Is there going to be any improvements to water physics for floatplanes at some point ? 

I'm glad there have been improvements to the flight controls and ground handling, even though I haven't really noticed them yet. However, the infamous deadzone on the pitch axis of fly-by-wire aircraft is still there and makes all of the military jets impossible to enjoy. I wish they'd make something about this issue too, since it's there since MSFS2020...

20 minutes ago, Daube said:

Is there going to be any improvements to water physics for floatplanes at some point ? 

Yeah, a lot of improvements since MSFS 2020. Water physics is much better in MSFS 2024. In MSFS 2020, with the Cessna 172 floatplane, if the waves were about 1/2 feet high, you couldn't turn the Cessna 172 floatplane in a certain direction. But that's all fixed now in MSFS 2024. Seaplanes/floatplanes move much more normal and realistic now. I don't think the water physics are advanced in MSFS 2024 with respect to seaplanes/floatplanes, but it's not broken like it was for MSFS 2020.

Edited September 6, 2025Sep 6 by abrams_tank

2 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

From somebody tagged as having a "PPL-IR":

 

What do you mean "tagged as having"? it's a random poster on reddit with one sentence posted 7 months ago saying what we already know 🙃

1 hour ago, MarcG said:

What do you mean "tagged as having"? it's a random poster on reddit with one sentence posted 7 months ago saying what we already know 🙃

Everyone is a random poster on Reddit.  You can put a tag on your profile in r/flightsim such as "PPL," if you claim to be a real life pilot.  Can I prove that this person is a real life pilot? No, just as I can't prove anyone on Avsim is a real life pilot.  However, the overwhelming number of people that tag themselves in r/flightsim with "PPL," "ATPL," etc, are likely telling the truth, what do you gain from lying?  It's the same with Avsim - if people claim they are a real life pilot on Avsim, then I have no reason to believe they are lying.

In this Reddit poster's case, before posting their comment, I also checked the subreddits they post to, and they regular post and contribute to r/flying, which is a subreddit dedicated to real life pilots, students, instructors, and aviation professionals.  You can check the comments they posted in r/flying, and determine if this person is the real deal, or is a fake.  

At the end of the day, this thread is just an informal collection of responses from people who are likely real life pilots.  It is not formal, and we cannot prove any of the comments here actually come from real life pilots, without having all the real life pilots submit actual documented proof that they have a license (or were licensed in the past). The keyword is "informal," get it?  If somebody on Avsim (or Reddit) claims they are a real life pilot, because this is an informal collection of responses, I give them the latitude and believe they are telling the truth.

Edited September 6, 2025Sep 6 by abrams_tank

Ok 

4 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

From somebody tagged as having a "PPL-IR":

 

"I always enjoy eating powdered glass and sticking my head in the oven..."

I remember the water physics in Flight Unlimited 2 and 3 being pretty decent, and that was twenty-five years ago. Flightsim developers really should have nailed this by now.

I find 2024, even with its faults, to feel realistic enough for me that my payware planes still don't allow me to omit my mistakes when flying. Yesterday's landing in the avro was too short of a flight (had to leave) and the weight was too high. Felt like a brick on landing as I had too much fuel left to burn for a 5 hour flight and landing with only 30 minutes of flying. Did not feel on rails. Not a pilot in real life but flown a few times which means I literally have no idea what im talking about.

I nearly bounced and the speed brakes were used the entire descent 🫠😄😁

8 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I remember the water physics in Flight Unlimited 2 and 3 being pretty decent, and that was twenty-five years ago. Flightsim developers really should have nailed this by now.

I rather enjoy the big radials goose for this. 2024 is decent but still has a lot of room for improvement imo

IniBuilds talks about the new flight model in MSFS 2024, that accounts for the aircraft's full shape, including the four engine pods of the A340:

Quote

MSFS 2024 Flight Dynamics

The A340 Airliner’s flight model has been built from the ground up using MSFS 2024’s latest aerodynamic systems. A key feature is the new fuselage object implementation, which allows the simulator to account for the aircraft’s full shape - including its four engine pods - resulting in more accurate crosswind handling, sideslip behavior, and drag modelling.

 

Blackbox711, an IRL A320 pilot, was testing the Cessna 172. I believe Blackbox711 has flown the Cessna 172 in real life before, as he mentions at the 1:27:32 mark of the video, that he has flown the Cessna 172 before, but it has been some time since he has flown it.

Anyways, Blackbox711 was testing the Cessna 172 in the MSFS SU 4 Beta:

As he was testing the Cessna 172, he said, "that feels to me, realistic."  And an XP user in the chat, upon watching Blackbox711 testing the Cessna 172, said, "This looks good. And I say this as an X-Plane fan ***."  (To see the Youtube chat replay, you need to open this video fully in Youtube, then on the bottom right of the video, there is a "Show chat replay" button - this is on PC).

