1 hour ago, Stearmandriver said:

The real answer is, none.  Operating consumer or prosumer grade controls attached to a desktop computer is simply never going to feel like actually flying an airplane.  That's just reality.

If you've never flown the type of aircraft being simulated, you'll never know any better and so it's irrelevant.  For instance, I enjoy the Hornet flight model in DCS very much.  It feels something like a 40,000lb jet to me, but while I've flown a few of those in the bizjet world, I've never flown a Hornet.  So while former hornet pilots are critical of the FM, it makes me happy.

I do fly 737s.  How does the PMDG FM compare?  I guess about as well as it can on a desktop computer.  Does it feel like flying a 737?  Of course not.  Is it good enough to sometimes remind me of how the real airplane would feel?  Yes.  That, coupled with the immersion of highly accurate systems and autoflight behavior, in a spectacularly modeled 3d world, maybe with Vatsim, achieves a suspension of disbelief that is pretty enjoyable.

But c'mon... "flying" a computer in your desk chair is never, ever going to feel like flying the real airplane.  I'd say all you can ever hope for in the sim world is "close enough to be enjoyable", and I'm guessing all the big name devs deliver a product in that realm.

So my advice is to focus a little less on hyperrealism which simply isn't achievable, and instead pick the airplane that interests you most.  That way you'll at least be learning something that interests you.

If you want to learn how to actually fly a plane, invest the money in a discovery flight and start taking lessons.  It's the only real option.

Well written,  should  be  pinned  to  the  top post  when ever  another  topic  arises in this  area

2 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

The real answer is, none.  Operating consumer or prosumer grade controls attached to a desktop computer is simply never going to feel like actually flying an airplane.  That's just reality.

If you've never flown the type of aircraft being simulated, you'll never know any better and so it's irrelevant.  For instance, I enjoy the Hornet flight model in DCS very much.  It feels something like a 40,000lb jet to me, but while I've flown a few of those in the bizjet world, I've never flown a Hornet.  So while former hornet pilots are critical of the FM, it makes me happy.

I do fly 737s.  How does the PMDG FM compare?  I guess about as well as it can on a desktop computer.  Does it feel like flying a 737?  Of course not.  Is it good enough to sometimes remind me of how the real airplane would feel?  Yes.  That, coupled with the immersion of highly accurate systems and autoflight behavior, in a spectacularly modeled 3d world, maybe with Vatsim, achieves a suspension of disbelief that is pretty enjoyable.

But c'mon... "flying" a computer in your desk chair is never, ever going to feel like flying the real airplane.  I'd say all you can ever hope for in the sim world is "close enough to be enjoyable", and I'm guessing all the big name devs deliver a product in that realm.

So my advice is to focus a little less on hyperrealism which simply isn't achievable, and instead pick the airplane that interests you most.  That way you'll at least be learning something that interests you.

If you want to learn how to actually fly a plane, invest the money in a discovery flight and start taking lessons.  It's the only real option.

I get what you're saying... you can't really compare flying a PC sim to the real thing, but there are planes in this sim that fly like they are on a track, and others which "feel" more realistic. For example, there are a few noteworthy GA aircraft that stand above the pack - considered to have more realistic flight models.  I assumed the same exists for airliners.  I mean the fact that the 737 behaves as you would expect as a real pilot says something... that's the kind of feedback I'm looking for.  Do Airbus pilots feels the same about the Fenix? The FBW A320NX? What about the Asobo 747 or the 787... are those in the same league flight model wise, or are they trash?

Double post... 2nd one today... there's something wrong with the forum page not updating after you hit submit.

Edited August 27, 20232 yr by Virtual-Chris

3 hours ago, MattNischan said:

Not to toot our own horn, but we've had rave reviews of the 747-8i FM from our type rated test pilots. One liked it so much: he said he could use actual muscle memory and trim inputs straight from the real thing, and the reactions were exactly as he expected. He felt it was one of the most satisfying FMs of a type he had considerable time on he had felt on any sim to date. You can even nail the unreliable airspeed charts, it's very on the numbers, something that is hard to achieve even with very good FMs.

We're very proud of what we were able to do on that one.

Very cool.  This is the kind of feedback I find valuable here.

There’s a huge distinction between avionics and systems fidelity Vs flight model.

I don’t find any of the airliners I’ve flown IRL in the sim to be very accurate in their flight models but plenty have pretty good systems replication. 

