also, very rarely, ever use that full motion RW.  It would be for a steep dive or, perhaps, practicing stalls.  At least you could cut it back some.  This vid on a Citation Mustang shows how little pitch is needed for a Vref landing.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGfqfUv9tto

 

Here's a takeoff in a 737 where it looks like, maybe, 2.5" of pullback?  Guessing...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgOeSTK6qVY

The one thing I would suggest, no matter what yoke you have, is to go to youtube and look for videos for the airplane that you're flying and watch how their hands move and the plane responds and compare it to yours in the sim.  Use FSUIPC to adjust the slope until it's right.  You may not get the right 'pressure feel feedback' but your hand will have the right movement.

The problem with the NGX would be that full wheel input only gives about half the wheel angle in the VC compared to the real 737 wheel at full deflection. So what looks like a 20 degree wheel input in the VC would actually be a 40 degree input in the real aircraft in terms of percentage deflection to maximum. So any visual comparison will be misleading.

 

I would advise using full control deflection to achieve full surface deflection. If it doesn't do that you will have some dead motion at the end of control travel.

 

 

Roll yes.

Not roll either, not in the NGX at least.