Crash Modelling......

[HiFlyer 9,359]

I guess their are two types of people, those who like to build a Revell Model Aircraft and display it in all its wonder, and those who like to build a Revell Model Aircraft and take it outside and blow it up with Cherry Bombs.  

 

I would say that the difference is that being exploded by a cherry bomb is not an intrinsic parameter of being a Revel model, whereas damage is a common and expected consequence of heavier than air flight......   :p0502:

[Murmur 3,941]

I would say that the difference is that being exploded by a cherry bomb is not an intrinsic parameter of being a Revel model, whereas damage is a common and expected consequence of heavier than air flight...... 

 

I would add that, as shown by NTSB statistics, ground damage (as a consequence of failure or human error), is the most common type of aviation event, more common than e.g. engine failure or loss of control due to stall.

 

So I don't see why requesting an improvement in ground interaction/damage is considered "arcade"...

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

I will compare this to when I went to Flight School.....When you go to Flight School the training is about not crashing, collapsing landing gear or causing damage to any aircraft. Ground School and Flight Time are all around not crashing or damaging anything. You do train what to do in emergencies and have simulated engine failures, but that is simply by pulling the throttle back to idle, nothing gets damaged. I approach a Flight Sim in the same manner. 

 

I guess some would like to collapse gear and crash into trees and replay that in instant replay but everyone's approach to Flight Sim may differ. I don't see a problem with adding this to a simulator if the demand is high enough but it is not my objective with my sim time. 

 

But this is what Flight Sim does is captures a broad range of people's likings

[HiFlyer 9,359]

I guess some would like to collapse gear and crash into trees and replay that in instant replay but everyone's approach to Flight Sim may differ.

 

Some may, but I don't think that's what people here have been asking. In fact people have repeatedly stressed that this is not the reason they are interested in damage modeling. 

 

I don't see a problem with adding this to a simulator if the demand is high enough but it is not my objective with my sim time. 

 

In one of my first replies (in another thread) I suggested a switch to turn damage off or on so that people had a choice based on their own tastes. It still seems a simple solution that takes care of objections while not stifling others free choice.

[WebMaximus 372]

I guess some would like to collapse gear and crash into trees and replay that in instant replay but everyone's approach to Flight Sim may differ.

 

Have you read any posts in here that seem to back up what you're saying?

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

I have been following the thread between chasing my toddler around the house but that was just a comment is all. I am on the side I don't need to see crash modeling in a General Aviation simulator but if others want to see it that is fine with me. I would just turn it off and focus on flying. If I did so happen to make a mistake I don't need to see a programmers scripted interpretation of what the aircraft would do when you collapse the gear of clip a wing or have a tail strike, a simple message is good enough. Even worse would be animating catastrophic events which I see no need in a GA sim.

[WebMaximus 372]

That's strange because I thought you were saying some people wanted to collapse their gear and crash into trees rather than people have asked for a realistic crash modeling which to me is two totally different things but good that was not the case then.

 

I believe I was the one originally asking about crash modeling and mentioning collapsed gear for example as you just mentioned in your post.

 

However if you have a close look at my signature or check out some of my last 4682 posts in here for the last 10+ years or come join me on an online flight on Vatsim a busy night in the European airspace I'm sure you'll realize I'm not into this hobby to deliberately crash into things and same goes for the majority of my friends both on the online networks as well as in here I'm sure.

 

Instead I take great pride in my flying although it's virtual and I never went to a flying school in real life.

[michal 44]

So I don't see why requesting an improvement in ground interaction/damage is considered "arcade"...

Because it adds nothing to pilot's training. It is not a purpose of pilot simulator training to evaluate whether the "ground" damage was for $5K or perhaps $50K. It is not part of sylabus in pilot's simulator training whereby an instructor would chastise pilot, say... you just did 50K worth of damage to the aircraft, please next time try to improve your landing and lower this amount to $5K. But there is sufficient information on instructor's panel to tell whether the landing (or some other ground "interaction") was acceptable or not and this is only what matters. Even no-damage "interaction" could be bad enough and deemed unacceptable from the point of view of pilot's rating requirements.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

Because it adds nothing to pilot's training. It is not a purpose of pilot simulator training to evaluate whether the "ground" damage was for $5K or perhaps $50K. It is not part of sylabus in pilot's simulator training whereby an instructor would chastise pilot, say... you just did 50K worth of damage to the aircraft, please next time try to improve your landing and lower this amount to $5K. But there is sufficient information on instructor's panel to tell whether the landing (or some other ground "interaction") was acceptable or not and this is only what matters. Even no-damage "interaction" could be bad enough and deemed unacceptable from the point of view of pilot's rating requirements.

