Those of us that have landed the same model of aircraft more than once know that in real flying evey landing's different- there's no two alike :). Factors can be air temperature and humidity, variations between different aircraft of the same type; then there's the obvious wind speed and direction; then for different airports the airport environment such as runway slope (and length, if a factor), and buildings/hills and their effect on surface winds. And of course the way that one flies varies from day to day too :)In FSX, ASX does good for winds on different times/days. Has anyone tried to simulate any of the other factors, and how have you done it? I'm thinking that some application that could randomize some of the air modelling to simulate-say- various C172's across a typical spread of variation that one might encounter would be cool. How about FSX and temperature- are the effects on lift modelled? I'm wondering if anyone has tried to simulate some of the variables that represent flight and landing variations?Thanks, Bruce.

I'm going to go on a limb, because I am going to bring up a topic I know next to nothing about ---- but from what little I can tell, the flight models for X-Plane deal with air modelling more "realistically" than does FSX. If you are at all curious, you can pick up a copy and see for yourself. I was never a Physics major, so a lot of the technical discussion of how FSX handles air, well, goes over my head (and under my wings!). I would encourage sane, intelligent debate rather than a flame war regarding the merits of FSX vs. X-Plane, if anyone who has the chops wants to talk about air modelling in detail.Jeff ShylukSenior Staff Reviewer, Avsim

I have found that fsx does a credible job of modelling density altitude-at least on the Baron-though perhaps a little on the conservative side ( a good thing imho).I never found an airplane that felt familiar to me in xplane-though like all sims it models certain areas and envelopes of flight better than others-depending on what you what area you want to simulate.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpgForum Moderatorhttp://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

Thanks, some good thoughts. I don't have X-Plane, although have heard some people rave about it's air modelling. Bruce.

>Thanks, some good thoughts. I don't have X-Plane, although>have heard some people rave about it's air modelling. >>I'm not raving, 'cause It's still not all that impressive, IMO. I still prefer landing the RealAir SF260 & Spitfire within FSX and FS9. There is just a "special feel" associated with these planes that make sim landings seem much closer to the real thing. L.Adamson -- FSX,FS9,X-Plane 8.60 w/global scenery

Thanks Larry. I have the SF260 for FSX and love it. I must one day work out it's numbers and use it for practice IFR approaches. Although I find the default C172 very true in it's numbers to the real thing too (can't speak for the other stock a/c though).Bruce.