First A2A Comanche preview

[Paul K 1,348]

2 hours ago, Mace said:

They went forward with it -- A2A did release the B-17 for P3D, it's in their store.  It wasn't that long ago, probably in early 2021.  I can't remember exactly.

No, the one I was referring to was going to be a completely new model inside and out. I had the P3D one and loved it, though there are some issues with the fuselage shape which would hopefully be corrected in a new model.

[UrgentSiesta 932]

On 6/22/2022 at 9:08 AM, Bobsk8 said:

I had the Comanche in P3D and flew it alot. Don't feel like buying it again. 

If it's as good in MSFS as it is in P3D, I can't imagine NOT buying it again.

I will happily and immediately UNinstall every other GA piston single on my HD.

 

[UrgentSiesta 932]

On 6/22/2022 at 7:14 PM, jaytee73 said:

I have all A2A A/c on P3D including the Spit - but I dont see a need for it in MSFS - The Flying Iron does well for me

Flying Iron makes good stuff and I have all of their birds (even the XP P-38) - and very happy they're going back to add CFD to their MSFS stable.

But they do not go nearly as deep as A2A does (and we need no proof other than the sheer number of addons they're pumping out). Further, the dev team are heavily involved in their very first DCS World project, and that is probably as complicated as anything in MSFS (esp from a coding perspective).

If A2A has figured out how to bypass the sim's inherent limitations (as they did with FSX/P3D) - particularly with taildragger warbirds - their Spit will reign.

[UrgentSiesta 932]

On 7/3/2022 at 10:09 AM, abrams_tank said:

Does anyone know why A2A never developed for XPlane? I see this one comment in the A2A forums but I don’t know how accurate this comment is:

https://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=67950&sid=dcdc2bffa71cb98cee668db2941aecf4&start=15

So A2A sees MSFS as as a more “open” platform than XPlane?

Perhaps it was accurate in v10 or earlier, but certainly not in v11 & v12.

For e.g., SimCoders have an extensive "external" application for their AccuSim-like Reality Enhancement Pack, the free Zibo 737 has a high fidelity FMC that is far more sophisticated than the Default 737's, and there are a number of devs who have delivered quite sophisticated custom-coded systems for many aspects of their addons. Probably the most well-known are the Hot Start TBM and Challenger, but there are plenty of others such as FlyJSim's Q400 and JustFlight's 146, et al.

[UrgentSiesta 932]

On 7/8/2022 at 3:08 AM, bobcat999 said:

[GA piston single] is obviously the most populous type in MSFS now, and probably any sim.  I have so many that there are some I will probably never fly again in the sim now.
How many do we need?

I even love the C152 improvement project and the default C172's - let's face it, we are being spoilt now.  I wish someone would do a real in-depth C172 though.

It's not "How many...", it's "how good" that matters. Which isn't any different than it's been in all the previous versions of all the sims.

Most of the MSFS GA addons are basically just skin deep eye-candy, with a few notable exceptions like BB's C310.

And even the C310, justifiably regarded as one of the very best in MSFS, lacks an A2A-grade flight model, which is why I'd rather fly the free CaptMatto's Bonanza mod.

MilViz/BlackBird did their usual phenomenal job on systems, but the flight model feels more like P3D than MSFS to me. Yeah, it "hits the numbers", but it feels quite typically mechanical bull vs the CFD-Lite birds, and of course can't hold a candle to the A2A's.

And "a real in-depth [XYZ aircraft]..." is exactly the type of addon that A2A is going to bring us.

As to how many we need? At A2A's level of fidelity, "never enough" is the only correct answer.

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by UrgentSiesta
grammar

[sd_flyer 6,049]

29 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

 

And even the C310, justifiably regarded as one of the very best in MSFS, lacks an A2A-grade flight model, which is why I'd rather fly the free CaptMatto's Bonanza mod.

 

 

I'm just curious how do you judge a flight model? I love A2A as well, but nothing is perfect. Even as sophisticated models of A2A do have their own limitations.

[UrgentSiesta 932]

1 hour ago, sd_flyer said:

I'm just curious how do you judge a flight model? I love A2A as well, but nothing is perfect. Even as sophisticated models of A2A do have their own limitations.

Fair question and absolutely correct.

There's a number of different ways to answer it, of course. For me, it's a number of things, but the overwhelming portion is simply how closely the addon approximates the way the IRL aircraft I fly myself and ride on handle and react to atmospheric conditions.

To grossly oversimplify, there were "helicopters" present in MSFS before SU11. And everyone knew they were not much more representative of rotary wing flight than amusement park rides. But hey, they go straight up and can land on a helipad, so...

Post-SU11 we have the wonderful little Cabri, Asobo's Reference Model painstakingly created from many real-world tests. Its FM is quite impressive, and IMHO measures up well to other addons in sims that are known for High Fidelity helo FMs.

Even so, we also have the rather unimpressive Nemeth 407, which aside from quite a few systems errors, also misses at least a few signficant helo FM aspects.

This applies similarly to the fixed wing addon FMs available in MSFS. Some are great, some good, and many are disappointing.

