AllThere seems to be many who are 100% sure that the physics with FSX are much better than FS9. I have flown in my younger years and I am certainly not qualified to agree or disagree. I know we have some current pilots out there and some fly the same plane or planes in real life as they do within the sim. They certainly would be the ones qualified to voice an opinion. I can tell you that it does feel a little different than FS9 but I cant tell you exactly what it is. One new feature is the head latency. This is very nice and I am qualified to tell you that it does what it should and can be adjusted based on personal preference. I am qualified though to tell you what most planes will do in a given situation or event. These situations are those which are common across all types of aircraft in most situations. 1. Lose power and you will eventually come down.2. Apply left or right stick and the plane should move in the proper direction. etc etc.What I always wanted MS to add to the physics model was the ability for a plane to ground loop. Pretty basic I thought and landings can be a real challenge and a whole bunch of fun. I came in crabbed 45 degrees to the runway at 70 knots in FSX and did a perfect landing. God I felt good. Not. So if you want to talk Physics, this one is pretty basic. I just dont understand why something so basic has been left out release after release. I really dont have a clue though how much work it would have taken to put this into the code. Maybe someone out there that is a programmer familiar with physics engines may be able to provide some insight.RegardsBob

What is a ground loop?

A ground loop is basically when you get an uncorrectable swing because the tail has a lot of weight and inertia and you end up with the tail swinging right around to the front (i.e. it's more of a yaw than a loop) - it's an error that is likely to happen more in tail draggers than tricycle geared aircraft owing to the sometimes quirky C of G.God knows why someone wants the ability to have this happen in the sim, do they want their aircraft to explode in a fireball if it crashes too?

Well, I don't have FSX yet but FS has never simulated ground handling well. But, you know what? The big expensive Level-D, full motion sims can't do it either. My father-in-law flies Gulfstreams and Challengers and they don't get dinged on checkrides in the sims for ground handling problems because it is simulated so poorly. I don't think it is as easy a problem as you are suggesting. Naturally we'd all love to see it corrected at some point thoughDavid

I've ground looped the Goose (mainly because the VC and the 2d panel have an error on the texture for the locked tailwheel position - the VC lies, the 2d tells the truth in case anyone is interested) and I have also almost ground-looped the DG808 after landing in a crosswind - and that was with wings level, no dig-in.I have also noted tricky control just after power application in the Piper Cub, and the Maule likes a wander now and then as well. Stock hard back until the rudder bites tames both a bit, Are you sure you have the realsim sliders off the bottom? I would go so far as to say that the vehicle/ground interface in FSX is so much better than FS9 where inertia seemed on-existent, that it really hasn't bothered me to even look to find anything else in the corners of the flight envelope so far. Now, at higher realism levels you do have to keep flying a taildragger (no, not TailDragger) until the bird is parked.Allcott

Nice to have some feedback. Yes I do have the realism sliders far right. Ground loop was the wrong term, sorry. What I did was crab into the runway about 45deg to the left with a crosswind.Rather than kick in right rudder before touching down I just let her touch down. Well the truth is that I landed sideways on the runway which would at the very least snapped the right wheel right off and depending on the touch down speed much more would have happened in real life. Sorry for not clarifying that very well.Bob

Ground loop has more to do with the particular aircraft's flight model than the FSX physics engine.I agree though that the ground handling physics in FSX are far from perfect. It does well in the air but as soon as you touch the ground the ground fricitional effects on the landing gear aren't what they should be.Some addon aircraft simulate ground loop well, such as the RealAir Decathlon.James

Yeah that's a long standing problem with the FS series. I was surprised to hear that some Level D sims don't do it well either. Obviously it's a tricky one to solve.That's one of my gripes with it, although I know the team has done their best to make this sim a good one. Overall I'm extremely happy with it.James

FS has never modeled the contact between the tires and the pavement well. I have always noticed when turning too fast onto a taxiway, the plane seems to sort of slip instead of roll.Ron