Alphasim....how the mighty have fallen, discuss!

[deathfromafar]

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Hard doesn't equal realistic. I may not have ever been an F-104 or F-105 pilot, but I am a pilot and those two flight models were garbage. As I understand it, there was a real F-105 pilot who insisted it be that way while Shane scratched his head. F-105s would have never been produced if they did rediculous things on final in anything but mild conditions. It's too bad I love the AS F-105....

Yes there was a Real F-105 Pilot involved in that, he flew 105D's in SEA/Vietnam out of Takhli RTAFB. He's a member here and there are a couple of old Thud Pilots who hang around in here. I got news for you, the stock FDE is somewhat watered down, with much of the nastier tendencies of the Thud filed to a dull edge. No offense to Shane's work intended but sometimes it is highly amusing to read such remarks about the realism of flightsim FDE's. I have a copy of a non-public FDE for the Alpha F-105 and it is far more realistic(tested exhaustively) than the stock airfile. The Thud and a few other of the aircraft of that era which sported thin steeply swept wings with high wing loading had their ugly aerodynamic idiosyncrasies like cross axis coupling/lateral divergent oscillations. The Thud had limits on AoA/banking/maneuvering (hi/low weights ) at slower speeds. Hamhanded handling in such regimes would result in a mishap and did more than a few times. These planes did do "ridiculous things" when handled in a ridiculous manner. No FBW FCS's with automatic limits or recovery built it, only the bare bones skills of a well trained Pilot made em go up and come back down in one piece. The Thud FDE isn't garbage, it's realistic enough to get some "real pilots" into trouble. The advanced FDE was already demonstrated to be too much for averaged and even some advanced flight simmers.

Regarding the Alpha Starfighter, I decided not to buy it because for one, I already bought the Captain Sim model and the Cloud9 version. I got to test the Alpha version and can say it is the easiest one of the 3 to fly. The Cloud9 being very realistic of the Zipper's nastiness. Cloud9 properly modeled the BLC system to a T and what happens if you fail to follow the manual on deployment of the BLC during approach. I wish that model would be redone for FSX but that isn't going to happen now

There's a few publications and videos about Century Series Fighters about. I would suggest a good study of them. Bob Hoover had some very interesting things to say about many of these planes he personally tested before he retired.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bZXPmiIBv0&feature=related

 

[Lionheart]

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When I was testing the Epic LT, I had guys at Epic testing it also, (the makers of the real plane) and they said it was right on, especially with the Beta of the engine delayed 'kick'. They said the real one was like that because the plane was so powerful and light, it was especially 'difficult' for first time pilots, so they usually took them out onto the taxiways there at the factory and let them drive it around all day getting used to the spool up.

But..... When I released the Epic, people freaked out on that 'delayed kick'. The factory stood behind it, but man, the customers I had were freaking. I lowered the setting some, perhaps twice, and I still (now rarely) get a complaint.

But... Thats simming for you. In real life, trimming wing tanks that have a Left and Right 'only' selector (not a 'Both' means that as you burn fuel, the plane starts to want to pull in the direction of the heavy wing with most fuel in it. (one becomes lighter till you switch fuel feed to the opposite side to balance it). Again.. But... In FS, the 'pull' or roll enducement from weight is more sensitive to people in FS then in a 'real' plane. In a real plane, you simply deal with it and dont realise you are holding the yoke a bit to compensate the pull, (so Im told by 2 Mooney pilots/owners). I hate it and have made a 'both' selector now on a couple of planes.


Hard core realism will get tons of complaints, I have found. FS is more for people (on a large scale) that like to get in and fly. They dont have 3 hours to do a study on the manual. They dont have the 'knowledge' of aviation that will cause carburetors to freeze, fuel burn to pull left, delayed kick, lightness in the front tire to cause 'lite' steering on the ground when you land with low fuel and paylload in the back. People (the masses, not the experts) like a sim plane, not a real one. So I find, at least....

