3 ms·

I have a VR setup with force feedback rudders and joysticks, and it has absolutely helped with my tailwheel and general stick and rudder skills. Another thing t

by amleon 3y ago

I have a VR setup with force feedback rudders and joysticks, and it has absolutely helped with my tailwheel and general stick and rudder skills. Another thing to consider is that you can safely simulate engine-out emergencies on takeoff. It’s quite surprising just how far forward you need to push the nose over! Another thing that has been very enlightening is to read over accident reports and try to simulate the situation as closely as possible: over-weight, aft-cg, high density altitude, boxed into a mountain canyon with no way out… and you can see just how terrifying some of these situations are and if there was any way to get out of them. The sim can be as realistic as you want to make it. One huge benefit for beginner pilots is to practice your radio skills with virtual ATC. When I was a student pilot, talking to air traffic control was sometimes much harder than flying the plane!

sigmoid10 3y ago
The big problem for me is the flight model. I can only speak for the Diamond aircraft in the game, because those are the ones I have flown in real life, but their physics model is dog shit. Totally unrealistic behaviour in any non-standard situation. If you want to train emergency manoeuvres close to stall speed (like engine-out on takeoff), I have found X-Plane to be way more accurate. The only thing I would use MSFS for is procedure or instrument training, because they simulate some of the newer Garmin glass cockpit avionics pretty nicely.
- kensai 3y ago
  Is there a comparison between the flight models of X-Plane and MSFS? Are all models better in X-Plane or it depends on the model?
  - azalemeth 3y ago
    The cannonical wisdom is that X-plane, being based in blade-element theory and actually simulating the plane, can be really very good but also is much less performant and may not completely capture some specific (unmodelled yet aerodynamically significant) edge cases, I think including things like the exact behaviour of sprung trim tabs in low airspeed stalls. MSFS on the other hand is one giant lookup table. In theory more accurate in the well measured region and less so farther away from reality. I personally have spent a fair amount of time in gliders. XPlane captures their dynamics a lot better than MSFS -- but the really, really missing thing in both cases is your inner ear: the acceleration is a core part of how things feel and you really can't replicate the sensations that well (even in a full motion simulation, I think). Doing practices for failed winch launches (at 3g+!) is easy in a simulation. It isn't in real life. Both tools have FAA/CAA/EASA approved versions for flight training. Real flight training involves a lot of stick and rudder for a reason.
    - Mountain_Skies 3y ago
      Acceleration is one of the biggest parts of simulators that just can't match reality. We can fake most of the visual aspects of speed and acceleration, but the pressure one feels over the body, including the signals we get from our inner ear, is missing. Top simulators can do all kinds of shakes and vibrations. They can angle the body to simulate a dive or climb but acceleration seems to be one of those things that if we are ever going to be able to simulate, will be orders of magnitude more difficult than most everything else. Even smell and taste, minor senses in transportation simulations, can be stimulated for limited situations. We might have to wait until we're able to tap into the brain directly for simulated acceleration to happen.
- traceroute66 3y ago
  > but their physics model is dog shit. Totally unrealistic behaviour in any non-standard situation. That has and always will be the problem with flight sims. You have always been able to get away with shit in a flight sim that you would never be able to do in real life because you can't defy the laws of physics in real life. Ultimatley you would need far more than a home computer with a decent graphics card if you wanted to get anywhere near real physics in a sim.
  - CaptainOfCoit 3y ago
    If the simulator would be FAA-certified, would you say that they simulate things accurately enough? Partners of Laminar Research are selling FAA-certified X-Plane software + hardware bundles, that because of the certification, I'd wager a guess simulate things accurately enough.
    - inoffensivename 3y ago
      It depends on what you mean by "accurately enough". To teach a student the interplay between pitch and power, how changes in configuration require changes to pitch and power, etc, they can be useful. They are very good as instrument procedural trainers. For flight at high angle of attack, e.g. slow flight near or beyond stall, the models are not very accurate. Also a simulator will never help a student overcome the fear they will invariably feel when they do their first power-on stall.
    - traceroute66 3y ago
      > If the simulator would be FAA-certified, would you say that they simulate things accurately enough? There are different levels of FAA-certified for sims, and I think we can agree that X-Plane is very much on the lower end of the spectrum. My understanding is that X-Plane is based on limited geometric data, meanwhile at the other end of the spectrum, the Level D simulators that the airlines use are formally validated and tested against the real aircraft’s flight data. So yeah, not accurate enough, ESPECIALLY (as @ inoffensivename pointed out) the sort of things you might want to use it for basic student pilot training.
  - 3y ago