 

Which is strange, because when DTG Martin began talking about a "real living world" and mentioned aircraft maintenance as a part of the experience, it received very favorable response. Yet when depicting the type of damage that would cause that maintenance in the first place is mentioned.......

 

I would also hazard that FSX and our other sims include many many (many!) things that add nothing to a pilot's training, including birds, moving cars, detailed grass and trees that drop leaves, more realistic ocean coloring, wing flex and a host of other stuff not part of any syllabus, that over the course of years have never raised anything remotely close to such controversy.

 

If everything not mentioned in a pilot instructors training manual is removed from DTGs sim (all those unnecessary things I mentioned above and more) then I would believe much more in the even-handedness of the argument...........

[Guest]

It is exactly the opposite, with the damage it is an arcade game (at least for flight-sim) . None of the commercial simulator costing millions have any damage modelling. FAA has no problem certifying those simulators for full pilot training. Same goes for other less costly sims like RedBird, etc.

Because it adds nothing to pilot's training. It is not a purpose of pilot simulator training to evaluate whether the "ground" damage was for $5K or perhaps $50K. It is not part of sylabus in pilot's simulator training whereby an instructor would chastise pilot, say... you just did 50K worth of damage to the aircraft, please next time try to improve your landing and lower this amount to $5K. But there is sufficient information on instructor's panel to tell whether the landing (or some other ground "interaction") was acceptable or not and this is only what matters. Even no-damage "interaction" could be bad enough and deemed unacceptable from the point of view of pilot's rating requirements.

I see where you are coming from and I see why we have a different opinion. The thing is: I am not simulating a pilot's training simulator. I want to simulate real world flying. And I think 95% of the simmers here want to simulate that. I am not in this hobby to simulate a simulator and luckily Dovetail isn't either: they very clearly stated they want to simulate real world flying. And in the real world you can get damage. As I posted before I don't EVER want to actually get damage but in order to simulate real world flying you simply need it. IMHO calling that absurd is er... absurd.

 

It is clear we all want and expect different things from our sims. Some want things as real as can be and other want to simulate a commercial simulator. Some like looking at panels and some like looking at scenery. That's all ok. And if possible, lets give everyone the options they want. No need to get overheated about it.

 

Matthew posted his flight school wasn't about damaging and so on. Of course it wasn't. But I am sure he was aware of the dangers and he would have flown differently if he had known that whatever he did, he couldn't damage his plane. The idea of being able to wreck something keeps you on your toes and makes you a better pilot. Take that away and you get sloppy. THAT is the ONLY reason I want damage in my sim. To simulate that idea which has to be in the back of every pilot's head: I got to take care or else... That is what makes you a better pilot.

[jcomm 5,939]

Well,

 

I keep that just as it was in the first versions of X-Plane, or in ELITE, it is just fine for me in a civil flight simulator.

 

It continues to be completely useless to me to have the voyeuristic effects of a crash or a structural damage. I accept it when I am playing DCS World, IL2 BoS / BoM or Rise of Flight, because in those simulators it is really part of the play...

 

But there is a area where I think for instance structural or systems damage could be important to model, with or without the effects being represented graphically:

 

- when some aircraft systems get damaged and affect, for instance, the normal functioning of control surfaces

 

- when a control surface, or lift generation surface, get's damaged or partially lost...

 

I have seen that happening IRL, with gliders, and it was important to observe how the pilots managed to land their aircraft, and also to ear their explanations of how it happened and how they coped with it...

 

Crashing an aircraft into a building, having a bomb exploding on board aren't tabus to me - they can bemodeled at the end of the simulation queue and provided they do not borrow important cycles from it, because if we are pragmatic they're just as brutal as when we play DCS or any other Combat Flight SImulation Game and cause damage to other aircraft or objects or virtual people... 

[michal 44]

 

 

I would also hazard that FSX and our other sims include many many (many!) things that add nothing to a pilot's training, including birds, moving cars, detailed grass and trees that drop leaves, more realistic ocean coloring, wing flex and a host of other stuff not part of any syllabus, that over the course of years have never raised anything remotely close to such controversy.

And I agree, these things add little to pilot's training hence you don't see them in any serious simulator.

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

That's strange because I thought you were saying some people wanted to collapse their gear and crash into trees rather than people have asked for a realistic crash modeling which to me is two totally different things but good that was not the case then.

 

When you add any kind of crash animations to the sim then people will go so far as fly airplanes into buildings and create YouTube video's out of that. I would rather none of it to be honest as crash animations are not good for this hobby. 