Now... Making a duel version, like A2A make, with their extreme realism package addons like on the Cub, I think is the way to go, as you end up teaching people 'tons' of how the real planes are. But if you sold 'only' that version to 'everyone', I think that might not work. I dont know. From what I have taken in with emails and complaints and all on my own humble fleet, thats the feeling I get from people. Make the plane extremely realistic and people will freak out (on the average).


my two cents on the subject..



Bill

 

[MikeH]

I have some pretty expensive add-ons in my virtual hangar but I keep on going back to Alphasim's Hunter.
The external modelling & texturing are superb - the view when looking from the cockpit down the wing and across the drop tanks is breathtaking - especially when the vortices form at the wing tips.

I have to agree in part with some of the cockpit comments though. If the cockpit in the Hunter was a little better i.e. more interactive & better detailed I doubt that you would get me flying anything else.

Have Alphasim thought about making two versions of each aircraft? One would be for the budget pocket & one would have more detailed cockpit/systems modelling - along the same lines as AccuSim. A download would upgrade the former to the latter when money allows.

Apologies if anyone in a previous post has already suggested this or similar but I'm tired and have to admit to not having read every single post on this subject.

Regards

Mike

PS Thankyou Alphasim for the Hunter.

 

[centuryseries]

Hard doesn't equal realistic.

Unless you are flying my SR-71 for the first time trying to get it to Mach 3 at 70,000 feet

 

[tigisfat]

Unless you are flying my SR-71 for the first time trying to get it to Mach 3 at 70,000 feet

Your SR-71 does have the capability to do wacky and possibly unrealistic things if taken outside of the normal flight regime. That being said, I haven't had any problems with it and I never thought it was unrealistic.


We talked about real pilots 'approving' of air models, but that doesn't mean much because perceptions are so different, especially if those RW pilots aren't sim pilots. They'll tell you it's right on every time.

I knew of a RW hornet pilot that flew the default one and said it was dead on. Sure, it may be convincing, but has anyone tried high speed rolls in the default hornet? Keep the roll input coming and wacky stuff happens.


If it's convincing and doesn't do stupid 'sim' stuff, like the default extra's 'flip-climbing' at low airspeeds, then it's good enough for me. For example, the IRIS and Aerosoft F-16s fly as different as night and day, and they are both good enough for me.

I just refuse to believe that real F-105s went all wacky with a slight crosswind.

 

[guzler]

I have some pretty expensive add-ons in my virtual hangar but I keep on going back to Alphasim's Hunter.
The external modelling & texturing are superb - the view when looking from the cockpit down the wing and across the drop tanks is breathtaking - especially when the vortices form at the wing tips.

I have to agree in part with some of the cockpit comments though. If the cockpit in the Hunter was a little better i.e. more interactive & better detailed I doubt that you would get me flying anything else.

Have Alphasim thought about making two versions of each aircraft? One would be for the budget pocket & one would have more detailed cockpit/systems modelling - along the same lines as AccuSim. A download would upgrade the former to the latter when money allows.

Apologies if anyone in a previous post has already suggested this or similar but I'm tired and have to admit to not having read every single post on this subject.

Regards

Mike

PS Thankyou Alphasim for the Hunter.

Quite agree, this gets some of the most flying hours in my FSX. I'll never get to know how real it is, but it feels mighty fine !

 

[Sundog]

Yeah, we've been through this with one of our planes. Many didn't like it because it was too hard to fly, but the main test pilot said it was spot on. Hell, we were going to make a Hurricane with all of the Hurricane pilots we had access to, but we decided not to, because we would want the FDE to be realistic and after talking with the Hurri pilots we decided it probably wouldn't sell because nobody would want to fly it if we modeled all of it's idiosyncrasies accurately.

However, I think many problems also come from the fact that we all have different joysticks with different configurations. I think that is one of the most difficult areas to deal with when developing FDEs. Because I know at times when we've developed FDE's, myself and some of the beta testers will have completely opposite opinions about response rates, etc. and it's largely due to different joysticks and settings.

Now back OT: Is the Jaguar out yet?