12 minutes ago, odourboy said:

Great first post! @arneh

Agree and it matches Rob's post about lack of adverse yaw.  

1 hour ago, arneh said:

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!

I agree with your assessment. Visually the gliders are great. But that yaw string bending. Just plain wrong and so basic a mistake. Agree too about the lack of adverse yaw.

I also tried centering on a thermal and though the visualisation promises an area of decent lift, it changes into severe sink before barely entering lift. I don't think the so-called computational fluid dynamics are at all right. And the lift area does not match the visualisations.

Lets hope these niggles are improved. As it stands the two freeware addon gliders fly better IMO.

Hi just made an account to because I thought I was crazy with the thermaling in the new msfs update but I’m glad I’m not the only one that’s noticed it felt off. I noticed that with the new gliders when circling the game only showed lift while the bottom of the glider is facing up into the wind and showed very negative vario when the top of the glider faces into the wind. I spent so much time trying to center on a thermal using the vario only to realize that the vario is only showing positive climb during around half the circle consistently and always with the glider bottom facing into the wind no matter how much I try to correct, making it really impossible to use it to circle. This can’t be correct right? 

9 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!

Yes. The last time you flew at that field you did not leave a big enough tip for the winch operator. 

how do you get a winch instead of towplane?

3 hours ago, arneh said:

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!

Great post, I also discovered that there is a setting in the Assists section of Options with a setting for Gliders: Tow plane take off assist under the piloting menu. I discovered that it was on. So I'll have to check again with it off. Glad to hear you had a hard time centring thermals. So did I.

 

5 hours ago, FBW737 said:

Great post, I also discovered that there is a setting in the Assists section of Options with a setting for Gliders: Tow plane take off assist under the piloting menu. I discovered that it was on. So I'll have to check again with it off.

Good find. Unfortunately it does not solve the issue of the glider sticking to the ground until the tow plane gets airborne. It seems it only removes the rectangle around the towplane when getting off track.

 

Quote

Glad to hear you had a hard time centring thermals. So did I.

For me it was the opposite. Having a hard time getting out of the thermal. Still climbing at 5m/s flying a straight line at 200 km/h.

So still a long way to go for Asobo with the gliders and thermals. But after all it is a good start and already a lot of fun.

 

Edited November 13, 20223 yr by RALF9636

i like them, ridge soaring is great.

@arneh, great post!  Glider pilot here too, long go competition times, but after more than 42 years I still go soaring whenever I can 🙂

I agree with your various observations. 

By far the best are the visuals. After a couple more tests with both gliders I feel they're still rather limited in various aspects of the flight dynamics modelling. Don't know if you had the chance to try SilentWings or Condorsoaring, but I consider both as a reference, Condor only beaten by the amazing scenery and graphics in MFS, in the rest both being way more realistic than MFS, in all aspects.

I've been able to get airborne in the LS8 before the tug plane, by setting trim to a value I would never use IRL 😕 but it was not a good takeoff 🙂

There are various flaws with the flight dynamics in MFS, and some of those affect gliders with their pronnounced aspect ratio even more, but not only... The adverse yaw effect, or the need to cross controls in a tight turn to keep the bank angle and stay coordinated, mostly due to the well known "overbanking effect" experienced in most gliders isn't realistically represented either. It's very present and well portrayed in Condor and in SilentWings.

The only aspect I found more or less acceptably modeled is, strangely, sideslip and the effect it has in terms of drag and sideforce due to sideslip. Not bad! No wing shadowing effect though, at least as far as I could tell...

Control surfaces in some maneuvers instantly lose efficiency and like in a click recover it again, as your speed transits some limit values, as if it was scripted.

In an x-wind takeoff or landing, MFS is far from reproducing the sometimes "terrible" ( in short / narrow landing stripes ) loss of rudder authority. While dynamic pressure building up is somehow modeled regarding the elevator, and because you almost don't have to use your rudder or ailerons to stay behind the tug plane, the rudder is always too efficient, which would be great to have IRL too 🙂...

Pitching moment due to spoiler deflection, specially due to the type of spoillers used on both glider models is also very poorly modelled , particularly on the DG 1001 😕 Aother aspect, resulting also from the first, is speed conservation with spoiler deflection...

As for spins, I have given up for now in getting any acceptable spins in most aircraft of MFS, starting with the officially CFD-enabled C172... The two gliders spin completely out of sync with reality too...

Thermals are kind of a mistery in MFS... With SU10 they started to get some more detail, and now visually at times it looks like the same thermal visualization we get in XP and SilentWings, but the "topology" of thermals does not look consistent, and while I have noticed some progress in the way they're modelled, there are still some strange characteristics that for different reasons make them in some aspects easier and in other more difficult to fly compared to RL. 

At least it appears that MFS can model "blue thermals/convection" which is great...

BUT! Visually MFS is so close to real that we are seriously considering using it at the airclub for task design, briefing and debrief.

 

Edited November 13, 20223 yr by jcomm

15 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Did you have the assistance options turned off?

Yes autorudder is off.

My initial good impressions are wearing off fast.

I had auto-rudder off,  but this patch turned it back on.    Turned it and the heli aids off.

Ridge soaring seems to be working fine, but I am getting the same issues with only half of a thermal lifting so I'm finding it impossible to climb without a ridge. 

Also, The DG1001 has variometer sound in the tutorial but outside of the tutorials no variometer sound.  DG-8 is fine.  Anyone else witnessed this? 

10 hours ago, aniiran said:

but outside of the tutorials no variometer sound. 

The Variometers usually have a volume knob. I assume it is turned to off by default.

1 hour ago, Farlis said:

The Variometers usually have a volume knob. I assume it is turned to off by default.

Where should the knob be?  I can't find a diagram of the DG1001NEO cockpit.