MSFS Flight model

[ejoiner]

Am I the only one who HATEs the FM in MSFS2020? In P3D, flight is fluid and the airplane flies like an airplane.

In FS, I find that the planes are on rails. Dont move fluidly or naturally. MSFS looks beautiful, but I am getting to where I cant stand flying it.

[paiken]

Make sure you're not using the "Legacy" flight model. I have mine set to Modern and my planes are bouncing all over the sky. Even had a few break up in flight when the wind shear bounced me a bit too hard.

[Priller]

Paiken is so right.

MSFS is a completely different beast than the different iterations of FSX and P3D. It takes quite a while to learn it and to get comfortable with.

Priller

[hubbabubba]

Funny how things go around. What "hooked" me to CFS1 was the buffeting of my right wing while trying to turn inside my target of the moment, a Bf109E. I was elated!

FS98 had been a deception; it was just like flying on rails (my exact words).

I've just finished a trans-continental flight from Breckenridge, CA, to Montréal, QC, in a flimsy Zlin Ultra. I was tossed in all directions like a "salad du jour". I died - virtually that is - from pretty much all possible causes. Every time I died, I would restart from my last previous good landing.

No, this is definitely not like being on rails, unless you consider roller coaster as one.

[bazzar]

It is far too early, I'm afraid, to be trying to assess the validity of the flight model. By their own admission, the flight model is still work in progress and expect further upgrades and changes. If you develop for this sim, you will know that there are several major issues in the flight model - ground behaviour and general lift/drag behaviours being among them.

All that can be done at the moment is accept it for what it is, an excellent scenery viewer and wait for the flight model to be fully corrected and finished.

One thing it does do in its present state is teach one to be more aware of aeroplane behaviours and controls, which is a plus in its favour.

[Mach3DS]

Am I the only one who HATEs the FM in MSFS2020? In P3D, flight is fluid and the airplane flies like an airplane.

In FS, I find that the planes are on rails. Dont move fluidly or naturally. MSFS looks beautiful, but I am getting to where I cant stand flying it.

No you're not the only one. It's been a complaint since the alpha from every RL pilot I know that flies sims who havre MSFS. The stock FM is inferior to any adv FM that uses external coding. Sure, the stock aircraft in MSFS are way better than stock aircraft for FSX or P3D, but thats hardly saying much. I find rudder to be the worst offender. That and ground handling. Watch the Milviz state of the sim video. Or follow IndiaFoxTecho. They are very ear about what is and isn't possible right now.

[StormILM]

There are some aspects of the flight modeling I like, others not and I agree, the rudder authority and ground handling is bad except on the aircraft where it is turned a bit better. Then again, few stock aircraft or flight models have ever made me happy. I remember the days base flight modeling was far worse, like flying an R/C model around. They will get it sorted, sooner the better and hopefully the SDK will get finished soon as well.

[DC1973]

As both a real-world PPL pilot and sim developer, my personal take on the flight model is that it seems to have been built to showcase the effect of the movement of air on the aircraft ( great ) at the expense of anything else ( not great, obviously ). The reduction of tables used to refine control surface movements have resulted in the "choppy" rudder that everybody knows about, especially on take off, whereby rudder is virtually INOP below a certain airspeed and then comes in with a huge bang, clearly not the way it should be.

Flight characteristics are not quite so bad when you're flying, but there certainly is not the ability for developers to fine-tune flight models like there used to be. I hope that Asobo have a plan for improving this, but I already know that a letter sent by several FDE experts to Asobo was brushed off by their CEO / boss as not part of their long term plan.

We can live in hope though...

[bazzar]

I would suggest that Asobo and Microsoft have already achieved much of their long-term plan. I am also certain that this plan did not include flight modeling to the degree many of us were expecting. XBox-based, scenery-rich "flying experiences" is probably where they wanted to be and to a large degree, they have achieved that.

