MSFS Flight Dynamics

[Mach3DS]

Thanks Hans ! What do you think about the MSFS Hellcat and Corsair ?

I quickly learned not to fly VR with bigger aircraft/VC's than GA or the occasional prop- or jetfighter. Flying VR is totally amazing but if i can't read the instruments properly it can become annoying. (i have a HP Reverb G2). How's that with DCS ? Are VC's in DCS generally better/sharper looking compared to MSFS ? ( DCS VC's look a lot better compared to VC's in MSFS in the first place, isn't it..). And there are no 'big' aircraft in DCS to begin with, right ? I mean no airliners or cargo planes, WWII bombers and that sort of thing. What i *would* love to see in DCS is a B-17 or Lancaster. Do you know if anything like that might be in the pipeline ? C-47 maybe ?....

Thanks !

Yes, I would say that for the most part the payware aircraft are to a higher quality than MSFS in general. There are of course devs who do just as good in MSFS. But I would say in general DCS looks better for the majority of aircraft.

To give my opinion regarding your original question, the FM:

I believe that the order of possible highest fidelity FMs goes in order:

1. DCS
2. P3D
3. X-plane
4. MSFS

2 and 3 may be swapped....I don't recall...I just remember talking to a dev behind the scenes who has done work in all of them that was what they said. So take it with a grain of salt.

In terms of what I fly, I mainly only fly military. And so I fly DCS in an online squadron. Most are Real world pilots, including me. None of us have MSFS installed. I installed it to fly the Dark star from Top Gun module. But then once the novelty wore off I took it off. I find it to be an amazing world simulator but overall just not interested. I can do like 95% of everything you can do with the DCS aircraft counterparts of the real thing. So it's much more immersive for me. My buddy who recently transitioned said that he used PMDG 737 in order to learn all the flows for his checkrides. So it was a precise system simulator/task trainer 1:1 to his real life ride. Outside of that, no one I fly with uses MSFS. Probably because they're geared to mil flight. But we were all on the beta and didn't like the ground handling at the time. Not sure if that ever changed or not. Any way. I think your question should have categories for the "Best" aircraft. My bid would be the Heatblur F-14 Tomcat. Overall it's probably THE benchmark in simulation, for FM, Engine Model, Systems, Crew and Comms. It's not even something I fly that much. But it's just mind blowing. Nothing I've ever flown ever before even comes close to it's total immersion in a specific type. My main mount is the Viper, which is amazing. But HB Tomcat is on another level of immersion.

No, it doesn't have big aircraft (Yet). A C-130 is coming. There is also a Freeware Lancaster being made as a mod. It does look quite good. I'm not sure how that will work out but it does look quite good quality for freeware! The AI B-17 in DCS is quite good external. I'll attach a recent set of pics for a livery I made not too long ago. I'm hoping that with the expansion of the Spherical world model, DCS will be able to incorporate our favorite bombers and recon aircraft like, SR-71, U-2, B-52, B-58, B-17, Lancaster, B-24.

C-130J Info
https://stormbirds.blog/2022/09/02/dcs-c-130j-headlines-new-dcs-world-dev-update/


LANCASTER INFO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEXgG-C4P_U&t=2s

 

[tiger1962]

Thank you Don and Jan, I'm humbled and inspired at the same time to release more of my FD mods, especially the taildraggers.
Today's my 62nd birthday - it's weird to be the same age as Old People isn't it - so I've uploaded the v1.2 Ercoupe mod to flightsim.com and the library here.
I hope you find it to be as much fun as I do now!

 

[modelr]

Thank you Don and Jan, I'm humbled and inspired at the same time to release more of my FD mods, especially the taildraggers.
Today's my 62nd birthday - it's weird to be the same age as Old People isn't it - so I've uploaded the v1.2 Ercoupe mod to flightsim.com and the library here.
I hope you find it to be as much fun as I do now!

Happy Birthday, Tiger. My wife is 67 today.

On my way to pick up your v1.2 update. Will let you know what I think in a day or two when I get a chance to try it out.

EDIT: I just picked up your update, and (finally) read all of the improvements. "Sweet Pea" N99287 does not have the differential brakes. Only one pedal, on left (PIC) side. Later models, that, incidentally decoupled aileron-rudder, did have differential braking.

