Flight Dynamic Query

M

middle

Charter Member
One thing I've been wondering....out of all the freeware planes available to us, which ones actually fly like their real world counterparts within the constraints of FS9? Having never placed my hands on the controls of a real live airplane, i'm curious as to which ones in my library are closest to the real deal...
I only fly with "real weather" and lately if I want to fly in Ireland during the day I wait till 10pm here so I can watch the sun come up in Ireland. I could set the sim but that's too easy...Besides, with real weather I believe the weather is representive of what's going on "now" as opposed to a preset flight time, if that makes any sense!
Anyhow, a list of the most realistic flight models would be really nice....middle
 
Oh boy! This will start a food fight! Where's the popcorn?

Personally as a non-pilot, I just look for reasonably accurate. Say within 10% or so of published performance specs. Right now I'm playing around with a couple of early jetliners. David Maltby's Comet and the Historic Jetliner Group's Boeing 727-100. Both flight models seem to be pretty reasonable to me for what I've read on the Comet's and the 727's performance.
 
I know I'm a stickler for realism so I'd say few are close off the shelf, at least going by how many I work on. But my perspective is via my joystick and other settings so it might be problematic to get a consensus here. I bet we just like what we like. I've had some flying experience plus a keen observers eye so I've had good luck making FS planes fly as they really do just by watching them. But I can't equate my work to actual in-the-cockpit control stick movements for so many aircraft so I do the best I can there.
 
They are not free but both the FSD Saratoga II TC and the more recent Carenado Saratoga I SP are very close to the real thing. I have about 350 hours now in my PA32-301FG and a 2003 TC.
Both have slight problems in small areas of flight control and of course it all depends on the control setup you have for your sim. For example in the case of the Saratoga the CH-Produkt Yoke I had for the longest time did not feel quite right especially in the elevator axis. I have since replaced that with the Saitek ProFlight Yoke and it is a very good match.

As a member of Manfred's Connie Team my main job was to make sure the girls felt right and the whole team spent a lot of time on getting the numbers to match the real world POH and flight notes we had for the Connie.
The hardest part when doing an airplane like the Connie is that very few active sim pilots have flown the real thing.
But while I could sit down with a few chaps that were lucky enough to fly the real airplane and get as much detail as possible on how it felt in exhange for lunches at airport cafes none of them had ever used Flightsim.
And lugging my entire setup around to have them test our airplane seemed a bit excessive...even if the Saratoga could have easily hauled it...desk and all :D
Only after the basic FDE was all buttoned up on the L-749 did a former crew member on Connies who is an active sim pilot pop into the CC forums and comment on the comparison real to simulated.
I think the series came away quite well....but of course I am not even going to pretend to be impartial.

Tom Gibson's and Friends CalClassic Convair and Douglas series would be the other group of freeware planes that I think are as close as you can get flying pixels.

I think you need to look at a few separate things in any case.
1. How do the controls feel ??? Which is very much influenced by your setup of course.
2. Does the simulated aircraft meet all the real airplanes numbers.
3. Are you actually willing to spend the time to fly an airplane correctly ???

A great many "problems" that users have with one simulated airplane or the other is that they don't want to commit to step 3. That starts by reading all included documentation and following the correct checklist and settings.
If I had a dollar for every "bug report" that was caused by failure to read the manual my real Saratoga would have her Aspen Avionics Suite already :D :D

But then I am guilty of that myself....I wondered if dear JBK had made a small snafu with the latest Ensign when it took seemingly forever for the gear to retract or extend.....I did not read the Readme either before the first flight :D

Stefan
 
For feel I like Milton Shoup's planes. Always a hard area of the sim to get in line with real world aircraft. Fly, adjust, fly, adjust. Certainly the A26 series is pretty good. Though not a popular statement on the FS9 forum, but I do like the way the planes "feel" in FSX.

For expensive Iron, the PMDG FSX 747-400 freighter is pretty good. I have about 8,000 hours as Capt in one.... Including some of the ones they have modeled.

Cheers: T
 
Thanks for the info, guys. So I guess the rule of thumb is , if it" feels" like it's flying, it is!
 
To me it's all pretty subjective. As far as how a plane behaves, I just expect any plane to feel representative of what something its size should be. If a 747 has the roll rate of a BD-5J, I tend to be a little suspicious that something may not be quite right...
 
As one who flies purely for fun and doesn't really give a hoot if a plane flies according to spec. (GASP! yes, I know, I'm a heathen :wavey:) I pay more attention to how smooth it flies. If I drop a notch of flaps and the plane jumps 100 ft and is now pointed 45' to the ground, I'll play with the flaps lift and pitch factors until I get it to fly the way I like. If I extend the spoilers and the nose shoots skyward or toward the ground, then I tweak that until I'm satisfied. I guess it's a matter of subjective opinion. I doubt if I have 5 aircraft in my hanger that aren't tweaked in some fashion.

I've never been in the cockpit of an aircraft, probably never will. This is as close as I'll probably ever come.

Do I enjoy flying? Hell yeah!

Can I navigate by instruments and get to where I want to be?
Yup.

I can shoot an ILS approach in anything from a Cessna to a 747. Do I want to understand how all the systems work, and spend half my flight watching dials, managing prop rpm's and fuel mixtures? Not so much.
Not that I can't, I do have several aircraft that I fly by the numbers on occasion, but others get flown much more.

I just want to tootle along, look at the pretty tree covered mountains, the puffy clouds, the sparkly water, and occasionally dodge that 747 that ATC cleared to land right behind my Cessna.

To each their own, I guess.

~A~
 
Having over 1000 hours in single engined aeroplanes and flown in over 200 types, I like things on the sim to be as realistic as possible. I like a challenge from time to time and as in real life like it to be as close as it is in the sim.

Having flown most of the Austers that Dave Molyneaux and Brian Horsey have built over at classicbritishfiles, I can vouch that the flying characteristics of these are very close to the real thing. The manuals, pilots notes and comments from the owners and pilots were all taken into hand and although they might not be everyone's cup of tea, they are very extremely accurate (within the confinement of the sim).

As to others, its difficult to say - as some of the aircraft I've flown have only been for the odd 30 minutes or an hour. I would like to think that if someone had taken hundreds if not thousands of hours building a sim aeroplane, that the flying characteristics would be replicated as close as possible, otherwise what is the point? It would be like driving a train on a track.

But then again, as the gentleman above said 'each to their own'. If we were all the same, life would be extremely boring!

Happy Landings,

Martin
 
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