93% of stock aircraft will still handle poorly on the ground, (AKA 'Why your landings suck - unless you fly a GrandCaravan')

[AlpineB4652]

We all know that aircraft can handle poorly on the ground in MSFS - weathervaning makes taxiing harder than it should and many a landing and take-off roll turnings into a wild ride at demonstrated crosswinds well below maximum, spoiling the enjoyment of what may have otherwise been a great landing.

Asobo know about the problem and are working on a solution. As an interim part solution, they introduced 4 new values (in SU9 I think) to help devs tune their aircraft in various ways.

But here is the thing even after SU12 of the 56 stock/free aircraft models by Asobo or Microsoft only 4 of them have had these values applied in any meaningful way leaving 52 -or 93%- untuned.

Now this doesn’t always necessarily matter. Some aircraft are just less affected by the weathervaning problem than others. But not many.

Many 3rd party devs have taken this on and have proven that the tuning can really help (special mentions to SWS, WB-SIM and BlackSquare and BlackBird are investigating). It’s not clear what some of the big boys like PMDG or Fenix are doing, but thier flight models are so good (and their aircraft so big), it may be less necessary. Some might have taken it too far - the numbers suggest that the BlackSquare C208 analog now might not feel the effect of any winds less than 50knts!

For the fullest current list of these values and more background - check out the main list here.

Ground Handling | List of aircraft wheel friction values

This thread is to list the ground handling variables for all aircraft in the sim to help keep a track of what aircraft have been tuned to deal with cross-winds better. [Latest update 9/4/23] [credits: @hobanagerik for providing the core data, @HomieFFM for inspiration) Details Explanation of the issue What are the tuning values? How to find if an aircraft has the values applied? A list of all current known aircraft values? Links to other lists. How to tune and test your own aircraft? Vote o…

And if you want to share your concern - go vote on the main bug report here:

[All aircraft] Crosswind takeoff/landing physics very flawed since release

Please tag your post with #pc and/or #xbox. #pc Are you on Steam or Microsoft Store version? Steam Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it? No Brief description of the issue: This issue is there since the very first version of the game and it happens basically with every aircraft: default, payware or freeware. It’s just more or less evident depending on the aircraft. To sum it up, it’s extremely difficult to keep control of the aircraft during the takeoff phase or rollout when…

[TunefulLlama39]

I think it has something to do with the way the propeller simulation has been modeled into each acft. Check the following list. The one you refer to has a better way of modeling

CFD: Computational Fluid Dynamics
SBS: Soft Body Simulation

// Airplanes //

• NPS_____________: Aerosoft Twin Otter

• ______CFD ______ : Airbus A310-300

• NPS_____________: Beechcraft King Air 350i

• NPS__CFD_______: BlackBox BN2 Islander

• NPS__CFD_______: BlackBox Trislander

• NPS__CFD_______: Bonanza G36 improvement project

• NPS__CFD_______: Camair 480

• NPS_____________: Cessna 152

• NPS__CFD___SBS : Cessna 172 G1000 (other variants not confirmed)

• NPS_____________: Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX

• ______CFD ______ : Cessna Citation Longitude

• ______CFD ______ : Curtiss JN-4 Jenny

• NPS__CFD_______: DA40-NGX Improvement Mod

• NPS__CFD_______: DA62X Improvement Mod

• NPS__CFD_______: DC Designs PT-17 Stearman

• ______CFD ______ : DG Aviation DG-1001E neo

• ______CFD ______ : DG Aviation LS8-18

• ______CFD ______ : Douglas DC-3

• NPS__CFD_______: FlyingIron F6F-5 Hellcat

• NPS__CFD_______: FlyingIron P-38L

• NPS_____________: FlyingIron Spitfire MkIX

• NPS_____________: Freedom Fox, Fox2

• NPS__CFD_______: FSReborn Sting S4

• NPS__CFD_______: GotGravel Monster NXCub, Savage Grravel, Savage Carbon

• ______CFD ______ : GotFriends Discus-2c

• ______CFD ______ : Grumman G-21A Goose

• NPS__CFD_______: iniBuilds P-40F WarHawk

• NPS_____________: Milviz Cessna 310

• NPS_____________: Robin DR-400-140b Dauphin mod

• NPS__CFD_______: Savoia-Marchetti S.55

• NPS_____________: Van’s RV-7 and RV-7A

CFD having problems with AP stability (shakes from side to side) Check the C172 with G1000.

[AlpineB4652]

Hi, yes I’m well familiar with @HomieFFM 's CFD lists.

Could you explain more and give an example/s of an aircraft where CFD implementation has improved ground handling? It would be an important point.

[TunefulLlama39]

I could not say right of hand because most of the CFD planes have defective Autopilot, they work for a while and then they go bonkers, and if you take your hands off you will crash, so I don’t use them, I stay with 3 or 4 planes, I ignore the rest. I keep testing after every major release but most of the OEM planes are nor very good quality.

[AlpineB4652]

Logically, CFD should help as it - fundementally- more accurately models the effect of relative wind on the aircraft surfaces.

But it’s not this force that seems to be the issue on the ground. It’s the lack of static friction from the tires/contact points and perhaps also inertial forces.

So in some ways CFD could actually make the problem worse - we have one set of forces well modelled and another…absent. It’s not hard then to imagine how aircraft struggle to keep pointing in the right direction (although better modelling of prop wash may increase control surface authority).

[TrevKiwi]

AFAIK this has been an issue in all MS sims since FS98 so not peculiar to this sim. I think X Plane is much the same which I have.

[AlpineB4652]

I have never used xplane so can’t comment on that or the much older versions, but in comparison to FSX, one of the first things I noticed in MSFS was that you wouldn’t track Centreline after landing in a crosswind.

Still, I’m not sure comparisons with older versions or different products is useful. The point is that it’s an issue in MSFS 2020, that there is a workable solution, but that it hasn’t been implemented by Asobo in their own aircraft. And maybe that is because CFD means they feel they don’t need to, but if so, say so!

[WartedSummer2]

I have noticed CFD can make the weathervaning worse, I think for the exact reasons you said. Lack of contact point friction and complexity seem to be the culprits with this issue.

On a different note, I have noticed a few aircraft (Asobo and 3rd party) where geometry of the tail surfaces is wrong. A lot of developers seem to think that htail and vtail areas should include the control surface area as well (rudder and elevators). The SDK guide clearly states the opposite, but I still see vtail and htail areas that are double or more what they should be. Imagine the weathervaning effect of having a vertical stabilizer twice as big as it should be. The stock B58 specifies a vertical stabilizer area of 25 sq.ft. when in reality it is less than half that.

[AlpineB4652]

That might explain a lot. Some models clearly experience the weathervaning effect more than others. Also when coupled with Cx values that are off, you might start to understand a part of the problem (not that it’s one simple element, but likely several working in conjunction).

Have you posted a bug report on the B58? You should if you haven’t.

[NonStoPRooFy]

Why do all planes fly so badly after the cfd update. Nobody talks about the fact that after the cfd update many planes like the stearman fly extremely badly. The influence of live weather combined with a few knots of headwind alone makes the plane unflyable. It pulls extremely to the left with an extremely unrealistic resistance

[AlpineB4652]

Well, it shouldn’t effect all planes - CFD has to be activated in the aircraft model for it to respond to the CFD code in the core flight model and not every has CFD enabled (lots of top-end 3rd party aircraft don’t use it).