@Javis, The canopy windows do indeed open from the top, sliding down into the fuselage. Totally manual. They are made of thin plexiglass, and can be opened in flight.

 

[tiger1962]

"Sweet Pea" N99287 does not have the differential brakes. Only one pedal, on left (PIC) side. Later models, that, incidentally decoupled aileron-rudder, did have differential braking.

@Javis, The canopy windows do indeed open from the top, sliding down into the fuselage. Totally manual. They are made of thin plexiglass, and can be opened in flight.

Thanks Don - I only added the differential braking to aid with ground handling before I discovered the latest improvements, and I've forgotten to remove it! I've changed it now.

Jan: The windows did open in earlier versions of the BRSim model but they slid straight down and the curved part at the top went through the pilot's head, so that feature has been removed in the latest version.

 

[modelr]

Thanks Don - I only added the differential braking to aid with ground handling before I discovered the latest improvements, and I've forgotten to remove it! I've changed it now.

Jan: The windows did open in earlier versions of the BRSim model but they slid straight down and the curved part at the top went through the pilot's head, so that feature has been removed in the latest version.

Ahh, ok. Another update, or just redownload?

I was telling Jan about the R/L aircraft windows. Never tried the model's windows, so didn't know of the problem.

 

[tiger1962]

Ahh, ok. Another update, or just redownload?

It's just a re-download, I only had to change a 0.5 to a 0.
I'm now working on the default DC-3 which I use with the Got Friends mods but not the Duckworks mod.

 

[K5083]

Been reading and thinking about this thread since it got started.

In my simming lifetime there have been certain airplanes released that I have thought of as bar-raisers that really opened my eyes as to what was possible on a given platform. The MAAM B-25 Briefing time for FS9 was one. So was the A2A P-40B for P3D, although it could just as easily have been any of the Accu-Sim planes, the P-40 was just the one I happened to try first. There has not yet been such a plane in MSFS for me. My fave planes, like the A2A Comanche and Milviz 310, really just bring Accu-Sim quality to the new platform.

As far as flight model fidelity, I guess I agree with Mach3DS's ranking of DCS, P3D, X-Plane, then MSFS. However, if we are going to allow limited-map, combat-focused sims into the discussion, those of us who fly a lot of warbirds would talk about the IL2 products. Those may not have the systems depth, at least in ways that are manipulable by the user, of DCS and the other sims, but in terms of flight behavior, the warbirds in the Great Battles and Cliffs of Dover sims are at least as convincing as those of DCS or P3D. IL2 and DCS also don't have the weird quirks that seem to plague all of the general purpose flight sims. In P3D, for example, the poor ground friction modeling that enabled you to Tokyo drift almost anything down the runway sideways always irritated me. With MSFS it is the excessive longitudinal instability, which has to be countered by excessive rudder authority in most airplanes, making many takeoffs a rodeo even in planes that are supposed to be docile, which has existed since Day 1. MS/Asobo's constant pursuit of more eye candy and advanced aerodynamics while leaving these basic issues uncorrected is my single biggest issue with the sim.

I am coming around to the view that for all the talk of fluid dynamics and whatnot, such things are mostly overkill for a PC-based consumer flight sim and that the old-school FS table-lookup flight model is more than adequate IF you get all the parameters correct. In a shooter game, you don't need to model every character's entire skeletal, muscular, circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems for the game to decide how fast they can run or what damage a bullet causes. That type of modeling just exponentially increases computational overhead and usually reduces accuracy because the values of so many of those fancy new parameters are just not known. In flight modeling, it just creates more and more opportunities for garbage in, garbage out. Even in P3D flight modeling, designers were guessing half the time when they entered propeller efficiency tables or whatever. Maybe the virtual wind tunnel approach will be better at some future date when all of us are running PCs that would nowadays be considered mainframe supercomputers. At present, though, I feel like I can feel an artificial flight model working in MSFS to an extent that I never could in the other sims we have mentioned.