Which is expected as most devs are replicating the aircraft FCOMs and don’t really have huge experience in actually operating and flying the aircraft themselves.
 

Thats about the best you can hope for imho, an aircraft as a pilot that you can use to practice some procedures and scans etc or as a simmer enjoy operating but forget about the hand flying if you’re actually looking for realism. 

19 minutes ago, g-liner said:

There’s a huge distinction between avionics and systems fidelity Vs flight model.

I don’t find any of the airliners I’ve flown IRL in the sim to be very accurate in their flight models but plenty have pretty good systems replication. 

Which is expected as most devs are replicating the aircraft FCOMs and don’t really have huge experience in actually operating and flying the aircraft themselves.
 

Thats about the best you can hope for imho, an aircraft as a pilot that you can use to practice some procedures and scans etc or as a simmer enjoy operating but forget about the hand flying if you’re actually looking for realism. 

I think a big part of the improper feel is just a lack of accurate peripherals, feedback, a forces acting on your body.

Every plane flies differently from the FCOM/POH/ACM/Etc. Any sim within 5% of book numbers is probably bang on with some tail number somewhere, you just wouldn't know because your body sees, hears, and feels every part of that completely unrealistically. 

Just being in the comfort of your home with working AC is an entirely different feel than the flight deck of most planes, with the sun beaming on your face, your work shoes on the pedals instead of socks, the different sound sources from the radio and instruments, the vibrations, smell of kerosene or avgas... 

No computer monitor with 30 dollar speakers can come 5% as close to feeling like the real thing.

Edited August 27, 20232 yr by WestAir

8 hours ago, MattNischan said:

 One liked it so much: he said he could use actual muscle memory and trim inputs straight from the real thing

So I reckon you have used a real 747 yoke? Or else, how can one replicate so called “muscle memory “? Surely not with a flimsy 80$ stick….

10 minutes ago, WestAir said:

I think a big part of the improper feel is just a lack of accurate peripherals, feedback, a forces acting on your body.

Every plane flies differently from the FCOM/POH/ACM/Etc. Any sim within 5% of book numbers is probably bang on with some tail number somewhere, you just wouldn't know because your body sees, hears, and feels every part of that completely unrealistically. 

Sure but I’m also talking about times it takes to slow down how it feels in a visual circuit how the timing works out, deceleration on a glide slope with speed brake and/or gear etc 

imho it’s pretty easy to make assessments about the realism of the flight model if you’re type rated on the aircraft. Most pilots should know the pitch power settings for different phases of flight on their aircraft and have a feel for the rates of climb and descent or how it feels in the flare or rotation etc and see how the sim varies from the real aircraft they operate. 
 

There’s also a lot of confirmation bias with these real pilot feedback posts. If simmers and devs get good feedback it’s “real pilots say” if the feedback is less positive then it often is ignored or rejected.
 

Plus some of these YouTube pilots are often pretty biased imho and obviously favour any project they’re linked to or like the dev or the aircraft. Part of it might be financial part might be supporting products they’re helping develop and part might be wanting better versions of the aircraft they fly to practice on etc.

 

I get that people want ultimate realism but it’s still a consumer flightsim at the end of the day. 

 

 

Edited August 27, 20232 yr by g-liner

1 hour ago, g-liner said:

Sure but I’m also talking about times it takes to slow down how it feels in a visual circuit how the timing works out, deceleration on a glide slope with speed brake and/or gear etc 

imho it’s pretty easy to make assessments about the realism of the flight model if you’re type rated on the aircraft. Most pilots should know the pitch power settings for different phases of flight on their aircraft and have a feel for the rates of climb and descent or how it feels in the flare or rotation etc and see how the sim varies from the real aircraft they operate. 
 

There’s also a lot of confirmation bias with these real pilot feedback posts. If simmers and devs get good feedback it’s “real pilots say” if the feedback is less positive then it often is ignored or rejected.
 

Plus some of these YouTube pilots are often pretty biased imho and obviously favour any project they’re linked to or like the dev or the aircraft. Part of it might be financial part might be supporting products they’re helping develop and part might be wanting better versions of the aircraft they fly to practice on etc.

 

I get that people want ultimate realism but it’s still a consumer flightsim at the end of the day. 

 

 

Absolutely! Honestly I shouldn't have worded my reply as a rebuttal. The truth is (and this isn't to you as you already know this, it's to the audience reading) that even if a sim plane has a perfect FM, it won't feel like flying the real thing. It's impossible to replicate the 5 senses of being in the cockpit.

