4 hours ago, AlexMD11 said:

Is anyone else still being blown off the runway in crosswinds in GA aircraft, even at moderate levels like 10-12kts which would be well within the limits (and in reality are not too difficult to stay on the runway..)

I personally haven't had that issue, and in my neck of the woods we frequently have sustained winds around those speeds, with gusts to the 20's. I'll take the C172 up again next session and see if I notice any differences.

4 hours ago, SAS443 said:

Land with more speed and less flaps and you can maintain centerline and align the nose in winds excess of max- demonstrated crosswind (and have those nice flat pancake landing )

It also helps to avoid getting flattened by the jets at a mixed use airport 😁

A real life 172 pilot:

 

Quote

Agree. 2024's C172 is a big improvement as far as I tested. Power-off stalls behave almost exactly like the real thing. Power-on stalls still have a too much exaggerated wing drop, but not too far from the real plane. In 2020 the C172 would wobble widely when you exit the forward slip, much better now in 2024.

Landing sees a big improvement. C172 in 2020 floats way too long on the runway, now it lands just about right.  Overall, the airplane feels much closer to the real C172 in terms of stability and inertia.  

 

Quote

Landing sees a big improvement. C172 in 2020 floats way too long on the runway, now it lands just about right.

This latter point I agree with. The "floatiness" in the flare in 2020 just does not seem realistic with so many of the aircraft.  2024, at least with the 172, is the first time I feel like there is a sense of mass and inertia in that phase of flight.

8 minutes ago, PurdueKev said:

This latter point I agree with. The "floatiness" in the flare in 2020 just does not seem realistic with so many of the aircraft.  2024, at least with the 172, is the first time I feel like there is a sense of mass and inertia in that phase of flight.

Great comment! May I ask if you are also a real life pilot and if so, have you flown the 172 in real life?

Yesterday I tried the very nice Sea Star on quite rough waters near Keflavik airport (which is quite atmospheric) - and wow: what a difference to 2020. Water physics is impressively better - aircraft reacts to each wake, bounces during early landing phase and tilts on the waves once settled. Also the wake and spray effects are plausible.

2 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I haven't tried any of the previous gen Defaults save for the A310. The Longitude is a very good addon, but IIRC, it suffered from the ground-handling, etc., and some slow speed in-flight handling (i.e., final approach) issues. I do hope they have/will address those because it could be one of my favorite addons if they do 🙂

I only run into wake turbulence in DCS World dogfights 😉

I should try it in MSFS, tho, as it's rather startling/cool to have to deal with it (and, of course, potentially deadly IRL, so a good thing to model in the sim).

all the default aircraft have have had changes made in 2024.

On 11/27/2024 at 1:36 PM, abrams_tank said:

Great comment! May I ask if you are also a real life pilot and if so, have you flown the 172 in real life?

I am not a real life pilot and have not flown as a pilot in any plane, let alone the 172 (though I would love to get my PPL and do that!).  But in all of the online aviation content from real pilots talks about being able to focus on the far end of the runway and gently pull back on the yoke at the flare to bleed off airspeed with power at idle, which allows the aircraft to settle.  The tendency of some 2020 aircraft to float when you pull back on the yoke in the flare was not consistent with that at all - you almost had to force the aircraft with forward yoke to get the aircraft back down on the runway, rather than allow the loss of lift and the weight of the aircraft to bring it about.  This was true even if you were just above stall speed.

You couldn't follow basic flight instruction in the 172 in FS2020 and see the expected behavior. In FS2024 however, I think it is interesting how the flight instructor in the PPL learning missions gives you that same instruction, i.e. once over the threshold you are told to cut power to idle, focus on the far end of the runway, gently pull back on the yoke and allow the rear landing gear to settle onto the ground in a nose-high attitude - and lo and behold it works!

On 11/25/2024 at 11:24 AM, WestAir said:

Not yet. I only had time for the one day of playing around.

Wednesday I'm planning on taking a spin around Manhattan in the 172SP G1000, followed by some maneuvers, and I'll try and do an MSFS flight immediately after to really compare feel.

QUICK REVIEW / INITIAL OPINIONS

Yesterday I flew around Long Island, NY and Connecticut in a G1000 C172SP, full fuel, 275 lbs of crew, 10 lbs of luggage. The flight consisted of commercial maneuvers and 2 airfields. Immediately upon getting home I booted up 2024 and tried the same flight to compare while the feel was fresh in my head.
For reference I have 312 real world hours in the Cessna 172 SP model. I'm not going to count any of my other experience as relevant for this test because other aircraft and models fly so differently. Let's get to it.