Javis asked about all-time best flight sim experiences in post #1 and, to my surprise, I wasn't able to think of many. I guess my first online Simventure approach into Oshkosh being guided by live real-world controllers was special. I can't even recall what I was flying, but experiencing something that I had watched and listened to from the ground so many times was amazing. Everything else just kind of blends together into a contented sort of haze. I can't even remember what or where I was flying during my first VR trip. It's funny because in other games, I can recall great snipes I made in RPGs, or nice goals I scored in sports games. Even in combat sims, I can still remember making difficult deflection shots to take down an ace in Dynamix Red Baron in the 1990s. Civilian flights sims are not like that for me. I'm pleased when the scenery or sky looks unexpectedly nice, or when I make a decent landing, or don't upset a controller on Vatsim, but it doesn't go into a hall of fame, it's just part of the general nice experience I keep coming back for. I think this lack of focus on dramatic Events is characteristic of simulator-style "games" and is really what makes it a niche that the majority of gamers aren't into. They want big hits of dopamine, not a steady drip.

I had a really nice flight in the DC-3 last night in VR despite you guys' efforts to ruin it for me. Yes, the cockpit is small. This to me is only partially an issue with flight sim addon designers not being used to designing for VR. I don't really believe that the DC-3 cockpit is undersized relative to the external model or to the sim world. It's more of a "world scale" issue which can only be addressed to a limited extent through headset settings. In other environments I use VR for, they have a setting that makes a huge difference in how large the environment is perceived. The first time we get a flight sim that is built for VR - and it won't be FS 2024 - it will have such a setting.

August

 

[fliger747]

Recently upgraded computer equipment and controls. I purchased the PMDG 737-900 and their DC6. Both excellent products though I am not enthused with the landing of the 737 in flare, but tuning my controls may help. In past eras I did the flight dynamics for numerous Corsairs in including the Milviz FSX and P3D versions. I don't know what is different but the new Milviz for 2020 I can't fly! Takeoffs are just about impossible, landings at least doable. I thought the ones that I had done win the past were quite flyable if not easy and pretty close to reality.

 

[vipgroup]

OK, so the first part of this will sound like blowing my own trumpet, it is not meant to be, it is the truth.

The biggest impact on me in FS was when I was hacking the heck out of hex codes in FS4 to discover how to change the straight line between the 2d panel and the outside view. It took months and months, changing one digit at a time in a hex editor, then re-loading FS, seeing if there was any difference, and then trying another number. The day I first saw one tiny difference, and started to make the panel drop down in a curve at the left side, that was the day I felt incredible satisfaction. It took another few weeks, but the result was a modified Cessna panel which no longer had a straight edge across the screen. More research allowed me extend the "invisible mask" to build window frames across the outside view, a first in the FS world if I remember rightly, and that led to the the DC-3 panel which was released in time for the DC-3 in aircraft studio. These were the early days of the VIP experience... my god, 30 years ago. Nothing in my decades of FS since gave me such an emotional buzz.

Now to MSFS. What do I want to see changed most? The behavior on the runway. I hated it the first flight I did on the day MSFS was launched three years ago, and I hate it today. Very few aircraft track correctly, and I never fly with crosswinds because of that. The entire concept of friction and resistance of wheels on tarmac seems to be lost to Asobo. If I had ever steered a real aircraft down a runway like this, like some kind of drunken idiot, my instructors would never have let me go solo. It's disgraceful that this basic error continues. And as if to make the point, about six months ago I loaded up "an earlier version" of FS, and was shocked at how the aircraft stayed on the centerline so easily. Maybe too easy granted, but it was far more pleasurable. I sure hope this gets fixed sometime, because it has always been a right royal pain in the bahoochie - if you get my drift!

- Kenneth

 

[K5083]

Well, (1) the Milviz Corsair was one of the best warbirds for P3D so thank you for some nice experiences and drinks are on me if we ever meet, and (2) that, coming from you, is quite an indictment of the flight model in the new sim.

Some of us have learned how to manage takeoffs in the taildragger warbirds in MSFS, but I, at least, know that when I do so, I have figured out how to win a boss battle in a video game, not how to fly an airplane.

August

 

[Daube]

I had a really nice flight in the DC-3 last night in VR despite you guys' efforts to ruin it for me.

