RealAir, TJ (ROTW) and the Seneca five

[Guest CaptainJ]

Hi Peter and all,*For one person to create a full aircraft in Fly! or FS2002 the *level of work is immense and peoples expectations are so high that *it is almost an impossible task for the lone builder to do.that's why I decided to make the exterior looks only for my upcoming Airbus 310, Fokker 50 and BAe 146. I started with making a panel for the Fokker 50, but I did'nt rialize it was that much of work. Now the panel stuff is standing in a corner far away. I just have not the expirience with the tweaking and programing :-( I think that there are not many people available with the right knowledge and expirience, working with 3D studio or paintshop/photoshop. And the people whoes got the knowledge and expirience are busy with other projects. I think the best way to make a good product is to combine forces with other groups! just a thought of my.........

[Guest]

CasptainJThis is my point and one which I tried to make in the FS2002 forum.I was then seen as some sort of anti freeware person which as ive been involved in freeware for years was a little rich.The problem then was that free speech was being stifled by certain people in the name of protecting freeware, hanging on to freeware as it was previously known instead of realising that in a changing world even freeware has to change.You have it on the button aircraft building is now so complex and specialised that there is hardly anyone who can spare the time or have the skills to attack every angle.Peoples expectations also grow.The freeware protectionist groups will say "how dare he expect more than is freely given" or "How dare someone criticise freeware".This is where the big arguement blew up over Mike Stones creations and I was labelled as anti freeware.I think anyone in this forum knows thats untrue and just a realistic view that decent freeware has to be by groups of people rather than by the individual which has always really been the case in Fly!Peter

[Guest]

Hi everybody,I've been a fan of fly!, like many of you, since the very beginning(personally I've had much fun with fly!1 than with the second version).In my opinion there is still room for Fly! out there...but we must aim the right goals. I mean we can't compete with a such good sim like FS2002 on the same standards.I use to (sim)fly with both sims for the good things each one can offer : there is no competition on my hard disk...I use FS when I want to play (like arcade...just because I'm not completely involved) and I use Fly! when I want to have a deep feeling in flight (spin, stalls...) I think, and this is just my opinion, flight models are much real in fly! than in FS... thank to people like Rob.If we look at the future : Combat FS 3 will be a great sim with operational virtual cockpit and FS2004 will be much better than FS2002...so what ? Like Peter said, there is no economic future for Fly! It has many bad things that can't be adjusted, but we can continue developpment in two directions.The first is flight models : since FS doesn't seem to enhance this point we can have a great sim for flight sensations.The second is panels : Elite is much better than FS because of precision of switches and gauges. I think Fly! behaviour in this point is good enough.What I can see is the development of some realistic aircrafts for people who wants to play with aircrafts that behave better that FS's...But to do this job we must choose simple aircrafts that can be modeled +/- easily with good chances to have a realistic result.The ROTW group, very little group, indeed, doesn't have any economic interest, and we can continue to develop any part of the sim...until the group exists ! But if any of our leaves, there is no more possibilities to make the same work with so high result.What pleases me is to look at the result rapidly ! I can't imagine to be involved in the same project more than 6 months ! Otherwise this is a job and not an hobby !!! Real Air Lear is surely a great project, but a big one ! If we want to have a great panel we need to have engeneer skills ! I can't stand a formal switch that do nothing ! Or radar that shows nothing !!! I enjoy with switches at the good place and that do the right thing...I really like to have simple aircrafts that need a good amount of skill to be flown by the seat pants !Now, why don't we develop through fly! a sim for pilots training ?Even people with no development skills would bring experiences or situations to share with others...We can even develop ATC or background visual flight (I know people who work on that points...eh, eh!).I'm too long !Conclusion : if you accept a sim with just one or two areas that are better than FS we still can do some road toghether... Best regards to all of you,LaurentPS : we will have soon the Seneca, a P51D, an ATR, maybe a Bonanza and what else ?

