24 minutes ago, ianb2469 said:

I’ve pre-ordered the WinWing stick. I currently have Thrustmaster Boeing Yoke and Throttle.  My only issue is the throttle doesn’t have detents (but does the job).  I wonder if they’ll do a throttle product at some point.  I’m reluctant to buy the Thrustmaster Airbus setup as for the price I’ve heard it’s not the greatest quality…looking forward to the a319!

I've been eyeing the Airbus lever kit from ProDeskSim to modify my Honeycomb Bravo to make it more Airbus-like. Still haven't settled on a side stick but now that I have a piece of the WinWing gear, perhaps I should take a closer look at their stick. 

5 minutes ago, Malaromane said:

I've been eyeing the Airbus lever kit from ProDeskSim to modify my Honeycomb Bravo to make it more Airbus-like. Still haven't settled on a side stick but now that I have a piece of the WinWing gear, perhaps I should take a closer look at their stick. 

I own it. It's great.

I have a Bravo in my loft. I gave up on it after the reverse thrust issue arose on one of the levers. (Snapped wire). Not sure I’ve got the skills to fix it sadly 🙁

What a great blog post by Fenix!, a wealth of details about the simulation depth in many areas.

Loving all the improvements and attention to detail to the various systems and the flight model, i.e:

However, in the process of investigating this, we realised our existing code that derived user inputs wasn't really up to our current standards, so this has been rewritten for better control translation across the board: faster, more performant, and more accurate. After this we cleaned up a tonne of fly-by-wire input, processing, and output code - it’s now running at a 100x uplift in speed. Yes, literally.

The knock-on effect of this improvement continued: we had to retune the fly by wire entirely. This is a relatively procedural undertaking as part of any control or flight model alteration, and has to be done pretty much anytime we touch this aspect of the aircraft. Normally, a retune is a marginal movement of some figures - it’s delicate. Not this time - this was sledgehammer time. The Alpha Protection PIDs are running at something like 50x lower gain value than before. The autopilot had to be completely retuned, and some code alterations had to be made to accommodate this uplift in response time and sheer speed. It’s the same for all your inputs. All tuned, airframe specific, for handflight feel at significantly lower values than before - this may not mean much to you - but the less filtering used, the more natural, direct, and connected your inputs will feel to the aircraft. These changes have brought us much closer in line to what our pilots’ ‘muscle-memory’ expected, which can only be a good thing.

..........

Finally, the flight models and engine models for all these new variants. Well, we followed the same recipe that worked for us before - we have XEM (external engine model) providing the power, with all airframes having unique engine variants and thrust ratings. You’ve all experienced XEM at this point - I’m very pleased to be bringing out more aircraft utilising this infrastructure given how reliable and accurate it’s been.

The flight models were developed much in the same process as B2’s. Our internal telemetry tool first had many hundreds of hours of data fed into it by our beta team. This allowed us to very easily compare our aircraft against real world performance data. The result is something wonderfully accurate to real world service airframes, and goes far beyond the usual “check it against the unreliable airspeed chart and call it a day” approach that is often used. Drag, lift, thrust, flap settings, geometry (duh), fuel flow, ground handling, gyroscopic precession, are all only the beginning of the parameters that were adjusted, numbering in the tens of thousands to both XEM and the FM to produce the A321 and A319 - along with us taking a close look at a few problem areas that plagued the A320 and attempting to improve on them, particularly the lack of stability when fully configured and flying close to VLS. The old simulation used to drop a wing quite frequently, even sometimes becoming jittery and nervous in the final 100ft or so of the landing, with the wings wagging about and a distinct lack of controllability if in a 30 degree bank and fully configured.

All of those issues are now solved, and you should be able to fly an extremely heavy A321 fully configured in a tight visual circuit without having a wing drop anymore. This is key because I feel it was a really sore point in our flight model before. Of course, we will once again apply these improvements to the A320 on expansion launch day.
 

Edited August 15, 20241 yr by lwt1971

Imagine the reception if this post was made by the CEO of another developer who makes Boeings.

15 minutes ago, DavidP said:

Imagine the reception if this post was made by the CEO of another developer who makes Boeings.

I think many, myself included, would take a pause and marvel at the pivot to clarity, relevance and joyful mirth in both style and substance.  I can only speak for myself but I suspect many would agree.

-B

3 hours ago, Malaromane said:

I purchased the Fenix more or less the day it came out. My WinWing FCU is supposed to arrive tomorrow. Now the 319/321 expansion pack release is on the horizon. I really gotta learn how to Airbus properly.

They need to get on it for the MCDU. Still no date of release.

I wish we got a release date. I need to preplan a bad case of the flu for work.

44 minutes ago, B777ER said:

They need to get on it for the MCDU. Still no date of release.

Agreed. It was seeing the MCDU and EFIS units that they were showing at FSE that convinced me to order the FCU.

Great post, I sure learned a few things.

Definitely looking forward to the release! 

Hi,

I am much more excited by the flight model improvements rather than 319 , 321 😄

Pierre

Wow that was pretty cool...I had to speed read it but still lots of detail!

I hope when released it has the options for the auxiliary fuel tanks fitted to some A321's so they can fly from Scandinavia to the Canary Islands. 

36 minutes ago, longhaul747 said:

I hope when released it has the options for the auxiliary fuel tanks fitted to some A321's so they can fly from Scandinavia to the Canary Islands. 

They’re coming a bit later according to the blog.

This is going to be great, for sure. I like how they improve their current subsystems. They seem to be their hardest critiques, which I think is a very good approach. It shows dedication. On top of that, I like the way they write and describe things. Had a smile on my face the whole time reading that post. I wish them big success.

9 hours ago, DavidP said:

Imagine the reception if this post was made by the CEO of another developer who makes Boeings.

This is actually interesting information presented in an appealing way, not like his meandering, pointless, self-congratulatory word salads.