Providing the capacity (and that is the important thing) exists for developers to manipulate the coded data toward more acceptable result as has been the case with most other simulators to date, you will see things improve. Otherwise we are all probably wasting our time.

[centuryseries]

One thing that is great is how the air interacts with aircraft over the peaks of mountains - how true to life it is I have no idea, but it's a welcome feature for me, and makes you think more about wind direction and your aircraft performance.

[LouP]

One thing that is great is how the air interacts with aircraft over the peaks of mountains - how true to life it is I have no idea, but it's a welcome feature for me, and makes you think more about wind direction and your aircraft performance.

From my experience in real world flying, this feels over exaggerated to me. Yes it is there but not to this extent unless your in a powered para glider lol. I'm not sure why it is set up like this yet I have trouble finding an updraft from a thermal in a sailplane.

LouP

[guzler]

On the whole, I've quite enjoyed the way it knocks the aircraft about in choppy conditions but I've found some scenarios with the wind cranked up where it seems to create a rudder oscillation rather than random movements

[Tom Clayton]

They also broke the flap lift factor by doubling it. They published a workaround whereby users were to edit the flap lift in the flight_model files for each plane. But that only solves the issue for 2/3 of the planes for most users. There was no plan for a hot-fix, but after the outcry, they're supposed to be putting one out soon-ish.

[tiger1962]

On the whole, I've quite enjoyed the way it knocks the aircraft about in choppy conditions but I've found some scenarios with the wind cranked up where it seems to create a rudder oscillation rather than random movements

I've watched those rudder oscillation movements myself, from spot view at about the 10 o'clock position, and it seems to me that all they've done is make the plane pivot around the nose cone/prop spinner instead of the CG position.

[jmig]

As both a real-world PPL pilot and sim developer,... The reduction of tables used to refine control surface movements have resulted in the "choppy" rudder that everybody knows about, especially on take off, whereby rudder is virtually INOP below a certain airspeed and then comes in with a huge bang, clearly not the way it should be.....

Thank you! And here I thought it was me in my old age.

[Bushpounder]

Totally agree. Aircraft fly like crap. Only way to put it. FSX aircraft flew better, smoother, and on some occasions, they flew just like the real thing. As someone mentioned, this is geared towards the XBox folks. That leaves us wanting and wanting. Any aircraft created now will be built using the engine they have NOW, so they too may not be a whole lot better. I have not bought any yet. Just speculation there! They need to get target one thing and work on it. I would rather have the planes fixed, or scenery fixed, etc., instead of a small portion of 10 things adjusted a tiny bit. I'm not sinking any money in this sim until I start seeing things fixed that mattered. I blame a lot of what we are seeing on improper testing and not enough of it. I've been doing this for 20+ years and knew it was coming to us to test. I think if they would fix a few things, this would be the sim of next decade. With XP sniffing around for an updated version, who knows - the race is on!

Don BP

[BendyFlyer]

Look, I have to say what is my humble but not unlearned opinion on MSFS2020 - I do not think it is capable of being transformed into an accurate flight simulation program. It was geared to graphics display and simple moving objects - that is gaming! Simple reptitive motion with rich graphics. They did not consider the complication of graphical motion in 3 planes involving pressure and speed changes with complicated multi-factorial equations to produce a resultant. ATP SubLogic did that and that is why MS bought them. That is why LM bought FSX. Alobo cannot reinvent the wheel - they fail to understand why it took some 20 years to mature the code that became P3DV5 a 64 bit program with correct flight fidelity and reproduction of interlocking systems. LMs bolt in concept for True Sky, ORBX LC etc, and the NVIDIA wave and motion engine is unbeatable actually in terms of simulation.

I tried MSFS2020 and concluded they were trying to reinvent the wheel. I am most concerned for the various developers such as Bazaars outfit because they have an incomplete SDK based on unfinished code and hence an unfinished software architecture to integrate the 3D models, textures and scripts. I think it can be done by the way but it is going to take a decade. I think for that reason it will stay what it is - a very nice graphical game representing flight and the globe. MS's market will not care - they cannot tell the difference anyway and I am not speaking about the core of folk who visit here or other sim sites - we are a market minority!