[LAdamson 240]

>I use to (sim)fly with both sims for the good things each >one can offer : there is no competition on my hard disk...I >use FS when I want to play (like arcade...just because I'm >not completely involved) and I use Fly! when I want to have >a deep feeling in flight (spin, stalls...) I think, and this >is just my opinion, flight models are much real in fly! than >in FS... thank to people like Rob. You may have your opinion, but personally I don't generally like flight modeling in FLYII at near as much as it's predecessors! Like I've said before, it went downhill since the wonderful V88's for the original & FLY2K. Spins & stalls take far to long in producing a "break"...........as in a quick drop of the wing to start the rotation. It can be quite quick even in a Cessna 152 Aerobat & FLY just won't do it. It's like a prolonged 5 second exercise. It's back & forth in the areas of dropping a wing with FLY & MSFS. And in certain areas of the flight envelope, one will out do the other. Examples are FLY working well to lift a dropped wing with rudder, & MSFS doing a beautiful job of "wallowing" on the edge of a stall during a "poor" departure.>The first is flight models : since FS doesn't seem to >enhance this point we can have a great sim for flight >sensations. I've run into many great flight sensations, which BTW have involved at least 6 simulations (or more). Pattern work or mountain runway landings in the FS2002 VC cockpits are awesome. I use to love peering down through the clouds of the original FLY to see the TerraScene below. Great flight sensations are also offered in IL-2 Sturmovik, CFS-2, & the FU series. It all depends what you're looking for!edit--------- some great flight sensations in X-Plane too!!L.Adamson

[Guest]

Larry, I've always been a proponent of "if it feels right, use it!", but I will point out that the actual equations in Fly! II are much more accurate than they were in Fly! 1.0, and beats the tail feathers out of the fixed-variable drivel our competition offers up.But, nothing that I've seen so far and accurately simulate the feel of your "rear" in the seat, which gives you so many sensations in real flight. I just wanted to point out that the math, however it may nor may not "feel" it, is much more flexible than in 1.0.Rich

[Ben Johnson 3]

Peter,After a night's sleep, I completly agree with you and understand this unfortunate happening.Looking forward to the Seneca.Bob

[LAdamson 240]

Hello Rich,I suppose I'll need to make some clarifications. Okay, off the shelf FLY (version 1) high points were the panels, which set it apart from the other sims. The flight modeling itself was rather poor........even compared to MSFS. I didn't like "FLYING" it, as I made known. It was the V88's from Rob Young that brought them up to a much higher level, which surpassed nearly anything I was getting with FS2K. I always used the orignal FLY with updates & the V88's instead of purchasing FLY2K.IM"H"O ...............with FLYII, much of what was gained with the V88's seems to be lost. I'm disappointed with the way the Navajo now flies as well as some of the others. It's lost some stability as well as power. Seems I'm constantly nursing it, as well as extemely low climbing ability.L.Adamson

[Guest]

Having a Mac version would be great and I'll check it out once it's released, however I wonder if all the features from FS2002 will be available to the Mac users and if the detail of the cockpits will be the same level as Fly! . It may be along time coming since the majority of Bungie games created were 2d/3d arcade style role playing games. It would make a lot more sense to me if the new Mac gaming group would partner with Tri, or Rich for that matter, to make an almost perfect Fly!III - minus all the legal stuff around the merger.Thanks for the info Larry,Peter

[LAdamson 240]

>detail of the cockpits will be the same level as Fly! . The FS2002 defaults certainly are NOT!!! The only advantage of the defaults is to keep all essential knobs, switches, & gauges on one screen. But they really look amateur(downright ugly) & are just basic carry-overs from previous editions. There are some sensational 3rd party panels for FS2002 from designers such as FSD, which has a great looking Commander 115 panel, as well as those from Dreamfleet, PIC, PSS & Flight1. They're different in ways from FLY panels...........but still look good.I personally like the VC cockpits if the panel looks good, although "Michael" disagrees. However, I'm running the VC's on a higher powered CPU/22" monitor with gauge clarity set at high, which can make a real difference. Some VC's look pitiful, while others can look very realistic & offer a great sensation of "flight" at the same time! L.Adamson

[Guest tonyc]

Larry, as a beta tester for PMDG aircrafts, I witnessed the many hours of trial and error tweaking the flight model. Plugging the theoretical numbers was not enough. It's because of the exceptionally sophisticated "math" abilities of FLY2 that getting the model to work right required even more time to get it right. As someone who knows a little about motion control and the "feedback" algorithms that go into making a motor behave as "naturally" as possible, I can tell you that one usually tries to stay away from tweaking these systems without many years of experience on the job. My point(and perhaps Rich's) is that FLY2 may be too advanced for most of us to get the flight model to feel right, unless the incentive is there to attract the best of the best of individuals who, given a financia incentive, can spend the required time to get the flight model to duplicate reality. If one wants to do this, then FLY2 offers that possibility--but not without tremendous effort.tony

[Guest]

