There used to be an advertising slogan for one of the early MSFSims which read something like “ anymore realistic and you’d need a license “

While flying over the current MSFS scenery recently, in aircraft I know from real life, using a  VR headset  I have found myself thinking , I can not believe this level of accuracy, fidelity and immersion is available off the shelf for the public to buy.

I was often asked by simmers and enthusiasts what it felt like to take off in 747 and climb into the sky, something I couldn’t really put into words.

Well, get  a VR rig and just using the WT default 748 you’ll get to find out, the feeling is captured perfectly, maybe not the physical feeling but ambience certainly.

My 747 flying was  cruelly and abruptly brought to a halt without notice in early 2020. I had a quick go in the new WT  default 748 the other day, as I’d previously given up with the default 747 aircraft as it was a toy.

In VR ,climbing steeply , 15 degrees nose up, out of my old base airfield,  a couple of hundred feet up I took a look over my left shoulder as I often would , and was greeted by that magnificent shadow silhouette of the 747 skimming across familiar fields, getting ever smaller, it actually brought a  tear to my eye, such was the immersion.

At that point I couldn’t really have cared if my climb rate was 3450 FPM while the performance book said it should be 3350 FPM..I was flying the Jumbo again.

 

2 hours ago, jon b said:

There used to be an advertising slogan for one of the early MSFSims which read something like “ anymore realistic and you’d need a license “

While flying over the current MSFS scenery recently, in aircraft I know from real life, using a  VR headset  I have found myself thinking , I can not believe this level of accuracy, fidelity and immersion is available off the shelf for the public to buy.

I was often asked by simmers and enthusiasts what it felt like to take off in 747 and climb into the sky, something I couldn’t really put into words.

Well, get  a VR rig and just using the WT default 748 you’ll get to find out, the feeling is captured perfectly, maybe not the physical feeling but ambience certainly.

My 747 flying was  cruelly and abruptly brought to a halt without notice in early 2020. I had a quick go in the new WT  default 748 the other day, as I’d previously given up with the default 747 aircraft as it was a toy.

In VR ,climbing steeply , 15 degrees nose up, out of my old base airfield,  a couple of hundred feet up I took a look over my left shoulder as I often would , and was greeted by that magnificent shadow silhouette of the 747 skimming across familiar fields, getting ever smaller, it actually brought a  tear to my eye, such was the immersion.

At that point I couldn’t really have cared if my climb rate was 3450 FPM while the performance book said it should be 3350 FPM..I was flying the Jumbo again.

 

Simply AMAZING!!!!

Thx for sharing jon !

Ambiance, that's a good word for it.  That's what I was calling "suspension of disbelief.". 

You're not flying, and it doesn't really feel like you are, but when the software can convince you otherwise, it's doing its job well 

12 hours ago, tup61 said:

Agreed. I do think discussions about flight models often derail because people aren't talking about the same thing. The OP should have posted his definition of 'flight model'. I think most people are talking about the feel when they talk about flight models but that's indeed very dependant on your controller and also your settings (curves). Which makes a discussion about it a real problem since no one has the exact same setup. And even if people had similar setups... it would never ever feel like the real thing because of all the real world input you are missing. So a discussion about which addon plane feels most realistic is rather useless.

Which should lead to the conclusion that it's all about the numbers (which hardly anyone talks about). If the numbers are correct the flight model is correct too. That's simply a fact. Any discussion about flight models should be about the numbers and not the feel. And this should make it rather easy (and objective instead of subjective) to decide which planes are realistic and which  aren't.

 

"...there's a whole world of flight performance that doesn't exist in the manual. It's not just a matter of what's your climb rate, what's your roll rate, what's your cruise speed..."

-Scott Gentile of A2A Sims

 

I encourage you to watch at least the first two minutes of this vid to get the context:

So regardless of which peripherals you have or what their settings are, the "flight model" stands on its own and is easily comparable to The Book Values, as well as other addons behavior under similar conditions, etc.

 

If there's an add-on that flies more realistically than any of the A2A AccuSim birds, PLEASE tell me because I've got money to give those developers!

 

 

 

11 hours ago, Lucky38i said:

For airliners it’s a lot less pronounced. you don’t necessarily need these features to have an aircraft that flies by the numbers as outlined by don’s comment.

I agree to a certain extent, as in my reply to Don's comment referencing AccuSim.

Everyone has different priorities for flight simming. A previous post talks about the procedural fidelity of the newly updated 787 being sufficient for some level of IRL practice. In that type of simming, for sure the priority is on cockpit flows & avionics and book values.

And again, I find the PMDG Boeings sufficient for my needs there because their flight models are, in the grand scheme of pretend Captain-ing, perfectly adequate.

But when it comes to helicopters, acrobatics and edge of envelope (and beyond), I find the traditional flight models less than satisfying.

Asobo seem to think so, as well, otherwise they wouldn't have gone to the expense of CFD/NPS/SBS, plus the rest of the physics pending in v2024.

Silly question, very subjective. Both PMDG and FENIX make very good attempts at it, In my opinion they are the current elite. 

11 hours ago, jon b said:

and was greeted by that magnificent shadow silhouette of the 747 skimming across familiar fields, getting ever smaller, it actually brought a  tear to my eye,

Tears of joy that you’re now flying the 787 instead! 

On 8/28/2023 at 3:44 PM, Virtual-Chris said:

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.

I never said realism shouldn't be aspired to.

What I was trying to say is that some gamers get upset because their pretend pixel Airbus isn't right on the money.  No ones going to complain if the realism and flight modelling is ramped up to greater standards. But theres no need for some to cry if something is a little off at the moment. These products are constantly being updated.

Many of the 3rd party pixel tubes have impressed  RW pilots from PMDG to Zibo to ToLiss to JF Fokker 100 etc. So they are already doing something right.

Ghost Recon series is a a fun shooter but it will never get the hardcore realism physics of Arma , Ubi will lose a huge part of the player base if they did that.

1 hour ago, g-liner said:

Tears of joy that you’re now flying the 787 instead! 

😆 ha, very good ! 

On 8/27/2023 at 7:13 AM, pete_auau said:

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

I totally agree!

Well to be honest, the Fenix flight model is absolutely terrible and the PMDG is fantastic. No comparison! (see what I did there  )

23 minutes ago, Rockliffe said:

Well to be honest, the Fenix flight model is absolutely terrible and the PMDG is fantastic. No comparison! (see what I did there  )

What a crock... Captain Sim is the best...😉

Edited August 30, 20232 yr by Bobsk8

I think the A310 is the only one of the bunch that uses the CFD and it has gotten good reviews. I even saw some people saying it is the first MSFS airliner with the X-Plane flight model when i was watching a XP72 stream lol

19 minutes ago, Krakin said:

I think the A310 is the only one of the bunch that uses the CFD and it has gotten good reviews. I even saw some people saying it is the first MSFS airliner with the X-Plane flight model when i was watching a XP72 stream lol

So it flies like it is on rails?

 

As someone who's only ever flown a kite (and not very well, mind you), I'd say the BAE-146 flight model is best. 

If anyone wants any more of my expertise, I'll be around. 

Joking aside, for people like me (which I assume is the majority of folks who sim), what's important is that I'm presented w/ a challenge and can practice to perfect my performance. The BAE-146 may or may not be true to life, but I can use the instrumentation, weather, payload, etc. to adjust my performance in the cockpit and (hopefully) survive and thrive w/ my flights. That's the fun in simming for people who do so recreationally (obviously different if training professionally).