One big drawback to desktop flying is the sensation of up and down. Wonder if someone might get their thinking cap on and somehow create an app that would visibly and unobtrusively advise one of horizontal fluctuation.

Even something akin to an AOA indexer, It seems totally unnatural to to me, to have to constantly check gauges during a turn and not have a more convenient way of interpreting elevation changes. Just wondering. Possibly something already exists that I am not aware of. 

Whatever app they would come up with, it STILL would be a visual indicator only... so you might as well look at one of the guages. The only other option I can think of is some sort of hardware. VR may also help here already. I can't imagine an app solving this.

I'm not sure anything visual, other than what we've already got in terms of instrumentation would help.

Even in gliders, where you are in the somewhat unique position of climbing whilst also descending (that is to say, you are effectively flying 'downhill' in a glide, but doing so in an air mass which is going upwards at a greater rate than your glide ratio is taking you down, a bit like trying to run down and escalator which is going upwards), there is no really reliable sensation of vertical movement other than what the instruments tell you combined with the fact your eyes see the ground getting further away down below you. Yes gliders bump around when you hit a thermal and that can sometimes be so turbulent you feel like someone is literally kicking the back of your seat, but it still doesn't actually convey the vertical movement to you entirely well, you have to rely on the altimeter and the variometer needle and its audio tones to actually know your genuine vertical movement. This is much the case with IMC flight too of course, where you have to make an effort to ignore any perceived sensations of movement and trust what the six pack is telling you your aeroplane is really doing.

I should imagine a combination of a Buttkicker and VR might go some way toward making you feel more like you are there, so you might want to try that.

4 hours ago, Chock said:

a Buttkicker

That could be the cheap definite solution (expensive being a home-made sim on a motion platform).
I know one simmer (also a member of this forum) who is using it and he swears that was his best FS investment.

On the other hand, you had better be really good pilot, othewise you may regularly experience severe butt pains.

19 minutes ago, Rafal said:

On the other hand, you had better be really good pilot, otherwise you may regularly experience severe butt pains.

Already do have that, thanks to horse riding lol

5 hours ago, J van E said:

Whatever app they would come up with, it STILL would be a visual indicator only... so you might as well look at one of the guages. The only other option I can think of is some sort of hardware. VR may also help here already. I can't imagine an app solving this.

Well, not quite.  I can build you a gauge that will make noise when vertical speed exceeds some predetermined threshold.

You would have to turn it off during climb out and descent, or it would get pretty annoying, pretty quickly.

I have to point out that in a glider, if you're descending, especially in a turn because like me you need practice at keeping a steady sight picture of the horizon, then it gets noisier due to the airspeed increasing  

8 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

I have to point out that in a glider, if you're descending, especially in a turn because like me you need practice at keeping a steady sight picture of the horizon, then it gets noisier due to the airspeed increasing  

This is actually a good point and a good idea. It could work for a powered aircraft in the sim too, since the noise of the airflow on the DV panel definitely increases when the airspeed goes up, and whilst it is subtle for small speed changes and would also have to be heard over the sound of the engine, if someone could make a gauge which could make the airflow noise go up a little bit on descent and down in volume for a climb (maybe by tweaking an existing variometer gauge for example), and then make that noise output come out of only the left stereo channel so it sounded like it was by your left ear, or positioned it aurally like that with 5.1 surround sound, then that would actually work to tell you when you were descending and ascending.

isn't that one of the things that A2A's Accufeel does?

 

Vic