Flight Gear

[MLeavy737]

Hello,
  Just wondering if anyone has any experience using FlightGear with their sims? I have know about it for a little while but never really gave it much thought until recently. I have always been meaning to write some software for the sim and i like the fact that you can get right into FlightGear without having to go indirectly via FSUIPC and the Xplane version of theirs.

Im not too concerned  with fancy graphics in a sim and from what i have seen FlightGear looks pretty descent.  Just want the ability to be able to have(write) HIGHLY accurate systems without having to work around FS.

Mike Leavy

[MLeavy737]

Actually did a little more research and it seems X-Plane has come a long way with programming flexibility. Looks like you can do alot more externally now.  Cool.. Something else to look into Just something about the flight model in FS that i cant stand.. plus the hoops you have to go through to write gauges and software for it it seems.. Well C

Mike Leavy

[727737Nut]

Mike,
What part of the flight model is incorrect? What models are you using.  Being a pilot myself (single engine) i am more into the flight model and not the graphics.   In my first sim i had a 737 pilot fly it and he said the roll was very good but pitch was incorrect. At the time i was using fs9 and pmdg 737   Pitch on flaps was off as well as spoilers.  Rotation was off as well.  Very interested in your thoughts here.  As for X-plane, i have it. I have tried the 172 and piper warrior which i have a good amount of real world time in. I wasn't impressed with the flight dynamics of either! 
Thanks,
Rob

[MLeavy737]

Honestly its been a little while since my sim was up and running and i do plan on testing out anything that will run and give the best results. My guess is that each sim has its ups and down and its just a question of what the pilot wants or is willing to sacrifice.

I guess i havnt spent enough time playing with xplane to make a clear cut decision but from what i can tell just using a joystick is that it is much more fluid. FS just seems like it is soo easy to fly, almost like its flys on rails or something.  I also like the fact that xplane with its sdk can be expanded to the point where its only being used for the visuals, in other words you can completely have flight model and systems removed from it. All depends what your capable of programming of course.

I also like the fact that if i take my sim to a certain level and there is really a feature that i need for some reason and i cant program it,  chances are i can email Austin and not only get a reply but an actual solution.. good luck with Microsoft, especially now with Aces out.

And PMDG was great in all but even that i just never got into it. Besides the pitch in what seems like all FS models, I remember descending using PMDG and being able to go down and slow down.. something you cant do in a 737.

In a nutshell thats about it. Like i said, i do have a bunch of experimenting to do and i have specific plans for the sim. Things may have changed since i used some of these airplanes and sims.. I certainly know the flight modelling in FS hasnt much but well see..  May the best flightsim win!!

Mike Leavy

[ETomlin]

Hey Mike

Glad to have your opinion on here and especially since you are such a qualified voice. I have a few comments about what you are saying, but they are all arm-chair based and Im sure that there are good reasons for your comments. One thing is for certain- everyone has their own opinions wheather they are based in reality or in pure speculation as well as you and I both could have 10k hours in a 737 but fly a 3rd party FS plane and walk away with two totally different opinions. With that said, I want to be clear that I appreciate your comments and I want to make some of my own as well as ask a few questions.

1) You commented that FS seems to fly on rails. I agree to a small point, but arent most aircraft designed to be relatively easy to fly (real world)? I guess, the real issue here is you know first hand that flying the sim with even real hardware is way different than inside of a moving heap of aluminum in real air. I suspect that maybe it's not so much that FS flies like it's on rails, but because we lack the motion element, it may feel hyper-stable to a real pilot who flies all the time.

How do you feel about flight modeling between FS9 and FSX?

2) PMDG slowing on decent-  Back when I was into the 737 I flew the PMDG all the time. I could hardly ever slow the thing unless I had the spoilers out for decent. Maybe my decent rate was too shallow to be very realistic?

3) FS vs. Xplane- It's been investigated several times and the horse has begged to not be beaten any more. I can say from my first hand (and very limited at that) time in a real aircraft I felt that FS was better feeling than Xplane and the statement by Austin that the aircraft flies more real because of BET design is crazy (if even just in my mind). My conclusion for this is drawn from playing with the default aircraft. If Xplane truly derives its flight modeling from the shape/size/weight of the aircraft then it would, in my mind, stand to reason that if you model an aircraft to the "T" then it should fly just like a real world counter-part. With that said, it was nothing like my time in a real C172. Then again, we are comparing sitting at a desk with a joystick to a real pile of metal moving around in space :-) But, what Im trying to convey is that if it truly works by taking into account all the shape/weight/size info then it should always fly like a C172, right? Im still trying to figure out why the prop was windmilling sitting on the runway with the engine off with just a light breeze.

