23 hours ago, jcomm said:

At the very same time I am also expecting the best out of XP12 and whatever Austin has added to it's already great flight dynamics model. 

I'm curious.  Did LR hire a full time flight tester and send him up in a real plane to collect data like this: 

Just curious, because it's not cheap to hire a full time flight tester, then attach data collectors on the plane, and send the flight tester up over and over again in this plane to collect data in this way. IMO, this is kind of a perk for us, that a home market flight simulator is a triple A game and has the budget of a triple A game.  Prior to MSFS, home market flight simulators had a much smaller budget.

Anyways, I don't think MSFS will always have this budget and team size.  They will probably reduce the budget and team size as time goes by. So best is to enjoy it while we can.

Edited March 25, 20224 yr by abrams_tank

7 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

Did LR hire a full time flight tester and send him up in a real plane to collect data like this

As far as I know the flight tester is Austin himself with his Lancair Evolution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEmD5-4TTIc

Edited March 25, 20224 yr by Emerson67

4 hours ago, Emerson67 said:

As far as I know the flight tester is Austin himself with his Lancair Evolution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEmD5-4TTIc

I’m impressed with what Austin has done with the small budget he has.  But still, with a small budget, you run into limitations.  The boss himself going up as a flight tester is not ideal.  Typically, you want to delegate this task to an actual designated flight tester, like Asobo has.  This way, the boss is free to do other more important stuff. 

6 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

I’m impressed with what Austin has done with the small budget he has.  But still, with a small budget, you run into limitations.  The boss himself going up as a flight tester is not ideal.  Typically, you want to delegate this task to an actual designated flight tester, like Asobo has.  This way, the boss is free to do other more important stuff. 

Well, in this aspect I see it in a rather different perspective bacause Austin is also the only programmer of the FM, and so he gathers the best of two worlds - being an exceptional programmer and a pilot with a lot more knowledge than the "average" GA pilot...

Remember how it's done in A2A where Scott himself does the testing, lately with some help from his son.

As much as Sebastien and the ASOBO team are great, they're far from having the experience and knowledge about aviation / aerodynamics that Austin has gathered along his track as pilot, aircraft builder and the exceptional Master behind X-Plane. ASOBO is Great for sure, but so are Austin and LR and, remember taht sometimes sizes is not what matters ....

6 minutes ago, jcomm said:

Well, in this aspect I see it in a rather different perspective bacause Austin is also the only programmer of the FM, and so he gathers the best of two worlds - being an exceptional programmer and a pilot with a lot more knowledge than the "average" GA pilot...

Remember how it's done in A2A where Scott himself does the testing, lately with some help from his son.

As much as Sebastien and the ASOBO team are great, they're far from having the experience and knowledge about aviation / aerodynamics that Austin has gathered along his track as pilot, aircraft builder and the exceptional Master behind X-Plane. ASOBO is Great for sure, but so are Austin and LR and, remember taht sometimes sizes is not what matters ....

Not for data gathering or data entry.  Data gathering/ data entry, is a lower level position in most organizations.  If it's purely for data gathering/ data entry, you don't want the boss doing that, IMO.

Having said that, Sebastian also has his PPL.  He is also a real life pilot.  

4 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Having said that, Sebastian also has his PPL.  He is also a real life pilot.  

Yeah, but a rockie one 🙂

Scott in A2A is the oss and data gathering guy abrams....

Anyway, in aviation we learn every time we go flying ... I do ! and it's been almost 42 yrs now since I got my license ... 

There has to be a very special attention to details, that sometimes for instance even Austin reveals as lacking because he is not focused on some areas, justa s Sebastien. 

Want my opinion ?  ASOBO should merge with LR.... Hmmm, and preferably with 1C / 777 too... Ah!  and with Hardy Heinlin !

 

Edited March 26, 20224 yr by jcomm

@abrams_tank With all my respect to Asobo's PPLs, Austin Meyer has decades of expertise behind him that alone neglects any budget MS thrown on those testers. 

And pretty much the entire LR team have their, not just PPL's, but way more than that. For decades.

Being a real life pilot does not mean you are an expert of aerodynamics and physics, definitely does not mean that you can engineer it in a satisfactory manner.

Also, lots of the feedback and input is coming from aircraft manufactures and the commercial market, recent flight model work for x-plane 12 is the result of "BETA" (check Alia Evtol) working with Austin. The most recent example is how he dialed in the dynamics of super sonic flight with a former IAF instructor. The result what they claim is raw accurate physics numbers with no hacks: https://developer.x-plane.com/2022/02/x-plane-12-flight-model-update-supersonic-transition-delta-wings-and-mass-properties/

No amount of budget by MS can beat that nor does it makes since for LR to spend money on what they already are and involved with (lots of commercial market partners), aviation and aerodynamic experts.

On a more personal note, you seem to overvalue "budget" and the way other companies should operate based on MS record.

 

Edited March 26, 20224 yr by mtaxp

Yes very exciting stuff! I love Seb’s show and tells 🙂

Did you also catch a hint about the clouds?

@abrams_tank: Having a driver license doesn't qualify you for building a car yourself. Only a mechanical engineer can. Same applies analogous for flying. Austin not only has a PPL, but also a degree in aerospace engineering - both since decades, and thus the respective experience.

As always, expectations should be tempered especially considering how new this approach is in a Microsoft sim. Personally, I find it exciting that the ball is moving in this direction, but understand that experience takes time and is not easily bought.

