Real Pilot reviews would be very appealing

[gilbenl]

I have always been on the side of the flight model being too twitchy, but there is something you should keep in mind: A joystick has no resistance, the control sweep is not always constant, and it always "snaps" back to center. In a real aircraft, there's no spring loading on the yoke to put it back to center. This is a fundemental problem with joysticks...their resistance is dependent upon the spring, and not the flight surfaces. If you try flying with a yoke, things are much, much better, but still nothing like the real thing. Basically, what you need is a way to add progressive resistance to the stick, without having it "snap" back to center. You may be saying "well, I don't release the stick" and that may help things, but in the end, you're still fighting a very sensitive input device that always wants to "snap" you back to center. When I get back home, I may try using a small clip to pre-compress the spring in the stick so that it won't make it snap back.

This only compounds the issues Morten has raised, but even if all of his issues were addressed, the joystick would still make things seems "twitchy".

[LA]

I have always been on the side of the flight model being too twitchy, but there is something you should keep in mind: A joystick has no resistance, the control sweep is not always constant, and it always "snaps" back to center. In a real aircraft, there's no spring loading on the yoke to put it back to center. This is a fundemental problem with joysticks...their resistance is dependent upon the spring, and not the flight surfaces. If you try flying with a yoke, things are much, much better, but still nothing like the real thing. Basically, what you need is a way to add progressive resistance to the stick, without having it "snap" back to center. You may be saying "well, I don't release the stick" and that may help things, but in the end, you're still fighting a very sensitive input device that always wants to "snap" you back to center. When I get back home, I may try using a small clip to pre-compress the spring in the stick so that it won't make it snap back.

This only compounds the issues Morten has raised, but even if all of his issues were addressed, the joystick would still make things seems "twitchy".

First off........................... I do prefer joysticks, because what I fly in real life have joysticks. As to the centering spring, I don't like it too powerful. I clipped some of my Saiteks X-45's spring off (later fixes were to wire tie it). However, my newer Saitek X-52 feels good from the factory.

Although a real plane does not have a centering spring, the stick will return back to it's trimmed state when you let go. This sense of feel can be simulated quite well with varying amounts of "delay", which tricks the mind into feel of heaviness versus being light, as well as dampening and inertia. The trick is not to have the airplane automatically follow the exact joystick/yoke movements in pitch and roll. Good programming can provide a sense of resistance, such as you would have when pushing on the rudder pedals. That's the "delay" part. When you begin to push the pedal, the plane doesn't instantly react, so you push more, which appears to be harder. It's all a mind trick, since the mind only has what's seen on the screen, and the springs resistance to go by. The same is done when simulating a auto-pilot. The initial movement of pitch or roll with your joystick/yoke (in a desktop sim) should have no action. You will have to pull harder to over ride the auto-pilot's servos. What is tough to simulate, is the feel of a very out of trim flight surface; but IMO, it's not all that important. As far as X-Plane goes, I use artificial stability, because it appears that that's what's required. I have no desire to be a programming guru for each individual airplane, or having to use wide null zones, etc.

Bare in mind, that in the above examples, a real airplane will react to the movements of roll and pitch with the joystick/yoke movements, in such situations as the auto-pilot. But you do feel the resistance of the auto-pilots servo, or the air loads on the flight surface. To provide this same feeling in a desktop, there has to be compromises such as delayed control surface movement. There are aircraft within various simulations, that do this well. At this time, I'm not in favor of force feeback sticks either; at least in regards to desktop simulation. I believe that the mind is more capable of providing a good range of feel if the model is capable.

L.Adamson

[geofa]

Control inputs are way too sensitive and twitchy-and yes I've done all the joystick settings. There is simply a lack of momentum/stability in the flight model-or if this is actually present in the sim, none of the designers have yet captured it on any of the aircraft I have tried.

You are right - partly.  But like I said, if you know XP's flightmodel well you would know whats wrong

and work around it.

I have documented that XP's pitch sensitivity on airliners is over 3 times too high.  Likely due to lack

of sufficient turbulent downwash on the tail. 

I can also document that  the default Radii of Gyration is way low on most types of acf on all axis.

I wount go in details here, but the workarounds are pretty simple if you know what you are doing.