This was the flight I did before hoping into 2024:

https://imgur.com/dNofoQMhttps://imgur.com/dNofoQMhttps://imgur.com/dNofoQMhttps://imgur.com/dNofoQMhttps://imgur.com/dNofoQM

GROUND PHYSICS

New Soft-Body Physics - 5/5
Just look at the way the aircraft bends and reacts to the environment! The wheels struts flex about and interact with every bump. The way the aircraft leans against a turn is just perfect.

Rolling Friction - 4/5
So the new friction model is great. One pet peeve I have with the default 172 is that it seems a little too strong? At idle throttle at the airport I tested I have to apply the brakes every 13-15 seconds to stop from speeding. I need throttle to keep speed in the sim.

I also can't tell if the brakes are too effective or the friction too high when doing a tight turn. In the real aircraft I can turn the 172 around on its footprint. Holding one brake with about 1800 RPM and aft yoke I can get the thing to completely turn around its point, but I can't in the sim. It's impossible even with full throttle - the aircraft actually moves forward more than it turns, rather than the wheel with the brakes being held staying put as the aircraft turns around it.

I don't know if this is a problem with friction, brake values, or what. I just know it's not realistic.

Static Friction [Breakaway Thrust!] - 2/5
1,500 RPM to break from rest to movement in the real thing. In the sim it's pretty much the same, at sea level...

At KSEZ, another airport I used to fly to often, the real thing breaks away at about the same RPM. In the Sim I need almost 2,000 RPM. I also need full RPM just to get up the hill on the taxiway.

Directional (Yaw) Stability - 5/5
No issues.

Hydroplaning - 0/5
I wasn't able to get it to hydroplane, even in heavy rain at 60 knots.

Soft Terrain - 4/5
We have dirt, grass, and snow! It's done really well. I couldn't get "stuck" in the dirt though, even during heavy rain.

Skidding - 5/5
The nosewheel skids!

Conclusion
Every MS flight sim until now has had wheels built as 1 dimensional points. They couldn't flex, they couldn't bend. Now they have 3d volume and you can feel the difference. It's night and day to prior sims. The default aircraft needs tweaking, but once payware devs utilize the tools available you'll see those aircraft move an order of magnitude more realistically.

FLIGHT PHYSICS

Longitudinal (Pitch) Stability - 3/5
So the default 172 is too sensitive in pitch with 1:1 controller settings. It's simply too easy to raise and lower the nose in flight. I suspect this isn't a problem with the engine, but with the fact that the devs probably didn't fine tune the aircraft enough to take advantage of sim physics. Longitudinal Stability was positive though, in that the aircraft slowly returned to its previous pitch when I let go of the yoke. That's accurate.

Directional (Yaw) Stability - 3/5
It's great when the rudder isn't being moved, and shows positive dynamic stability. When the rudder moves the inertia it causes is too strong. At 180* HDG, 90 knots, 2300 RPM, I gently rocked the rudder left to right with 5 degree deflections. This caused negative dynamic directional stability. By the time I stopped I was swinging the nose from 164 degrees to 196 degrees. That's +/-16 degrees of yaw from 5* rudder travel below maneuvering speed. In the 172 I rented I got +/- 4 or 5 degrees and it was not negative stability (increasing yaw per each oscillation).

Lateral (Roll) Stability - 5/5
Man does this feel good. The rudder also correctly interacts with the aircraft's lateral angle.

Forward Slip - 4/5
Absolutely perfect. I used the exact same technique. The stability in pitch was phenomenal. I needed appropriate opposite ailerons to remain wings level and fairly aggressive forward yoke to maintain my target airspeed.

The dismount (releasing rudder) is the only reason I'm taking points away: It was way too effective and instead of just returning to my flight path I instead continued to yaw clean past it. The aircraft responded far too slippery in directional stability with releasing rudder.

Death Spiral - 5/5
It'll definitely spiral to the left if you let it.

Power Off Stalls - 4/5
Great. The aircraft breaks and you can stay coordinated even in a turn.

Power On Stalls - 0/5
Could not be worse. The aircraft always wing drops while perfectly coordinated. On one attempt the wing dropped 95 degrees. It also always wing drops to the left. I attempted a right turning Power On Stall with rudder into the turn and ailerons opposite and right at the stall I kicked full right rudder and the aircraft dipped to the left.

I could not do a power on stall without a left wing drop. My uneducated opinion is torque is too high so as to always overpower the lift generated by the lesser stalled wing, which is incorrect in a 172.

Spins - 0/5
I have no idea what's going on with the spin simulation. I could get it to enter a spin but not get it to fully develop. I think edge of the envelope flying is properly simulated in the sim but the default 172 did not get much attention in this area, or did not properly utilize the FM. I've seen other default aircraft spin.

