As it is right now the approach used by ASOBO in MFS for ground physics leaves a bit to be desired 😕

After the joy of yesterday's flights in the A320 I decided to revisit the effects of winds while on ground. It's something I hammered Austin's head about for years because I didn't like the way it was modelled, and he eventually addressed some XP11 updates ago, making it a lot more acceptable even if not "perfect"...

In MFS - thanks to Murmur's always surgical observations - ASOBO followed a different approach, probably implemented on one of the updates released after the public version became available and users started to complain about how difficult it was to taxi under even mild crosswinds.

If you want to take the time and open the dev console and run some tests I think it really pays, at least in order to be able to turn ASOBO's attention into this way of modelling ground physics.

You can pick any of the aircraft. For my tests I used the DR-400 and the 748i.

Set manual weather scenarios with wind coming from, say, 10 0'clock at varying intensities, with or  without gusts, for your tests. Then enable Dev mode and start the "Speed" window where one can follow on-the-fly the values for radial and axial wind components.

X-wind ( radial ) component is ZERO up to a given taxi ground speed, and then it starts increasing. Even at modest ( in real world operations ) values, your GA becomes uncontrollable to a trully ridiculous level.

Apparently in the 748i the blend between nil and positive x-wind appears to be more intense ( faster ). That raised my hope that at least they're taking the aircraft tail height as a reference ( ? ) also because they appear to model some sort of wind gradient near ground, just as it ended up being modelled in X-Plane 11 from 30 ft down...

Contrarilly to X-Plane where we can easily see the effect of the deflected prop / jet - wash and that of the relative wind on the various wing and tail surfaces, I couldn't really notice such effects when I enable the "Forces" screen in dev mode. Maybe these are modelled but I really can't tell from looking at the "Forces" display.

For me ASOBO's approach to the modelling of ground physics still has a long way to go, but time will tell how this stuff progresses. They do look like dynamic... and fast releasing updates... At least that.

 

P.S.: Took the "seriously" out 🙂, although I see it as a limited way of implementing such an important aspect of aircraft operations IRL -  taxiing, taking off and landing under strong / gusting  / cross winds...

Edited December 20, 20205 yr by jcomm
Typos and relaxing the initial "brutal" words :-)

"seriously broken"

" it is way worse than it ever was in XP". If you wsnt to believe that, go ahead. I feel differently.

28 minutes ago, odourboy said:

" it is way worse than it ever was in XP". If you wsnt to believe that, go ahead. I feel differently.

In the sense that even if not perfect in X-Plane, at least there the wind is present no matter if you're moving along the runway / taxiway at a slow or higher ground speed. It's relative wind speed that plays the role, and that's the way it should be...

Since MFS is built on a rather new flight dynamics approach, I hope they can find a better way of coping with winds on ground.

Edited December 20, 20205 yr by jcomm