We have done so on a couple of our airliners.

Also on my PA28-181 Archer III.  You can try a beta (1.5) of it here for XP v930;

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=28623&st=90&start=90

Cheers,

M

Interesting...  I did try to work around it-it is still too unrealistic.

But..as a user and purchaser-why should I have to work around it?

If I get an aircraft I fly in rw-should I not have an expectation that it should fly like it-without me having to work around it.

I think that is a serious question that should be addressed for this sim to succeed-and I am a positive supporter of sims and want to see the all succeed.

[boleyd]

Perhaps if the flight controls had piston devices similar to those used to control the movement of an automobile's hatchback doors but smaller. Think of the movement and resistance of something like these devices. Perhaps another approach are the "things" that controls a DVD drawer. Here the size is taken care of but a panicky pilot might break it.

[Morten XPFW]

But..as a user and purchaser-why should I have to work around it?

You shouldn't, my point is that in most cases the acf designers are to blame, not the sim.. .

On the other hand, most designers in XP do freeware so "blaming" them is not

a good idea, on the contrary.

So as a user, you should stick to the designers that meets your expectations.  A pretty

plane is absolutely no guarantee of a good flightmodel.  There are many very well

performing acf out there, it's just a matter of finding them..

M

[geofa]

...or one just naturally gravitates back to a sim that gives this reality without all  the pain...

It seems not unreasonable that one would expect the default aircraft (I certainly would not blame freeware developers) to show what the sim is capable of without having to tweak. If other sims give a realistic depiction with the same hardware I simply can not conclude that the hardware is at fault-though it seems that is where the blame is placed with xplane.

If there are well behaving act's out there-great.  Should a buyer of this product  have to search and get lucky or be presented with reasonable aircraft from the start?

I am a fan of all flight sims-and I think xplane has lots of potential-but it should be apparent to the buyer/user without having to dig imho.

[Ben Russell]

I'll sell you a car, it's a real beauty, all it needs is a tune up and a cut-n-polish and it'll come up like new, promise.

[boleyd]

The "dig for it" is important. This is especially true for a non-pilot. I am sure many non-pilots are being deceived with incorrect flight models. If they are admirers of visual models then they are ok. But, if they search for a "certified" flight model they are in trouble. Due to social sensitivities there is a strong reluctance to criticize below standard (whatever that is) aircraft. There is no way to sort them out. I never knew about Morten's aircraft until I saw his link to its discussion area. I have no idea if it is bad or good but from the extensive discussion I certainly have a good idea that it is darn good. Few aircraft seem to have this sort of discussion, and if they do it is not easily located. So once again the non-pilot customer is left with little hope of "flying" something that is very close to reality.

Somewhat sad really since X-Plane is differentiated by its flight modeling tools. Less than desirable aircraft ruin that.

[alconburyace]

as a newbi I have just stumbled on this thread. i am an engineer and x pilot 71 years old and my reflexes are not what they used to be. I would like to say that x-plane can be what the owner wants it to be. there are the possibilities to make it what ever you want it to be. we have to realize that no matter what we do it is still a simulator.  It will never replace the real ting. We can get real close by spending large amounts of money to get large surrounding screens,  to simulate periphirel vision, get a motion table to mount it all on, to simulate the seat of the pants fee,l get the largest and most powerful computer that money can buy. It still is a simulator and will never replace the real thing. if you want eye candy use overlay editor and x-scenery to place everything from light poles to hangers to palm trees at your airport and create your own scenery. or download scenery from many areas. If you live on a large piece of land, use world editor to create your own personal airport, with world editor. If you want to fly just in your own area to airports around you then use a small craft and fly vfr to all of them. if you want to take a trans-continental flight then download afters 7x fly to your harts content on instruments. What i am trying to say is the possibilities to do what ever you want ,and can afford to do is here in x-plane. build your own plane from the ground up. paint it to your liking.  This has to be the top of the line in a flight sim  long live x-plane and thank you to the many developers out there that are making this a great org. Whether the eng. or the pilots are the best at determining the credibility of x-plane is a mute point it will take both to really get this sim to be all that it can be.  LONG LIVE X-PLANE