Sorry

Yes, the cockpit is small.

Indeed

This to me is only partially an issue with flight sim addon designers not being used to designing for VR.

Honestly, I think there is no such thing as "designing for VR". None of the aircrafts I have ever used in VR until now, may it be in P3Dv4, XPlane 11/12 or MSFS, were designed for VR, and they were all perfectly functional.
When you model a 3D object that should be X feet large, you should make it X feet large. That is all.
The incorrect size of the DC-3 cockpit is probably the consequence of nobody checking it, or nobody from the test team using it in VR. Maybe they will update it in future, if we are lucky.

I don't really believe that the DC-3 cockpit is undersized relative to the external model or to the sim world. It's more of a "world scale" issue which can only be addressed to a limited extent through headset settings.

No, your world scale is fine, everything around your plane is correct size. It's just the cockpit that is undersized.

 

[Javis]

Good thing you brought that back up, Daube. I'm still 'on the move' so kinda forgat about it a little.... Barry (AH) contacted me about it. He doesn't frequent SOH fora anymore. Same reason as some other devs (too much critique..). But still wants us here to know his thoughts about the scale of AH's C-47/DC-3 VC. So without further ado here is Barry's comment :

Quote :

What people need to know is that Microsoft, when they contracted us to build the DC-3, supplied 3d scans of the real aircraft, (they do this for everything we build, like the Stratoliner, the Trimotor and the others) exterior and interior. We built the cockpit using these as templates. So the cockpit, I can assure you a) is accurate and b) fits the scans exactly.

The other thing people never think about is this. If the cockpit were the wrong size or shape, it would not fit into the exterior model. In MSFS the interior model is displayed whenever the exterior is displayed. The DC-3 cockpit fits EXACTLY into the exterior model. So if anyone has a problem with the interior model they must have a problem with the exterior also.

In VR the field of vision and depth of that field is totally different to that of a monitor. To provide a cockpit to suit VR one has to cheat the dimensions by using a tunnel effect which distorts the depth of field visible to the naked eye. That is why many developers do not like VR. To provide what is being asked would require a completely different cockpit model that would not match a 3D scan or any plans or drawings. Not only that, the time required to build such a beast is totally unacceptable.

Unquote.

What i noticed just the other day at the great freeware Fightertown USA Miramar add-on, the parked F-14's and other aircraft there are about half the size of my own F-14 i am trying to park...

 

[ftl818]

Good thing you brought that back up, Daube. I'm still 'on the move' so kinda forgat about it a little.... Barry (AH) contacted me about it. He doesn't frequent SOH fora anymore. Same reason as some other devs (too much critique..). But still wants us here to know his thoughts about the scale of AH's C-47/DC-3 VC. So without further ado here is Barry's comment :

Quote :

What people need to know is that Microsoft, when they contracted us to build the DC-3, supplied 3d scans of the real aircraft, (they do this for everything we build, like the Stratoliner, the Trimotor and the others) exterior and interior. We built the cockpit using these as templates. So the cockpit, I can assure you a) is accurate and b) fits the scans exactly.

The other thing people never think about is this. If the cockpit were the wrong size or shape, it would not fit into the exterior model. In MSFS the interior model is displayed whenever the exterior is displayed. The DC-3 cockpit fits EXACTLY into the exterior model. So if anyone has a problem with the interior model they must have a problem with the exterior also.

In VR the field of vision and depth of that field is totally different to that of a monitor. To provide a cockpit to suit VR one has to cheat the dimensions by using a tunnel effect which distorts the depth of field visible to the naked eye. That is why many developers do not like VR. To provide what is being asked would require a completely different cockpit model that would not match a 3D scan or any plans or drawings. Not only that, the time required to build such a beast is totally unacceptable.

Unquote.

What i noticed just the other day at the great freeware Fightertown USA Miramar add-on, the parked F-14's and other aircraft there are about half the size of my own F-14 i am trying to park...

Some years ago I had a flight in the PH-PBA of the Dutch Dakato Association for EHAM, runway 22. I was in the cockpit for some time and yes the cockpit is really small and cramped. The pilots are very close to the instrument panel. To me the cockpit in the AH DC3 is spot on.