Soft Field Take-Off - 2/5
I could not rate this any lower. In the real world I need about 3 inches of aft movement on the yoke to get the nosewheel off and then I hold that pitch until the mains leave the runway, then I have to aggressively nose over to stay in ground effect until Vx. The aircraft really wants to fly and you will be pushing harder as you accelerate to Vx. During my real flight my nosewheel lifted before airspeed came alive on the PFD and the mains lifted around 42 knots.

In the sim I was full aft on the yoke and the nosewheel didn't even lift up until 48 knots and then it immediately shot into a tail strike. I reset and tried to just hold a gentle aft pressure until the aircraft lifted itself and it became airborne at 55 knots and accelerated so quickly through Vx that I never even had to stay in ground effect.

The real world techniques I'd use just don't translate to the default 172SP. I'm not sure if I could get it to perform realistically even with a different technique.

Crosswinds - 5/5
A marked improvement over 2020. In Farmingdale, NY we get a lot of gnarly windy days so I'm pretty profficient here and I can't really give any criticisms other than I can't "feel" what the plane is doing and react as fast in the sim as I can in the real world. Can't take off points for that, so this gets a perfect score.

Landings - 5/5
Everything about landings feel perfect. My Power Off 180's felt just like they do in the real thing. I could use flaps to extend my range, I could use ground effect to extend my range, etc. I'd definitely recommend the default 172 for practicing PO 180's if you're having problems. That's how much I like this.

Slow Flight / Drag - ??
So this one is a bit weird for me. It seems good in almost all area's of flight, but when landing at a high altitude airport like KSEZ I held 2,300 RPM at 65 knots and was still in a descent to the runway. I wonder if the induced drag isn't too high once you're behind the power curve? I just remember thinking "There's no way I'd ever need this much throttle on glideslope!"

I should have taken it up and done some 55 knot slow flight, but I ran out of time. Going to leave this one as a question mark.

Conclusion
For a default aircraft I think the simulation is fantastic. I think a dedicated dev can take advantage of a lot of 2024's new features to really perfect edge of the envelope flying, torque, and yaw / pitch sensitivities. I love it.

AIRCRAFT ENGINE AND AVIONICS

Lycoming IO-360 Engine Simulation - 2/5
Really quickly I want to point out that the 172SP Engine performs very bare bones in MSFS from the real thing. You can start the engine under any circumstance. You cannot flood the engine. Starting at 1/2 inch throttle should get the RPM's to shoot past 1400 but in the sim it stays around 700. It doesn't increase RPM's as the engine warms up after start. You can't get it to detonate and you can't get it to pop by cooling it at idle on descent then slamming it to full throttle.

Autopilot - 2/5
It's way too aggressive. Usually you have to wait for it to slowly start turning the yoke or the trim wheel but the sim version just yanks the aircraft where it wants it to go. It overshot a heading by 12 degrees and had to bank back. That doesn't happen in the G1000 AP's I've used.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

All in all I'd say I think MSFS 2024 is right there at having the best physics of any simulator. I think the issues with the default 172 I've listed are things a dedicated dev could fix in short order using the dev available today. I used to always tell people DCS had the best FM of any sim, comparable only to IL2. I bet any dev from those sims who ports their aircraft over and takes advantage of the new physics will say that 2024 is the better simulation.

We're eating good, gents.

Edited November 29, 20241 yr by WestAir
Spelling

Wow thanks for the thorough review @WestAir! Your insights are much appreciated. Gonna have to the take time to properly read the above, with a good coffee in hand 🙂

EDIT: Can you give more info/details about your controller setup please?
 

Edited November 29, 20241 yr by lwt1971

25 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Can you give more info/details about your controller setup please?
 

I use the same controller setup that Fenix recommends on their blog. I think it was 20% with a 2% null?

For the throttles I have the Boeing Thrustmaster, the Rudder Pedals I use the Thrustmaster T.Flight, and for the Yoke I use the CH Yoke.

2 hours ago, WestAir said:

 

 

CLOSING THOUGHTS

All in all I'd say I think MSFS 2024 is right there at having the best physics of any simulator. I think the issues with the default 172 I've listed are things a dedicated dev could fix in short order using the dev available today. I used to always tell people DCS had the best FM of any sim, comparable only to IL2. I bet any dev from those sims who ports their aircraft over and takes advantage of the new physics will say that 2024 is the better simulation.

We're eating good, gents.

Excellent writeup! So many real life 172 pilots are praising the flight model of the 172 in MSFS 2024!

