Review from a professional pilot

[frankbyte]

Hi there

I was watching Cpt.Blackbox’s stream yesterday, a pilot who also flew the B733. He was trying to adjust the sensitivity of his yoke but couldn’t do it in a satisfactory way. He thought that something was way off in the way the plane behaves. It may also be an issue with XP12 itself as he mentionned.

Could you take a look at his review and explain how we can set up our input-settings? Or is that an issue that you are aware of?

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1926356103

Starting at 1h47min30sec.

Thank you very much guys.

[tkyler]

This is a long-standing conversation that is difficult to have resolution on IMO...i.e. "feel".  When you talk about the 'feel' of an aircraft relative to your inputs...that is subjective.  and when you start messing with sensitivities and response curves of the hardware, you're entering the realm of "infinite possiblilities", I mean just randomly dragging curves "about right there"?....that's a tough unit of measure to capture data on.  Its difficult for sure.  I mean...Jan's also flown 733s...  about 5000 hours worth...and he thought it felt as he remembered.  SO...???   Cpt.Blackbox perspective?   or Jans?    You can see why this is such a subjective topic?

BUT........this is XP12 and things ARE different for sure.    Last time we did the flight model (xp10/11), we had oh...several years of dev on a pretty stable flight model.  Austin made a bunch of changes since then with his foray into ALIA, so its not out of the realm of possibility...and we don't want to work on this several years.

So...here's the way this will probably go down.  ....I've made a note of this in our log BTW

Given the number of IXEG customers, it was important for us to get this going in XP12 at a workable level..not a small job to even get to this point.    Many customers do enjoy casual "airlining", rather than the really hardcore stuff, so lots of folks are happy to get airborne.

So next...after we get through the obvious release bugaboos first...then we hit all the low-hanging fruit (wipers / knob...etc).....after that....then we revisit the performance! and FMS.  This will be a long phase probably.  Lots of coding...lots of flight testing.  We'll certainly focus on it in its course.

-TomK

 

[frankbyte]

Thanks for your feedback. The settings of the yoke must have a very big impact for sure. BB711 was thinking that it was more related to something that -according to him- Laminar doesn’t seem to simulate accurately (seems to have to do with the winds).

Perhaps it would be great to know which settings we have to use when using the most comon yokes/joysticks? What i did notice what something reslly strange at take off, that i never had with any other plane or irl (GA’s): when pulling to rotate the aircraft then seems to dive nose down back to the RWY. This also happened to BB711 and he retouched the RWY after the first lift. Or is it a trim-setting?

Anyway, Jan and BB711 know each others and perhaps they can discuss the best settings? That would be great for the whole community.

I very much appreciate that this great plane made its was to XP12 and looking forward to all improvements coming. But do you think the flightmodel is not worth looking at for now? Or perhaps showing BB’s video to Jan and see what he says and if he can recommand better settings :-)

[tkyler]

without a doubt the focus has been covering a broad ranges of areas to get to this point.......so everything got looked out in a cursory level,  including the performance.   We will naturally turn towards "realism" here shortly, in as many areas as we can.  I do hope we don't end up fighting X-Plane too much.  Thanks for the support, we're very much looking forward to sinking more effort into getting this optimal.

-TomK

Edited September 16, 2023 by tkyler

[frankbyte]

Thank you very much Tom. And i hugely like the new version so far! You did a great job bringing it to XP12. And no, let's not fight X-Plane too much :-D

 

[Litjan]

Thanks for the nice words!

As Tom said, we are not done "tuning" the flightmodel and I know that the plane feels a tad different from XP11. I sense that it reacts to the controls a bit more "briskly", but I tried reducing control authority but then found it lacking in some extreme cases (slow flight, forward CG, etc). So it may be a matter of tuning deflection times.

The effect at lift-off is realistic, though. The real plane will pitch up readily at Vr, then hesitate notable at around 10 degrees and you have to "learn" to give it more elevator input at around 9 degree to keep the rotation rate smooth, then relax it as you near the normal pitch attitude after liftoff (15-20 deg).

There is a bit of a "nose down" effect in X-Plane as you get close to the ground, it is a realistic effect, but maybe a tad too strong for a 737...it is a function of the plane´s geometry and we have no influence over it. The reason is the stabilizer being in the downwash of the wings during normal flight, but near the ground this downwash is stopped by the ground, so the stabilizer has less "nose up" effect (relative wind not coming from "slightly above" anymore).

[frankbyte]

@Litjan

Thank you very much for your great answer Jan and for the explanations about the rotation-behaviour, that i will have to train a little bit in that case ;-)
If you could also share your yoke-settings that would also be great. Many thanks.

[frankbyte]

And also: do you guys have an advice about the trim? At take off the CG is always shown as 22% CG and the trim as 4.2 on the FMC. Do we perhaps have to change something there ?

[Litjan]

17 minutes ago, frankbyte said:

At take off the CG is always shown as 22% CG and the trim as 4.2 on the FMC.

This is what the FMC defaults to. The pilot has to enter the correct values. You can see the actual trim setting in %MAC in the default X-Plane weight and balance gui. Set this value into the FMC and then set the resulting value on the trim wheel prior to takeoff.

[frankbyte]

36 minutes ago, Litjan said:

This is what the FMC defaults to. The pilot has to enter the correct values. You can see the actual trim setting in %MAC in the default X-Plane weight and balance gui. Set this value into the FMC and then set the resulting value on the trim wheel prior to takeoff.

Ah...makes sense. I wasn't sure if we could use that CG. But great, thanks so much!