I find even the difference between the actual aircraft and its level-D counterpart to be pretty big.
I certainly wouldn’t expect anything close from a cheap desktop sim.
Staying proficient doesn’t require an accurate turbulence simulation IMO.
If it’s about immersion (which is a very important factor for an entertainment product) MSFS is unbeatable, especially when compared to the sterile x-plane world.
I’m curious; If, as you say, the physics simulation is, from your point of view, more accurate in X-Plane then why do you need it be in MSFS? If your aim is to stay sharp on realistic aircraft actions and nothing but X-Plane would seem to suit your purposes. Wind and turbulence in a simulator such as this one are, to be blunt, annoying because they push the plane around but since you can’t feel the plane being pushed around it has the effect of being nauseating, especially in VR. I’m not sure what the solution to that particular problem is but wind stays turned off for me since having fun is more important than feeling like you want to throw up.
It’s always interesting to me how mutually exclusive some feedback can be. This is not a criticism, btw, just an observation!
Mostly I hear on this forum is about how the real 172 is much more stable, it’s easier to trim, you should be able to fly it more or less hands off, etc. This is a totally different take, in that the sim is too stable, the corrections you need to make while in actual air are too small, etc. It’s hard to reconcile every bit of feedback here when taken in totality.
I am definitely curious, as I personally find the 172 to get thrown around quite a bit, even in pretty light winds, in the sim. That seems to track with few times I’ve been up in them, but I’m not a pilot, either.
-Matt | Working Title
Matt, the arguments that often go on in beta testing between multiple pilots of the same aircraft would be quite comical, if it didn’t detract from getting a definitive answer to a specific question . . .
Heh, I know this phenomenon all too well! I think it highlights just how “dancing about architecture” (to barrow a music industry term) talking about one’s flying experiences is. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with various FDE designers about how sometimes actual pilots give the worst feedback, because they can either hyperfocus on a specific muscle memory (which may or may not be right) or subconsciously absorb and fix small behavioral errors. Both of those attributes make them great pilots! But not always good sim plane testers.
I think it just goes to show what a tough nut to crack it all is. I’m a big XP fan, have flown it for years, but when someone says XP is less on rails than MSFS, I wonder if we’re flying the same two sims. That doesn’t make the feedback any less valid, though!
Horses for courses, and such.
-Matt | Working Title
If you get 100 Pilots, and ask them to tell what Pitch Attitude they need to fly during a Climb, Descent, Cruise, I would be surprised if 10% knows! Then ask how the Trim Position moves throught the flight phases. If one of them knows, they are either test pilots, or a highly trained military pilot, which are used to knowing all the numbers for the airplane they need to fly.
Real Pilots are not reliable for giving feedback on an Aircraft Flight Characteristic, other than the basic stuff such as Weight of the Controls, Speeds, Engine Settings, etc. Anything more detailed than that they will be just guessing!
That’s a bit unfair to the pilots as we more than encouraged (understand forced) to use the AP when we fly.
However, you can find in many FCOMs the target pitch and N1 for unreliable airspeed indications, and that makes a good reference.
Agree on a few points, disagree on others.
Left turning tendency is definitely present.
Adverse yaw definitely exists, but very weak in almost all default aircraft in MSFS. More improvements regarding this are to come in the next few updates, as has been promised by Sebastian in his latest Q and A. I’ve also been told by many real world pilots that two identical 172s might exhibit different amount of adverse yaw so there’s that. Many third party devs including JustFlight devs also stated in public that there’s an inherent problem with Adverse Yaw in MSFS, and they couldn’t figure out how to add an accurate amount of it to their Arrow. It is confusing though because Carenado have done an excellent job with that in their Piper Seminole for MSFS.
Can’t agree with this, as I found that the stronger the wind in MSFS, the harder I had to work the ailerons and rudders to control the 172 during take-offs and landings.
I’m a long time user and customer of Simcoders and the REP addons. Even they agree that certain aspects of the flight model might not be same in two identical 172s. Here are some examples from their own website:
Over the years, we received feedback from the user about the improved P-Factor of the Cessna SkyHawk in X-Plane. Many of you fly a C172R/SP in real life and while some agreed on the P-Factor we added in cruise, others did not.
The different feedback we get from pilots is related to the different trim tab settings on the planes they fly. That is, some mechanics set the trim tab to keep the ball centered in cruise while others do not.
Now you can set your trim tab the way you like it. Just open the maintenance window and go to the CONTROLS tab, then choose the setting you like more.
Source: Update: Reality Expansion Pack v4.5.9 - SimCoders.com
and
It is now possible to set a custom P-Factor and Pitch Down on Stall ratio
We have now assessed that two identical C172SP show slightly different P-Factor and pitch-down moments on stall.
Now in REP’s settings you can fine tune the two characteristics to make REP match the plane you fly in real world for training or amusement.
Source: Update: REP v4.5.6 - SimCoders.com
We don’t know which Cessna 172 Asobo used to make an identical simulation of the C172 for MSFS. Is it somewhere in France? Is it at Renton Airport, Seattle? Without knowing all that, imo it’s tough to say the simulation of the C172 in MSFS is realistic or unrealistic. Regardless, in this very forum, you will find testimonies from plenty of real world C172 pilots who spoke in favour of its flight model, while some others also disagreed.
