6 minutes ago, JughedJones said:

As I mentioned, I've been flying over pretty mountainous and crazy terrain this whole time

Well, there you go...

Before judging the turbulence model, always good to assess your immediate environment and current atmospheric conditions first.   Also, if you are flying at 30,000, are you crossing over a tropopause fold line - those can be quite turbulent.  Simbrief is a good resource for showing tropopause lines if you are using that for flight planning - even if just for the weather.

 

Edited October 13, 20205 yr by ErichB

1 hour ago, JughedJones said:

I think i may be a bit of a dummy!  

Never so.    The great thing about flightsim is that you can learn all the time.  It's a complex hobby - we all started off knowing nothing and nobody ever knows everything.

Edited October 13, 20205 yr by ErichB

3 hours ago, JughedJones said:

Maybe?  I don't know.   You tell me Sierra Hotel.

Simple, light aircraft do not fly in such conditions.

1 hour ago, ErichB said:

Simbrief is a good resource for showing tropopause lines if you are using that for flight planning - even if just for the weather.

Also Windy.com, amazing info

17 hours ago, smurfboard said:

Agreed! I crash half the time because of turbulence when landing with live weather at Lukla, but if I switch to calm weather theres no problem. I don’t think real pilots are presented with quite the same challenge !

Lukla is a very challenging airport to land at fyi

5 hours ago, ErichB said:

Perhaps @KenG could chime in on this one.

I would state that the first issue is a nonmotion sim trying to replicate turbulence graphically. In a FFS (Full Flight Simulator) turbulence is simulated through the motion system moving the entire cab. It is something that you feel. In fact when we setup for a training session we always add a small amount of turbulence to the atmosphere (1% to 5%) otherwise the sim feels unnaturally smooth. I guess this would be the flying on rails statement that some make about FSX, P3D, Xplane. 

The problem that I have with the MSFS turbulence is that the airplane is graphically bouncing around on the monitor in front of me and I am isolated from the motion. (Maybe this would look better in VR.) It becomes more of an annoyance because tricks I use in the actual airplane, such as stabilizing my hand on a bezel, does not work with the mouse. The airplane bounces around and the mouse remains perfectly still in the 3D environment, i.e. does not move with the airplane. Thus the slightest turbulence and my hand goes flying off the knob or switch I am trying to actuate. This also makes it seem like light chop is more like moderate turbulence in MSFS. 

There are many things in the atmosphere that can cause turbulence. Everything from unstable air, the motion of the jetstream, uplifting effect of terrain, unequal heating of the atmosphere, etc. Yes, you can most definitely get  moderate turbulence out over the middle of the ocean. Been there, done that, and got the Tshirt! 

The other thing you have to be careful of in the sim is the so called live weather. Asobo got it better their first time around using the modeled weather. It meant that the weather might not match the exact METAR at the exact same time as the real world, but it was a live system inside of the sim. This provided for better transitions during the flight. If you just depend on METARs you risk sharp changes over a short distance which will create severe turbulence. Out over the ocean where you have less METARs to deal with you can get huge differences as you fly in and out of different areas. That is why I will not use weather injection programs in MSFS until the SDK is fully released and developers learn how to correctly work with the built in models. As people complained about incorrect METARs IMHO Asobo moved a little too far away from their modeled atmosphere. I hope they find a better medium. 

Simulating turbulence effects is nothing new. Active Sky has been trying with various success over the years. The problem I have found is the injection of these effects is often sudden without the subtile tell tale clues that you would normally expect. It was like every low level windshear was immediately getting thrown into the middle of a fully developed microburst. Not to mention the feeling of being all alone, i.e. none of the airplane in front of me felt anything, the LLWS alert systems are not available, or my advanced WX radar with Turbulence detection is not showing anything. Some of these same problems exist in MSFS, you are alone, out front, and unafraid weatherbird. 

Because not all of us appreciates what a developer decides turbulence should look like on a nonmotion 2D screen, a slider would be appropriate. 

Edited October 13, 20205 yr by KenG

This is a tuff one but if anyone is familiar with Xplane and the current Zibo 737 mod it seems to ride through turbulence much more realistically, if you are outside you can see the entire plane move slightly up and down as well as little bumps on the wing that tend to rock it, that is with Active Sky.  In moderate turbulence in an airliner you never move up or down more than a few feet generally, MSFS seems to have modeled it from a center point on the aircraft and then it moves along that axis.

I did fly the TBM the other day out of Steamboat Springs and over the mountains and noticed that the turbulence then seem very real, you could watch the entire aircraft move around and not pivot around an axis point.

Not sure what was different maybe I did the mod and forgot between flights but its there it just needs some work.

It seems as thought the airflow around the model is off and the pitch momentum is off like the plane is stuck until its unlogged from its current state, that I think bugs me more than anything but some of the mods are making it less pronounced.

Shayne

6 hours ago, ErichB said:

Invest is solid controllers, and your overall experience will be much better in smooth or rough skies.

You seem to be making the claim it's perfect as is, which would be quite remarkable to dial in a fixed perfect effect.  All I'm looking for  is a SLIDER to adjust the amplitude of this, and controllers will have zero to do with it--the effect is there WHEN THERE IS NO INPUT from the controller, good or bad controller.  There is a giant chasm between flying on rails and having effects be slightly greater than real, or than desired.  Just a slider is all I'd like to see.  I would dial it back maybe 20% from stock.  I also like the not-on-rails in MSFS, but I'd also like to have control over this.  

7 minutes ago, Noel said:

You seem to be making the claim it's perfect as is

It certainly isn't,  but I haven't yet experienced anything which I don't like or which I think is outside of the bounds of plausibility based on the type of flying I have done.   

But everyone's view on this will be different based on your own setup, and a scalable solution is usually the best  option to appeal to the majority.

 

As @KenG correctly said, the main problem is that using the vibrations of the aircraft and the camera, there is an attempt to create the illusion of a turbulence effect.

In my opinion, the guys from Asobo do not quite understand how our eyes work when focusing in the conditions of concussions of our body. We at EZdok Software have spent many years studying these processes in an attempt to simulate similar effects using camera movement. I hope we didn't do it too badly. If you pay attention to how EZdok (EZCAv3) visual effects work during turbulence inside the VC, you will notice that in addition to shaking the camera inside the VC, shaking the aircraft itself, there are almost imperceptible shifts in the image of the earth/sky/clouds outside the cockpit. If you look at what this effect looks like inside MSFS, you will notice that the ground/sky/clouds outside the cockpit window are in a static state. This destroys the effect of presence and the eyes stop believing in these effects. The imbalance of the picture destroys the effect of immersion.

I do not claim to be the ultimate truth, but this is my opinion. I also believe that a slider regulating effect is needed, but in addition, Asobo will have to greatly revise its visualization effects or allow us, third-party developers, to do this and fully open the camera management functions in the SDK.

To reply to Noel who started it: It is pretty hard to tell if the turbulences are real without the full context. Pressure altitude, weight of the machine, wind direction shift (...) but I can tell that I have experienced similar violent turbulences in both Saab 340 and King Air 90, both planes that I have flown in my career, among others.

For the big jets (like the MD80) I was considering the turbulence based on my coffee. If I cannot drink it anymore then I  would turn on the seat belts sign on (that was before the seat belt sign was turned on always on). And the really big ones (777 or the like) are really different animals.

Modeling turbulences in an art and it is even harder to model windshears in a FFS Level D simulator.

Overall, in late 2021 I found that turbulences on the TBM are quite good, given the wind speed and altitude. The model is very bad at low levels (ground friction absent).