 

[K5083]

I was thinking something like what Barry says above. I don't see how the cockpit would fit with the external model if it were scaled down. And I can't imagine any dev taking the trouble to scale down every gauge, switch, and other off-the-shelf component they use in their cockpits to fit the scaled down cockpit. That is a convincing argument to me. Barry's argument about what it takes to design a cockpit for VR makes rather less sense, and conflicts with the experience we all have that many, perhaps most, flight sim cockpits designed before consumer VR existed look spatially fine in VR, but that is irrelevant to the DC-3.

On the other hand, Daube provides no evidence for his position other than that the cockpit seems subjectively small to him. I'll agree that it does to me, too. Then again, lately I watch video of Dan Gryder in his DC-3 and the cockpit indeed looks none too large, just as ftl818 says, with the pilots up close to the panel and Dan bumping elbows with his co-pilot if that is another big guy. It ain't a 737 or even a Stratoliner, for sure. So maybe AH has something to teach us about DC-3 cockpits rather than being wrong because it wasn't what we expected. I will say that the default VR eyepoint in the DC-3 might be set a bit high, that could contribute to the sense of smallness but is easily enough corrected.

August

 

[K5083]

What i noticed just the other day at the great freeware Fightertown USA Miramar add-on, the parked F-14's and other aircraft there are about half the size of my own F-14 i am trying to park...

Same here, I'll often park my Corsair or Mustang in a line of jet fighters or next to a bizjet and notice that my warbird is as large as those planes. Scales of static and AI planes seem to be all over the place, and were in FSX/P3D too.

August

 

[Javis]

Some years ago I had a flight in the PH-PBA of the Dutch Dakato Association for EHAM, runway 22. I was in the cockpit for some time and yes the cockpit is really small and cramped. The pilots are very close to the instrument panel. To me the cockpit in the AH DC3 is spot on.

In the still '2D panel only' FS era we did the DDA's DC-3 PH-DDZ for FS2K complete with exact replica of its instrument panel.

That's why we had access to the real DDZ as much as we wanted. That's great of course but also had a downside : i was completely fed up with 2D panels in FS because it had inevitably absolutely nothing to do with what the real DC-3 cockpit looked and felt like. Almost killed my enthusiasm for FS. Luckily not long after that depressive observation Bill Lyons came to the rescue with the first ever Virtual Cockpit ! Hurray ! Bill Lyons for President !!

 

[Daube]

Good thing you brought that back up, Daube. I'm still 'on the move' so kinda forgat about it a little.... Barry (AH) contacted me about it. He doesn't frequent SOH fora anymore. Same reason as some other devs (too much critique..). But still wants us here to know his thoughts about the scale of AH's C-47/DC-3 VC. So without further ado here is Barry's comment :

Quote :

What people need to know is that Microsoft, when they contracted us to build the DC-3, supplied 3d scans of the real aircraft, (they do this for everything we build, like the Stratoliner, the Trimotor and the others) exterior and interior. We built the cockpit using these as templates. So the cockpit, I can assure you a) is accurate and b) fits the scans exactly.

The other thing people never think about is this. If the cockpit were the wrong size or shape, it would not fit into the exterior model. In MSFS the interior model is displayed whenever the exterior is displayed. The DC-3 cockpit fits EXACTLY into the exterior model. So if anyone has a problem with the interior model they must have a problem with the exterior also.

In VR the field of vision and depth of that field is totally different to that of a monitor. To provide a cockpit to suit VR one has to cheat the dimensions by using a tunnel effect which distorts the depth of field visible to the naked eye. That is why many developers do not like VR. To provide what is being asked would require a completely different cockpit model that would not match a 3D scan or any plans or drawings. Not only that, the time required to build such a beast is totally unacceptable.

Unquote.

What i noticed just the other day at the great freeware Fightertown USA Miramar add-on, the parked F-14's and other aircraft there are about half the size of my own F-14 i am trying to park...

