Gliders, what do you think?

[tweekz 2,165]

43 minutes ago, orchestra_nl said:

Does anyone notice the problem here?

You are facing the wrong way.

[FBW737 530]

Just now, tweekz said:

You are facing the wrong way.

No. he's facing the right way. It's something else.🤔

[Mogster 7]

7 hours ago, robert young said:

Fairly experienced glider pilot here. Tried both the DG1001 and LS8. Both gliders are very nicely modelled visually, especially the cockpits and the air brake animations are excellent. However there is not enough adverse yaw. particularly in the DG. The very high aspect ratio, long, thin wings in a glider should be relatively sluggish in roll and quite sluggish in yaw control. In this regard the LS8 does a lot better. The DG is way too sensitive in roll. Both are not bad in pitch.

It's a very good visual effort. 5 stars for the interiors.

But there is a major, baffling and elementary flaw in both models, which makes me wonder whether the model designer has ever actually flown or been inside a glider! The yaw strings are most bizarre. They are miles too long and in both gliders they curl in the most weird way. Yaw strings should be more or less straight and when out of balance in an attempted rudderless turn, they should swing away from the direction of roll in a straight line, not in a curve, when adverse yaw kicks in. When adding/leading with rudder in the direction of roll they should centralise, or if too much rudder is applied they will swing too far into the direction of the turn. 

While they do roughly do this, I am completely baffled as to why there is such a huge curve in the strings. I have never ever seen this in a real glider. Not ever. 

Regarding response to airflow variations, even a tiny 2 knot wind provokes reactions that are way over the top. This is doubtless the much discussed baked in turbulence rather than the flight models themselves. If I select zero wind things look and feel more believable.

If Asobo could fix the ridiculous yaw strings and tone down the pitch, roll and yaw response, especially in the DG, these two gliders could be excellent.

Yes the MSFS sounds and visuals are excellent.

From a flight model perspective the Condor 2 gliders display plenty of adverse yaw, co-ordinating a turn is essential but feels very natural. MSFS doesn’t seem to represent adverse yaw as well as Condor, DCS or the WW1 aircraft in ROF and it shows in these gliders I think. The MSFS aircraft almost seem to fight against a co-ordinated turn, the aircraft don’t seem to require rudder in a turn, it almost feels like auto rudder is on somehow (it’s not). In one of the gliders trying to turn tightly in a thermal with a bit of rudder I got into a weird descending spin, that wasn’t a spin… the controls felt locked. Releasing the controls rectified things but it just felt very odd. I do wonder if this auto rudder behaviour is to make the aircraft easier to fly with a controller.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Mogster

[Cpt_Piett 5,108]

2 hours ago, Mogster said:

I do wonder if this auto rudder behaviour is to make the aircraft easier to fly with a controller.

Did you have the assistance options turned off?

[RALF9636 2,047]

3 hours ago, orchestra_nl said:

And there I was on LOIJ, trying my first winch launch.
I was looking for the winch but couldn't see it at the end of the runway in front of me.

I thought it probably wasn't modelled or too far away to be rendered so I wiggled my rudder......

OUCH!

Well, that was a heck of a ride, but everything seemed a little backwards, and I crashed into something. It all went a little fast though.
Luckilly, MSFS hapilly offered me to do it again so I couidn't resist. This time I went outside to take pictures beforehand though:
 

Does anyone notice the problem here?

And no, this is not photoshopped!

Is that an addon airport? Most probably the runway starting point definition is wrong.

I got a similar issue at Gayas LOWZ. The starting point for the runway is defined at the holding position, so in a 90 degrees angle to the runway heading. So the towplane pulled me perpendicular to the runway.

There should be an option where we can initiate the launching procedure at any position, for example after slewing there.

 

Edited November 12, 2022 by RALF9636

[RALF9636 2,047]

Another issue I noticed is that the glider (LS8) is not able to takeoff behind the towplane unless the towplane itself takes off. The LS8 seems to be clued to the ground even at 120 km/h.

 

[ryanbatc 13,233]

7 hours ago, robert young said:

Fairly experienced glider pilot here....

If Asobo could fix the ridiculous yaw strings and tone down the pitch, roll and yaw response, especially in the DG, these two gliders could be excellent.

Nice to hear from you Rob!  Hope you are feeling a little better!

[FBW737 530]

1 minute ago, RALF9636 said:

Another issue I noticed is that the glider (LS8) is not able to takeoff behind the towplane unless the towplane itself takes off. The LS8 seems to be clued to the ground even at 120 km/h.

 

Yeah I noticed this too but I haven't had the time to look into the gliders much further.

[robert young 2,900]

13 minutes ago, ryanbatc said:

Nice to hear from you Rob!  Hope you are feeling a little better!

I have good and bad days, and today was relatively good. Thanks Ryan and good to hear from you too.

[orchestra_nl 990]

27 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

Is that an addon airport? Most probably the runway starting point definition is wrong.

I got a similar issue at Gayas LOWZ. The starting point for the runway is defined at the holding position, so in a 90 degrees angle to the runway heading. So the towplane pulled me perpendicular to the runway.

There should be an option where we can initiate the launching procedure at any position, for example after slewing there.

It's indeed an addon, LOIJ - Sankt Johann Airport by Gaya Simulations. Your remark triggered me to check the airport using ADE, and it looks like the runway start points are reversed.

[Waldo Pepper 1,957]

5 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

I'm a little lost as well.  Flicking the rudder doesn't work at all for me either for tow starts.  Wouldn't these winds indicate lift and a higher pitched vario?

I'm not really getting any lift here.

