Right now it's all assumptions. The Frenchman who wrote the post said he'd get back on it after August 18. We can keep an eye on that.

But no matter what mathematics or look up tables are used ... as long as it flies 'plausible' I'll be content.

10 minutes ago, Slides said:

They never had Blade Element Theory to begin with. That's just Austin's obsession. In fact BET is very limited in its inputs. Also, all models require parameters so that alone is not an indication of what flight model they are using. You can use simplified versions of CFD formulas to create a flight model

Well, the descriptions Asobo gave in their early discussions after the initial product announcement at CES 2019 sure resembled BET, or finite-element modelling, or whatever you want to call it.

At this point it is whatever it is...we'll soon have more than reading between the lines in an interview to go on...

What are FDE and BET models?

11 minutes ago, RudyB24 said:

Right now it's all assumptions. The Frenchman who wrote the post said he'd get back on it after August 18. We can keep an eye on that.

But no matter what mathematics or look up tables are used ... as long as it flies 'plausible' I'll be content.

As will I, and I do expect the amount of concrete information to increase drastically a couple days after initial release. That being said it certainly opens up lots of room for doubt as to how much space there will be for things like realistic helicopters (retreating blade stall comes to mind first and foremost) and also sailplanes as others have mentioned... I remain optimistic, but I hope they continue to listen to the community in the long term.

Edited August 13, 20205 yr by High_Alpha

FDE=flight dynamics engine.  The "guts" of a simulation that compute the aircraft position, orientation, speed in real time.

BET=Blade Element Theory.  The aircraft's geometry is sliced into small pieces and the aerodynamic/gravitational forces on each of those elements are computed and combined to determine the acft's position, orientation, and speed.

18 minutes ago, w6kd said:

Well, the descriptions Asobo gave in their early discussions after the initial product announcement at CES 2019 sure resembled BET, or finite-element modelling, or whatever you want to call it.

At this point it is whatever it is...we'll soon have more than reading between the lines in an interview to go on...

It would be pretty obvious to testers if they are not doing some airflow modeling on the aircraft.

5 hours ago, Slides said:

Buy a VKB Gladiator or Gunfighter instead if you want a high quality stick.

rather, I've been using a VPC WarBRD with my TM WH grip.  Nice combo, and the WarBRD is a stout little b*st*rd, and very well built & accurate (compared to the original WH stick base).

1 hour ago, w6kd said:

it's pretty clear from the discussion on how they were tweaking climb rates, speeds etc that MSFS is using a parametric flight dynamics engine rather than blade-element modelling

I listened but I guess I must have missed it as I didn't hear anything detailed at all...only very generalized discussion about how they were using both POH and pilots to aid them in adjusting the aircraft's performance  but he never mentioned anything about how they were doing that exactly...I listened from :16 - :21. What part of that eludes to not using the live air flow interacting with 1,000 points system because to me it all sounded like extremely basic and generalized conversation.

Perhaps I should just listen all the way through but to be honest guys, this is like watching a commercial...it's marketing hogwash to me and I'm bored to death so far 🙂

I'll watch a bit more of it and maybe I'll catch it, but if not I'm just going to wait it out a few weeks and see what the actual consensus ends up being.

Edited August 13, 20205 yr by hangar

2 minutes ago, hangar said:

I listened but I guess I must have missed it as I didn't hear anything detailed at all...only very generalized discussion about how they were using both POH and pilots to aid them in adjusting the aircraft's performance  but he never mentioned anything about how they were doing that exactly...I listened from :16 - :21. What part of that eludes to not using the live air flow interacting with 1,000 points system because to me it all sounded like extremely basic and generalized conversation.

Only thing I can think of is mention of glide ratio.

I'd like to make it clear that I have no "insider" knowledge on the flight model methods. I just reiterated what was already released in the various statements already referred to. I don't think it particularly matters what method they are using, as what really matters is what is done with it.

