At another forum a discussion about potential errors resulting from blocage of the Ram, Drain and / or Static ports of a Pitot system being modeled by different desktop simulators reminded me of ELITE IFT which I first got as a full version by v7, around 2000, and has been modeling this various types of failures since ever.

I know icing effects have been modeled in simulators like fs9, fsx, ms flight, p3d, now also MFS, xp9, 10,11 and now 12, and even in DCS World, as well as in Aerowinx PSX.

Wonder if the level of detail is such that users can actually make good use of the simulation to train for their RW flying, like, depending on which port(s) are clogged:

.) Is it the Ram port only?

==> ASI will read 0 knot;

==> no impact in ALT or V/S.

.) Is it the Ram and Drain only?

==> ASI behaves as an ALT increasing as you climb, decreasing as you descend;

==> no impact in ALT or V/S.

.) Is it Static only?

==> ASI will read opposite ALT, increasing as you descend, reducing as you climb;

==> ALT will be frozen o the last read altitude;

==> V/S wll read 0fps.

I noticed XP12 has in it's menus, under Malfunctions, a very comprehensive combination of possibe failures on the pitot and static ports of even multiple pitot systems that can be used in an aircraft.

I didn't have the time to test all possible combinations...

In MFS there surely are icing effects, but there's no way that I know to fail the pitot system(s) at this level of detail using the sim interface.

Probably in all of the simulators plugins / gauges / WASM / ... can be used to model this details for particular aircraft, but my question applies only to the CORE flight simulation and it's ability to natively model such IMPORTANT for AVIATION effects... such as also carburetor ice on reciprocating engines...

Edited November 1, 20223 yr by jcomm

I tested it and in XP12 the failures of Ram + Drain ("pitot blockage"), Static and their combinations work as they should.

Ram port only blockage is not available in the failure screen, although from a training point of view that would be the less useful failure mode (ASI goes to zero, so it is immediately noticeable).

In XP there's also another failure mode, called "Airspeed indicator" failure, which freezes the airspeed at current value (basically a stuck needle), which is another insidious failure mode!

 

Edited November 1, 20223 yr by Murmur

I went MFS, picked the default Robin DR400 and went to UHMA.

METAR UHMA 011900Z 05014G20MPS 0800 R01/0800U BLSN VV/// M04/M06 Q1001 RESN R01/////// NOSIG RMK TDZ R01/05014G20MPS END R01/05015G20MPS QFE747/0996

After taking off I immediately started difficulties in the climb, mostly due to ice accretion on the wings (visible), and then, after no more than 5 min my ASI was frozen at the last speed reading (not at 0) so, this corresponds to a situations where all of the ports got clogged...

Yet, both the ALT and the V/S continued to work flawlessly which is plain wrong.

 

Edited November 1, 20223 yr by jcomm

47 minutes ago, jcomm said:

V/S continued to work flawlessly which is plain wrong.

I told you last night, I'm not "technical".

But I thought the V/S would keep working, just that it wouldn't necessarily be telling you the truth.

Altimeter should freeze? yes/no

12 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Altimeter should freeze? yes/no

Yes, if the 3 ports are clogged because the only that affects it - the static - is clogged too.

Edited November 1, 20223 yr by jcomm

In XP12 I could never feel any problems, nor in aircraft control nor with the pitot system.

Enabling the output of ice accretion 1 & 2 I found that the rate was minimal, so I decided to tune the weather manually, set a huge cumulus layer and then a Cb too, OVERCAST, played with various temperatures, precipitation... but I never got to observe graphically any ice accretion, or to feel it's effects in aircraft performance, and even less in the pitot system ???

I started with the Vans RV 10, with it's G1000, then changed to the clockwork Cessna 172.

I confess I was astonished / disappointed with this result in XP12, and I'm almost 100% sure I didn't do anything wrong 😕 but I'll repeat tests in this sim.

Was finally able to get it going. Might have been due to the fact that the place I started my tests from didn't have scenery in my XP12 install. I fetched the scenery for that area of the Word, repeated the tests, and I finally got ice building up on all but the static ports. Wonder if the static ports never get ice clogged?

Edited November 1, 20223 yr by jcomm

 

4 hours ago, jcomm said:

Yet, both the ALT and the V/S continued to work flawlessly which is plain wrong.

Depending on where they are located on the airframe, static ports rarely freeze over. As long as they remain clear, altitude and VS will continue working just fine.

Edited November 2, 20223 yr by JRBarrett

3 hours ago, jcomm said:

Wonder if the static ports never get ice clogged?

I asked my CFII when logging IR time in clouds last winter in a C172S about static port clogging.

(The C172S NAV III has dual static ports, one for G1000 and one for KAP140 AP, alt static is drawn from inside cabin).