Even Bruce Williams ( Bruce Williams - Owner - BruceAir, LLC | LinkedIn ), a real world pilot, flight instructor and aviation consultant who worked on six versions of the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise in the past, wrote books such as “Microsoft® Flight Simulator as a Training Aid” and “Scenario-Based Training with X-Plane and Microsoft Flight Simulator” and wrote a highly negative review of MSFS 2020 said the following about its flight model:
Many virtual pilots obsess about “flight dynamics,” how realistically the simulated aircraft “fly.” I’ve written extensively about this topic. I don’t yet have much experience testing the behaviour of aircraft in FS2020 with which I’m familiar. And in any event, much discussion of the handling of aircraft is confused by limitations of the joysticks, yokes, rudder pedals, and other devices that virtual pilots use to fly their sims. So far, however, the aircraft I have flown in FS2020 seem to behave predictably, and the pitch+power+configuration setups that I employ in their real counterparts seem to hold up reasonably well in the simulation.
Source: Flight Simulator 2020: First Impressions – BruceAir, LLC
Absolutely agreed. A lot of things in life should have constant overhauls. If X-Plane 9’s flight model was good enough back in 2012 and got FAA approval back then, why did it still receive or require overhauls and now we have a new experimental flight model? If Prepar3D’s default GA and airliner flight models were good enough, why did we need “overhauls” from A2A and FSLabs, devs who bypass the default flight model completely? Cars need overhaul too. Imagine if they had TCAS and automatic crash avoidance mechanism, we would have far less crashes and fatalities. Constant overhauling is the reason why we now have thin flatscreen monitors and TVs and not those huge CRT ones.
I’m with you. They need to stop and fix what they have. Unbelievable how this is allowed to continue.
So… you are comparing a default 172 to a $20 mod for specific to 172 in X-Plane? Meaning… the default 172 in XP doesn’t behave realistic enough for you… you have to buy a $20 mod for one aircraft to get that. So it is NOT the sim, after all, but the issue with default aircraft. Meaning, a more high-fidelity aircraft will take care of it… like… JustFlight’s Piper Arrow.
Again, compare apples to apples.
Essentially, SimCoders are doing what A2A did in P3D. Meaning, if you fly default aircraft in P3D it will be a far cry from what you experience while flying A2A. So why would you compare default aircraft in MSFS to ANY third-party add-on that features high fidelity simulation at its core?
Are you sure you are using MSFS? Using live weather? Because never ever, had the feeling that sim is on rail or something, in fact sometimes I find it even sometimes excessive but I am not a pilot and I love that challenge to keep the plane on track on approaches.
Yeah, I never really feel that MSFS is “on rails”… certainly LESS SO than default P3D without weather add-ons and turbulence simulation of A2A’s AccuFeel.
When someone produces a ‘higher fidelity’ modification or entirely new add-on C-172 for MSFS then and only then can you truly compare apples to apples. You can’t compare the Jusflight Arrow to the X Plane modded 172 since they’re entirely different aircraft. What the OP did (at least mostly) in is original post was compare his real world experience with the 172 with the MSFS 172 (which of course has no 3rd party addons or mods that I’m aware of).
In my case totally not a criticism! There’s plenty of pilot feedback that’s great as well.
My only point was that as sure as we all are in our convictions about what the flight model is or isn’t, or if it’s accurate or not, there’s always someone who is equally convinced of the opposite, and many times these are both really knowledgeable people.
Again, dancing about architecture.
-Matt | Working Title
Another imporant point about the usefulness of pilot reports/feedback is the ability of the pilot.
A famous example is the Bf 109. If you read the wildly differing opinions, especially concerning takeoff, you wouldn’t get to the conclusion that they are talking about the same aircraft.
As you mentioned above, military pilots are generally a very reliable source.
Even if someone is a flight instructor this unfortunately doesn’t say anything about his ability either.
I will take the default 747 as an example: when you benchmark the flight model against real numbers, they’re off by a good amount.
So I don’t know what some people use as a reference but I would be interested in knowing.
No two planes of the same type fly the same. And that’s where the flight model should allow some tuning, for people to adjust it to their taste/experience/whatever.
However, when the pitch/thrust/performance combinations are way off and actual data from the plane was entered, I don’t know what else to blame but the flight model.
I mean that’s how it should work. You put the (good) data in and based on the fidelity of the flight model physics you get more or less accurate results, within a reasonable margin to the real thing.
And I think that’s where we can agree that it doesn’t work. I was told on another topic to cheat with the numbers to get the results I was expecting. Well this is just compensating for a bad model.
What about some long requested features such as a proper leading edge flaps/slats implementation?
Or the fact that the MAC position calculation is currently flawed?
There is also work to be done that’s not related to pilot or engineer feedback for a specific plane, but on basic parameters and features and refining the model to get better results when using manufacturer data.
Frank’d be proud. 
a real pilot with so poor material ? unrealistic… saitek and ch… 
They only mentioned rudder response. Hardly “a lot of improvements”. Still, every bit helps. I personally would much rather that they completely forget about improving the default airplanes and work fully on improving the flight model and, even more importantly, the API, so that we can get more realistic addons.
Agreed - I think this is the first sim where I have seen so much determination to get the default aircraft up to a high standard. Usually, the end user just accepts that they are never going to be brilliant and waits for decent add ons to come along.
Which can only be done when the base flight model is of a workable standard / external FMs are allowed.