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by UrgentSiesta

[lwt1971 7,420]

Just catching up, man oh man so great to hear A2A is very close to moving the Comanche to beta! Not sure if this was posted above, but here's what Scott said subsequently on the thread:

"The new Accu-Sim engine is so impressive it can tell us how an airplane will fly before we even fly it. Just by building the actual airplane, prop and engine. To give an example, the first time we built the Comanche using the new physics tech I added full power and the nose went way up. And I thought "that's not right." Now keep in mind, I've flown this Comanche since 2012, over 1000 hrs. It's like a nice broken in pair of shoes. However I learned something, that we as pilots do things in the cockpit subconsciously. When a pilot adds power in an airplane, he or she naturally and without consciousness, applies forward pressure on the yoke. It's just pure habit and instinct because, after many hours of flying the brain automates this action. So I took the Comanche up to test this so I could "tune it" in the sim. It turned out it was exactly correct. Speed, attitude, climb rate, ball deflection and rudder required were spot on. No tuning required. Just to get this right before required about 100 sim load/tweak/load actions. This new tech, right out of the gates, spot on.

Same exact thing happened later with the flaps. In the Comanche, with it's unique manual flaps, the nose goes up and down as if it's connected to the flap lever and stops. But in the sim after the initial nose down, the nose went up after and I thought again "this isn't right." So I went up again, hands off the yoke, dropped the flaps. Immediate nose down as I remembered so well, but when I kept my hands off the yoke, immediately after the nose went up, down, up, down, etc. until it settled. Then put the video up and played it, counted the oscillations and pitch movements, exactly the same in Accu-Sim. I know some here may thing "OK, so..." but for me, this is nirvana. It's completely changed the game for us. The extra year+ of developing this new system now seems like a bargain in comparison to what it is giving us back.

So if we did make a B377 again, this new Accu-Sim engine would give us interesting insights into how that plane actually flies without us ever flying it ourselves. At this point however we are only interested in Accu-Simming airplanes we have full access too. Not just for flight physics, but many other things too. Doing airplanes we never flew (or can't fly) is something down the road."


I'm really interested in how exactly their brand new revamped accusim engine works atop MSFS, key word being "atop" (for a humble and rarely posting dev like A2A to say  "Every aspect of Accu-Sim has been re-done with the future in mind. This new system is light years ahead of what we had before and will carry us 10 years or more into the future" is really noteable). Systems can be run fully externally of MSFS (i.e. Fenix) but the flight-model/aerodynamics cannot (confirmed by Fenix and other sources including Asobo themselves that it's impossible to have a flight model external of MSFS). So my guess is the flight model/aerodynamics part of accusim is probably acting like a "wrapper" code layer that then eventually uses the core MSFS aerodynamics engine under the covers... and unlike the early days of MSFS, the core platform must now be capable enough for A2A to revamp and adapt their accusim engine for MSFS.
 

Edited December 11, 2022 by lwt1971

[Dominique_K 10,150]

6 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

I'm just curious how do you judge a flight model? I love A2A as well, but nothing is perfect. Even as sophisticated models of A2A do have their own limitations.

They do I suppose but the A2A craftmanship has also improved over the years. Their last offerings  (like the Comanche or Texan) were much better than the early ones  (like the Cub and the P-40 for instance). I have all the four (and more).

 Talking of the Cub that I have flown a lot, both the A2A FSX one and the MSFS (and the FSD one in F2k2 but this is another story), I find the Asobo's bird more in tune with what I read and watch from real flights. Which is, for answering your question, the only way a non pilot can judge.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Dominique_K

[sd_flyer 6,049]

10 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Fair question and absolutely correct.

There's a number of different ways to answer it, of course. For me, it's a number of things, but the overwhelming portion is simply how closely the addon approximates the way the IRL aircraft I fly myself and ride on handle and react to atmospheric conditions.

 

 

And how many of us handled aircraft IRL in different atmospheric conditions to pass the judgement? Often we have have to rely on expert opinion or reputation of developers.  I can tell you from my experience just having pilot certificate is one thing. Fly for a living is another. Instruct and own is completely different ball park.  

[UrgentSiesta 932]

1 hour ago, sd_flyer said:

And how many of us handled aircraft IRL in different atmospheric conditions to pass the judgement? Often we have have to rely on expert opinion or reputation of developers.  I can tell you from my experience just having pilot certificate is one thing. Fly for a living is another. Instruct and own is completely different ball park.  

Yes. And...?

You asked how I judge an FM, and I answered that my preference is driven by comparing my IRL flight experience to the simulation's ability to re-produce that experience.

Is that somehow insufficient?

Another perspective is that it's rather easy to pick off the differences simply by comparing simulated flight dynamics across multiple sims, especially if you can compare the same aircraft (ideally from the same developer). Or at least a very similar airframe will often suffice.

 

[DD_Arthur 1,065]

How can you judge the A2A flight model in MSFS?

So far, all we have from A2A are imaginary aircraft.

Am I missing something?

[sd_flyer 6,049]

3 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Yes. And...?

You asked how I judge an FM, and I answered that my preference is driven by comparing my IRL flight experience to the simulation's ability to re-produce that experience.

Is that somehow insufficient?

Another perspective is that it's rather easy to pick off the differences simply by comparing simulated flight dynamics across multiple sims, especially if you can compare the same aircraft (ideally from the same developer). Or at least a very similar airframe will often suffice.

 

I assume you have flown 172 IRL? How does it compare with A2A say for P3D?

[jpe828 624]

2 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

I assume you have flown 172 IRL? How does it compare with A2A say for P3D?

I have 250+ hours in a 172 (R, SP, N, and M models), The WB sim one feels right on the money, and flies like the real one. 

[blueshark747 1,843]

Don't care for the Comanche aircraft in general, but it's great to see A2A in the MSFS scene.