4 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

I flew with marines in formation to know how, so I'm not going to argue here. From my perspective as flight instructor "dramatic yoke movement" is very common misconception on how airplanes really fly. When I was fresh private pilot I used to do it as well! And as all of my students schooled by me I was also schooled by my CFI not do it.

I'll defer to your experience but from the formation flying videos I've seen it seems that stick movements are pretty dramatic.

4 hours ago, LHookins said:

Gee... I wonder if they can do that...

*Wink!*

50 minutes ago, Slides said:

I'll defer to your experience but from the formation flying videos I've seen it seems that stick movements are pretty dramatic.

Sometimes they are all over the place but minimal. I'm very familiar with airplane the younger pilot flying and it it's unnecessary. If he were talking about other types of airplane which I'm no familiar with I wouldn't comment 

3 hours ago, 2reds2whites said:

I know we’re diametrically opposed on this, but I don’t see anything in the promo videos from which you can draw any information about pitch stability or otherwise. You can equally attribute them to control sensitivity, amongst other things. It’s fairly clear to me from the first video you posted that he has very high sensitivity settings - his other videos show that. Tiny stick movements for big control inputs. You can absolutely make an aircraft look pitchy with constant and strong inputs as he does. In fact looking at his videos he never makes more than about a 1/2’ stick deflection! You can’t possibly comment on flight control accuracy when a guy has his controls set to a point that from takeoff to landing you never move the stick more than half an inch!

Your comment re: roll rate with aileron input on the 737 video is invalid. You have no idea what roll she is commanding. The adjustments she’s making are in reaction to the aircraft rolling - she’s just acting to keep wings level. I can fly an approach banging the controls from stop to stop and from the jump seat you’d see wings level.

Without  set of controls calibrated to those in the 737 (of which very few have the requisite range of movement) then you just can’t pass these judgements in my view. 

Ultimately one of us will be right or wrong come the 18th! But I don’t see anything of concern in these videos.

 

You are entitled to your opinion but I disagree on all your points I'm afraid.

As I've painstakingly pointed out earlier, there are more than a few attributes to aircraft reaction in a sim. One is indeed control sensitivity, and the other is the reaction of a sim aircraft to that input, and the reaction to the air stream, turbulence and other factors.

It would not matter how "sensitive" the YouTuber's stick was. No Cessna Caravan would ever react in pitch in that manner, especially at low/final approach speed  As I've also stated repeatedly, it is a complete myth that almost any aircraft has so much pitch instability that it bobs up and down like a demented yo-yo. It might pull quite high G, but I am not talking about G. I am watching the reaction to pitch control. Unless the input is very extreme, aircraft noses do not oscillate wildly up and down like that. Some aircraft do have a natural tendency to want to return to a previous pitch, but the very brief oscillations settle very quickly. They do not buck up and down as shown in the video. 

As to the 737 example, I DO know what roll she is commanding because I know the approach speed and I can see clearly her aileron inputs and the aircraft's reaction to them. By the way, the reason professional pilots tend to intensify their control inputs when they are on final approach is as much to do with regulations to fly a stabilised approach at and below 1000 feet.. That means that constant corrections have to made to keep the aircraft bang on the localiser and glideslope. Without those regulations, once trimmed out you could apply very little input then do a final correction in direction and descent in the last 300 feet. But that's not what most commercial pilots do. Most correct for very minor misalignments from 1000 feet downwards. In the video referred to, her inputs are not so much a reaction to turbulence but an effort to keep perfectly aligned with the runway heading and glideslope. At relatively low approach speeds there is less control authority (on a 737) so that inputs have to be assertive, as they indeed are on the video I posted.

Control stick sensitivities in sims are not calibrated to offer MORE authority than the aircraft is capable of. They are generally in the form of curves in which the first inch or two of movement provides more authority than the last inch or two, or the other way round, but not more total authority. In other words if the curve starts steeply then the latter part flattens out, so the overall input maximum is the same as a straight line. These sensitivities do not alter the overall maximum authority of the control surfaces. In FSX the sensitivities are calibrated in time, not in curves. Low sensitivity is adressed by SLOWING DOWN the response, not by altering the control surface response curve. Asobo have clearly gone for a curves-based adjustment, as illustrated by a video specific to this subject, but a convex-curved "sensitivity" does not offer more total control authority.

Everything I have written on this thread is from a background of flying since 1974 until my PPL lapsed a few years ago, and more recently, gliding, and 20 years of professional flight modelling for a huge variety of sim aircraft. Where I have not flown the type in question, or near-type, in the most common cases our beta teams included at least one commercial pilot on type where possible, and they were experienced in real flying AND simulator flying.The feedback I received from those pilots was detailed and very nitpicking on request. 

Maybe you missed a previous post where I stated that if you can see the airspeed, can see the control inputs and know the aircraft type, you can indeed make a pretty accurate assessment of sim aircraft behaviour. Indeed when designing many flight models, I routinely recorded then played back videos of my own flying in order to take a step back and see things more objectively. It is similar to being a student pilot and watching an instructor go through the motions then imitating the same motions in order to learn flying technique.

