I partially agree with you Thomas although sometimes I find it harder to land in P3D than in real life due to the lack of visual cues which we get plenty of on final approach in the real world.

 

Are you saying that you think XP10 replicates the landing in a more realistic manner than P3D/FSX?

 

I find P3D with ASN and turbulence switched to high quite realistic in many circumstances. Do you use any weather generation programs in P3D or XP10?

 

TrafficPilot, I think XP10 gives me a better sensation of actually flying through air, especially in light wind conditions. But overall I still prefer P3D. XP10 pitch control is waaay to sensitive. And wind seems realistic only at very low speeds. Add 30 knots and the 777 wordliner gets tossed around like a model plane.

 

I am using Active Sky next, but didnt discover the enance tubulence feature before now. That added some more dynamism to gusty crosswind landings. Thanks for the tip!

 

 

Thomas

I use (well, have) XP10 too... feels good but there are too many things just a bit off for me to consider a migration to it as a training aid.

 

I don't think they've ever really gotten the basics "right" - it's never felt solid to me. 

 

Fun, yes. But always in a state of entropy.

I am student pilot with 30 hours - so my experience is far less than yours for sure. But it didnt take me many hours in a real airplane to come to the conclusion that P3D/FSX IS "flying on rails" compared to the real thing. 

Case in point: Consider an approach with 10 KN crosswind with a few knots of gusts. In FSX/P3D as you are approaching the threshold and flaring the aircraft, very few control inputs are required to maintain horizontal and vertical profile. When I practice touch and gos in the real world with the same wind conditions, a lot of control inputs are required to maintain a stable approach. In my opinion a real world landing is far more challenging than a FSX landing

I've probably talked about this, a few hundred, perhaps thousands of times, over the years. First, using the words "flying on rails", has never made sense to me, when used as a description for FSX. Unless it just means super smooth flight, which real planes actually DO!  I hear so much BS about air that should be constantly swaying airplanes back & forth and up and down.  If anyone says that's a fact, then they haven't flown very much.  In real life flight, we'd call those smooth ones, an FSX flight, and turbulence a X-Plane flight.  There were many, many smooth flights, which are actually smoother than riding on rails. The plane (which was semi high performance, and semi-aerobatic) seemed almost motionless, as we were moving over the ground, around 200 mph.  Basically just dead calm air, same as the deal calm water in the lake below.

 

As far as control movement in landings with some cross winds, turbulence go, I've experienced some great ones in both simulations. Just depends on the depicted weather, and who's flight model we're using.  Both sims can be challenging and fun.  Landings, after all of these years of simming, are what I still like the best.  Besides, screw up a landing in a sim, and there is no real penalty. And don't ask me how I know.....

 

Former pilot/aircraft builder/owner.

Adamson, I agree fully that flying through smooth air in a real plane can also be described as "flying on rails". The issue is that most of the time when I go flying a GA plane in Norway in the real world, the air is not smooth. Typically theres 10 knots wind or more at surface level, and 25+ above 3-4000 feet. Then theres a lot of ground obstacles creating turbulence. All this leads to me actually having to constantly make corrective control inputs to maintain desired flight path, in particular on approach and landing. Very often in FSX/P3D, I find this not beeing the case even in strong and gusty winds. 

 

Btw I am flying "state of the art" P3D aircrafts like A2Aa 182 and PMDG 737NGX, so I assume these flight models are among the most realistic ones.

I also agree with most of what has been written in this thread, and in particular the observations by Larry.

 

Yet, one of the biggest limitations in FSX's weather model, and that my experience of flying through turbulent air IRL demonstrates, is that the aircraft in FSX / P3D, even when the most advanced weather injector apps are used, do not practically rock their wings under turbulence, or yaw... There is more of up / down movement than bank and yaw, and that is really far from my RL experience, on gliders but also while flying as a passenger on many GA and military aircraft...

 

Some authors add to their flight models this "rocking", A2A and RealAir being two examples I know well, but that happens because the flight dynamics in their models and the additional code creates that effect.

 

It is easier to get such behavior in X-Plane, but there are other problems / limitations with X-plane's modelling of turbulence and windshear :-/

 

I can say that turbulence was very credibly simulated in ELITE, and it is astoundingly simulated in Aerowinx PSX ( I do really avoid those red / purple areas in the weather radar, if I'm not up to a very very rough ride with lot's of rock & roll... ). In FSX:SE, using ASN, even with the enhanced turbulence modeling option on, or any other weather injector  I have used, I can put my 772 into the wildest super-cell and fly peacefully across it. Only shear can bring some problems, but turbulence, and ascending / descending air currents that could easily asymmetrically hit the wings of such a big aircraft while crossing such an area...

