P3D and FSX no where near realism

[MehdiAli 5]

So a pilot came to my house (hes a relative) and i asked him to try my simout. so i have the rudder pedals yoke and throttle quadrents, he said both rudder and throttle seem more than good but with the yoke he said it was nothing like real life. I dont know if its just me or what. in some places there was no response at all and the main thing he said was that it is no where near as sensitive as rea life, so im guessing X-plane physics is the way to go, but is there a way via FSUIPC to maek the controls more realistic? thanks alot :)

[Rimshot 1,135]

What kind of yoke do you use? There are ofcourse differences in quality. But first of all, in the sim set the null zone to the lowest value and max out the sensitivity settings. Look here:

http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=47744

[rototom 198]

What was the pilot flying? There is a huge range of quality in FSX. Some payware stuff like A2A and RealAir do a pretty good job with control input and feel.

What was the expectation regarding sensitivity? I've loaded planes where the controls were very sensitive but the roll rate and reaction was way to aggressive; there is probably an ideal ratio of input vs roll rate for any airplane also based on airspeed. I expected the aircraft to react to small inputs, but not that aggressively. It shouldn't take that much input to get a 172 to roll, but it shouldn't roll that fast either, and it depends on your speed. An Extra 300 with bigger ailerons would probably roll faster with equivalent input. Are we talking about yoke movement with no reaction?, or yoke movement with slow reaction?

FSUIPC has some control but you would have to configure it correctly. And I'm not sure if you can make things more sensitive.

I think the bottom line is that for FSX/P3D and X-plane too, it really depends on what you're flying and how your inputs are setup. A lot of models will have recommended settings in the manual as well. Some developers will get it right and some won't.

The X-plane default 172 feels pretty good to me, but with all the control you have in plane maker, I've flown some really bad models that didn't react very well. 

One thing I will say for sure is that helicopters in FSX should all be uninstalled.

[MehdiAli 5]

50 minutes ago, rototom said:

What was the pilot flying? There is a huge range of quality in FSX. Some payware stuff like A2A and RealAir do a pretty good job with control input and feel.

What was the expectation regarding sensitivity? I've loaded planes where the controls were very sensitive but the roll rate and reaction was way to aggressive; there is probably an ideal ratio of input vs roll rate for any airplane also based on airspeed. I expected the aircraft to react to small inputs, but not that aggressively. It shouldn't take that much input to get a 172 to roll, but it shouldn't roll that fast either, and it depends on your speed. An Extra 300 with bigger ailerons would probably roll faster with equivalent input. Are we talking about yoke movement with no reaction?, or yoke movement with slow reaction?

FSUIPC has some control but you would have to configure it correctly. And I'm not sure if you can make things more sensitive.

I think the bottom line is that for FSX/P3D and X-plane too, it really depends on what you're flying and how your inputs are setup. A lot of models will have recommended settings in the manual as well. Some developers will get it right and some won't.

The X-plane default 172 feels pretty good to me, but with all the control you have in plane maker, I've flown some really bad models that didn't react very well. 

One thing I will say for sure is that helicopters in FSX should all be uninstalled.

 Was flying the PMDG 777-300er and he himself flys the 777 too 

[MehdiAli 5]

1 hour ago, Rimshot said:

What kind of yoke do you use? There are ofcourse differences in quality. But first of all, in the sim set the null zone to the lowest value and max out the sensitivity settings. Look here:

http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=47744

Saitek proflight yoke

[MarkDH 234]

16 minutes ago, MehdiAli said:

Saitek proflight yoke

There's your answer ;)

[threexgreen 3,139]

Since you can easily adjust sensitivity and null zone to your liking I think everyone using a yoke has a different setup and therefore will feel different. Maybe you just have your sliders a tad too far to the left or right which made your relative say it wasn't very realistic. Now I've never flown a real aircraft myself but I'm using the same yoke and with my config/calibration it is very sensitive and kinda feels right with the NGX.

