MSFS2020 - A Year on in review

[DylanM 1,069]

8 hours ago, Moria15 said:

Interestingly, I had someone round the other week who is a CFI at my local airfield.  He hadn't seen MSFS yet and wondered what all the noise was about, so I sat him in front of my screen and said.. have fun and let me know what yoiu think of the planes.

Well he went straight in to the 172 which he instructs on and after a bit I said.. well..  he said.. yeah  not bad, but it's obviously a much newer plane than any at the airfield,  none of them can perform quite as good as this, but as a brand new one, it's great.  Are there any options for degrading it to the level that most people fly at with a 10 year  old one thats had lots of maintenance and lots of flying hours?

Kinda made me chuckle some.

Graham

Now that's a really interesting and valuable perspective. Perhaps in the realism settings, there could be some "mechanical degradation" modelled in.

[abrams_tank 7,476]

1 hour ago, mtaxp said:

I'm sorry but the whole "MSFS has higher resolution" like it's a 4k vs 2k debate really misses the point when it comes to a flight model.

There are a bunch more stuff than "how many slices" can be done and i'm sure you know, that matter to what consists of a flight model.

So any attempt to sum up all the topic with "how many slices it does" is misinformation, x-plane does way lot more than that but I won't start putting content here partly to avoid all users like @abrams_tank that I really gave up on any discussion with their almost promotional/attemp of self-pleasing behavior, but mostly because everything is available to all and has been discussed and explained already many times. 

Look. I take Matt's word over yours any day.  Not only did Matt accumulate a good reputation in the MSFS community before being hired by Asobo, he is also very knowledgeable about flight simulators and aerodynamics in flight simulators.  And he had to correct your statement.

I see already that you are trying to correct Matt's statement.  Whatever.

Edited August 28, 2021 by abrams_tank

[MattNischan 3,872]

18 minutes ago, mtaxp said:

There are a bunch more stuff than "how many slices" can be done and i'm sure you know, that matter to what consists of a flight model.

So any attempt to sum up all the topic with "how many slices it does" is misinformation

Sure, but within the realm of a single sample (BET slice or surface grid sample), the two models are extraordinarily much more similar than they are different. They both use a very similar mathematical and geometric approach based on airfoil shapes to generate a local force at the slice or sample position. Flight model resolution is material here because it dictates how accurately you can detect the exact positioning of local forces (as opposed to interpolating them across a larger area), which is especially important when the lifting surfaces are not experiencing uniform or uniform-like (i.e. scaled reasonably across the surface) lifts. In addition, sample resolution is important in resolving the local forces where they intercept the 3d air simulation field.

I may work on MSFS now but I'm no means trying to be a superfan over here; I think all the sims have done extremely important work at moving the field forward in different ways. I'm just offering my knowledge based on what is happening in both simulations. Every approach has it's plusses and minuses, but MSFS's approach definitely has modeling potential a bit beyond what has previously existed. Does that mean the whole thing is considered done and dusted? Well, of course not. But I think folks get too wrapped up in their own preferences, loyalties, and previous experience to really compare these things objectively.

-Matt

Edited August 28, 2021 by MattNischan

[Moria15 950]

37 minutes ago, DylanM said:

Now that's a really interesting and valuable perspective. Perhaps in the realism settings, there could be some "mechanical degradation" modelled in.

I thought so...   for me, an idea struck me that something like OnAir could use that sort of degradation when you rent an aircraft based on the number of engine hours etc, but as you say that would require something in the sim to allow that level of degradation.

I think it would be fun to rent an aircraft and have it's performance determined by no of engine hours and no of airframe hours rather than having every aircraft fly in brand new condition.

Graham

[MattNischan 3,872]

1 hour ago, DylanM said:

Perhaps in the realism settings, there could be some "mechanical degradation" modelled in.

 

1 hour ago, Moria15 said:

but as you say that would require something in the sim to allow that level of degradation

I think lots of folks missed this when it came out months ago, but there is a wear and tear slider in the menu.

-Matt

[ADamiani 470]

1 hour ago, Moria15 said:

I thought so...   for me, an idea struck me that something like OnAir could use that sort of degradation when you rent an aircraft based on the number of engine hours etc, but as you say that would require something in the sim to allow that level of degradation.

I think it would be fun to rent an aircraft and have it's performance determined by no of engine hours and no of airframe hours rather than having every aircraft fly in brand new condition.

Graham

A2A C172 has degradation over time, also depending on how you take care of the aircraft, and especially the engine. But they haven't announced anything for MSFS unfortunately.

A.

[Romeo_Tango 143]

25 minutes ago, MattNischan said:

 

I think lots of folks missed this when it came out months ago, but there is a wear and tear slider in the menu.

-Matt

I do use this option. Unfortunately, I have to re-set the setting for every flight. Just QOL setting that need to be saved.

[ADamiani 470]

3 hours ago, MattNischan said:

I think the realistic answer there is that it depends on the situation. It potentially has more to offer there because the number of samples that can experience the correct time displaced wave of laminar flow separation is relatively high. But it all depends on how the flight model has been configured, and what is definitely clear is that not everyone finds it intuitive to tune. It is a much, much more sound flight model than the FSX era, but this also presents its own challenges. Whereas previously you could just grab a FDE value for X, turn it to 11 and go "I want my plane to do more X", now you have to think about why a plane does X and configure the lift surfaces and curves instead.