I'm not entirely in agreement with what your saying about turbulence, jcomm. When ASN reports turbulence, I'm bouncing around in direct proportion to the level of turbulence reported, and the smaller the plane, the more so. With ASN, I have certainly not experienced being able to fly through a thunderstorm on rails! I really think that the camera effects from a program like Ezdok are equally important though to one's perception of being tossed around. Overall, I'm very pleased with the ASN + Ezdok combination. The only thing I notice enhanced beyond this on A2A planes when in turbulence is that they make some extra bumpy sounds, which tend to be well done, because they are fairly subtle and not overpowering. I'm not sure that their airplanes actually bounce around more so than any other in response to the weather. They might, but in the same weather, using the same Ezdok head momentum settings for the default C172 and the A2A Cherokee, it feels pretty similar to me. Probably my biggest criticism of ASN turbulence would be that it can feel a little too sinusoidal in nature.

 

 

I'm not entirely in agreement with what your saying about turbulence, jcomm.

 

I think he's pretty much on the money.  I was in a C152 with an instructor one day during the summer, pretty normal day and we hit a pocket of air and the airplane dropped suddenly.  I stabilized it and we looked at each other.  He said, "What was that?" and we smiled and went on to the training ground.  In higher wind you can get a fair amount of up/down and wing roll that you have to stay on top of.  Most all of this happens below the lowest cloud deck.  Above that, it generally is pretty smooth.  What's interesting is to go to youtube and watch the hands of a pilot who is landing when it's bouncy.  It's pretty subconscious, I think.  Thing is, bouncy/turbulent days are more rare...smoothness is the norm...within bounds. 

Don't forget we are talking about the relationship between the weather program and the flight model here. If one or the other isn't up to snuff you won't notice much. I have found that ASN comes the closest to simulating real life experiences than any other weather engine. I have noticed that some a/c do not respond to the turbulence as well as others.

 

the thing is - it is available in the sim with the right parts.

 

Vic

Don't forget we are talking about the relationship between the weather program and the flight model here. If one or the other isn't up to snuff you won't notice much. I have found that ASN comes the closest to simulating real life experiences than any other weather engine. I have noticed that some a/c do not respond to the turbulence as well as others.

 

the thing is - it is available in the sim with the right parts.

 

Vic

 

Exactly!  ASN with A2A = almost perfect, for instance.... ( same applying to RealAirs I have used... )

The issue is that most of the time when I go flying a GA plane in Norway in the real world, the air is not smooth. Typically theres 10 knots wind or more at surface level, and 25+ above 3-4000 feet. Then theres a lot of ground obstacles creating turbulence.

 

Sounds like a challenge! Here in the UK once I've trimmed the aircraft out I can normally fly along hands-off for 10-15mins with no need to make any major corrective inputs (this in our  stable club PA28s - our training C152s are more skittish!). Obviously in more convective weather more corrections are required.

Gregg, you are talking about clear air turbulence that comes out of nowhere whereas I'm contesting the notion that something like ASN would have you flying on rails through a tornado. There is of course this Accufeel program which apparently does clear turbulence effects too, so what you're talking about can now be accomplished with yet another 3rd party program.

I am talking about a very simple and basic effect of RW turbulence that doesn't get IMO modeled up to the right levels in FSX, with or without weather injectors, but some add-on aircraft end up reproducing acceptably ( A2A p51d, for instance being a good example ) - wing rocking!

 

If you could enter or get near a storm cell, depending on it's development, but even if you simply fly across a turbulent area, with convection all around / thermals, your aircraft will probably rock the wings considerable, yaw, and also of course get pushed up or down by the rising / sinking  air.

 

In FSX you can feel the up / down drafts, but rocking wings is something that almost never affects the aircraft, irrespective of the intensity of the turbulence and or wind variability.

Around me - NJ, PA, NY, DE, MD - in spring, and especially summer, there is quite a bit of "non-rails" flying to do.

 

Note that it's the subtle bumping and shifting I'm talking about in terms of a more realistic, fluid simulation - not turbulence. I've never experienced turbulence that felt accurate in a sim.

 

Even on good summer days around here, there is typically lots of these little burbles that keep the airplane tipping around. Doesn't seem to happen much in FSX, but as noted, it could be faked pretty easily, I think.

 

 

In FSX you can feel the up / down drafts, but rocking wings is something that almost never affects the aircraft, irrespective of the intensity of the turbulence and or wind variability.

 

Haven't been flying much at all these last few months, but a week or so ago I managed to sneak in a VFR flight from KSBA to KPSP in the Milviz B55.  When I arrived, the wind at Palm Springs was pretty much right down the runway, but was (from memory) something like 12G24.  I guarantee you, I was all over the sky (up, down and plenty of wing rock) on final.

 

No rails, definitely challenging and a very realistic depiction of what I've experienced IRL many times out here in the wind-prone western US.  I'm not suggesting the physics were perfect, but the overall effect was doggone real and a definite sweaty palms flight.  With the right tools in place, some very credible real-world effects are absolutely possible in FSX.

 

Milviz B55 in this case, and the latest version of ASN, but the B55's behavior is the norm for me, not the exception.

 

Scott

I only fly P3D now and using ASN and light twins I get plenty of wing rocking under the right circumstances.

 

Vic