[MehdiAli 5]

2 minutes ago, Canuck said:

Since you can easily adjust sensitivity and null zone to your liking I think everyone using a yoke has a different setup and therefore will feel different. Maybe you just have your sliders a tad too far to the left or right which made your relative say it wasn't very realistic. Now I've never flown a real aircraft myself but I'm using the same yoke and with my config/calibration it is very sensitive and kinda feels right with the NGX.

Whats your settings on P3D?

[MehdiAli 5]

24 minutes ago, MarkDH said:

There's your answer ;)

didnt quite get that waaaaaaat :p

 

[Chock 17,769]

It's probably more to do with the sensitivity of the controller itself than the simulation. PMDG add on aeroplanes are within 5 percent of the behaviour of the real aeroplanes in terms of performance (that is the benchmark they go for). I guess some of it might be a lack of 'sea of the pants' feeling too, which would make it not feel as sensitive to someone used to having their butt actually moving around on the real aeroplane; for example, in a big aeroplane like a 777 or 747, when you rotate, you swing up in the air a good fifty feet sat in the cockpit, and you really feel that, whereas looking at a monitor and feeling no movement is gonna make it seem lethargic by comparison. I'm willing to bet if your friend simply watched the PFD when rotating to 10 degrees nose up, he'd be fairly convinced that it was pretty close to the real aeroplane's sensitivity, providing you were getting well over 25 FPS at the time...

True story: I know a real life 747 pilot, and he flies gliders occasionally, but he's so used to landing with his arse 70 feet in the air at touchdown, that when he flares a glider, he's still fifty feet off the deck lol. If you are stood on the flight line and see a glider landing like that, you for sure know it is him at the controls hahahaha.

With our sims, we tend to set the controls up so they make all of the planes we have in the sim easiest to control (and being the addicts we are who buy shiny new aeroplanes all the time lol, most of us have a ton of different types of 'planes for our sim). So most simmers set up their controls for a 'good average', which makes sense, but it means we might not have our controls exactly as per one aircraft's real sensitivity. That's okay, because when getting in a real aeroplane, we can soon adjust to how much one has to move its controls. It's a bit like when you drive an unfamiliar car, it takes a couple of turns of the wheel to get your head around how much you need to move the steering wheel for that particular vehicle, big manly hauling on the wheel if driving an old truck, tiny movements for a little commuter car with power steering. I normally drive an old sports car with no power steering, and if I ever borrow someone's more modern car with power steering, I damn near flip the thing the first time I turn the wheel because I'm so used to having to really haul on that steering wheel in my old sports car at low speeds! well, that and the fact that I like drifting it lol.

I know for sure that my rudder controls on my sim are nowhere near the sensitivity settings to replicate the real gliders I have flown a lot, because I have my sim pedals set up to suit a broad range of different aeroplanes (and choppers too), so it's nowhere near the lack of sensitiviy a glider rudder has; a glider has no propwash on the tail to help it kick into a turn, so on a real glider, you have to really hoof that rudder pedal down to the floor big time to initiate it going into a turn, then you back off the pedal once it's in the turn and watch the slip indicator to fine tune where to keep your feet (partially because it has a long wingspan and tends to resist going off a steady axis and is prone to adverse yaw too). But that is not the sim being inaccurate, it is my pedals not being set to be as per a glider. And it's the same with yokes.

Modern airliners don't tend to use tons of rudder for turns, and most actually inhibit inputs to control surfaces when at speed (because you don't wanna be doing an American Airlines Flight 587), and a throttle isn't really going to affect your seat of the pants feeling, so it does not surprise me that your airline pilot relative felt that it was the yoke in particular, which wasn't accurate in the sim. However, it is nice that you have someone whom you can discusss things with who can offer you some interesting insights and knowledge.