Airliners do not particularly need sophisticated or new algorithms as they have quite limited flight envelopes (2.5+G and -1G as standard with some safety overhead on both). It is systems and avionics sophistication that they need, unless you want an aerobatic Airbus (!). It is smaller aircraft and aerobatic machines - and probably gliders and helicopters that might benefit from a more convoluted system, but even then offering a shed load of new parameters means there is more scope to mess it all up!

We managed to use the "limited" system long ago to promote fairly convincing side slips and pretty reliable spins, and even a stab at inverted spins, though it took a lot of experimentation and quite a lot of "cheating", but it was possible. Even with the "look up tables" method there are still many params that can be combined to create a reasonably good flight model. The only unsolvable problem I encountered was the rigid system between turboprop start up and power params which are inextricably linked. Some have successfully bypassed that to make their own system, but apart from that I feel the FSX system is actually quite good in many areas, but gets a bad rap because it is the fashion. PMDG seem to have managed pretty well :)

I'm not convinced that X plane is after all that much better, looking at even the best of products that come out, although maybe no-one has yet fully used its potential. 

I think some worry too much about the methodology while perhaps missing the fact that it is tuning the system to be effective that is far more important.

 

Edited August 13, 20205 yr by robert young

If we indeed hit release day with a FDE that was brought in from FSX (which is disappointing in that I feel we were baited otherwise), if the world dynamic air mass movement is delivered as advertised, and the ground friction model, this will still be a huge leap forward.

21 minutes ago, robert young said:

it is tuning the system to be effective that is far more important.

Well as a GA type end-user I can say that at this point for me I look for 3 things to keep me immersed as far as the aircraft is concerned. One is proper engine startup procedure and spool up sounds & timings, 2nd are reasonably accurate numbers for takeoff distance/climb perf./cruise speed/and landing/stall speeds and third is feel/behavior during takeoff,landing and approach which includes solid side slip ability.

As far as GA flying is concerend I have no intention on ever going back to anything that resembles how FSX behaved for GA in any of the areas  I just mentioned. As imperfect as XP can be at times it at least allows me to get a properly executed startup procedure going on my 3rd party Kingair and TBM, gracefully leave the ground with them (not leap), and then on windy days to perform a perfect side slip on approach, and do this all while making me feel as if I'm actually flying through thin air (not thick water, which is where FSX always failed miserably for me). If MSFS can do all of this now then I'll be willing to give it a go, of course.

Edited August 13, 20205 yr by hangar

9 minutes ago, odourboy said:

If we indeed hit release day with a FDE that was brought in from FSX (which is disappointing in that I feel we were baited otherwise), if the world dynamic air mass movement is delivered as advertised, and the ground friction model, this will still be a huge leap forward.

Good point on the ground friction, which I forgot about. The last MS sim that had separate ground and air modelling was FS4. You could feel the transition between the two. The other sim that had a separate ground routine was I believe Falcon 4, but that wasn't done very well. The big issue with FSX is that the ground handling was reliant on the in-air handling which is why aircraft tend to slide unrealistically all over the place in a cross wind. Adding a better ground friction routine would much improve things.

5 minutes ago, hangar said:

As imperfect as XP can be at times it at least allows me to get a properly executed startup procedure going on my 3rd party Kingair and TBM, gracefully leave the ground with them (not leap), and then on windy days to perform a perfect side slip on approach, and do this all while making me feel as if I'm actually flying through thin air (not thick water, which is where FSX always failed miserably for me). If MSFS can do all of this now then I'll be willing to give it a go, of course.

Have you not tried the Dukes then?

Yep the first iteration at least, and while it's been many years since I've flown in FSX (I think at least 7 or 8?) I remember it as the being the best "feeling" GA I had, bar none. But that wasn't enough to save my entire FSX experience as a whole. Once MS left, I followed suit. If I end up back with MSFS (which I have been waiting for now for at least 10 years) I would be excited at the thought if I knew I'd have your Duke in there! I asked you about the Duke making it into MSFS much earlier in this thread (if you recall). I understand you can't but I had to ask anyway 🙂

Edited August 13, 20205 yr by hangar