I would agree that none of this particularly matters if the new sim affords the ability to tweak. That might lead to hours of hacking around to get every aircraft flying decently for private use. And yes, it seems apparent that Asobo are working on improving things after what I know to be feedback from pilots on their beta team, and from a reply I got confirming that they are now aware that things are not perfect. That's heartening to hear, but I am genuinely intrigued as to how they started from what I see as a misconception of the phrase "flying on rails" and their initial work seems to reveal that in order to rid themselves of the "flying on rails" objections, they clearly over compensated in the other direction!

Even that should not matter, except that I think it is a pity that the most important thing in any flight sim - the flying - is so far as I can see, the least distinguished attribute of an otherwise potentially great piece of work. I sincerely hope Asobo has taken on board the feedback it has received from actual pilots who understand both real flying and what is really possible in a sim. The vast majority of the promo videos are just that, promotions to boost the vloggers viewing hits and offer Microsoft/Asobo free publicity. They are largely uncritical, which is understandable given the obviously quite strict NDA conditions. 

 

Edited August 12, 20205 yr by robert young

Let’s go back to the 1 point of Fsx and P3D then!

No thanks.

Edited August 12, 20205 yr by Nyxx

1 minute ago, Nyxx said:

Let’s go back to the 1 point of Fsx and P3D then!

No thanks.

Actually this has nothing to do with numbers of lift points (which BTW Asobo have not actually implemented yet, so they say). Basic pitch stability is entirely independent from numbers of lift points. It is a GLOBAL parameter (or at least can be) that dampens pitch instability in other params. If you like it is a kind of master parameter. In FSX it can be found in the aircraft cfg file, and several similar entries in the .air file.

Quote

It would not matter how "sensitive" the YouTuber's stick was. No Cessna Caravan would ever react in pitch in that manner, especially at low/final approach speed  As I've also stated repeatedly, it is a complete myth that almost any aircraft has so much pitch instability that it bobs up and down like a demented yo-yo. It might pull quite high G, but I am not talking about G. I am watching the reaction to pitch control. Unless the input is very extreme, aircraft noses do not oscillate wildly up and down like that. Some aircraft do have a natural tendency to want to return to a previous pitch, but the very brief oscillations settle very quickly. They do not buck up and down as shown in the video. 

It absolutely would matter how sensitive the youtuber's stick was! If he's putting in aggressive inputs then aggressive pitching is not unexpected. Certainly on direct linkage aircraft (as these are) you can have very prompt pitch changes due to pitch control. 

Quote

As to the 737 example, I DO know what roll she is commanding because I know the approach speed and I can see clearly her aileron inputs and the aircraft's reaction to them. By the way, the reason professional pilots tend to intensify their control inputs when they are on final approach is as much to do with regulations to fly a stabilised approach at and below 1000 feet.. That means that constant corrections have to made to keep the aircraft bang on the localiser and glideslope. Without those regulations, once trimmed out you could apply very little input then do a final correction in direction and descent in the last 300 feet. But that's not what most commercial pilots do. Most correct for very minor misalignments from 1000 feet downwards. In the video referred to, her inputs are not so much a reaction to turbulence but an effort to keep perfectly aligned with the runway heading and glideslope. At relatively low approach speeds there is less control authority (on a 737) so that inputs have to be assertive, as they indeed are on the video I posted.

It's very difficult to know what roll she is commanding, because you do not know what the aircraft is trying to do. For all you know, her roll inputs are counteracting significant aircraft roll (they normally are on final approach, barring very smooth conditions. She is absolutely not correcting for localiser and glidepath with her more 'rapid inputs.' Such corrections are large magnitude corrections and don't look like that. Had she been correcting in azimuth you would have seen bank angle, which you don't. Furthermore, they're flying a NPA, given that the majority of the approach is in LNAV/VNAV - and when she takes the A/P out she goes F/D's off and flies visually - so there is no localiser or glideslope.

Quote

Control stick sensitivities in sims are not calibrated to offer MORE authority than the aircraft is capable of. They are generally in the form of curves in which the first inch or two of movement provides more authority than the last inch or two, or the other way round. These sensitivities do not alter the overall maximum authority of the control surfaces. In FSX the sensitivities are calibrated in time, not in curves. Low sensitivity is adressed by SLOWING DOWN the response, not by altering the control surface response curve. Asobo have clearly gone for a curves-based adjustment, as illustrated by a video specific to this subject, but a convex-curved "sensitivity" does not offer more total control authority.

Of course they're not calibrated to offer more authority than the aircraft is capable of, but given that in all his videos he performs all flights in all aircraft by moving the stick less than an inch, it's fair to say that his stick isn't appropriate calibrated in any way whatsoever. 

Quote

Everything I have written on this thread is from a background of flying since 1974 until my PPL lapsed a few years ago, and more recently, gliding, and 20 years of professional flight modelling for a huge variety of sim aircraft. Where I have not flown the type in question, or near-type, in the most common cases our beta teams included at least one commercial pilot on type where possible, and they were experienced in real flying AND simulator flying.The feedback I received from those pilots was detailed and very nitpicking on request. 

