A question for those who fly Fast Jets in the sim.

[Carbine1]

Hi there, how well do you all think the sensation of speed at low level flight is carried through in the sim. 2000agl down to 500agl.

It always seems fairly slow to me even at speeds reaching 500>600kts.

Over water the feeling is different and more of an accurate recreation of the feeling of speed.

Just my thoughts, what do other Fast jet flyers feel ?

Cheers.

[JIMJAM]

Without incriminating myself I use to fly pipline patrol for a gas company in both helis and fixed wing. Most flights I tried to stay 100 to 300 agl ofen 6 hrs a day.

Fsx does not have the overall density but a addon like Tongass in Alaska I often had flashbacks when flying the jet ranger at treetop levels. The fastmovers you really go into a tunnel vision mode and throw your instrument scan out the window and concentrate on whats out ahead of you and will be under you in a few seconds.Having no fear of powerlines,birds,other ground huggers does kinda take the edge off of running fast and low so keep that in mind.

Imo over 300k it does seem the sim is not displaying a accurate groundspeed. I dunno if FSX throttles itself so it can display the graphics fast enought.
A slight motion blur like some car sims and other games have would add to the overall speed effect. In the sim objects are easily kept in focus even while hauling butt while in real life the number of textures,lighting changes and other distractions not so much.
Some great vids on Youtube of some low alt jets to be seen so one must decide.

[Lionheart]

Since PrePar3D is based on the FSX architecture, perhaps add this as a request (motion blurr enabled) feature for a next up Build version of P3D.

That would be cool if things blurred at high speed and close proximity.

www.prepar3d.com

There is a forum there, and a room that takes requests for enhancements and feature requests.

[falcon409]

My lone experience with supersonic flight in 2002 was in the backseat of an F-16. Now move forward to the release of the Iris F-16 and that was the first time I could say that the take off and climb brought back great memories. I told the pilot afterwards that my immediate impression when he hit AB was that it was like a slingshot because until we hit the climb it felt like my mind and my senses were trying desperately to catch up with my body. My instinct told me to grab hold of something so I wouldn't be pulled out of the cockpit. . . .very weird sensation. The sensation in the first take off with the Iris F-16 was something similar. . .the sensation of instant speed was there. After that though JimJam is correct in that in FSX at least I don't get that feeling that my best option is to just look straight ahead because I wouldn't be able to focus on anything outside that tunnel anyway. Using TrackIR heightens that feeling somewhat, but FSX is a long way off from the real thing in that sense.

One other thing that I have always felt is way off also, and I only get this feeling in the fighters, is the percieved height as you sit in the cockpit. I have always gotten the feeling, no matter what airplane it is, that I'm in a go-kart comparatively speaking. I don't know of any fighter, freeware or payware that gives you the true sensation of sitting "up" in the cockpit. When the engines are running, the canopy is closed and pressurized and the crew chief and pilot are running all the pre-taxi checks, he looks down at the crew chief. That's not what you feel in any Sim Fighter. I get the feeling that I could look eye to eye with him. That's something it would be great to have corrected at some point.

[Sundog]

I've found by zooming out(back) fills more of the screen and gives me more of a sense of speed on the deck. The problem is objects (mountains/hills/canyon walls) are closer than they appear when you do this.

[CG_1976]

I love the motion and blurr of a Fast Jet. On several occasions in the Canadian Arctic I got to backseat a CF18 and I always enjoyed when the pilot flipped inverted and seeing the ground buzz byby with blurr's. I also got to flip the birdy to a Canada Jazz CRJ The CRJ PIC flipped back his hello. Middle finger in Arctic Canada is the Hello not the Beep word, just for clarification.