SimWorks Studios – Kodiak purchase?

[Bobsk8 12,806]

1 hour ago, Stearmandriver said:

Well, not exactly.  I'd consider the Kodiak more of an air taxi / night freight kind of a platform.... more 135 than 91, using U.S. regs.

There is a bug in SU8 that likes to delete / reset control sensitivity settings every time the sim is launched.  Doesn't happen to everyone, but it is widespread. Worth keeping an eye out for it. 

That said, a good argument can be made that the Kodiak is still too sensitive in both pitch and yaw, with a rudder trim that moves too fast and is too effective.  These are the things the community mod tones down, though I still add some extremity dead zone to pitch on top of that.  This isn't a controls setup issue; if it was, this problem would exist on every aircraft in this sim (it doesn't), and in other sims like DCS (it doesn't).

This dovetails with the other discussion, that there are some weird default flight dynamics in this sim currently. They can be worked around, but it doesn't always happen. 

None of which is to say that you shouldn't be happy with the plane. If you like the way it flies as-is, that's all that matters for you.  But it's understandable why some feel the plane to be too "twitchy", especially if they're used to flying actual aircraft.  

I am very used to flying actual aircraft, and I don't think the Kodiak is twitchy. 

[Stearmandriver 2,313]

Yeah but I'm not experiencing this on a short throw cheap stick with pots. I'm experiencing this on a nice stick with hall sensors.  It still exists even with a stick extension that results in a larger field of movement than your fulcrum.  And as pointed out, there are other aircraft in this sim - and most aircraft in other sims - that don't exhibit this behavior, with the same controls.

The issue isn't just magnitude of moment over a given distance of control deflection; it's the way the moment is introduced, all at once with no sense of inertia at all, like the aircraft is weightless.  This is a different issue from control sensitivity and is more difficult for individual users to adjust their control sensitivities for.  It's the type of thing that reactivity is supposed to compensate for, but doesn't always. 

Asobo seems to understand that they have issues in this realm. They've recently brought an aerodynamicist / test pilot on board full time... so hopefully we see improvements.  The sim is certainly capable of not flying like this; there are several aircraft that don't exhibit this behavior, and mods improve it on many others.  So I'm confident it'll get sorted out. 

[Bobsk8 12,806]

1 minute ago, Stearmandriver said:

Yeah but I'm not experiencing this on a short throw cheap stick with pots. I'm experiencing this on a nice stick with hall sensors.  It still exists even with a stick extension that results in a larger field of movement than your fulcrum.  And as pointed out, there are other aircraft in this sim - and most aircraft in other sims - that don't exhibit this behavior, with the same controls.

 

I fly a T 16000M with hall sensors....It's not twitchy. 

[Stearmandriver 2,313]

2 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I am very used to flying actual aircraft, and I don't think the Kodiak is twitchy. 

Well like I said, if an individual user is happy with it, that's all that matters to them. But it IS understandable why many of us find it twitchy, and why this opinion seems prevalent among users who have flown similar aircraft. 

[Stearmandriver 2,313]

3 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I fly a T 16000M with hall sensors....It's not twitchy. 

Or... you've just accepted it as is and gotten comfortable operating it as such. That's fine; it's certainly not unflyable as-is or anything.  It can deliver an enjoyable experience in its stock state, as long as you aren't trying to compare it too closely to the feel of a real aircraft. Which of course is always a bit of a fool's errand in desktop simulation - it's never actually going to feel like flying of course. But when you're accustomed to other aircraft models in the sim that achieve a certain level of feel, it's a bit jarring to find one that feels like this. 

Look, I like the Kodiak.  It's my go-to IFR platform on Vatsim right now (admittedly, I prefer the FM mod.)  I'm not saying it's bad.  I'm saying there's room to improve, and we'd all win in that case. 

[Bobsk8 12,806]

Just now, Stearmandriver said:

Well like I said, if an individual user is happy with it, that's all that matters to them. But it IS understandable why many of us find it twitchy, and why this opinion seems prevalent among users who have flown similar aircraft. 