This is the usual "linearity illusion": if I want to double the effect I just have to double the coefficient, or anyway find the proportionality coefficient.

Unfortunately, this is not how it works with this model.

And if the airflow is not perfectly linear, higher order terms, and chaotic effects, enter the game.

An MD80 pilot once told me that they had specific training about wing stalls because the chaotic flow from the wing also stalls the elevator, which is high up in the tail, and from that moment on the whole aircraft basically flies like a brick and the elevator has no authority to make it pitch down. Nasty situation. And it brings another problem on the table: chaotic flow from a stalled surface interacting with other surfaces. Not easy at all to model.

I agree with you about the higher effort needed from 3rd party developers. At the same time, I think there are recent developments in machine learning that can bridge some gaps ...

A.

 

 

[Moria15 950]

2 hours ago, MattNischan said:

 

I think lots of folks missed this when it came out months ago, but there is a wear and tear slider in the menu.

-Matt

well I'll be.. thank you Matt 🙂

Graham

[scotchegg 4,246]

1 hour ago, Moria15 said:

well I'll be.. thank you Matt 🙂

 

Yeah, that one passed me by too.

[bean_sprout 1,201]

With regards to the flight model I'll give my usual short and sweet response and quote Louis Armstrong: "If it feels good, it is good."

bs

Edited August 29, 2021 by bean_sprout

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,799]

2 hours ago, bean_sprout said:

With regards to the flight model I'll give my usual short and sweet response and quote Louis Armstrong: "If it feels good, it is good."

bs

I would agree with that.

So many people get obsessed with the book numbers regardless of the fact that in many cases the POH is a work of creative fiction with some numbers optimised as much as they can get away with for marketing spin and simultaneously in other areas conservative to give some leeway for insurance and litigation.

Then you get in a real plane and find that no two aircraft are the same anyway even when straight off the assembly line. 

Then add in some wear and tear and "creative maintenance" that may be legal but raises eyebrows, not to mention owner mods ranging from something as simple as a different prop that needs approval through to adding flaps to something that did not have them (c120 is  a classic example for this).

Then there is the tendency for some owners to treat their aircraft like an only child and spare no expense on maintenance and upgrades while in other cases it is a work horse that needs to earn its keep and they only do the bare minimum to keep it hopefully safe and flying legally.

In the end what matters the most is not numbers it is whether the sim aircraft in question "feels like" an airplane of that type should.  There are always examples in any sim of aircraft that match the book numbers perfectly but do not feel right or feel "generic" .  Carenado are often criticised for exactly this.

Does MSFS "feel right"  - for me in some aircraft absolutely yes (Warrior II, c140) and in other cases hell no (any float plane being a case in point here).   With MSFS it is a classic case of when it is good it is breathtakingly good and when it is bad it is truly awful.  

 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[RandallR 450]

What's impressed me the most is how close (sometimes) the feel and response comes to the actual aircraft.  Now, since I've only flown a few of these in the RW, I have to go by the POH for others.  One of those is the 208B.  It's not one of my favorite aircraft by any means, but I want to be able to use it well down the road when I get into NeoFly or something similar, so I always give it some time each week.

The thing that boggles my mind is I'll set my torque and RPM for cruise based on the density altitude and weight as recommended by the POH charts.  After everything is trimmed up and humming along I'll glance at the charts for the expected TAS.  It's not uncommon to look over at the PFD and read a TAS within one knot of the chart...

Are you kidding me...?

Edited August 29, 2021 by RandallR

[ADamiani 470]

6 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

 

In the end what matters the most is not numbers it is whether the sim aircraft in question "feels like" an airplane of that type should.  There are always examples in any sim of aircraft that match the book numbers perfectly but do not feel right or feel "generic" .  Carenado are often criticised for exactly this.

 

I am sorry, but what makes it "feel like" an airplane or not is exactly the algorithms that produce the illusion, how accurate they are, and the degree to which developers understand and take advantage of them.

Of course, you can enjoy a good steak even if you are not a cook, but if you are a mathematician, a physicist, or an engineer, you will probably want to know what happens under the hood.

A.

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,799]

12 minutes ago, ADamiani said:

I am sorry, but what makes it "feel like" an airplane or not is exactly the algorithms that produce the illusion, how accurate they are, and the degree to which developers understand and take advantage of them.

Of course, you can enjoy a good steak even if you are not a cook, but if you are a mathematician, a physicist, or an engineer, you will probably want to know what happens under the hood.

A.

 

Totally disagree.

I did in fact fail my second year fluid flow and thermodynamics units 45 odd years ago at around the point I was dropping out of my engineering degree but mainly because I did not sit the exams, not lack of mathematical ability, and I did enough of it to know that the sort of math done by PC based algorithms is at best an approximation and guesswork and at worst just wrong.  I do still have my Mollier Enthalpy/Entropy chart I kept as a souvenir 😄

If nothing else turbulent flow is non linear and chaotic.

From a meta perspective the approach taken in MSFS is going to give more consistent results long term than the Blade Element approximations done by X-Plane but neither are going to give a real world approximation that will work alone without tables and adjustments based on "feel" .

 

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Glenn Fitzpatrick