On 3/24/2022 at 2:52 PM, Emerson67 said:

BTW, take a time to explore the developer mode, the aircraft editor  You'll enjoy. Lots of stuff there. You can see the forces in real time (as X-Plane), see several charts drawn in real-time, etc. as you edit flight_model.cfg externally, then apply changes almost immediately. It's a pretty decent tool. I've been tweaking and improving flight models from 3rd-party I found not convincing at all. You'll be suprised how many commercial 3rd-party do not actually adheres to MSFS modern flight model philosophy. They are still FSX under the hood. That's why many of them fly atrociously and users blame the simulator.

Whether addon or default aircraft fly well or as you say "atrociously" is largely nothing whatever to do with the sim they are made for. That's why certain 3rd party aircraft fly beautifully in a variety of different sims and why others do not. I've developed aircraft for around six or seven different sims over 25 years and in all of them you can make most machines fly like a swan or a pig!

Edited March 26, 20224 yr by robert young

6 hours ago, snglecoil said:

As always, expectations should be tempered especially considering how new this approach is in a Microsoft sim. Personally, I find it exciting that the ball is moving in this direction, but understand that experience takes time and is not easily bought.

Experience as a pilot doesn't make you a good developer. That's why simulations have consultants that are not and don't need to be developers. 

Austin Meyer may be a great pilot, but proves that he's a rather poor developer pretty much at every corner, despite the fact that his job is developing, not piloting.

13 hours ago, jcomm said:

remember taht sometimes sizes is not what matters ....

Unless you're trying to make a small indie game, size is absolutely what matters. The size of the team. The size of the resources available. The size of the budget. And this is shown quite clearly by the evolution MSFS has done in a year and a half, while Xplane 12 still looks like a game from a generation ago. 

Flight simulators are pretty much the exact opposite of small indie games in which a single or a few programmers can punch above their weight. The more time goes on, the more the massive difference in development resources will make its weight felt. The gap is already large and it's only going to widen. 

Edited March 26, 20224 yr by Abriael

13 hours ago, jcomm said:

Well, in this aspect I see it in a rather different perspective bacause Austin is also the only programmer of the FM, and so he gathers the best of two worlds - being an exceptional programmer and a pilot with a lot more knowledge than the "average" GA pilot...

Remember how it's done in A2A where Scott himself does the testing, lately with some help from his son.

As much as Sebastien and the ASOBO team are great, they're far from having the experience and knowledge about aviation / aerodynamics that Austin has gathered along his track as pilot, aircraft builder and the exceptional Master behind X-Plane. ASOBO is Great for sure, but so are Austin and LR and, remember taht sometimes sizes is not what matters ....

And their are more than a few aviation experts  that thought his blade element theory is was not very realistic. The poor accuracy of the simple blade-element theory is very well shown in a report by Durand and Lesley, in which they have computed the performance of a large number of model propellers (80) and compared the computed values with the actual performances obtained from tests on the model propellers themselves.

 

To me, what's most important is that the core sim facilitates the development of realistic aircraft and provides a sound core aerodynamics/physics engine as well as a world that's modelled as closely as possible to the real thing (visualization, terrain, weather, complex airflow, lighting etc etc).  In that regard, MSFS is leagues ahead of anything else as far as I'm concerned, and even before SU8 the likes of the PMDG DC6, Kodiak, and FBW A320 prove that the core aerodynamics/physics engine is definitely up to the task... and the coming complex GA and tubeliners from 3rd party devs will only continue to solidify and showcase what the core engine is capable of. The recent prop physics improvements, coming CFD simulation, soft body physics, world airflow modelling etc etc are all just gonna make that experience better. Combine that with some of the most advanced avionics being provided as part of a core sim (courtesy of the onboarded Working Title team), and it all adds up to a very compelling experience. 

The fact that MS/Asobo are bringing on board RW pilots to help validate/refine certain default aircrafts' flight models is just a bonus as far as I'm concerned, but not a requirement. The core physics/aerodynamics modelling and calculations in software is not a "new" or "innovative" thing, and has been around for ages (i.e. since Flight Unlimited 1, probably before). MS/Asobo's use and combining of different modern technology stacks such as cloud, AI, etc is the true innovation, and as long as they keep focusing on stabilizing and improving the core engine I'm more than happy.

Edited March 26, 20224 yr by lwt1971

1 hour ago, lwt1971 said:

 In that regard, MSFS is leagues ahead of anything else as far as I'm concerned, and even before SU8 the likes of the PMDG DC6, Kodiak, and FBW A320 prove that the core aerodynamics/physics engine is definitely up to the task... and the coming complex GA and tubeliners from 3rd party devs will only continue to solidify and showcase what the core engine is capable of. 

Sorry to disagree but although the Kodiak is beautifully done systems wise and with avionics, I think it has a terrible flight model. It is unnecessarily twitchy in pitch - in fact it is a real handful and shouldn't be. It does require a fair bit of right rudder (or rudder trim) on take off andhigh AoA climb out but apart from that it should be a pussy cat to fly, but it isn't. I recommend you watch the numerous YT videos of various commercial pilots flying the real Kodiak. It is REMARKABLY stable, particularly in pitch. For some reason the devs of this otherwise great addon seem to believe it needs to bob up and down with the slightest stick input. Not so.

I agree though that nearly all sims of the past several years are perfectly capable of delivering very believable flight models, if you know how to do it.

Edited March 26, 20224 yr by robert young