 

Currently FSX is a Boeing 'Officially Licensed Product' and the PMDG aircraft you can get for FSX or P3D is also a Boeing 'Officially Licensed Product'. That licensing states you cannot show damage to Boeing Aircraft. When you have something like a tail strike with PMDG the simulator will let you know you had a tail strike. When that happens as a pilot you need to deal with that and dump fuel and return to the airport or whatever procedure you choose to follow. Why on earth would you need to switch to an external view and see the damage or instant replay??? None of that is possible in the real world. When a situation happens you deal with it, not instant replay or external view or have a laugh at your wing falling off.

[WebMaximus 372]

I see where you are coming from and I see why we have a different opinion. The thing is: I am not simulating a pilot's training simulator. I want to simulate real world flying. And I think 95% of the simmers here want to simulate that. I am not in this hobby to simulate a simulator and luckily Dovetail isn't either: they very clearly stated they want to simulate real world flying. And in the real world you can get damage. As I posted before I don't EVER want to actually get damage but in order to simulate real world flying you simply need it. IMHO calling that absurd is er... absurd.

 

It is clear we all want and expect different things from our sims. Some want things as real as can be and other want to simulate a commercial simulator. Some like looking at panels and some like looking at scenery. That's all ok. And if possible, lets give everyone the options they want. No need to get overheated about it.

 

Matthew posted his flight school wasn't about damaging and so on. Of course it wasn't. But I am sure he was aware of the dangers and he would have flown differently if he had known that whatever he did, he couldn't damage his plane. The idea of being able to wreck something keeps you on your toes and makes you a better pilot. Take that away and you get sloppy. THAT is the ONLY reason I want damage in my sim. To simulate that idea which has to be in the back of every pilot's head: I got to take care or else... That is what makes you a better pilot.

 

What an absolutely excellent post! Everything so well said and I share 100% of it.

 

I really have no idea where some people in here got this from that those of us asking for damage modeling want to wreck things and what it is making it so hard for them to understand what we're really asking for...increased realism be it damage modeling or something else.

 

There's a saying in Sweden when kids talk to each other - "The one who said it was it" and maybe that saying fits in here as well quite good actually looking at many of the posts I've read recently on this topic. If the first thing that pops up in your head when you hear about damage modeling is deliberately smashing things, now to me that says more about yourself than anyone else.

 

Personally when I think of damage modeling I don't see that and I never did. Fact is I even don't like smashing and killing things in games where I'm supposed to! I can hear my son shouting to me "Come on dad, you need to take them out before they take you out" when we've been playing some FPS game together

 

So no...deliberately wrecking my virtual LN-RRH where I've spent almost 3000 wonderful hours by now online on Vatsim is one of the last things I would do. I treat my virtual LN-RRH like I treat my own car and mind you I don't have an old nor an inexpensive car just to make sure you get the picture.

 

However I do want to simulate reality as close as possible meaning if I don't take care about my virtual LN-RRH in the same way you need to IRL be it when landing or in any other given situation I want to face the same consequences the real pilots would. Simply because that is the only real thing and what we're trying to do here (or at least I thought) is to simulate just that...the reality flying aircraft. When you rather prefer to have a simulator that will simply display a message on the screen or even worse if you disabled crash detection bounce you up in the air now that to me is very much a game rather than a realistic simulator.

 

Can't make you any promises but I'll try to make this my last post on this topic because I feel I've already gotten so say everything I want and hopefully for all of you not knowing me better you'll know by now who I am in this simulated world and why I'm here even when I asked for damage modeling...simply because I love simulating flight as close to the real thing as possible. Nothing more and nothing less.

[Christopher Low 5,354]

I don't really understand why some people are so against the depiction of crash damage in flight simulators. If I land too heavily for the undercarriage to cope with the excessive force, then I would like to see the undercarriage collapse. If something fails on my plane (eg. the left wing flap just after take off in my A2A Simulations Piper Cherokee 180 a few weeks ago, resulting in a spin and subsequent crash to the ground), then I would like to see the aircraft break apart on impact. This does not have to be excessive. I am not looking for major explosions, fire, and detailed burning wreckage. The aircraft breaking into several pieces (like that depicted in Flight Unlimited 3) would be enough. This has nothing to do with voyeurism, or wanting to crash airliners into tower blocks. It has everything to do with realism. A plane bouncing off the ground after hitting it in a vertical dive at over 100mph (or the simulator pausing to say that "you have crashed" without any sign of damage to the aircraft) destroys that sense of realism. It's as simple as that.

 

Do I need this in a civilian flight simulator? Of course not. I can live perfectly happily without it. However, don't automatically assume that the reason for wanting it is in any way sinister.