I'm glad Barry took the time to answer this, although I'm really surprised by his answer, and kind of disagree with his reply regarding the perspectives stuff. I'd simply like to point out the fact that the DC3 is currently the only model in my hangar that suffers from this problem ? I have plenty of planes, all of them look right in their dimensions. Why would the DC3 be the only one providing a "way too small" impression ?
And even if we take the proportions out of the way, just look at the yoke body vs. the seat, where your knees would be... Do you see any space for even a single knee in there ? The yoke body is touching the seat !

Or is it the Duckworld mod that is altering some parameters which make the 3D model wrong ?
I'll try to post some screenshots tonight to illustrate. I'll also try to remove Duckworld's mod.

 

[Javis]

Barry's argument about what it takes to design a cockpit for VR makes rather less sense, and conflicts with the experience we all have that many, perhaps most, flight sim cockpits designed before consumer VR existed look spatially fine in VR.

But IMHO that's exactly what Barry is trying to convey, August : there is no need for a specifically designed VC for VR because 'normally' designed VC's look fine in VR even if, depending on the size of the VC and the helmet brand, gauges may start looking unsharp or blurry.

On the other hand, Daube provides no evidence for his position other than that the cockpit seems subjectively small to him. I'll agree that it does to me, too. Then again, lately I watch video of Dan Gryder in his DC-3 and the cockpit indeed looks none too large, just as ftl818 says, with the pilots up close to the panel and Dan bumping elbows with his co-pilot if that is another big guy. It ain't a 737 or even a Stratoliner, for sure. So maybe AH has something to teach us about DC-3 cockpits rather than being wrong because it wasn't what we expected. I will say that the default VR eyepoint in the DC-3 might be set a bit high, that could contribute to the sense of smallness but is easily enough corrected.

The thing that surprised me most when for the first time entering the cockpit of the DDZ DC-3 is how relatively 'far away' the instrument panel was situated underneath the anti-glare panel. At this first time the DC-3 was parked in the hangar and with no cockpit lighting whatsoever instruments were very hard to read (could also have been caused by my farsightedness..;-) I later realised also that my 'far away' perception of the instrument panel of a real DC-3 clearly may have been caused by the fact that i had been looking at my precious flight simulator 2D panels smack dab in front of my nose for years and years. Wrong perception ??.... Absolutely !!

 

[K5083]

But IMHO that's exactly what Barry is trying to convey, August : there is no need for a specifically designed VC for VR because 'normally' designed VC's look fine in VR even if, depending on the size of the VC and the helmet brand, gauges may start looking unsharp or blurry.

Maybe you're right. I wish he was still here to clarify. I thought he was conceding that correctly designed, scale cockpits look funny in VR and claimed that to look right in VR, they have to be specially distorted to accommodate the VR headset field of view (he wrote "depth of field," but clearly meant FOV). If I'm right about that, I'd say he was not correct, because headsets' FOV generally is well matched to the angular coverage of your eyes by the display, and if anything, it eliminates the problem we have in pancake/TrackIR of figuring out where to set the screen zoom. (There is an interesting YT vid about that by A330 Driver, i.e. the artist formerly known as 737NG Driver, just today.) So a properly scaled VC should feel fine in VR, as you say, and as we have all experienced. I'm just not sure that's what Barry was saying. In any event, I enjoyed the DC-3 cockpit until y'all drew my attention to how small it feels, and now that Barry has credibly argued that it really should feel that small, I'm sure I'll enjoy it again.

"World scale" in VR is definitely a thing, although I no longer think it is part of the DC-3 issue. World scale in MSFS almost invariably feels comfortably 1:1, whether you're in a cockpit, looking from the outside, or viewing the world with a drone. If all of the cockpits in a sim feel too small and toy-like in VR, as people often complain about with IL2, then this should be tried. Unfortunately, MSFS doesn't include a world scale adjustment in the game, and WMR doesn't include one for the headset. Supposedly it can be done with the OpenXR toolkit but it never worked well for me, and I have pretty much stopped using the toolkit. Steam VR does include a good world scale slider, useful for those who use VR in IL2, P3D, or FSX.

August

 

[keithb77]

1. DCS
2. P3D
3. X-plane
4. MSFS

2 and 3 may be swapped...

I'd put Xplane above P3D any day of the week...there have been a few very good FSX/P3D models from very talented developers but the building blocks in Xplane are superior.