(It's hard to tell from the screenshot but the blue rising lines are definitely over this ridge)

GliderWinds by Ryan Butterworth, on Flickr

Try the Lake Como, Italy,  discovery flight.

[thewildsimon141 0]

anyone know how to change the tow plane to a winch?

[orchestra_nl 990]

24 minutes ago, thewildsimon141 said:

anyone know how to change the tow plane to a winch?

In the World Map,where you select the aircraft for your flight you get a "launch method" option in the left menu if you have a glider selected.

[arneh 18]

I figured I should give my opinion about the seilplanes in MSFS. As a background I am a real life competition glider pilot and instructor with a couple of thousand hours.

I would say it's a good start, with no massive errors, but there are many things which will need to be fixed or tweaked. So I hope they will continue developing the sailplanes and not consider it done now.

One of the things I immediately reacted to was how the sound changes when you fly into lift. It sounds exactly the same as when the speed increases a lot. And since glider pilots listen to the wind to make ensure they keep a consisten speed, having thermals sound like increasing speed left my speed control all over the place (particularly in the LS8 which has an airspeed indicator which is very hard to see the needle). Real life thermals don't make sound.

Also the yaw string behavious weirdly, and makes a bend like no real life one, and which is hard to interpret. So maybe my rudder use is wrong, since I can't read the yaw string properly. But it seems that not much rudder use is necessary, since there is not much adverse yaw.

The ground roll of the take off seems weird. First of all the Cessna tow plane is probably a bit underpowered for the job, as the ground roll is very slow, and it takes a long time until the controls have effect. Many times the tow plane was even unable to complete the tow on a 4000 ft asphalt runway, something which should be plenty with a normal tow plane. In tail dragger sailplanes like the ones we have, you're supposed to have the stick forward to lift the tail and ballance on the main wheel during ground roll. But the elevator has not enough authority to do that until basically reacing take off speed. In real life tow planes will also stay low in ground effect and build up speed before climbing, and not immediately start climbing steeply like they do in MSFS.
But being on tow seems quite good, and it's nice to see that the sailplane is able to pull the tail of the tow plane around if it get's too far out of position. And also nice to see the tow plane being affected by the thermals as it is bumped up and down. Very nice :-)  The training lesson says the tow plane will turn left, but from my experience it just continues flying straight ahead.

I was unable to make the DG 1001 spin properly. It should be able to, it spins quite violently in real life :-) I figured maybe the center of gravity was too far forward, so tried to put it farther back to make it easier to spin. That required me to put in 100 lbs of ballast in the tail, which is just ridiculous! But then it also was unflyable, so I guess it was ridiculous in MSFS too, even if according to the weight and ballast page of the setup it was withing limits for COG.
Another minor issue is that the airbrake seem to affect the nose position too much. When I pull more airbrakes the nose will drop a lot. Modern sailplanes don't do that, but keep a mostly constant nose position with airbrake usage.

It's awesome that we have working thermals in MSFS now! However after some hours flying, I think they are too chaotic and disorganized. Feels more like flying in rotor lift than thermals. I will have strong lift one half of the circle, then sink, and then not getting the lift again when I get back to where it was. Trying to center is mostly just a struggle where I end up spending a lot of time for little gain. It's easier to just fly straight ahead. At least with the summer soaring day weather preset just flying under the clouds straight ahead is sufficient, and there is no need to circle. Maybe there is possible to get more organized thermals, but I have tried with no wind and turbulence, but still it's just a struggle, except sometime I luck into consistent lift. Real life thermals can be a struggle sometime too, but I don't think I have ever exerperience something this bad! Only in rotors...

I haven't tried the ridge lift much so far, but from what I have tried I haven't noticed any glaring errors, and it seems ok so far. But need to try it more.

As for the gliders they have modelled, they look absolutely gorgeous! The DG 1001 has almost exactly the same instruments as I have in my glider, so I know them very well. I have also real life experience in the DG 1001, although I have more time in its predecessor the DG 500. The FES electric engine does not seem to work. At least I only get an error to check power supply, even if that should be ok. The LX 9070 (called MFD 9070 in MSFS, but obviously modelled on the LX9070 in real life) is very simplified. So much that it has almost no functionallity. Just a basic map, which can go direct to airports only, but no tasks or waypoints, and no glide calculations. I understand they can't model the entire LX-software, as that is very extensive, but at least some more navigation and glide functionallity would have been helpful.
The pilot position in the DG1001 is too far back, so that the canopy bow blocks a lot of the view to the sides. It should be on a level behind your head, where it does not block your view as much.
I noticed that the avionic batteries in the DG1001 runs out after approximately a couple of hours. They should be able to last all day. And since MS modelled a DG 1001 with electric landing gear, when the power runs out, you can't lower the gear anymore. So I ended up with a belly landing :D

I haven't flown the LS8 as much yet. And neither have I actually flown it in real life yet, although I have flown the LS6 which is quite similar, apart from having flaps. The the instrument panel of the LS8 does seem unusual, all LS8 I have seen have a narrower instrument panel between the legs of the pilot. This looks like the instrument panel of the LS6. But maybe some LS8s have been made with this panel too... The rope release handle in the MS LS8 is way too small, it's ridiculously tiny! :D And the airspeed indicator is very hard to read, it should be much better (the DG 1001 is ok, and it should be like that in the LS8 too). Apart from that the cockpit is gorgeous :-)
 

So that's my first impressions with the sailplanes in MSFS. It was a lot, and I might have many small issues to nitpick. But overall it's a good first effort, and I think they can improve it to a great level without too much effort, as most of the issues are quite minor.
I also hope they will add functionallity for settings tasks and contests in the future to really give it some more interest!

[odourboy 1,293]

Great first post! @arneh