Anyway, He never experienced it. Icing on windshield, wings and pitot happened, but never the static ports. They are flush on the sides of fuselage, not facing the precipitation head on, like the pitot does.

Not saying it cant happen ofc, but you'd basicly have to be an icicle for it to occur in the Cessna, at least.

8 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

Depending on where they are located on the airframe, static ports rarely freeze over. As long as they remain clear, altitude and VS will continue working just fine.

Indeed, and if just as @SAS443 points out bellow ice in tha static ports is rare, then that might also explain why in XP12 I also never got the static ports to clog due to ice...

8 hours ago, SAS443 said:

I asked my CFII when logging IR time in clouds last winter in a C172S about static port clogging.

(The C172S NAV III has dual static ports, one for G1000 and one for KAP140 AP, alt static is drawn from inside cabin).

Anyway, He never experienced it. Icing on windshield, wings and pitot happened, but never the static ports. They are flush on the sides of fuselage, not facing the precipitation head on, like the pitot does.

Not saying it cant happen ofc, but you'd basicly have to be an icicle for it to occur in the Cessna, at least.

This is interesting to know! Thx for sharing.

In gliders the most common occurrences are related to pilot error ( forgetting to take the tape off the ports during the first inspection of the day ) or due to "mosquito clogging" 🙂

Between MFS and XP12 what I found was that under the same situation - airfield and real world weather:

.) structural icing occurs at a much faster rate in MFS than in XP12, and it is deppicted graphically in a more evident, I'd say realistic way, allowing the virtual pilot to start noticing patches of ice accretion here & there, specially during night operations when using the ice lights;

.) in XP12 if you leave the aircraft on ground and wait for a while before starting to taxi and while the output data show ice accretion increasing, the moment you try to taxi the aircraft barely moves. In MFS this does not happen - you can gain speed, and taxi for departure, but then if you start your takeoff run it'll most probably end in a crash. 

I'd say XP12 is calculating aerodynamic degradation due to icing on ground as if the aircraft was flying and making it impact the physics as if the state of flght was "AIRCRAFT FLYING"? Or might it be due to prop icing? But still, I find it more plausibly modeled in MFS.

.) I was able to find difficulty in steering along the iced rw, specially under x-wind conditions (light x-wind) in both XP12 and MFS, so both appear to model the effects of ice in wheel adherence to the runway surface, with XP12 being a bit more "intense".

CONCLUSIONS SO FAR: I am comparing this kind of operations in desktop flight simulators. Don't have ELITE or PSX installed, but both model icing effects too, inflight, and PSX also on ground. I remember Airline Simulator 2 also did model such effects very plausibly (for the time), and so did FLIGHT UNLIMITED. I honestly can't remember how PROPILOT and PROPILOT 99 as well as Fly! and Fly2! did it. ELITE does not model much of ground physics at all. I stopped using combat air simulators, so no comparison here...

Overall I'd say MFS and XP12 do a good job simulating the effects of icing, and I prefer MFS for the visuals and some aspects of cell and wing ice accretion impact on aerodynamics while due to the possibility to specifically manipulate pitot system malfunctions, as well as many other, XP12 is way ahead in this area when both sims are compared bare bones (no addons).

I am sure good addon aircraft can implement / fine tune this effects and bring to both simulators competence in terms of giving simmers a good idea of what icing means in RW aviation.

I'll try to bring here other aspects of flight and associated operations simulation among the available platforms. It's better to do it out of their specific forums because it's always seen as bashing or word not allowed-ism when done there, and here at the "Hangar" we can address differet platforms outside of their official forums, and compare in an as much as possible unbiased way their features regarding important aspects of flight simulation.

Would like my next comparison to focus on Prop Effects, but I'l wait for the release of SU11 final (probably would even be wiser to wait for SU12) before I try to compare MFS and XP12 regarding prop effects.

Edited November 2, 20223 yr by jcomm

15 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

 

Maybe they dumbed it down in later updates due to user's request?

2 hours ago, Murmur said:

Maybe they dumbed it down in later updates due to user's request?

Out of curiosity, what are your assistance options set at?

In the meanwhile, its not unlikely that Asobo may have turned things down, because there were tons of complaints back in the day about the icing being "unrealistic" and even more threads and articles with people asking plaintively how to disable icing effects completely in the sim.

In this case the numerous "experts" used adjectives like "exaggerated" "overdone" and "ridiculous", and we know that Asobo is very attentive to squeaky wheels, which is why the community has gotten into the habit of creating loud polls on just about every conceivable subject; demanding various simmers individual tastes essentially become mandatory sim defaults.....

Edited November 2, 20223 yr by HiFlyer

39 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Out of curiosity, what are your assistance options set at?

All realistic, ice effects on (not only visual), etc.

http://luizmonteiro.com/Learning_Pitot_Sim.aspx