weaklink

That sounds about right. From an article in Aviation Consumer: And that's the approach speed. If you're doing a three-point landing, you'll be touching down quite a bit slower. I find for a three-point landing I'll touch down under 40 mph -- maybe as low as 35 mph. Also, it likes to float -- from comparing to videos of real-world landings, it seems to me the tendency to float might be a bit too pronounced, but what do I really know.

I don't know how you make your pancakes, but there are some major mountain ranges in Poland, with the highest peak, the Rysy, rising to almost 2.500 metres, or over 8.000 feet. But in any case, why should flat geography disqualify a region from receiving a World Update? Poland and the Baltic states have beautiful coastlines, vibrant cities, culturally significant architecture and a significant aviation history. All of these are great reasons for a World Update, and likely contribute to this being one of the most requested regions. And before you ask, no, I'm not from this region myself, but I look forward to seeing it updated in MSFS! If it's not of interest to you, I fully understand that - I just don't understand the dismissive attitude.

That's what a 120 knot Vref will do for you... Of course, takeoff performance tends to be more limiting than landing performance, except that the 757 is ridiculously overpowered too. I suspect it climbs better on one than an A340-300 does on all four... Gotta love the 75. Hope it won't be too long now...

An update to the 3D model is in the works according to this Facebook post.

I think there's one thing in particular that makes braking in flight simulators harder to judge and control than in real life: The brakes on most flight simulator rudder pedals respond quite a bit differently than brakes on real aircraft, at least the light aircraft with which I have experience. Real brakes have a very characteristic response. You can depress them a fair bit without getting any braking because you're initially taking up the "slack" in the system by closing the air gap between the brake pad and the brake disc. Once the pad is in positive contact with the disc, the resistance in the pedal increases noticeably. From this point on, the amount of braking you get is proportional to the amount of force you apply to the pedal, without a lot of additional travel. A significant force is required to achieve maximum braking. This characteristic makes it easy to control the amount of braking because we can sense pretty accurately how much pressure we're applying with our feet. On most flight sim rudder pedals, the brakes work differently. As soon as you start depressing the pedal, you start applying brakes, and the amount of braking is proportional to the amount of travel. The maximum travel is often higher than on real brakes, while the force required is significantly lower. This makes it harder to control the brakes because the main feedback we're getting is how far we're depressing the pedals, and it's harder to judge accurately how "deep" into the total amount of travel you've pressed the pedal than it is to judge force. There are some rudder pedals where the brake axes measure force rather than deflection. These are typically referred to as "load cell" pedals, after the sensor that is used to measure force. However, all of the load cell flight simulator pedals I'm aware of are really expensive. One example are the VirtualFly RUDDO+ pedals, which sell for over 1000 Euros. Interestingly, there are much more affordable options in the sim racing space, with load cell sim racing pedals available for under 150 Euros. I guess the reason is that brake feel is super important in sim racing, so there's an impetus for manufacturers to make load cells brakes available even in their more affordable products. I've been thinking of retrofitting my MFG Crosswind pedals with load cell sensors, but I know this would be a pretty involved project, particularly to get things working mechanically in a way that's sturdy enough to hold up over time. If anyone's aware of affordable rudder pedals that are available with load cell brakes, or even of plans for a DIY build, I'd be interested!

Agreed that airline pilots would not typically have an operational need for a topographic map. Where I can still see them being used is in the announcements that you sometimes get in cruise: "For those seated on the left of the aircraft, you will have a good view of [some notable geographic feature]". Assuming, of course, that the pilots haven't flown the route enough times to be familiar with these features already. I'd be curious to hear from airline pilots whether they do in fact refer to topographic maps to identify these kinds of features.

As the saying amongst real-world pilots goes: How many planes do you need? Just one more than you've currently got... Seems like we've gotten as real as it gets on this. 😃👍

Not sure what you mean - the fact sheet does include the item I mentioned above. It's not featured very prominently because - I assume - it's not very high on the list of priorities for airlines.

Got it. I don't have any first-hand knowledge of airline EFBs - hopefully an airline pilot will be able to comment - but a lot of airlines use FliteDeck Pro, and I found a fact sheet that includes "limited support of VFR operations with VFR and cultural data layer". I assume this shows the kind of information you're wondering about (roads, railways, cities etc.), so I think referring to a topographic map should be reasonably realistic.

By map, do you mean a topographic map or an aviation chart? For airliners, it's my understanding (though I'm not an airline pilot) that pilots will almost universally have access to an EFB that has functionality similar to Navigraph for displaying enroute and terminal charts. Whether these also display topographic maps (as Navigraph does) I'm not sure. For GA VFR flying (which I do in fact do in real life), it's similarly almost universal to have a tablet computer with an app for displaying VFR charts (ForeFlight and SkyDemon being the most popular in my experience).

I'm blown away by how much detail this update adds to what is already a very detailed engine simulation. I had been thinking I'd skip the Commander, but with these updates, I'm veeeeeery tempted.

Do you mean it jumps back and forth without you moving the hardware throttle at all? Maybe the next thing you could do is to open the CH Control Manager and check if you see the jumping there too when the throttle in the virtual cockpit is jumping?

To diagnose a potential control settings issue, can you look at what the throttle control in the virtual cockpit does when you move your hardware throttle? When you push the hardware throttle up all the way, is the throttle in the virtual cockpit also fully forward or somewhere else?

Confusingly, the term "load factor" in aviation can mean two different things. There's the aerodynamic meaning you refer to, but "load factor" can also mean "the percentage of seats that are filled". However, this is usually used when talking about how well an airline is able to sell tickets for those seats; when talking about performance, it would be more usual to refer to "payload", as you note.

Now, as to whether you'll see an effect on the payload you'll be able to carry out of a given runway depends on multiple factors. A short runway at high elevation with obstacles in the departure sector will start to see performance limits at lower temperatures than a long sea-level runway without any obstacles. You can see these effects in the takeoff performance calculator in Simbrief or in high-level addons. Go to different airports, vary the temperature and other environmental factors, and you'll see the effect on the payload you can carry.