I'm less concerned about seasons than I am about a hint from one of the devs in the Q&A that helicopters might not be in the initial release. I hope that's not true.

A modern flight sim should mean a full commitment to all the major platforms, including rotary wing. Someone on the team needs to be thinking about that, so they don't lock in a flight model that can't be easily extended for the unique aerodynamics of helicopters. That was a core problem with FSX.

3 hours ago, ckyliu said:

AI and ATC will be there for sure, but they're really things that just sit "atop" the core of world, weather, aerodynamics and cockpits. So it's no big deal that such items are deferred until later.

I don't know about that.  The AI was the reason for flat airports in FSX, if the new sim has airports of varied elevations, that can't just use the old AI system.

15 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

Someone on the team needs to be thinking about that, so they don't lock in a flight model that can't be easily extended for the unique aerodynamics of helicopters. That was a core problem with FSX.

If the bits we're hearing about individual part aero simulations are accurate, then that shouldn't be a problem. Just make a rotor and simulate its interaction with the air when it's spinning.

 

If this is a real physics simulation we're talking about here, then there really shouldn't be any kind of vehicle that can't be modeled, even if the sim doesn't ship with one in the early days.

 

40 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

I'm less concerned about seasons than I am about a hint from one of the devs in the Q&A that helicopters might not be in the initial release. I hope that's not true.

A modern flight sim should mean a full commitment to all the major platforms, including rotary wing. Someone on the team needs to be thinking about that, so they don't lock in a flight model that can't be easily extended for the unique aerodynamics of helicopters. That was a core problem with FSX.

From what I gathered from Froogle's video is that helicopters are not in there initially but (probably) added at a later date.

Edited September 30, 20196 yr by threegreen

8 minutes ago, eslader said:

If the bits we're hearing about individual part aero simulations are accurate, then that shouldn't be a problem. Just make a rotor and simulate its interaction with the air when it's spinning.

Well, ideally we don't want a single rotor but each rotor blade modeled as a separate airfoil, so we get an accurate simulation of things like retreating blade stall and vibration for initial entry to VRS. I think X-Plane recently changed from a single rotor model to individual blade modeling, so MSFS should try to match that. 

There are other fairly major differences in modeling the airfoils compared to fixed wing, like the transition from 100% vertical airflow when hovering in or out of ground effect, to translational lift when the rotor is moving sideways through the air during cruise, and becomes a sort of hybrid fixed airfoil with some curious characteristics like retreating blade stall if you exceed the rated speed.

So it's not quite as simple as just applying the aerodynamics designed for a fixed wing aircraft to rotary wing aircraft. That's why I'm hoping they're at least planning for helicopters and not locking any of this out of the flight model design.

 

Quote

If this is a real physics simulation we're talking about here, then there really shouldn't be any kind of vehicle that can't be modeled, even if the sim doesn't ship with one in the early days.

It sounds like the "1,000 points of airflow" flight model they're using should be able to do this, yes.  

 

I watched a little bit of Chewwy's stream this morning, and he seemed to suggest that they may not release a heli initially. However, they are planning to release it later on. His reasoning (might not so much be stated by the devs) is that they want to make sure that they don't release a half-baked helicopter, but they want to make sure they model it correctly.

7 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

Well, ideally we don't want a single rotor but each rotor blade modeled as a separate airfoil, so we get an accurate simulation of things like retreating blade stall and vibration for initial entry to VRS.

I agree. If they're really doing "1000 parts" aero-modeling, then I think anyone making a rotor and only having it be 1 part for aero purposes would be barking up the wrong tree. When I said "make a rotor," I meant "make an actual rotor," not "make a solid disc with a rotating texture on it." 😉

 

9 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

So it's not quite as simple as just applying the aerodynamics designed for a fixed wing aircraft to rotary wing aircraft.

What I was getting at is that if they're really simulating the *physics* here, rather than the old method of looking up values in tables, then the differing aerodynamic characteristics of helicopters isn't going to be a problem as long as the helicopter physical model is accurate.

In other words, the real world doesn't change physics engines when we go from a Cessna to a Sikorsky. The exact same laws of physics apply to both aircraft. The helicopter behaves differently because it is built differently, and if it's a real physics sim in 2020, then as long as you build the helicopter accurately to a real world one, it should mimic the real world one. Retreating blade stall should happen because physics dictates that it will happen.

