MSFS has the most advanced flight model?

[sd_flyer 6,049]

1 hour ago, Janov said:

Quote from myself (ATP with 25 years of flying airliners and time on F33A, Piper Cheyenne IIIA, C-152, Piper Cherokee, Boeing 737 (several variants), B747-400, and A320 family (including NEO):

All I know when I try a simulator, I compare how it feels to how it feels when I fly an aircraft in real life. With X-Plane the aircraft I flew that I have experience on in real life as well feel just like what I feel flying the real aircraft.

Is that an endorsement of similiar quality? 😉

20 years (no airlines) but 17 types of airplanes in my logbook. Pilot and educator. I certainly know when I try simulator how it feels when I fly aircraft in real life? And?

  Wow I wasn't aware you and Austin  in hall of aviation fame! We immodestly differ as simpleton fan boys because you unified and absolutely factual opinion pretty much outweigh our simpleton word not allowed club LOL

But I tell you want they energy you spend trying to prove that X-plane is better actually show more insecurity than objectivity LOL But as for developer you pretty much shoot yourself in leg! LOL

 

[Janov 2,383]

32 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

I usually think its pretty much all subjective.

You are spot on - it is highly subjective!

While I would say that pilots have a better idea of how "realistic" an aircraft flies - they are rarely the ultimate source of scientific data on that. Ask two pilots and you will get three opinions!

You can judge how well a plane "performs" if you fly it off against the official POH performance data, but even here I would expect a variation of +/- 5%. All of our aircraft have a "performance factor" that you can enter into the FMS - to "correct" the FMS calculation against the official POH values, and that factor is usually in the -2% vicinity...

Last but not least - yes, in earlier versions of X-Plane designers often used "weird" stuff to get performance right, extra surfaces, invisible wheels, etc. This has gotten a lot better with the latest version of the flightmodel, but sometimes you still need to vary the size of a wing or control surfaces to get really close to the handbook.

Just like in MSFS (Bell47) there is a way to bypass flightmodel calculation and write to the angular and linear acceleration parameters (datarefs) directly. So you couid run your own flightmodel (or the data from a FDR) and just output the results to X-Plane...to visualize your aircraft in the beautiful XP11 scenery! 😇

[Janov 2,383]

Just now, sd_flyer said:

LOL

LOL you misunderstood pretty much everything that my post was about (again 🙄) LOL.

[jarmstro 2,405]

13 minutes ago, Janov said:

This has gotten a lot better with the latest version of the flightmodel,

Which version is that? The latest version is the experimental flight model version? As all of the planes I have bought for X-Plane (bar 2) including the Zibo use the standard flight model have I been sold a pup? And yet the experimental flight model seems to have been experimental for a very very long time...

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by jarmstro

[LRBS 948]

52 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Definitely, the feedback from real life pilots is subjective.

Of course, it is.

There are a few reasons as to why you might have different opinions.

Those different statements coming from real pilots are quite subjective based on experience, type of the airplane flown and currency. As an example, as an ex heavy driver I will find a small airplane unstable and very susceptible to any change of weather conditions, wind, inertia etc.

In an airline environment where you receive specific equipment training all these opinions are to a minimum. On top of that you have SOPs and everybody (with some exceptions) is on the same page as to say.

One of the big issues I see here on any PC flight simulator is first how the flight model is designed, and the most important factor that apparently, we don't talk about are the flight control units used, quality and proper unit calibration. All this together can lead to a satisfactory (or not) outcome.

This is one reason behind all the different opinions, plus that some pretend to be "experts". This is a business where you learn something new the moment you get inside that cockpit regardless experience. And unfortunately, most of the time when you think you know it all or "let me show you how is done" it's too late.

Now for sure MSFS flight model needs lots of tweaking, maybe we can have a discussion with a more productive outcome if some of us start listing what kind of flight controls we use and share what kind of problems we have.

I doubt that, but it could be a good and start and we can help narrowing down some flaws.

Edited June 8, 2021 by killthespam

[Janov 2,383]

4 minutes ago, killthespam said:

we don't talk about are the flight control units used, quality and proper unit calibration.

This is an excellent point. In fact a flightmodel that is tuned to be "100% realistic" will not feel so on PC based simulator with its flimsy input devices. Thats why flightmodels that "feel right" to on-type pilots are usually spruced up with a logarithmic input curve and often some artificial stability (since you can´t feel tiny upsets to the flightpath while sitting on your office chair).

I have seen pilots get subjective and awed by software - to the point where they tune out all critical scrutiny and go "yes, yes, this is so real, wow wow wow" - go to the end of this video if you want to see what I am talking about:

 

[BobFS88 640]

28 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

And yet the experimental flight model seems to have been experimental for a very very long time...

That’s because Austin has not made any changes to the experiment flight model that I know of which is meant to be use by LR as a way to make changes without interfering with the standard flight model of all the existing aircraft.  If user or developers felt any changes in the experimental flight model would be of some benefit, than they would use it otherwise they won't. It is not a deficiency of the sim just because it’s there and doesn’t change.

