53 minutes ago, ha5mvo said:

Can you elaborate? Improved how? Can you provide specific examples?

Yes, I can. MSFS simulates airflow from up to 20 KM around the plane. That is, air that travels over hills, between mountains, through valleys, around buildings, etc, are modeled in MSFS 2020 from as far as 20 KM away. No other flight simulator on the home market models air flow from as far as 20 KM around the plane - this is unique to MSFS.

You can see the air flow lines here:

A whole thread in the MSFS forum with various photos of the 20 KM CFD around the plane:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/testing-the-new-airflow-simulation/549454

And the resolution of the air flow even goes down to a single "bump" in the ground:

Edited September 8, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

15 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Good points, but I fundamentally disagree with the assertion that Level D sims are the differentiator in aviation crash rates.

The critical differentiator is the professional pilots and the AMOUNT of high quality training they receive, not the simulators they use.

There's a high number of GA fatalities for the same exact reason there are a high number of car fatalities: amateurs behind the controls.

 

You should look to broad picture . Part 91 can easily qualify for GA because it a private ops. It's no uncommon for the owner of private airplane to hire commercial pilot to fly it . Of course the currency and checkout for commercial pilot operation under Part 91 are not the same as for his/her peer for Part 135 charter or Part 121 scheduled air carriers. While GA accident rate for commercial pilots and flight instructors are smaller than private pilot nevertheless they are part of unfortunate   GA accident trend

48 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

... to practically all of the release notes, including the pre-release notes, as well as the literal thousands of pages of articles and SME posts over the last four years.

Indeed 🙂

One write-up I particularly like since it was explained so well (which the SDK docs don't really convey at least to me) was what Matt Nischan posted a while back in 2021, when all we had were essentially the initial batch of default aircraft and hadn't really started to see what the sim platform was capable of in terms of flight dynamics (like we now can with the likes of the PMDG 737 and 777, Fenix A320, iniBuilds A300, etc). And this was also before Asobo added the CFD tech to the dev toolbox, so Matt is talking about the non-CFD flight dynamics engine here and how it differs from previous sims including the FSX/P3D ESP platform.

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/601526-msfs-has-the-most-advanced-flight-model/?do=findComment&comment=4549236

Additionally, MSFS categorically _does not_ use Blade Element Theory. Blade element theory is the idea that you can slice an airfoil up into cross sections, evaluate those cross sections, and then come up with a single lift and drag component for each cross section. XP does this slicing across the defined lifting surfaces to generate a limited number of lift points. It is relatively coarse and doesn't generate different values across each individual surface cross-section, but nonetheless it is used to great effect and the work done with it is quite good, as I've said before.

MSFS also starts with a base geometrically defined lifting surface, but then goes a completely different direction and discretizes the lifting surface into a large number (comparatively) of grid samples. Each individual grid sample receives its own airflow simulation that gets input from the airflow model in true 3d space: i.e. the atmospheric model is also 3d and thus the air itself is not a just a single scalar contribution but instead a varying 3d contribution across each grid sample where the atmospheric model and grid intersect. This means that each grid sample on any lifting surface contributes its forces individually and is also affected by a 3d atmospheric model individually.

Whether or not one believes the current aircraft flight model configurations use this well or whether enough parameters are exposed, the base grid sampling of the MSFS flight model is of a much higher resolution and the atmospheric contribution in 3d is a consumer sim first (to my knowledge, anyway). It also has the benefit of generating different lift values across the surface from front to back, which can be critical value differences at the flight envelope edges.

...

-Matt | Working Title

 

Always good to hear from *actual* experts and devs rather than some who cosplay that role on these forums 🙂 

Now one thing Asobo didn't do was to make it easy (or even possible) to fully take advantage of this given the limited way aircraft devs can define aircraft geometry, wings, surfaces, etc. And that's always been a much requested improvement which they are addressing in MSFS 2024 (as Seb demonstrated here at this year's FS Expo: https://youtu.be/a6riRXgRsCU?t=1198). Though it's not clear to me if this improvement only applies to aircraft FMs that use the CFD tech?