And everything I've written is from operating A320, 737, 777 and 787 (not including the various props/twins etc) for quite a while now!

I don't disagree that there might be various issues (has there ever been a sim where there aren't?), I just don't think you can observe any of them from the videos provided. In any case, I look forward to seeing the performance of the aircraft (on at least roughly calibrated equipment), and I equally look forward to your assessment when the sim is released and we're 'hands on.'

Edited August 12, 20205 yr by 2reds2whites

2 hours ago, Slides said:

And the fact that most pilots don't do formation flying and think they are always stable, they would not even know how much their GA moves around.

Whilst this is true, the reality is that much of the time an aeroplane you are formating on is riding on very similar air currents to your own aeroplane, so when he goes through a bump in the air mass, you usually do too and invariably within a second or so of one another. At first this makes you try to follow every little move and things rapidly get out of shape if you do that, forcing you to break off and come at it again.

So the thing I learned with flying formation on another aeroplane, is to recognise that at first you tend to over control for completely unnecessary reasons, and when you find that doesn't work, you eventually suss out that the trick is to let the aeroplane fly and just nudge it against any trends which have you drifting out of position rather than attempting to fly like you are welded to the other aeroplane, because you can't and if you try, I can guarantee that it'll go pear shaped. Watching the ailerons and elevator on the other aeroplane is a good thing to do to assist in knowing what is coming.

If anyone wants to try this for real, you don't need mega-bucks, go and fly a glider on an aerotow. That's something where you really do have to be smooth, because if you aren't and you start tipping that towplane on its nose, the towplane pilot will drop that rope in a heartbeat, and then you'll be enjoying a very short flight. 🤣

Robert have you flown an airplane in MSFS 2020 yourself?

Btw thank you for the wonderful aircraft’s you bought to us.

But imo MSFS is the future of flight simulation and I personally believe Asobo with do everything they can to max it’s power out.

Why don’t you write to them. Hopefully that will work far better than in a 34 page topic than I doubt very much they will read if you are so concerned about the fight model.

Edited August 12, 20205 yr by Nyxx

It's been interesting to read these posts as a layperson. I wouldn't be surprised if Asobo have followed this thread since it's one of the hottest ones here.

Disregard

Edited August 12, 20205 yr by Rimshot

5 minutes ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Asobo have followed this thread

They almost certainly will have. Everyone needs a laugh once in a while.

3 hours ago, 2reds2whites said:

It's very difficult to know what roll she is commanding, because you do not know what the aircraft is trying to do. For all you know, her roll inputs are counteracting significant aircraft roll (they normally are on final approach, barring very smooth conditions.

Ok, she is not flying an ILS glideslope, but she is flying on maintaining runway heading (corrected for any crosswind) and either eyeballing the threshold or looking at the PAPIs, or likely both. Either way she is most definitely flying to maintain an accurate approach and possibly compensating for any turbulence in addtion. I don't understand why you say we couldn't know what roll she is commanding. You can SEE exactly that. 

I think you misunderstand what sim joysticks can do. They have a number of inches of total throw. At maximum throw they generally command maximum deflection, whether the total throw is 4 inches or 4 feet. A cheap joystick with only 3 inches maximum movement from full up to full down is obviously going to be more sensitive per millimetre of movement than a stick that has six inches of movement. But almost all joysticks are broadly similar nowadays unless you buy very expensive custom made items. His joystick looks to be bog standard with an average total throw.

And that is my very point. He isn't moving the stick that much, but the reaction on the nose is ridiculously exaggerated. Please confirm one sentence. Are you saying you are an active commercial pilot who has flown in your duties an A320, and a 737, and a 777, and a 787? 

Edited August 12, 20205 yr by n4gix
Removed unnecessary long quote!

21 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

Robert it’s probably best to stick with fsx or P3D then.

Btw thank you for the wonderful aircraft’s you bought to us.

But imo MSFS is the future of flight simulation and I personally believe Asobo with do everything they can to max it’s power out.

Why don’t you write to them. Hopefully that’s will work far better than in a 34 page topic than I doubt very much they will read if you so concerned about the fight model 

I have written to them. And received a reply that was encouraging. I'm not here to bash gratuitously. I love the scenery and most of the weather, airfilelds, lighting, graphics and what I've seen of the interior and exterior models. It could be a wonderful sim. I'm pointing out some basic flaws that very few others seem to care about.

5 minutes ago, robert young said:

I have written to them. And received a reply that was encouraging. I'm not here to bash gratuitously. I love the scenery and most of the weather, airfilelds, lighting, graphics and what I've seen of the interior and exterior models. It could be a wonderful sim. I'm pointing out some basic flaws that very few others seem to care about.

Well,  people dont have to agree with you to make it any more clear that people like you will help drive this sim forwards. There are plenty of people applauding Asobo, and so are you in a way, but you are also coming forward with rational and experience based feedback. I don't have the compentcy to judge what is right and what is wrong, but I hope Asobo will at least go and check to see if your concerns are valid.