Flight Physics

[sd_flyer 6,047]

1 minute ago, SAS443 said:

Sorry for being unclear

 Flying on rails is not gonna happen where I fly, unless you stay clear of mechanical turbulence and local thermals and that means > 2000 AGL for me.

Most simmers complaing about flying on rails syndrome during the approach phase, and rightfully so.

OK I got it now! 🙂 Light to modern turbulence I still fly like on rails. I really don't perceive it as anything dramatic.My student do though. Usually high winds/gusts, downdrafts, mountain waves and etc and I start feeling movement and drama of flying. Winds below 15 knots doesn't bother me at all 🙂

Winter seems  more smoother, summer yes we got thermals often during approach and gusty winds in the desert. But after 20 years it seems like normal thing. Early in the morning or late evening things get calm anyway

[ronmarks 13]

3 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Flight Physics comes from within the core product, not via "tweaks".  MSFS Flight Physics needs A LOT of work internally, most "tweaks" are an attempt to cure an more fundamental problem that needs to be addressed by Asobo programmers.

Cheers, Rob.

+1

An opinion that syncs with my own on this subject.

I consider Mr Ainscough an expert in this realm, and while "proof by authority" is not valid, an opinion from Rob carries a lot of weight.  In fact, the dynamics of this sim were so far off initially, that I was very discouraged.

However, as the OP notes, the latest update seem to be going in the right direction. The planes I briefly tried seem much more realistic. 

I have been immersed in aviation and engineering much of my life and have flown a shatload of various aircraft IRL . The problem has been the faulty dynamic response of nearly all of the FS2020 aircraft initially. The injected somewhat unrealistic  turbulence or the control sensitivity is another subject.

Edited December 27, 2020 by ronmarks
clarity

[LRBS 948]

For 15 EU I would stay away from that product, they had it for about 8 and that was acceptable IMHO.

All what he did is changed sensitivity of the controls, you can achieve that via  CONTROLS menu.

Now I want to give him credit for adjusting under contact points section Static Compression and Max/Static Compression Ratio, that did a subtitle change.

As for the Robs statement I agree 100% that is core/programing related and very little it can be achieved with any tweaks. And yes there is a fundamental problem for Asobo programmers the way they programed/coded how the airplanes react at very small wind changes of no more then 2 or 3 knots wind velocity changes in pitch and roll etc.

Way too many issues here and not enough space to get into details.

Also reading between the lines here, apparently people believe that there is no difference between flaps settings while there is turbulence or wind. It's not the same IRL for sure, with less flaps setting in turbulence and winds it is much easier to control the airplane and is more stable. Actually many airlines will suggest based on landing performance to use less flaps, more stable, less power changes and much more of a stabilized approach.

Or teaching people to fly with " hands free  flying when they only allowed to use rudder, throttle and elevator trim" it's something very wrong under normal conditions. Wow.

[sd_flyer 6,047]

39 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I hope this doesn't turn into a defensive debate.  But here are some of the issues I've noted:

• Centripetal acceleration around the equations of motion ... these are non-linear but in MSFS they seem to be linear ... where this shows up is in AoA, GS, and indicated over given atmospheric conditions.
• Manoeuvre loads seem to be ignoring drag.
• Euler angles (AoA and side-slip angle) don't match up even on a 0 wind day ... relative to the moving earth axis the Euler angles Yaw, Pitch, Bank don't produce expected results ... pick a point on the earth and perform a standard turn (3^o per second turn complete 360^o in 2 min) ... your travelled arc will not matchup to real world under same atmospheric conditions.
• Rankine-Froude calculations of propeller thrust (slipstream) aren't being used and seems to be some table lookup exaggerated by engine torque and I can't tell any difference between single front mount propeller aircraft and wing mounted twin propeller aircraft (both should have a very different response on control surfaces).
• Equation of state (pressure, density, temperature of gas/air) doesn't matchup with aircraft performance.