IMHO this leads some real pilots to question the accuracy of the FM when the real disconnect is that they're sitting in an office chair in their pajamas using a $45 joystick.

Like you said, the only way to get an authentic experience is by flying the authentic aircraft. I risk judgement here but I'll go as far as to say that a desktop sim can never feel more than 5% as real as the real thing, just by virtue of environment alone, and some pilots confuse that with dev error.

I do think a sim plane can hit all the numbers, so long as it's not edge of the envelope flying.

Edited August 27, 20232 yr by WestAir

6 minutes ago, WestAir said:

I do think a sim plane can hit all the numbers, so long as it's not edge of the envelope flying.

I will jump on your bandwagon here and wholeheartedly agree.

Problem is, that’s a fairly rare commodity from a variety of reasons. Also, it’s not as sought after by the community at large as , say, an EFB on some 737….

30 minutes ago, WestAir said:

Absolutely! Honestly I shouldn't have worded my reply as a rebuttal. The truth is (and this isn't to you as you already know this, it's to the audience reading) that even if a sim plane has a perfect FM, it won't feel like flying the real thing. It's impossible to replicate the 5 senses of being in the cockpit.

I

I had a chance to fly  a sim  some years ago, that felt exactly like the real thing, and my instructor was a 23,000 hour Check Pilot for an Large US Commercial Airline. He told me that if the sim did not feel like the real aircraft, the Airline would not approve of it's use for training so it would be worthless to the airline. Every detail matched the real aircraft, in my case it was a 767-300 ER, including the feel of each knob and switch, control force, flight behavior which was programmed from data which was supplied by Boeing. The cost of this sim, at that time, which would be much more expensive today, was $23 million dollars.  Pilots who used this sim to train on, once they completed the training, would then for the first time, step into the real aircraft, with passengers,, and a check pilot, and do their first flight. 

The sensations when  flying this sim like getting pushed into your seat when applying TOGA power  were all there. The instructor caution me to make sure my seat belt was adjusted properly prior to taking off, because if I did an aborted takeoff, without the seatbelt, it would throw the pilot into the cockpit panel resulting in an injury. The turbulence effect was amazing, and I could see if you were prone to getting airsick, this could surely occur. 

Edited August 27, 20232 yr by Bobsk8

3 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I had a chance to fly  a sim  some years ago, that felt exactly like the real thing

A Full Flight Sim hits a lot of checkmarks but maybe gets to half way there in most situations. I've never been in one with convincing taxiing or stall mechanics, but besides that there are quantifiable differences: The blinding, hot sun beaming through the window and cooking the dash. The smells. The real view out the window that's not a projection with slightly off parallax and no 3D. The absence of the sound of the hydraulic pistons driving the motion platform.

It is pretty convincing in clouds or on a moonless night, though.

In any case, I just had a thought that perfectly illustrates my opinion: Imagine I place a gopro on the headrest of the CA seat in an A320 cockpit. I wire it so that the flight controls can be controlled remotely. I place a 6,000 hour A320 Captain in an office chair in front of a 19 inch screen, with proper TCA joystick and throttle, and tell him that he's flying MSFS 2024 and I want him to land that remote controlled A320 at JFK.

I guarantee he will have a lot to praise, but something to nitpick.

I think the most realism one can achieve is incorporating/adjusting real life flying experience in desktop sim. Meaning, your brain compensate lack of certain aspects of desktop simulation with real life feed back. For example, power-pitch-trim: I fly GA exactly as I would do IRL, my brain simulate none existing control pressure and I apply RL motor  skills in the sim. But it also aircraft dependent - If developer works hard to bring simulation closer to RL it only helps.A2A would be a good example. 

16 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

If the differences are really subtle shades of grey, then I guess flight model is not really a factor in the decision.

I think this is probably more applicable than not especially when you factor in variations in how flight control sensitivities can be setup.  Perhaps you can start a poll and ask only RW pilots familiar w/ the specific planes you will list in the poll to respond and so get a consensus of this highly subjective opinion.

1 hour ago, sd_flyer said:

I think the most realism one can achieve is incorporating/adjusting real life flying experience in desktop sim.

But if you have real world flying experience why would you use a £50 sim? Go fly for real. And if you are a commercial pilot don't take your work home. It makes me nervous.

Edited August 27, 20232 yr by jarmstro