Latest batch of feedback/reviews:

V1-Simuations' (IRL airbus pilot) detailed comparison of Fenix in 2024 vs Toliss in XP12: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTOeK4Zn630&t=7669s
                                              Toliss    Fenix
Acceleration                          10         10
Decel                                      7          10     (IRL is 66secs, Fenix is 64s, Toliss is 84secs)
Control input response          9          9.5    ("dang near perfect, Fenix feels more realistic .. Toliss feels like I'm constantly driving a truck")
Inertia in air                            9          9       ("both felt good")
Inertia on the ground             7          9       ("in MSFS 2020 it's a 7, a straight-up big difference")
X-wind physics in flight         8          9.5    ("Toliss is good but Fenix is more accurate")
X-wind physics touchdown   8          9.5    ("I was that impressed, did my natural inputs as in IRL and it behaved as in IRL")
X-wind physics on ground    6         9
X-wind physics roll-out         7          9        ("crosswind physics in 2024 is awesome")
-----
3D model                               5         10
Sounds                                   7         10
Textures                                 5          9.8
wings flap                              7          10
------
Total score w/o visuals        77%      94%
Total score w/ visuals          73%      95%

Into the Blue Simulations' (IRL airbus pilot) latest review of the default ini A321LR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2sbea_u1vg&t=3527s
"I am very happy to fall on my sword for this one ... overall my initial assessment was unfair, this is absolutely amazing for default aircraft"
"as for flight model, using more representative and realistic weights and data the aircraft flight model much more realistic"
"a really nice effort by iniBuilds"
msfs 2024 in general:
    "the platform is perfectly possible for study-level flying, certainly is not in a finished state, sometimes you have to battle your way from a->b"
    "for low and slow vfr there is no better platform"
    "a lot of bug fixing required ... for serious airliner flying recommend 2020 or XP for now"

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/651279-flight-model-comparison-2024-vs-2020-unexpected-results/page/8/#findComment-5259023
"Agree. 2024's C172 is a big improvement as far as I tested. Power-off stalls behave almost exactly like the real thing. Power-on stalls still have a too much exaggerated wing drop, but not too far from the real plane. In 2020 the C172 would wobble widely when you exit the forward slip, much better now in 2024.
Landing sees a big improvement. C172 in 2020 floats way too long on the runway, now it lands just about right.  Overall, the airplane feels much closer to the real C172 in terms of stability and inertia.
I should add that C172 in 2024 at the final approach of landing can feel dropping a bit too fast, maybe a little over correction of the floaty problem in 2020. I need to fly more to confirm."

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/656249-a-simple-sim-test-that-reveals-a-great-deal/page/6/#findComment-5261867
"That's what made me dump 2020.... so many things were screaming wrong in my brain and that was the worst one .... like turning your wheel right while you car go left .... I've tried so hard to explain that thing on the zendesk... gave up at some point.
From my test in 24, it's much better, from the planes i've tested none had this behavior, huge win already, but you can still take your word not allowed time to work the flare out, you won't drift downwind ..... so no need to put that wing into wind. Also still find the tire grip too strong, like if you land with still a bit of crab, u won't have that small drift as you're still light on the wheels. Same with takeoff, reaching VR in strong Xwinds on contaminated runway you're flying perfectly straight, when i would expect a bit of slip while being so close to lift off."
 

Edited November 30, 20241 yr by lwt1971

From the x-plane.org forums, a real life P2002 Sierra pilot and also XP 12 user:

Quote

Like many of you, I've been in simulation for many years. I started with FS98 as a teenager and then all the Microsoft editions up to FSX, which I played for a decade with dozens of addons, then moving on to XP11 and finally XP12 which I consider without doubt the best sim ever for realistic flight model. It thrilled me so much for the quality of the simulation and also the excellent general graphic quality of the 12 (which I combine with autoortho and sin heaven) that I decided not to even try MSFS 2020.

Second premise, I'm a private pilot in real life and own a P2002 Sierra.

...

...

- The weather is incredibly realistic, thermals and turbulence are well represented, the foggy and IMC conditions, the transition between day and night is very pleasant. I didn't test icing yet.

- The pre-flight checks outside the plane seem like a simple addition, and in fact they are limited, but they add a realism that was missing, because when I go to the field the plane is not there ready to fly, even if it is my property, the external controls, oil, etc etc are an integral part of the flight experience of me as private pilot. I repeat, in the simulator they are reduced to the bare minimum, but they give the idea of involvement. 

- The flight. Removing all the aids the flight model amazes me, and being used to the quality of XP for years I was ready to find defects. For now, in flight, I have not found them, on the contrary I find that the controls and inputs respond (for the type of planes I know best) realistically, or at least they are quite similar to the best XP flight model. The maneuvers on the ground need improvement.

 

Another real life 172 pilot:

Quote

I only have about 120 hours in the C172 so I’m sure there are others who with more hours that can give their opinion, but the the 2024 is definitely a better flight model and not as feathery feeling as fs2020. You can feel the weight of the plane more. However it still needs some tweaking and fixes. I have sent in some requests that hopefully they will address.