My point: The best sim is the one that feels best to the user :-)

[727737Nut]

Great points!

One major factor in 'feel' is your set-up.  If you want more realistic feel you must use as close to original design controls and degrees of movement. In my real 737 shell it fely very realisticdo to proper control wheel movement. The same plane now using my saitek desktop yoke feels twitchy in pitch and ok in roll.  Set-up is HUGE in overall feel.  I totally agree with Eric, as far as single engine planes, xplane is not any better than FSX as far as flight modeling. Matt at 737sim.com uses Xplane and some real world pilots said it was not bad but i'm sure Matt's is highly tweaked.    When i fly my modified 737 of FSX, i usually have a 2000 to 2800ft decent and have to use speed brakes or i overspeed. I use either wilco 737-400 or a modified PMDG in FSX.   You are right, to get full access to FSX you have to use 3rd party software but with computers being so fast now i really dont think its an issue.  I still fly both FSX and Xplane and i just keep trying to find that magical combination of reality and SIM 

[Bob Reed]

Well let me add my .2 in here. I was flying often with a friend of mine. He is a pilot, I am not.... He was PIC in any real flying I have ever done. At the time we where flying, real planes,  just about every weekend. I was using XPlane for a project I was working on for someone else. To me the feel of  Xplane was very realistic in comaprison to the real flying I was doing in a Warrior. To my friend, the real pilot, he thought as a lot of you other real pilots have said it was too fluid. He preferred FS...2 people flying the exact same real planes and the exact same sim hardware setup, 2 differant opinions......

[MLeavy737]

  Lot of good comments here and like you said Eric, Its whatever seems best to the pilot flying the sim! And your right, i did a quick google search of xplane vs FS and pages and pages of forum articles, websites, opinions etc. come up.

One descent article i found while researching programming flight dynamics in C++ dealt with the input data into some of these functions and formulas. In a nutshell , and we have all heard of this, Garbage in Garbage out!  That brought me back to thinking about some of the flight models people tend to compare sims with. i.e. you take a crap flight models in FS and a great model in Xplane then all of a sudden xplane is the best sim ever.. Same thing in the other direction.

Also thinking about why people complain that the pitch sensitivity is too much in these airplanes..especially some of the models in FS.. myself included..  One reason could be that either the control deflection is too high or too effective.. heres an example.. One thing i learned while flying the real 737, especially while in the sim during stall training, is how narrow the flight (yoke) control effectiveness actually is. Or to put it another way, how important the right trim setting actually is.. During certain maneuvers in the sim i have either been full aft or full forward on the stick and not being able to correct without having to run the trim to get the airplane to go in the right direction..

Heres a question for FS simmers.. how many people have their airplanes setup where you even need to worry about trim other than to relieve a little control force? In FS, i think you can run the trim full in either direction and still be able to fly it.. Good luck in a real airplane...

All im saying is when people start comparing which sim is better based on what certain airplanes fly like its not really accurate unless you have 2 identical flight models setup exactly the same. now in xplane   vs FS its almost impossible because each sim uses a different way of calculating flight dynamics.

All depends on what you want boys and girls.. some pilots want the pretty pictures and some want to be able to have 2000 different airplanes in their collections flying around a few airports. And some people would give all the scenery up for a great flying airplane.. we all know this..

Me... The way i see it... Put it this way.. I just took a checkride at CAL on the 26th of last month.. (some may remember the gouge that i uploaded a few months ago??.. Was pretty accurate btw) anyhow.. the most scenery we saw was pushing back from the gate.. everything else was snow and clouds.. This was one of the brand new 800 sims we have and believe me you could not tell it was a sim.. unbelievable..

So to me, i could almost care less about the visuals.. I know that whatever sim i use i'll be able to tweak a model to point it flys like the real airplane( in my eyes i guess). I also want a sim that i can expand on easily with my own software. From what i have seen already i think xplane with its c++ plugin system may be a little better for me (based on the c++ i know).

You know my biggest problem with these sims right now is the FMC software. I have not tried Sim-A (i hear its great btw) but i need a sim that is capable of VNAV path and selectable approaches.. RNAV approaches in particular (and of course have the other functions work ..  Without mentioning names, the stuff i have used and have is basically useless for the training being done these days and the stuff i would like to use my sim for..

Maybe there is some truth to the saying.. If you want something done right you have to do it yourself   Theres probably also some truth in the saying that if you really want to be good at something it takes 10 years!!  ahhh whatever.... Its all fun..


Mike Leavy