[Bradburger]

So is the old FSX or 'Legacy' FM porked as well?

I had the alpha at a late stage, but never really had much of chance to try things out properly, and didn't do much comparing.

That said, despite it's age and limitations, the FSX/P3D/ESP FM is actually very good and flexible if things are done correctly using such tools a Jerry Beckwith's Air Wrench and FDWB Excel spreadsheets.

Done correctly with these tools (remember the old adage, "garbage in, garbage out" - maybe that still applies to MSFS), a highly accurate and authentic FM can be done, as I can testify after many years using these excellent tools.

I do plan to get MSFS at some stage after I've done a full OS reinstall, and rejigged my SSD/HDD drives for space etc., so it will be interesting to have a proper look and play around!

Btw, is Force Feed back fully implemented with both the new and legacy FMs?

When I had the alpha, it was not implemented, so it would be nice if it was working as it did before in the old FSX/P3D/ESP FM.

Cheers

Paul

[DC1973]

Just a brief note on the PC versus X-Box-X version. It is highly likely that these two versions will diverge after launch, likely based on the target market. As a general rule, PC users are more populated by fans of higher-detail aircraft, while the console generation is likely to be more orientated towards "fun and entertainment". It's only my gut feeling, but in terms of revenue, the two would make more sense to continue on their own paths, which is likely when we'll see higher-detail flight models appear on the PC version as well as perhaps more features for such aircraft.

[K5083]

Yay, finally we have our own flight model gripe thread! Other forums are months ahead of us in this regard.

I am not a FM dev so I can only rely on the user experience and what FM devs say. What they say on other forums is that the new FM is POTENTIALLY more sophisticated than the MS/LM FM. But much of it is either not yet implemented or is populated with bad data, hence the wonky flight behavior we all experience. The impression I get is one of cautious optimism that the FM can, in reasonably short order, become at least as good as that in any other consumer flight sim. It's not as if the MS/LM flight model didn't have its critics.

The current user experience is, of course, a bit of a mess. The most balanced assessments I have seen are that, in the view of RW genav pilots, the stock genav planes are as realistic as any in past sims, or more so, but the larger you go, the worse it gets. That is with a few major caveats, like the "rudder" effect already discussed in this thread, which I think of as more of an overall yaw effect. Because it is not just the effect of rudder that suddenly kicks in at a certain speed, but the effect of all yaw vectors on the plane, chiefly crosswinds. Tell me if this experience sounds familiar to you: You spawn on the runway in a small plane. The sim has assigned you to a runway with a 20-knot crosswind in your little Cessna or Waco without telling you what the wind conditions are, and you can't find out from the live weather screen. What the heck, you go for it. For the first 40 knots, everything is fine, you track straight ahead as if there is no crosswind. Then suddenly you're doing donuts like Bo Duke and no amount of rudder will even slow down the turn. The plane finally stops turning when it is pointed straight into the wind (probably parallel to a runway the sim could have assigned you in the first place). At least 4 things just happened in that scenario that would not happen in real life, and you feel like you've just played one of Asobo's motocross games, not a flight sim. Yeah, that has to be fixed. It seems to be worse with imported legacy planes, which I fly 95% of the time. I suspect that is because they have installed some artificial yaw damper or rudder enhancer in the stock plane FMs to band-aid this problem.

So that's the bad. The good is that there is a pretty wide range of circumstances where both stock and legacy planes fly just about exactly the way you think they ought to based on, in my case, over 30 years of flying other PC sims. And the combination of decent flight behavior and the snazzy graphics gives you, momentarily, the best experience of any consumer flight sim ever. Those moments of bliss give me hope that as the FM gradually improves, the avionics are made to work properly, and the SDK gets to where third-party devs can properly tune their planes, we'll have a sim that satisfies the hard core as well as the scenery peekers.

August