 

Edited September 8, 20241 yr by lwt1971

29 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

You should look to broad picture . Part 91 can easily qualify for GA because it a private ops. It's no uncommon for the owner of private airplane to hire commercial pilot to fly it . Of course the currency and checkout for commercial pilot operation under Part 91 are not the same as for his/her peer for Part 135 charter or Part 121 scheduled air carriers. While GA accident rate for commercial pilots and flight instructors are smaller than private pilot nevertheless they are part of unfortunate   GA accident trend

I do look at the broad picture.

It's not the Level D simulators that make the difference.

1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

Yes, I can. MSFS simulates airflow from up to 20 KM around the plane. That is, air that travels over hills, between mountains, through valleys, around buildings, etc, are modeled in MSFS 2020 from as far as 20 KM away. No other flight simulator on the home market models air flow from as far as 20 KM around the plane - this is unique to MSFS.

You can see the air flow lines here:

A whole thread in the MSFS forum with various photos of the 20 KM CFD around the plane:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/testing-the-new-airflow-simulation/549454

And the resolution of the air flow even goes down to a single "bump" in the ground:

 

That's atmospheric simulation, not to be confused with flight dynamics. 

So you're saying that atmospheric simulation is second to none? Strange as it seems to be the most frequent issue on the "to be fixed in 2024" list.

19 minutes ago, ha5mvo said:

That's atmospheric simulation, not to be confused with flight dynamics. 

So you're saying that atmospheric simulation is second to none? Strange as it seems to be the most frequent issue on the "to be fixed in 2024" list.

AFAIK the aircrafts are flying within the atmosphere. So, having it simulated is also important.

1 hour ago, ha5mvo said:

That's atmospheric simulation, not to be confused with flight dynamics. 

No one is "confusing" them. 

Both are parts of literally the same thing. You're arguing semantics (likely knowingly) and it's hilarious to see. 

Edited September 8, 20241 yr by Abriael

18 minutes ago, Abriael said:

No one is "confusing" them. 

Both are parts of literally the same thing. You're arguing semantics (likely knowingly) and it's hilarious to see. 

 

Your a very forthright young man arn't you @Abriael

2 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I do look at the broad picture.

It's not the Level D simulators that make the difference.

Recurring training and safety culture make a difference and Level D sim part of it. By the way professional sims are used around aviation industry literally everything including job interview. 

4 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Pre- MSFS 2020, FSX and P3D didn't even have real time weather.

I think your sense of FS history is a bit "clouded", not to mention some other aspects of your recent posts. 

Live weather was introduced in MS 2004 (FS9) and was revolutionary at the time.  I still remember flying over the Sea of Japan shortly after release in the Lear 45 at FL450 and wondering what this thing was in my path of flight. 

As I came closer, it was a clearly a developing anvil cloud and one could plainly see the updraft of the airmass as this developed before my eyes.  Sure enough, I checked a Japanese radar and was gobsmacked we could have such realism in the sim - something we ironically still lack in FS2020 now 20 yrs later. (not to mention the lack of other cloud types, something FS9 did very well)........ The Simple Genius of FS2004 Clouds, Rain, and Snow

Aces tried to improve live wx in FSX but introduced a nasty wind shift bug, which could only be tamed with the likes of FSUIPC or Active Sky X, but otherwise the underlying wx engine performed quite capably.

While there certainly have been improvements in the FS2020 wx engine (it's actually fairly good), it has not been without many growing pains, such as the inexplicable lack of real-time conditions (metar) at airports upon release of the sim. 

It's certainly not a crime for simmers to hope for considerable improvements to wx in the upcoming FS2024 and to wish that it is truely a focus of importance for Asobo.  If not, then develop an API and allow us to pursue competent alternatives from 3rd party(s).