by amleon 3y ago

sigmoid10 3y ago

The big problem for me is the flight model. I can only speak for the Diamond aircraft in the game, because those are the ones I have flown in real life, but their physics model is dog shit. Totally unrealistic behaviour in any non-standard situation. If you want to train emergency manoeuvres close to stall speed (like engine-out on takeoff), I have found X-Plane to be way more accurate. The only thing I would use MSFS for is procedure or instrument training, because they simulate some of the newer Garmin glass cockpit avionics pretty nicely.

kensai 3y ago
Is there a comparison between the flight models of X-Plane and MSFS? Are all models better in X-Plane or it depends on the model?
- azalemeth 3y ago
  The cannonical wisdom is that X-plane, being based in blade-element theory and actually simulating the plane, can be really very good but also is much less performant and may not completely capture some specific (unmodelled yet aerodynamically significant) edge cases, I think including things like the exact behaviour of sprung trim tabs in low airspeed stalls. MSFS on the other hand is one giant lookup table. In theory more accurate in the well measured region and less so farther away from reality. I personally have spent a fair amount of time in gliders. XPlane captures their dynamics a lot better than MSFS -- but the really, really missing thing in both cases is your inner ear: the acceleration is a core part of how things feel and you really can't replicate the sensations that well (even in a full motion simulation, I think). Doing practices for failed winch launches (at 3g+!) is easy in a simulation. It isn't in real life. Both tools have FAA/CAA/EASA approved versions for flight training. Real flight training involves a lot of stick and rudder for a reason.
  - Mountain_Skies 3y ago
    Acceleration is one of the biggest parts of simulators that just can't match reality. We can fake most of the visual aspects of speed and acceleration, but the pressure one feels over the body, including the signals we get from our inner ear, is missing. Top simulators can do all kinds of shakes and vibrations. They can angle the body to simulate a dive or climb but acceleration seems to be one of those things that if we are ever going to be able to simulate, will be orders of magnitude more difficult than most everything else. Even smell and taste, minor senses in transportation simulations, can be stimulated for limited situations. We might have to wait until we're able to tap into the brain directly for simulated acceleration to happen.
traceroute66 3y ago
> but their physics model is dog shit. Totally unrealistic behaviour in any non-standard situation. That has and always will be the problem with flight sims. You have always been able to get away with shit in a flight sim that you would never be able to do in real life because you can't defy the laws of physics in real life. Ultimatley you would need far more than a home computer with a decent graphics card if you wanted to get anywhere near real physics in a sim.
- CaptainOfCoit 3y ago
  If the simulator would be FAA-certified, would you say that they simulate things accurately enough? Partners of Laminar Research are selling FAA-certified X-Plane software + hardware bundles, that because of the certification, I'd wager a guess simulate things accurately enough.
  - inoffensivename 3y ago
    It depends on what you mean by "accurately enough". To teach a student the interplay between pitch and power, how changes in configuration require changes to pitch and power, etc, they can be useful. They are very good as instrument procedural trainers. For flight at high angle of attack, e.g. slow flight near or beyond stall, the models are not very accurate. Also a simulator will never help a student overcome the fear they will invariably feel when they do their first power-on stall.
  - traceroute66 3y ago
    > If the simulator would be FAA-certified, would you say that they simulate things accurately enough? There are different levels of FAA-certified for sims, and I think we can agree that X-Plane is very much on the lower end of the spectrum. My understanding is that X-Plane is based on limited geometric data, meanwhile at the other end of the spectrum, the Level D simulators that the airlines use are formally validated and tested against the real aircraft’s flight data. So yeah, not accurate enough, ESPECIALLY (as @ inoffensivename pointed out) the sort of things you might want to use it for basic student pilot training.
- 3y ago