A friend of mine invited me over to her home years ago to help her college age son with FSX.  He claimed it was unflyable and he had been flying it for about a year. I took off, and it was the most bizarre flying experience I had ever encountered. It took me about 15 minutes to dial in the control parameters to make it fly like the aircraft I had flown in real life. The problem is, he had no idea what a real aircraft should feel like or how to adjust the sim to achieve that feeling.  I think that many of the twitchy complaints that we read about is due to the combination of control setups, flying inferior  default aircraft, and no piloting skills. There are many experienced real world pilots that are flying the Kodiak, and love it. 

[Stearmandriver 2,313]

32 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

There are many experienced real world pilots that are flying the Kodiak, and love it. 

The majority of the ones I know personally, and have talked to on forums, are in agreement with me.  Especially those of us that have flown similar planes and not just 4 or 6 place recips.  I'm not saying you're wrong for liking it, but you also can't dismiss our position by attributing it to shoddy controls or lack of actual experience, I'm afraid. 

[Sonosusto 683]

3 hours ago, MadDog said:

Why wouldn't it be GA?  If it's not Air Carrier or Military, it's got to be GA.

I think Stearmandriver explained it better than I could. However....the term general aviation has a lot of planes/industries underneath that umbrella term so I guess it might as well be called a General Aviation plane.

[Sonosusto 683]

1 hour ago, Stearmandriver said:

The majority of the ones I know personally, and have talked to on forums, are in agreement with me.  Especially those of us that have flown similar planes and not just 4 or 6 place recips.  I'm not saying you're wrong for liking it, but you also can't dismiss our position by attributing it to shoddy controls or lack of actual experience, I'm afraid. 

I see your point here but I tried a few things with the Kodiak and various yokes. I tried my pro flight yoke with a spring mod (don't recommend, by the way), the Thrustmaster T.16000 and the Honeycomb Alpha yoke and found a few different things. Keep in mind I don't have a lot of experience in anything. So, I am not an expert. Nor should I have any authority in any subject matter.

First....if left completely default, with no changes to axis's, sensitivity, dead zone, the "other" dead zone and reactivity I found that the Kodiak was, in fact, very twitchy. Mostly pitch but rudder as well. Annoying, in fact.The worst offender was the pro flight yoke. Old gear, old sensors. I cleaned the heck out of it and did that spring mod like 5 years ago but even modifying out that terrible middle "dent" that it suffered from didn't prevent the twitchy behavior, per se. I turned the dead zone(s) down quite a bit, tuned down the sensitivity and reactivity. That made a huge difference...but again, still twitchy with the pitch.A tie for me was the honeycomb alpha and T.16000 stick. I have used the Honeycomb for a few months and won't fly without it but the T.16000 I have used often. Previously for DCS but mostly for Elite:Dangerous and Star Citizen. So, you know that it's already used. This was less twitchy for me compared to the Alpha by defaults. Strange. The Honeycomb Alpha required more tuning to get things right but in the long run, reducing these settings made a huge difference for both. I usually use the Alpha for everything, even when the plane doesn't have a yoke. I did kind of the same in XP11 where I used the T.16000 for pretty much everything there.

I know you already mentioned the settings not being the primary issue, Stearmandriver. I hear you. Coming from someone that knows little, I would have to say that really....sometimes really....tuning the settings down made the difference between yokes and sticks.That sounded dirty haha. Sorry.

I think the biggest difference is that the T.16000 is very light and sensitive and the Alpha is heavier...feels heavier so that middle dent you already expect. I don't know. Still one of the best planes to fly at the moment. Oh, and I have not tried the FM mod as your describe. Does it work post most recent update?

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Sonosusto

[Stearmandriver 2,313]

4 hours ago, Sonosusto said:

Still one of the best planes to fly at the moment. Oh, and I have not tried the FM mod as your describe. Does it work post most recent update?

I do agree, I like the plane very much, and I'm sure some of this is subjective.

The mod in question still works well with the most recent update.  It's a little harder to find these days after the author removed his mods from .to following an idiotic complaint from Aerosoft, but they're still available on his discord.  Dm me if you'd like to try it. 

[por930 51]

I have just tried the mod and it certainly seems to calm down the elevator and rudder, and reduces the dropped left wing on take off. The a/c requires a lot of care when taking off and landing, and seems to really twitch about on landing. No doubt, this is a combination of controls and the a/c config. I still find the Kodiak a handful to take off and land.