Edited June 8, 2021 by BobFS88

[sd_flyer 6,049]

32 minutes ago, Janov said:

LOL you misunderstood pretty much everything that my post was about (again 🙄) LOL.

Yes of course I did! LOL I am so silly indeed and you not a troll at all LOL

[jarmstro 2,405]

22 minutes ago, BobFS88 said:

That’s because Austin has not made any changes to the experiment flight model which is meant to be use by LR as a way to make changes without interfering with the standard flight model of all the existing aircraft.  If user or developers felt any changes in the experimental flight model would be of some benefit, than they would use it otherwise they won't. It is not a deficiency of the sim just because it’s there and doesn’t change.

But experiments are used to verify a theory. Or a guess. The standard flight model cannot be correct or there would be no need experiment. So all my X-Plane aircraft have been sold to me on the false  pretence of a perfect XP flight model?

From what I have been told basically all the experimental flight model does is to increase drag. Which, it would seem to me, suggests that the standard flight model has insufficient drag?

If the XP flight model is wrong then can LR please stop telling me it is correct. And the same goes for Asobo.

Edited June 8, 2021 by jarmstro

[HiFlyer 9,363]

1 hour ago, WestAir said:

So that's one pilots opinion of one aspect of MSFS's physics. I swapped my rudder pedals out from CH to Thrustmaster and messed with the curves all day long and in my opinion, as far as the 172 is concerned, the nosewheel is cartoonishly too effective. Take with salt.

There was a point where I was very unhappy with this aspect of the sim, to the point I'm sure a cartoon-like dark cloud was in the process of forming over my head.

I offered some fine whine over at the MSFS forums, and pretty much stewed in my own gathering juices, eventually deciding the sims ground handling was unconscionable Bantha poodoo.

Only to realize some time later that it was actually my joystick that was Bantha poodoo, and upon acquiring a better one, the plane became quite controllable.

I hope to forever keep that experience in my mental lint trap as a valuable object lesson.

(Though the ground handling currently seems to be under revision, and I certainly enjoyed the incongruity of my 787 emulating a bouncing lowrider on the runway after the latest update...)

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by HiFlyer

[CaptainNick 575]

TLDR Version: The Flight Model is there. It is up to the dev’s to get a wrangle on it. Same for any sim. We are all fan girls, and spend far too much time worrying about the other person’s preferred game of choice instead of enjoying what we got. Also my dad can beat up your dad or something similar.

[BobFS88 640]

19 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

But experiments are used to verify a theory. Or a guess.

It also use as a test bed for developers to test their aircraft against those changes base on those theories and guess before they update their aircraft model and release it to the public. Then they would instruct the user to turn the experimental mode on for their affected aircraft until the experiment flight model becomes the standard flight model on the next X-plane version release, which is that is what it meant for.

Edited June 8, 2021 by BobFS88

[Janov 2,383]

9 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

The standard flight model cannot be correct or there would be no need experiment.

I have (tried) to explain this to you several times at length in the other forums. I have little hope that another time would be more succesful. I, for example, have a hard time understanding the string theory, we all have to accept that there are personal limits to comprehension of complex circumstances... unless someone does not WANT to understand something 😉

For everyone else:

The "legacy" model of X-Plane 11 was the standard flightmodel - until Austin improved the flight model in the version 11 run. This new and improved model (better downwash, better calculation of oblique airflow on cylinders and some other small things) was dubbed "the experimental flight model". To keep compatibility with existing third party aircraft, this new "experimental" flight model was initially opt-in to collect feedback...kinda like a live beta.

After the "experimental" flightmodel was deemed tested and good, it became the new (experimental) flight model. As I said, it is of higher fidelity than the previous model, but for reasons of backward compatibility (aircraft tuned for the old flightmodel) there is now a choice for aircraft authors to pick in the aircraft file which flightmodel they want the plane to run on.

There is also a switch in the GUI for the user to set - so you can force planes tuned for the "legacy" flightmodel to run with the "new (experimental)" flightmodel if you would like to see the difference.

[BobFS88 640]

6 minutes ago, Janov said:

I have (tried) to explain this to you several times at length in the other forums. I have little hope that another time would be more succesful. I, for example, have a hard time understanding the string theory, we all have to accept that there are personal limits to comprehension of complex circumstances... unless someone does not WANT to understand something 😉

I tried to explain it. Maybe you will do better then me where there maybe some hope.

Edited June 8, 2021 by BobFS88

[Janov 2,383]

9 minutes ago, BobFS88 said:

Maybe you will do better then me where there maybe some hope.

The truth is he is just trying to be sly in his argumentation claiming that if a flightmodel was changed then it must not have been perfect before...the problem with that argumentative chain is that no one ever said that the flightmodel was perfect - so he is trying to prove something wrong that no one ever claimed 😄.

Not sure if there is any software that is perfect? Probably not.

Edited June 8, 2021 by Janov