What airliner has the most realistic flight model?

[jon b 2,134]

5 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

Back in my "private" years I had a buddy who I flown with a lot for fun and shared expanses on renter airplanes. Once we met his coworker who asked "why do you fly? it's not your job"? My buddy replied -  "because I can" 🙂

Why do I fly real world airliners ? Because I have to , I have a mortgage.

Why do I fly flight sims in my spare time ? Because it’s fun

[The Flight Level 2,150]

6 minutes ago, jon b said:

Why do I fly real world airliners ? Because I have to , I have a mortgage.

Why do I fly flight sims in my spare time ? Because it’s fun

Beautiful! 

[Donstim 109]

6 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

Generally, I think that currently, the relative few MSFS airliner add-ons that have reasonably good systems modelling also tend to have reasonable flight physics modelling.  That would be the PMDG 737s, the Fenix and FBW Scarebusses, the Leonardo Maddog, the iniBuilds A310, and the WT 787/747.  Once upon a time in a sim far, far away, I used to do extensive flight testing of add-ons against r/w data--time-to-climb trials, unreliable airspeed power setting profiles, fuel burn profiles etc.  I even re-wrote the FDE for a few add-ons that I particularly liked to get the physics more in line with real-world data.  That's the most definitive means I know of to validate major aspects of the flight physics modelling, but I haven't seen anyone doing that sort of third-party testing in quite a while.  There are also other considerations that are more difficult to measure, e.g. moments of inertia and related stability, control effectiveness across the airspeed envelope (especially roll/yaw behavior at high AoA in swept-wing aircraft).  I don't think any of them demonstrate the fidelity that would qualify them as an FAA-certified ATD, but most of them are close enough to be a reasonable approximation for our purposes.

I believe that "realism" at least as the term applies specifically to the flight model--which boils down to physics--is measurable, and evaluating it should be based on those metrics.  Any discussion that lacks data is just a comparison of subjective assessments, and will reflect the experience levels and the biases of the evaluators, and that's what makes a lot of these discussions devolve into something of a scatter plot, with opinions all over the map.  Hard data is hard to come by...

We published such validation quite some time ago for the FBW A32NX flight model....https://flybywiresim.com/notams/a32nx-flight-model/

[Krakin 6,305]

A310

[JBDB-MD80 1,605]

My vote is for Maddog X for one of the best FM's (below PMDG) and on par or just below (Fenix.) in systems with functional CB's. Maddog lacks in sounds (default) and textures though to all the other respectable airliners in MSFS. PMDG, Fenix and Leonardo are the top dogs at this point for ( airliner completeness) in this sim but that is Just my opinion from a armchair pilot.

[Virtual-Chris 682]

2 hours ago, Donstim said:

We published such validation quite some time ago for the FBW A32NX flight model....https://flybywiresim.com/notams/a32nx-flight-model/

Thanks. I wasn’t aware of this. 

[ThrottleUp 643]

On 8/27/2023 at 11:47 AM, 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.

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.

 

Absolutely nailed it. Very well said. This is a computer game and yet I see some players (including my housemate with his powerful rig and peripherals) fretting about "flight models" and "realism".

I once saw him freeze a YT video taken from a  737-800 flight deck during an approach. He took a screenshot and zoomed into the PFD to compare to his PMDG. After he saw me shaking my head he agreed it was getting out of hand! Just play the thing and enjoy the pixel flights already 😅

On Reddit some months ago I saw a post where this guy said he has stopped playing MSFS because of the poor flight modeling. Wow yes, remove your enjoyment of this amazing product because your pixel A320 doesn't match the real Toulouse Tube 100% 😯

The same will apply to all games. The guns in Ghost Recon, the cars in Forza  - are they all superbly modeled with accurate ballistics and physics? Of course not. They are games.

 

[Virtual-Chris 682]

38 minutes ago, ThrottleUp said:

Absolutely nailed it. Very well said. This is a computer game and yet I see some players (including my housemate with his powerful rig and peripherals) fretting about "flight models" and "realism".

I once saw him freeze a YT video taken from a  737-800 flight deck during an approach. He took a screenshot and zoomed into the PFD to compare to his PMDG. After he saw me shaking my head he agreed it was getting out of hand! Just play the thing and enjoy the pixel flights already 😅

On Reddit some months ago I saw a post where this guy said he has stopped playing MSFS because of the poor flight modeling. Wow yes, remove your enjoyment of this amazing product because your pixel A320 doesn't match the real Toulouse Tube 100% 😯

The same will apply to all games. The guns in Ghost Recon, the cars in Forza  - are they all superbly modeled with accurate ballistics and physics? Of course not. They are games.