I have had a PPL for some 20 years, and my trusty 172 would never behave the same way. Sure, not much power as the Kodiak, but it seems to be on steroids with control surfaces.

At the end of the day, while we want a flight sim a/c to be close to the real thing, it still has to be enjoyable. I seem to return to the C208. With its mods, it is a nice a/c to fly...especially with the pms GTN 750 addition.

I have been on flight sim now since the 1980's. It seems the this aircraft's parameters require very well tuned controllers?  

[jcomm 5,961]

8 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

A friend of mine invited me over to her home years ago to help her college age son with FSX.  He claimed it was unflyable and he had been flying it for about a year. I took off, and it was the most bizarre flying experience I had ever encountered. It took me about 15 minutes to dial in the control parameters to make it fly like the aircraft I had flown in real life. The problem is, he had no idea what a real aircraft should feel like or how to adjust the sim to achieve that feeling.  I think that many of the twitchy complaints that we read about is due to the combination of control setups, flying inferior  default aircraft, and no piloting skills. There are many experienced real world pilots that are flying the Kodiak, and love it. 

Bob,

first of all a big Thank You ! for having pointed me, with your repited claims of quality of the SWS Kodiak 100, to this addon which I was aware since release but hadn't convinced me. I am now a devoted user of the SWS Kodiak, and I am sure that together with the FBW A320 it'll become one of my preferred aircraft addons for MFS ! Actually SWS is now a reference for me in as far as MFS addons go. (*)

Now and regarding your story about the settings on your friend's controllers, I agree and it rises yet another question, and one that has been rised a few times - ASOBO should be able to create and easier interface for specific aircraft controller settings.

I have only three old controllers, Saitek Combat Rudder Pedals, what remains of an old X52 Pro offered by a friend long ago ( the HOTAS unit ) and the mighty T.16000, probably my preferred stick ever !

I have the settings arranged as "Prop Single", "Prop Multi", "Jet", "Jet with no throttle axis", "Heli", and then as I select an aircraft for a flight session in MFS, I visit the Controllers menu and choose the necessary settings... It's a bit of a mess... It would be great if instead of "Generic" we could have a collection of controller settings associated with each addon aircraft, reverting to general settings if there were none specifically set.

(*) BTW, I am on 1.0.0 on the Manuals. Is this the latest version ? I believe I've seen an update mentioned but am noit sure it has been released yet ?

Edited March 21, 2022 by jcomm

[tup61 1,591]

21 minutes ago, por930 said:

I have been on flight sim now since the 1980's. It seems the this aircraft's parameters require very well tuned controllers?  

Perhaps some people tune their controllers too much...? Or perhaps specific hardware simply is more sensitive? I use a rather basic Logitech Extreme 3D Pro and I can't remember ever looking at options like curves etc. and my Kodiak isn't twitchy, at least not in my personal experience. Maybe I am just used to how my controller works and perhaps someone else might find the Kodiak completely uncontrollable on my PC... but it's fine for me. It's all very personal.

[Ricardo41 5,958]

I don't find the Kodiak 100 twitchy at all in MSFS 2020. Neither on take-off, nor on landing (leaving aside the "nose drop on ap disconnect during approach and landing" issue).

If your plane feels twitchy, it's a) your controller isn't properly configured or b) you're not following proper procedures.

(Leaving aside the imprecise terminology, no idea what "twitchy" is supposed to mean exactly. Without some documentation actually showing the issue, we can't really properly troubleshoot the OP's probems).

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,799]

Why people are having so many  issues and others have none is a bit of a mystery, something odd is going on.

One thing to watch is take-off torque which varies with pressure altitude and temp and more importantly how Vr changes versus weight.  .Vr can be as low as 52 knots with a light load,

Chart of Takeoff and Landing speeds versus weight from flightsim.to

https://flightsim.to/file/28082/kodiak-100-t-o-ldg-speeds-in-lbs-kgs

Take-off torque at 4:03

 

and Vr to use for different weights at 9:16

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Glenn Fitzpatrick