Edited September 19, 2025Sep 19 by abrams_tank

47 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Blackbox711, an IRL A320 pilot, was testing the Cessna 172. I believe Blackbox711 has flown the Cessna 172 in real life before, as he mentions at the 1:27:32 mark of the video, that he has flown the Cessna 172 before, but it has been some time since he has flown it.

Anyways, Blackbox711 was testing the Cessna 172 in the MSFS SU 4 Beta:

As he was testing the Cessna 172, he said, "that feels to me, realistic."  And an XP user in the chat, upon watching Blackbox711 testing the Cessna 172, said, "This looks good. And I say this as an X-Plane fan ***."  (To see the Youtube chat replay, you need to open this video fully in Youtube, then on the bottom right of the video, there is a "Show chat replay" button - this is on PC).

Well spotted @abrams_tank. Going by what I've seen on the SDK forum, this is the fruits of Andrey Petrovich's labour. Just goes to show that Asobo is committed to continuous improvement of the sim's flight model.

I guess Blackbox711 was putting the Cessna 172 thru the paces (stalls and other maneuvers) to get a feel for the particular SU4 enhancements/changes around inertia physics that Asobo implemented in the Cessna 172 and Extra 330:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/sim-update-4-beta-1-6-3-0-release-notes-september-8th-2025/737331
Сessna 172 (classic and G1000), Extra 330LT:

• Integrated full inertia tensor support, MOI recalculation fixes for aircraft weight changes, and rotational dynamics fix.
• Added support for a full inertia tensor used in aircraft rotation modeling via the new “empty_inertia_tensor” parameter in the [WEIGHT_AND_BALANCE] section of flight_model.cfg file (see SDK for details).
• When this parameter is specified, it also enables the following fixes:
  • Fixed incorrect effect of payload stations on MOI changes. Note: if you previously compensated for this by increasing the empty aircraft MOIs, re-adjustment may now be necessary.
  • Fixed incorrect MOI recalculation during in-simulation weight changes.
  • Fixed several issues in rotational dynamics modeling: the laws of conservation and evolution of angular momentum and rotational kinetic energy are now satisfied with high accuracy.
  • Increased limits for angular velocity (to 10 revs/sec) and angular acceleration (to 100 revs/sec^2). These limits only safeguard against crashes from incorrect flight model settings and are not expected to trigger in normal gameplay.
• Fixed excessive drifting on the landing gear when the rotational dynamics fix (activated by “empty_inertia_tensor”) is enabled.

 

The MSFS 2024 Cessna 172 was already improved a fair bit as part of the initial 2024 flight dynamics and ground handling improvements (as seen on various reports on this thread), so even more in SU4 is always welcome 🙂 
 

Edited September 19, 2025Sep 19 by lwt1971

Now they just need to fix mixture vs FF in the reciprocating aircraft 🙂

On 9/19/2025 at 10:56 PM, lwt1971 said:

I guess Blackbox711 was putting the Cessna 172 thru the paces (stalls and other maneuvers) to get a feel for the particular SU4 enhancements/changes around inertia physics that Asobo implemented in the Cessna 172 and Extra 330:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/sim-update-4-beta-1-6-3-0-release-notes-september-8th-2025/737331
Сessna 172 (classic and G1000), Extra 330LT:

• Integrated full inertia tensor support, MOI recalculation fixes for aircraft weight changes, and rotational dynamics fix.
• Added support for a full inertia tensor used in aircraft rotation modeling via the new “empty_inertia_tensor” parameter in the [WEIGHT_AND_BALANCE] section of flight_model.cfg file (see SDK for details).
• When this parameter is specified, it also enables the following fixes:
  • Fixed incorrect effect of payload stations on MOI changes. Note: if you previously compensated for this by increasing the empty aircraft MOIs, re-adjustment may now be necessary.
  • Fixed incorrect MOI recalculation during in-simulation weight changes.
  • Fixed several issues in rotational dynamics modeling: the laws of conservation and evolution of angular momentum and rotational kinetic energy are now satisfied with high accuracy.
  • Increased limits for angular velocity (to 10 revs/sec) and angular acceleration (to 100 revs/sec^2). These limits only safeguard against crashes from incorrect flight model settings and are not expected to trigger in normal gameplay.
• Fixed excessive drifting on the landing gear when the rotational dynamics fix (activated by “empty_inertia_tensor”) is enabled.

 

The MSFS 2024 Cessna 172 was already improved a fair bit as part of the initial 2024 flight dynamics and ground handling improvements (as seen on various reports on this thread), so even more in SU4 is always welcome 🙂 
 

Nice! I wasn't aware that Blackbox was testing these enhancements!  And I'm sure the 3rd party developers will take advantage of these new settings soon.