Some of the more obvious:

• Ground friction of various surfaces  
• Gust loads have no impact on air speed, AoA nor lift ... I haven't "felt" a gust load in MSFS they just seem to move the aircraft around in 3D space

There are more ... I'd love to see Asobo tackle flight physics with more simulation than "lookup" even if that required a reduction in visuals as CPU/resources allocation are shifted.

Cheers, Rob.

 

 

 

Sorry for my ignorance I'm trying to understand what you wrote and how does it apply

Centripetal acceleration around the equations of motion - I really don't know what it means can you through some formula that include relations wit AoA and GS?

What do you mean by "Manoeuvre loads" - load factor? And what "drag" induce parasite and etc?

What do you mean by travelled arc? Radius of turn? Also how do you measure in real world?

Rankine-Froude I can agree and disagree. I haven't seen sim yet that get slipstream right 100%

Equation of state - here I agree the normally aspirate engine, mixture, turbo model need  major rework

Ground friction - 100% agree

Also by gust loads do you mean turbulence effect on aircraft? 

[sd_flyer 6,047]

29 minutes ago, killthespam said:

 

Also reading between the lines here, apparently people believe that there is no difference between flaps settings while there is turbulence or wind. It's not the same IRL for sure, with less flaps setting in turbulence and winds it is much easier to control the airplane and is more stable. Actually many airlines will suggest based on landing performance to use less flaps, more stable, less power changes and much more of a stabilized approach.

Or teaching people to fly with " hands free  flying when they only allowed to use rudder, throttle and elevator trim" it's something very wrong under normal conditions. Wow.

I guess the is stone in my garden LOL Yes it is generally recommended to use less mechanization during high wind condition. But it has hardly anything to do with turbulence unless that turbulence cause by high winds. I can hardly imagine during normal conditions with thermal using less flaps to get more stable approach especially as short airfield. 

Before we start arguing about right and wrong teaching methods let me ask you do you also teach people how to fly? If so do you teach power for altitude pitch for airspeed? 

 

[somiller 694]

3 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

Also I want to mention that in real life I control most aircraft I fly with two fingers. I carefully and trim them for a speed after setting desired power setting. They do fly on "rails" and that the way I like it 🙂 But I see many simmesr believe "rails" is bad and unrealistic thing! LOL

Who said "rails"?

I also have flown real airplanes, and I can report that no airplane I've been in taxis or flies anything like the MSFS stock 152, 172, Bonanza, or Baron, and I've flown each of them IRL. When taking off none of the real ones swerve off the runway if you breath on the rudder pedals. As mentioned up-thread, there is such a thing as inertia IRL, and it doesn't exist in MSFS. The only thing I've flown IRL that reminds me of any stock MSFS aircraft, is a Robinson R-22 - if you breath on the cyclic the thing wants to roll on its side. Rob A. is absolutely correct, the flight dynamics in MSFS are flawed, and no amount of aircraft tweaking is going to make it right. When flying a properly trimmed aircraft, the whole point is that you are not flying it, it is flying itself - so that's hardly a good flight regime to use as a comparison to real life aircraft, and yes all MSFS aircraft I've flown can be trimmed to fly themselves, but that misses the point.

That said, I still love MSFS because after experiencing the visuals and environment I can't go back to my previous sim.

[somiller 694]

14 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

If so do you teach power for altitude pitch for airspeed? 

 

There is no other way to teach, because physics dictates that's how it works, and believing otherwise doesn't change physics.

[LRBS 948]

15 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

I guess the is stone in my garden LOL Yes it is generally recommended to use less mechanization during high wind condition. But it has hardly anything to do with turbulence unless that turbulence cause by high winds. I can hardly imagine during normal conditions with thermal using less flaps to get more stable approach especially as short airfield. 

Before we start arguing about right and wrong teaching methods let me ask you do you also teach people how to fly? If so do you teach power for altitude pitch for airspeed? 

 

I'm sorry, there is no reason to continue this conversation when you "hardly imagine during normal conditions with thermal using less flaps to get more stable approach" and regarding short filed there is also a different situation and you can skin the cat in a different way.