Tony,Yes, that was my gist. With MSFS, you can take a 737 and tweak the numbers to make a 172. You can't do this with Fly!. This definitely is a major reason why so many hundreds of aircraft can be produced in a very short amount of time with MSFS. There are very few variables to manipulate to modify your aircraft performance, but the tradeoff is accuracy in any specific aircraft. To do aircraft "right" in MSFS takes just as long as they do in Fly!, though they are developed in very different ways. But, of course, there is more financial possibilities with the other product due to their user base.Was this a design error in Fly!? Yes and no. Yes, in respect that allowing extreme flexibility in design mandates that you have to have some serious tools available, and we are lacking in that area. To build an aircraft from scratch is a major undertaking in Fly!. No, in the respect that if we simply went head-to-head with the other products, there would be nothing to differentiate Fly! and we would have never created the niche that we found by having advanced panels and an advanced engine. I still don't think 99.9% of the developers understand the power of our SDK -- it will probably be many years before any other GA product offers anything similar, if ever at all.Simply telling a user to change variable X to make a plane a helicopter, or variable Y to make a single prop a supersonic jet, is ludicrous. A helicopter is not an airplane. A supersonic jet is so removed from a single prop aircraft you couldn't fully describe it in a huge textbook.I had a meeting with the head of engineering at a major aircraft manufacturer a couple of years ago. This guy was the head manager over a few thousand engineers, and had been at the company for almost 40 years. He was bragging about how he oversaw the creation of the companies internal multi-million dollar simulation system, and described how it accurately modelled airfoils and blades. It turned out our system was almost identical to theirs. It had taken almost 10 years and hundreds of thousands of man hours to produce their product, yet we could come reasonably within their accuracy on a desktop PC using the same simulation methods within Fly!. After he personally reviewed our product over a series of weeks he concurred, and felt we seriously should be working with manufacturers on integrating Fly! with their simulators to allow engineers access to modelling on their desktops, instead of having to schedule time on corporate mainframes.But, in the end, I've learned that the users that really want accuracy and realism in their desktop simulators is a tiny fraction of the users actually interested in aircraft. In that regard, the AVSIM community is an avid base of users that does not represent the general buying public. This is why products like Crimson Skies and combat sims will continue to do well in the retail sector, while GA products continue to diminish and take a back seat.Rich

[michal 44]

>Larry, I've always been a proponent of "if it feels right, >use it!", but I will point out that the actual equations in >Fly! II are much more accurate than they were in Fly! 1.0, >and beats the tail feathers out of the fixed-variable drivel >our competition offers up. Rich,I don't doubt it. But if this is so why not make it the central point of FLY's strength and provide simulation uniformly complete and 'correct' for everyone to see and admire. Yet to this date Flight Director does not work correctly (in all FLY aircraft) or simulation of the constant speed prop in Malibu (Sahara) is off considerably - fuel flow remains constant no matter what position of prop control. Flight Director or operation of constant speed prop are such basic and fundamental things for every pilot who flies advanced aircraft that one really has to wonder about all these 'equations'. Inconsistency of design/execution is, IMO, one of the major drawbacks of the package.FLY's beauty or superiority of internal design is purely an academic curiosity if either there is no one to put it to the right use or recognize flaws and correct outputs. Michael J.

[LAdamson 240]

> To do aircraft "right" in >MSFS takes just as long as they do in Fly!, though they are >developed in very different ways. That appears to be the case. Many of us who have been around awhile, know exactly who to count on when it comes to simulated aircraft performance in FS2002. The amount of names can be counted on one "hand", with a few others that pop up once and awhile. These people know the limitations of MSFS as well as some major work arounds, although not always satisified. And believe me, you can really differentiate the performance of these models versus the hundreds of "quick" reproductions. This is one reason why I get a bit "ticked" here or elsewhere when it's assumed that "all" FS2002 are just mass produced re-hashes of something else!L.Adamson

[Guest tonyc]

Michael,this is an unfair statement to make,considering that everyone knows that TRI was under the obligations of their publisher. In this regard, some of the earlier assumptions made, a more complex flight algorithm, more detailed panels, etc, should have been weighed against the financial commitment and time required. It may have been a bad marriage with all the right assumptions at first, but in the end let's not forget the history of why somethings go wrong. Rich, in this regard, has always provided the right perspective.tony

[Guest tonyc]

Since this was the point I was making in my earlier messages, I wonder how many people simply are drawn to fs because of the easy models that can be created quickly. If all these were removed from the library, would they put FLY2 in a better light?tony