 

1 hour ago, irocx said:

I think your sense of FS history is a bit "clouded", not to mention some other aspects of your recent posts. 

Live weather was introduced in MS 2004 (FS9) and was revolutionary at the time.  I still remember flying over the Sea of Japan shortly after release in the Lear 45 at FL450 and wondering what this thing was in my path of flight. 

As I came closer, it was a clearly a developing anvil cloud and one could plainly see the updraft of the airmass as this developed before my eyes.  Sure enough, I checked a Japanese radar and was gobsmacked we could have such realism in the sim - something we ironically still lack in FS2020 now 20 yrs later. (not to mention the lack of other cloud types, something FS9 did very well)........ The Simple Genius of FS2004 Clouds, Rain, and Snow

Aces tried to improve live wx in FSX but introduced a nasty wind shift bug, which could only be tamed with the likes of FSUIPC or Active Sky X, but otherwise the underlying wx engine performed quite capably.

While there certainly have been improvements in the FS2020 wx engine (it's actually fairly good), it has not been without many growing pains, such as the inexplicable lack of real-time conditions (metar) at airports upon release of the sim. 

It's certainly not a crime for simmers to hope for considerable improvements to wx in the upcoming FS2024 and to wish that it is truely a focus of importance for Asobo.  If not, then develop an API and allow us to pursue competent alternatives from 3rd party(s).

 

I think you are confusing Live Weather and Real-World weather. FS2000 introduced RW Weather (We would download the data and the sim would render it, it's not really LIVE per say). FS9 (or FS2004) we had RW Weather + Dynamic Weather (We would download the weather and render it like FS2000 but the weather engine would also make it dynamic (formation/dissipation of clouds)). First time we had Live weather per say was in FSX, but again, not anything close to the one implemented in MSFS.

On 9/6/2024 at 7:13 PM, Tom_L said:

the challenges the weather poses to ... flying. Try to reproduce that in MSFS, and you will soon get an idea of what I'm talking.

yet MSFS outsold any other flight simulator. why?

like it or (most  users probably will) not because it is a home entertainment game which includes anything that flies, from hot air ballons to DUNE copters, Cessna 152s, 737s to F15s, and admittedly simulates many aspects of real world flying.

weather has nearly killed me twice in my real world flying, yet we are here arguing how to improve LOD, fps, shaders, repaints, multiplayer, trains, ship traffic, cloud colors ......

why? not only because we can - but because it is more entertaining than training how to avoid weather related accidents. And while we wait for better weather (- implementation in MSFS), I recommend watching Hoover's channel, a former F16 and now airline pilot who analyses indepth in his videos many weather related accidents of private and commercial pilots.

https://youtube.com/@pilot-debrief

3 hours ago, irocx said:

While there certainly have been improvements in the FS2020 wx engine (it's actually fairly good), it has not been without many growing pains, such as the inexplicable lack of real-time conditions (metar) at airports upon release of the sim. 

It's certainly not a crime for simmers to hope for considerable improvements to wx in the upcoming FS2024 and to wish that it is truely a focus of importance for Asobo.  If not, then develop an API and allow us to pursue competent alternatives from 3rd party(s).

Never, ever would you have found me saying everything is fine (with any aspect of any simulator).

All one needs to do is crank up a sim, ensure real time weather is turned on, and step outside to compare.

They NEVER match except at the most generic description of conditions.

///

In regards your second point, there is a substantial gulf between "hope for improvements" and petulant demands/snarky insinuations.

4 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

Recurring training and safety culture make a difference and Level D sim part of it. By the way professional sims are used around aviation industry literally everything including job interview. 

You must be confusing me for someone who doesn't believe in the training efficacy of simulators.

I'm quite the opposite, in fact.

What I'm taking you to task over is your original assertion that the difference in fatality rates can be attributed to the use of Level D simulators.

That is patently, historically untrue.