And good luck with teaching people how to fly with hands off!

 

[sd_flyer 6,047]

3 minutes ago, somiller said:

Who said "rails"?

I also have flown real airplanes, and I can report that no airplane I've been in taxis or flies anything like the MSFS stock 152, 172, Bonanza, or Baron, and I've flown each of them IRL. When taking off none of the real ones swerve off the runway if you breath on the rudder pedals. As mentioned up-thread, there is such a thing as inertia IRL, and it doesn't exist in MSFS. The only thing I've flown IRL that reminds me of any stock MSFS aircraft, is a Robinson R-22 - if you breath on the cyclic the thing wants to roll on its side. Rob A. is absolutely correct, the flight dynamics in MSFS are flawed, and no amount of aircraft tweaking is going to make it right. When flying a properly trimmed aircraft, the whole point is that you are not flying it, it is flying itself - so that's hardly a good flight regime to use as a comparison to real life aircraft, and yes all MSFS aircraft I've flown can be trimmed to fly themselves, but that misses the point.

That said, I still love MSFS because after experiencing the visuals and environment I can't go back to my previous sim.

Well there is sensitivity vs hardware. There are also great mods that tweak those a bit more ad well. You can’t compare real control input in actual pounds vs spring joystick. It’s my chore in every sim to adjust sensitivity of my CH rudder and stick. I try to get stick/rudder response similar to my experience IRL

I have flown, instructed and owned in almost all airplanes that you mentioned above (minus Baron I have never flown it, only Traveler and Duchess from Beech
 

Inertia is kind of subjective some people see some people don’t  in MSFS. It may have to do with sensitivity tweaks per each  hardware .

Yes MSFS had big room for improvement. Yet there is no perfection. For example , X-plane tailtragger don’t fit to any real life experience with absolutely uncontrollable aircraft on the ground .
I remember intellectual battles with Oleg Maddox back to original IL2 when he code physics right yet it had absolutely unrealistic effect on aircraft handling in the sim. We used to have those arguments pilots vs aeronautical engineers a lot! 🙂

To me MSFS as is it’s ok in say airplanes like 172. Yet of course I welcome any improvement that do make sense !

[sd_flyer 6,047]

12 minutes ago, somiller said:

There is no other way to teach, because physics dictates that's how it works, and believing otherwise doesn't change physics.

There is ! When you teach to fly instruments approach and become slave of the needles LOL

[sd_flyer 6,047]

9 minutes ago, killthespam said:

I'm sorry, there is no reason to continue this conversation when you "hardly imagine during normal conditions with thermal using less flaps to get more stable approach" and regarding short filed there is also a different situation and you can skin the cat in a different way.

And good luck with teaching people how to fly with hands off!

 

 No apologies! I imagine flying without flaps to achieve stability may be suit certain people needs to land long flat and comfortable:)

I had good luck to teach hand free. It was not only successful but also peer reviewed  and approved by other CFI who had similar problems . Like we say if you don’t endorse your opinion just as valuable as your responsibility for end product. You won’t get call from FAA if your student ended crashing due to misconception you taught lol

[somiller 694]

9 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

There is ! When you teach to fly instruments approach and become slave of the needles LOL

Ah, didn't realize CFI's do instrument instruction.

[sd_flyer 6,047]

Just want to add that hand free teaching approach was  initially recommend by Rod Machado during one safety seminar discussing teaching strategies. Rod goes  even beyond that he teaches to land like that. Yes things happy and sometimes rods, wires and pulley breaks too 🙂

[WestAir 2,522]

1 minute ago, somiller said:

Ah, didn't realize CFI's do instrument instruction.

To be fair, I was never a CFII but I'd still put students under the hood or do approaches in the sim because why not.

[somiller 694]

1 minute ago, WestAir said:

To be fair, I was never a CFII but I'd still put students under the hood or do approaches in the sim because why not.

I could do the same with students in the sim and I'm not even a CFI - the point is that CFI's aren't certified to provide instrument instruction, at least not in a real airplane.