 

Totally disagree. We’re not talking about Angry Birds or Mario Cart here. Modelling realism in this game, Ghost Recon, and many others is something to aspire to. The closer it gets, in visuals, controls, tools, and physics, the better it is. I’m glad you and a few others don’t work for Asobo or any other game franchise I enjoy (like Ghost Recon). Ugh. 

Ps. Your avatar checks out.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Virtual-Chris

[jcomm 6,209]

8 hours ago, Krakin said:

A310

I really have to give that one a fair GO !

I found the new PDF tutorials (pined at the top of this Forum) but can you point me out to any other good sources for learning the Inibuilds 310 ?

Thx!

Edited August 28, 2023 by jcomm

[lwt1971 8,077]

2 hours ago, jcomm said:

I really have to give that one a fair GO !

I found the new PDF tutorials (pined at the top of this Forum) but can you point me out to any other good sources for learning the Inibuilds 310 ?

 

iniBuilds' video series on A310: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHHNa7e7hf9NWlA69jXQ-xzU2IuawCdd7&feature=shared

 

 

[g-liner 415]

So as usual the real pilots with the type ratings and years of real world experience are saying flight sim is fun but often not that realistic.

And the sim pilots are getting upset about it, thinking they know best. 

[Bobsk8 13,201]

9 minutes ago, g-liner said:

So as usual the real pilots with the type ratings and years of real world experience are saying flight sim is fun but often not that realistic.

And the sim pilots are getting upset about it, thinking they know best. 

Welcome to Avsim. 

[rjquick 312]

35 minutes ago, g-liner said:

So as usual the real pilots with the type ratings and years of real world experience are saying flight sim is fun but often not that realistic.

And the sim pilots are getting upset about it, thinking they know best.

IMO they get angry because such observations from real pilots breaks their illusion that they are really flying airliners on their computer screen. It's like the alarm clock going off for work/school while in the middle of the best dream ever. So they smash the alarm clock into oblivion to teach it a lesson.

You read sometimes where people don't want to leave the sim to look at charts because it 'breaks the immersion'. That tells you they are lost in that screen and caught up in the illusion. Part of that is believing that the airliner you are flying is completely faithful to real life. It can be devastating to have an authoritative figure throw cold water on that.

There are people that play games because they are fun and, perhaps, interesting and educational. There are also people that play games to escape reality and wind up being emotionally invested in the game. That makes forum interactions rather spicy at times.

[sd_flyer 6,272]

1 hour ago, g-liner said:

So as usual the real pilots with the type ratings and years of real world experience are saying flight sim is fun but often not that realistic.

And the sim pilots are getting upset about it, thinking they know best. 

After 20 years of flying I finally realized I'm not a "real pilot" since I'm not type rated LOL On the serious note, I was actually long time simmer before I got a shot on my first pilot certificate. I was really hoping that my flight sim experience would shorten my learning or impressed my flight instructor. Well, a brutal reality said hard NO LOL But I did stopped me from using sims, I just started using the differently! Yes there are limitation but there is also a  reasonable scope useful for training. Are sims are useful at all? Yes if one aware of its limitation and what you can or cannot learn. So there is nothing to be upset about it . Sims are great and realism and high fidelity are always welcomed !

[Bobsk8 13,201]

21 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

After 20 years of flying I finally realized I'm not a "real pilot" since I'm not type rated LOL On the serious note, I was actually long time simmer before I got a shot on my first pilot certificate. I was really hoping that my flight sim experience would shorten my learning or impressed my flight instructor. Well, a brutal reality said hard NO LOL But I did stopped me from using sims, I just started using the differently! Yes there are limitation but there is also a  reasonable scope useful for training. Are sims are useful at all? Yes if one aware of its limitation and what you can or cannot learn. So there is nothing to be upset about it . Sims are great and realism and high fidelity are always welcomed !

The first time I flew a Level; D  CAE  sim at the Delta Training Center, I only had a PPL with about 600 hours in Cessna and Piper SEL aircraft. The home sim I was flying at the time was FSX, and I had the Level D 767, with hundreds and hundreds of hours on it. The Instructor Pilot in the Delta Sim was a friend of mine. He had me do around 9 takeoffs and circuits around KATL, and landings, hand flying all of them.  The only thing I messed up was a bounced landing  ( and in that sim, you really felt it)  due to my flaring at around 50 feet AGL. The other 8 landings were pretty good ( he said), and I was able to hold altitude, hand flying the 767, within about 200 feet. 

As I finished the session, he said to me " How much turbine time" do you have?  I replied , "none", only in FSX with a Level D 767 aircraft on my PC at home....  He replied "Amazing". So you can't convince me that flying a home sim is a waste of time. http://www.leveldsim.com/sevensix_home.asp