 

Of course, that's all out the window if the physics simulation is faked, which they haven't really said one way or another that I've seen. 😉

 

 

 

 

21 hours ago, domkle said:

... ATC, seasons and water physics for the floatplanes. Hopefully we’ll get some insights in October.

Listen to the follow regarding Seasons, or read the thread regarding "what we know confirmed)"

https://www.flightsim.com/images/features/msfdev/FlightSim.com-Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_Interview_AUDIO.m4a

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/560009-what-we-know-confirmed/

 

 

The key to that audio interview is that they are really committed to listening to what the community wants. However, too many people freak out when things are not in the sim now or coming up. We just need to be realistic and accept this is an ongoing project well beyond the RTM version. Im betting the many requests will eventually be incorporated, but it will take time to do it right.   This is just fantastic.  Many games today just get released and thats it save for a few hot fixes.  The team at MSFS seem very dedicated for long term success and anything really good and realistic will take time to mature. As a hardcore 30+yr simmer, this is the most exciting thing yet. 

19 hours ago, LHookins said:

I guess that leaves AI to be confirmed and discussed. 😄

Hook

AI must be getting a makeover, somehow.  They have confirmed that sloping runways will be modeled, so therefore AI must be in for some kind of transformation as the current AI doesn't work on sloped runways. 

7 hours ago, HighTowers said:

The team at MSFS seem very dedicated for long term success and anything really good and realistic will take time to mature. As a hardcore 30+yr simmer, this is the most exciting thing yet. 

Exactly. We have to remember that a huge number of addon things we love about p3d/fsx were not there in the beginning. Active Sky, Orbx, PMDG, A2A, Navigraph, etc - none of that was available for FSX on launch day. The amount of stuff that *will* be available on launch day for 2020 is really excellent. Full weather modeling, global high-quality scenery, flight dynamics that realworld pilots are reporting as feeling accurate -- all of this is stuff we are paying 3rd party developers a lot of money to bring into fsx/p3d, and when 2020 comes out it sounds like we won't have to do that anymore. Personally, I'm jazzed about that because if I don't have to pay $20-30 per airport and several hundred for little chunks of the world in high res scenery, that's money I can sink into planes or controllers or higher-spec hardware.

The global scenery is especially nice because the days of having to futz with scenery files trying to make everything play nice with each other will likely be behind us, and good riddance. Seems like every week or two I fly somewhere I haven't been before and after I land I have to spend time fixing the scenery.  Just last night I decided to skip the jets for a night and go bush flying in Alaska, but instead had to spend a bunch of time fixing the scenery so that the mountains were not replaced by hills made entirely of water and blank spaces. Last week I was dealing with duplicate taxiway markings at an airport. I'll be delighted when these glitches in the matrix are a thing of the past.

 

Still in the dark about Africa and its scenery level of detail. was hoping one of the participant will launch the sim in cape town or Lagos or Nairobi to check out the level of detail at these less traveled regions.

11 minutes ago, Ops Normal said:

Still in the dark about Africa and its scenery level of detail. was hoping one of the participant will launch the sim in cape town or Lagos or Nairobi to check out the level of detail at these less traveled regions.

I suppose we'll know a bit more on October 10th with the first episode of the Discoveries series

47 minutes ago, Ops Normal said:

Still in the dark about Africa and its scenery level of detail. was hoping one of the participant will launch the sim in cape town or Lagos or Nairobi to check out the level of detail at these less traveled regions.

Remember that all the footage we have seen are NOT of the participants recording their experience as they were under NDA. The footage we have seen is b-roll from Microsoft. One of the testers has mentioned he has been to several places, including Japan. I can imagine that the rest of the world will stay true to the overall quality seen in the "more popular" places, just the accuracy might not be 100%. Azure AI might produce a house, but it might not be the exact same house that you would see in real, it just knows there has to be a house. In any case I'm confident it'll still be miles ahead of what is available now and it will not be that boring repeating pattern of landclass- tech we have now.

I have used bing maps to research many parts of sub Saharan Africa and they are pretty detailed. A bit old but hi-res enough. If the dev team boast of VFR flying every where, then am not worried. As a current flight instructor in the southern parts of Africa i cant wait for the sim so i can use my 1:500000 VFR charts for navigation and possible teach my students a thing or two about map to ground reading. I do agree with OSJJ1985 it will be miles ahead of whats available now.