[MehdiAli 5]

10 minutes ago, Chock said:

It's probably more to do with the sensitivity of the controller itself than the simulation. PMDG add on aeroplanes are within 5 percent of the behaviour of the real aeroplanes in terms of performance (that is the benchmark they go for). I guess some of it might be a lack of 'sea of the pants' feeling too, which would make it not feel as sensitive to someone used to having their butt actually moving around on the real aeroplane; for example, in a big aeroplane like a 777 or 747, when you rotate, you swing up in the air a good fifty feet sat in the cockpit, and you really feel that, whereas looking at a monitor and feeling no movement is gonna make it seem lethargic by comparison. I'm willing to bet if your friend simply watched the PFD when rotating to 10 degrees nose up, he'd be fairly convinced that it was pretty close to the real aeroplane's sensitivity, providing you were getting well over 25 FPS at the time.

With our sims, we tend to set the controls up so they make all of the planes we have in the sim easiest to control (and being the addicts we are who buy shiny new aeroplanes all the time lol, most of us have a ton of different types of 'planes for our sim). So most simmers set up their controls for a 'good average', which makes sense, but it means we might not have our controls exactly as per one aircraft's real sensitivity. That's okay, because when getting in a real aeroplane, we can soon adjust to how much one has to move its controls. It's a bit like when you drive an unfamiliar car, it takes a couple of turns of the wheel to get your head around how much you need to move the steering wheel for that particular vehicle, big manly hauling on the wheel if driving an old truck, tiny movements for a little commuter car with power steering. I normally drive an old sports car with no power steering, and if I ever borrow someone's more modern car with power steering, I damn near flip the thing the first time I turn the wheel because I'm so used to having to really haul on that steering wheel in my old sports car at low speeds! well, that and the fact that I like drifting it lol.

I know for sure that my rudder controls on my sim are nowhere near the sensitivity settings to replicate the real gliders I have flown a lot, because I have my sim pedals set up to suit a broad range of different aeroplanes (and choppers too), so it's nowhere near the lack of sensitiviy a glider rudder has; a glider has no propwash on the tail to help it kick into a turn, so on a real glider, you have to really hoof that rudder pedal down to the floor big time to initiate it going into a turn, then you back off the pedal once it's in the turn and watch the slip indicator to fine tune where to keep your feet (partially because it has a long wingspan and tends to resist going off a steady axis and is prone to adverse yaw too). But that is not the sim being inaccurate, it is my pedals not being set to be as per a glider. And it's the same with yokes.

Modern airliners don't tend to use tons of rudder for turns, and most actually inhibit inputs to control surfaces when at speed (because you don't wanna be doing an American Airlines Flight 587), and a throttle isn't really going to affect your seat of the pants feeling, so it does not surprise me that your airline pilot relative felt that it was the yoke in particular, which wasn't accurate in the sim. However, it is nice that you have someone whom you can discusss things with who can offer you some interesting insights and knowledge.

yeah completely agree. but i ahve a problem lol i stick to the 777 and i havent flown anything else for a year. but yeah he taught me a bit too, how to do a crosswind properly :)

[Chock 17,769]

Cool to learn from someone who does the real thing, you are lucky in that. I still think it's probably a lot to do with not feeling movement and the calibration/sensitivity of the yoke, centre detent etc.

[MehdiAli 5]

6 minutes ago, Chock said:

Cool to learn from someone who does the real thing, you are lucky in that. I still think it's probably a lot to do with not feeling movement and the calibration/sensitivity of the yoke, centre detent etc.

yeah i think so, and its aswesoem to know someone i get to ask him questions all the time. 

[threexgreen 3,139]

On 3/23/2017 at 7:38 PM, MehdiAli said:

Whats your settings on P3D?

Ailerons 30/30 Elevators 20/15. I don't set the null zone all the way to the left because then you only need to pull back a little bit and the nose goes up quickly. A higher null zone makes you pulling back further to make a surface input and when I see pilots operating the yoke in RW they move it quite heavily. Also, I need a null zone of 30 for the ailerons because a lower value will have me struggling to keep the wings level.