Air, An Elastic Medium??

[nudata 10]

When "flying" in turbulence my impression is that the movement of the aircraft in reaction to the weather could be improved. The movement seems too abrupt. It is almost linear. That is the bounce in rough weather seems to not value the elastic nature of air and mass, Movements begin and end too quickly. This is a subtle element and I may be lacking experience in this area.I feel that weather induced movements should begin slowly and end slowly. A gentle air bump would not begin and end a quickly as it does now. A real banger would probably come close to the FS2004 simulation. The mass and the elasticity of air seem to prohibit all but the most violent changes. The interface between calm air and and an "air pocket" is not abrupt but gradual over a SHORT time period. The same goes for the exit from the "bump area". An automobile hitting a pothole, while violent, begins and ends slowly with the shock absorbers performing the same task as elastic air. Otherwise your tires/tyres would suffer greatly.This is a small thing but since perfect air rarely exists one that is critical to the experience.Dick near 5G8

[Guest]

air is indeed an elastic medium, but for most purposes that elasticity can be omitted (or replaced by a fixed factor) from calculations without loosing a significant amount of accuracy.Doing so saves quite a bit of computing power.The improvements you're talking about would have little effect on the aircraft behaviour while having a rather large effect on the complexity of the calculations needed to produce them (and thus on the amount of CPU cycles needed to calculate movement).Performance would suffer more than it is worth.

[nudata 10]

I agree on the addition of CPU load. However, there are some simmers who have the capacity to absorb additional refinements and perhaps Microsoft could allow these as options. I know that this creates a marketing mess since people with 800mhz PCs want those features "since they paid for them". I should also ammend my comments about the movement of the aircraft in the atmosphere. I have been "flying" with a lot of things max'd. FPS in the 20s. However, if I reset some things I can get over 50fps. Now the aircraft movements in bumpy air seem closer to expectations. For me that shows that while the majority of movement is adquately done at 20fps there are a few things that are improved by higher FPS. I am sure that there are some MIT types that can support this.Anyhow, when I want flight reality I will adjust fo best FPS. Dick near 5G8

[Guest tdragger]

I can tell you that in a small airplane, at least, turbulence is quite abrupt. ;0

[Guest DreamFleet]

Indeed, and I've felt it that way in a 747 too! ;-)I don't usually find anything too elastic about turbulence and such, and usually do not find anything beginning or ending slowly either when it comes to it.I can be flying along realatively smoothly, then all of a sudden, boom!Frankly, I think this is one area of the sim best left alone.Regards,http://www.dreamfleet2000.com/gfx/images/F...R_FORUM_LOU.jpg

[MD83 1]

In 1990 I was a PAX on a BA 747-100 (http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0201761/L/). We hit some turbulence near Antigua and descended rapidly for a few seconds. The air didn't feel very elastic that night :-lol

[Guest jrobert]

There are features in FSUIPC which allow for the air to be more "elastic". Things such as abrubt wind direction changes are a thing of the past using FSUIPCs Wind Smoothing feature. There isn't any additional CPU power required either.

[Guest Bell206freak]

LOL. try hitting some cloud moisture in addition to an air pocket while flying in a Schweizer 300C helicopter. I did that once. While I love flying in helicopters, I can say that I won't ever do that again.We dropped close to 200 feet in a matter of seconds.And I did the same in a Bell JetRanger.. Hit an air pocket above Johnston Ridge north of Mt. St. Helens.. That was a jarring experience!

[SAS263 1]

Lol, anyone that