26L at Atlanta has a huge slope obvious to anyone who peers out the window while taxiing by the Delta Tech Ops hangar.

I'm sure we'll be able to fix whatever Asobo doesn't get quite right. Why it takes 6-9 pages of shrieking is beyond me.

It's the least desired feature for me....especially when an airplane is used for...wait for it...flying. 

5 hours ago, Doug47 said:

It's the least desired feature for me....especially when an airplane is used for...wait for it...flying. 

Well everything which goes up has to go down, isn’t it ? And something you learn fast is that you fly an aircraft till it stops. Even when it rolls on a runway. Try to land the A2A Texan in a crosswind and report 😀 !  An irregular runway is something which belongs to the flight ! 

10 hours ago, Doug47 said:

It's the least desired feature for me....especially when an airplane is used for...wait for it...flying. 

As Domkle explained above, it's part of the skills you need as an aviator.

Perfectly leveled and smooth somehow out of this world runways like those in the previous generations of FS are not realistic at all to simulate acceleration or deceleration for different type of aircraft/weight/weather/surface condition/altitude etc. 

Even when taxiing you need to adapt to the terrain of the airport. There is a case in one international airport a pilot/friend told me about where they have to add power to literally "climb" the rising taxiway toward the threshold of the runway. He said the small / GA aircraft had to add way more power and you could hear their engine as if they were ready to take off...

So yes uneven and sloped airports add more realism not only to the scenery but to the flight model behavior, ground handling and aircraft speed management as well...

Oh, I just remembered another thing my friend pilot told me a while ago about flight simulator vs real world... We were talking about these advanced aircraft addons for FSX back then with complex systems etc (those some call "study level" these days)

I remember he was impressed with these addons but then he joked and said something funny like: Flight simmers could probably master and know how to operate a 747 with all the system settings and programming but would need someone (real pilot) to drive it from the gate to the threshold and from the runway to the gate when they land 😄 

It just crossed my mind and I think it fits within this discussion!

Edited February 26, 20206 yr by Claviateur

3 hours ago, Claviateur said:

As Domkle explained above, it's part of the skills you need as an aviator.

Perfectly leveled and smooth somehow out of this world runways like those in the previous generations of FS are not realistic at all to simulate acceleration or deceleration for different type of aircraft/weight/weather/surface condition/altitude etc. 

Even when taxiing you need to adapt to the terrain of the airport. There is a case in one international airport a pilot/friend told me about where they have to add power to literally "climb" the rising taxiway toward the threshold of the runway. He said the small / GA aircraft had to add way more power and you could hear their engine as if they were ready to take off...

So yes uneven and sloped airports add more realism not only to the scenery but to the flight model behavior, ground handling and aircraft speed management as well...

Of course. And excitingly they are modelling all the different ground surfaces that will affect ground friction of the aircraft adding to the realism.

If the 'undulating' and slope of the runway is implemented poorly, it will only take away from all of that. A flat surface only would be prefered for me if that is the case. 

But if they can do it all - so far not much seems out of their reach - then get it on. 😉

 

56 minutes ago, Doug47 said:

Of course. And excitingly they are modelling all the different ground surfaces that will affect ground friction of the aircraft adding to the realism.

If the 'undulating' and slope of the runway is implemented poorly, it will only take away from all of that. A flat surface only would be prefered for me if that is the case. 

But if they can do it all - so far not much seems out of their reach - then get it on. 😉

 

Yes I see what you mean. If the terrain/mesh resolution is rough it will feel as if we are off roading in an aircraft. So usually the resolutions of the airport terraain/area are refined but let's wait and see how Asobo's world engine deals with this.

Edited February 26, 20206 yr by Claviateur

2 hours ago, Claviateur said:

Yes I see what you mean. If the terrain/mesh resolution is rough it will feel as if we are off roading in an aircraft. So usually the resolutions of the airport terraain/area are refined but let's wait and see how Asobo's world engine deals with this.

The biggest problem Asobo had to solve was how to get the AI aircraft to follow the sloped/undulating runways. After that, allow for sloped/undulating runways was far easier to achieve.

16 minutes ago, n4gix said:

The biggest problem Asobo had to solve was how to get the AI aircraft to follow the sloped/undulating runways. After that, allow for sloped/undulating runways was far easier to achieve.

Maybe I am mistaken but it is not a big issue to make the AI follow the terrain (knowing that Rwys are draped polygons over the terrain).

And since that other simulator does it I am sure and certain Asobo with their visible skills and talent could easily do it 🙂 

FSX/ESP uses the x,y axis for airports layout / vectors now the x,y,z is supported. This is the case since the very early version of FS when the graphics were vector/polygons.

In fact the AI Road Traffic in FSX used already the x,y,z, thus cars drove on any terrain over which a road polygon is draped. I think the aircraft are not so different they could have used the same principle with the draped runways polygons.

But since the airports of ESP (FSX) inherited the flat architecture from previous versions, the AI aircraft was done to follow the flat layout in my opinion.

Update: Same goes for the ground service vehicles in FSX (same as road cars but had to use a flat layout)

Edited February 26, 20206 yr by Claviateur

in my opinion they will include undulated runways based on data, it's just they didn't show them at the episode.

My issue is that we can't say for certain that undulated runways weren't shown in the video. As I said in the other thread, for it to be easily perceived, the effect would probably have to be exaggerated and that wouldn't be realistic.

18 minutes ago, Krakin said:

My issue is that we can't say for certain that undulated runways weren't shown in the video. As I said in the other thread, for it to be easily perceived, the effect would probably have to be exaggerated and that wouldn't be realistic.

When slopes are subtle (not Courchevel) if you go in a sort of free camera mode outside your aircraft and get away from the airport then you zoom in, you will see the slopes. Same effect happens in real life photos we see online when they use Telephoto lenses. 

We covered this a couple months ago when a certain troll was complaining about flat runways. Even the earliest screenshots and videos depict "undulating" or whatever word we want to use. Its particularly visible in the early shots and video of LAX at night.

It clearly shows runways with a variable vertical profile, not simply differing threshold elevations. All one has to do is look.

In fact there's a short portion of B roll video of a Cessna on downwind at SEA with wildly overdone runway sloping. Like early XP-style with the "ski jumps". If anything, Asobo will need to work to tone it down, not amp it up.

9 hours ago, Claviateur said:

In fact the AI Road Traffic in FSX used already the x,y,z, thus cars drove on any terrain over which a road polygon is draped. I think the aircraft are not so different they could have used the same principle with the draped runways polygons.

I'm not sure that this is quite accurate. TMBK, the core problem here was, that when you add a proper runway record to the airport in the BGLs, it will be flat, no matter what. So if you wanted to make a sloped runway, you had to omit that part and only add the "runway start" taxi points. And that was why BGL based airplane schedules were unable to use such an airport, because it didn't have a runway. The BGL air traffic logic is quite sensitive to errors in the taxiway, parking and runway layout, and any error there will make sure that no AI will be there (no parking, no runway) - or only be there briefly, created at a gate, and then instantly removed (parking not linked up to a runway)

Fact is, AI aircraft can take off and land on every kind of terrain in the ESP based sims, even up- and downhill - just send them a waypoint list over the API. I have been doing this in several of my products for 5 years now. The only thing that would need changing in the sim is the limitation of the traffic logic that it can only use airports that have a runway record. Change that to use properly linked runway start points instead, and I am pretty sure that everything would be working in the current sims too. 

Best regards

Edited February 27, 20206 yr by Lorby_SI

3 hours ago, Noodle said:

It clearly shows runways with a variable vertical profile, not simply differing threshold elevations. All one has to do is look.

Link? Thanks.