Stop. I didn’t beg for this thread to be reopened for this rubbish. We are talking about specific issues and behaviors and what could potentially be done by the Devs to fix it…So let’s not get carried away.
Everyone, look… There is a REASON they wanted to make this change. Even if it’s not good right now, I am sure it will be rectified. They are working towards something… If they implement drag, for instance, in the Sim Update, it sounds like a lot of this headache will go away. There is a lot of room to grow on this. This problem will eventually go the way of past issues that have now been handled.
What’s INTERESTING, I think, is a discussion of how things work versus realistic behavior and what is responsible for the difference.
I know most of us with any expertise agree, and I think Asobo / MS does, too. But the balancing act is not the obvious one. It is how to get from where they were to where they need to be while still maintaining a customer base and meeting their product objectives.
Clearly, things must change. Conclusion – they must break things that previously worked along the way. Corollary – their product priorities and perceptions cannot match those of over 2 million users.
Consequence – some of us are going to be unhappy at any given time.
We don’t want them to quit making changes. Therefore, we don’t want them to quit breaking things. As long as they are making changes – and breaking things – in my perceived area of most pain – the core flight model – I’m happy and hopeful.
As many, many others have said, they want Asobo to prioritize the flight model and bugs over scenery development. This current change is at least movement in the direction of core flight model changes. Be happy about that!
Surely this sort of stuff should be determined by the shape/size angles of aerofoils on the aircraft (much like X-Plane I might add) and then they should be affected by the so-called superior environment on MSFS with gusts etc? This was all talked about in depth with the introductory videos, but it seems to me that it isn’t dynamic at all - it’s all baked into config files. The future of flight sim indeed.
In the real world - drag is drag, lift is lift … it doesn’t need to be adjusted on a “per object” basis via config files.
All I know is, it still feels a bit crappy and false.
I agree completely! As I said in a previous post, the best we can hope for is that Asobo gets the core behaviors somewhere near realistic and gives third parties the parameters and interfaces they need to take it the rest of the way. That is their stated, strategic goal. It’s going to break stuff along the way, but the end result is worth a lot of pain as long as they get there.
Meanwhile, my litmus test is, Can I have one favorite plane that can be tweaked or modded adequately to fly VFR and IFR good enough to fool me into forgetting that I’m sitting at a computer instead of in a real plane? And is that plane good enough to fly on PilotEdge or VatSim?
Right now, even after the update, the answer is yes!
Search YouTube for “side-slip” and there are a lot of videos about it.
The side-slip is most commonly used for landing in a crosswind. Assume a runway and approach track of 360 degrees, with a 10 knot crosswind from the right at 090. During approach you would point the nose to the right to counter the wind, “crabbing” into the wind so that your ground track remains on the center line. This presents a problem when reaching the runway, because your nose and landing gear at aimed to the right of the runway instead of straight down the center line.
In business jets and GA aircraft, you transition to a side-slip shortly before touchdown in order to point the nose down the center line and stop the wind from blowing you sideways. You drop the upwind wing down while using opposite rudder to control the nose. In our example, you would drop the right wing and use left rudder, landing on the right gear only until slow enough for the left gear to touch down.
It’s really hard to explain in text. Check out the YouTube videos and it will make sense. And the sim is entirely capable of doing a realistic side slip on landing if you have rudder pedals. It’s a lot of fun to practice this landing technique that most real world GA pilots frequently have to use.
I appreciate that sentiment and I don’t doubt that in the long run, Asobo will get us where we need to go. I think they are passionate about this project and the sim has a great future.
However, it shouldn’t be normalised that it’s okay to temporarily break things in the name of progress. At the end of the day, the product that we’ve paid for has to remain usable throughout the ongoing development process.
Imagine if a first person shooter released an update that upgraded the bullets but as a result, none of the guns were able to use them? That’s effectively what happened here. I don’t think it’s fair for them to release a small part of a greater whole that doesn’t work without the rest of it’s parts.
I’m all for better flight dynamics but they should get it all in order and working together in some sort of balanced way and then release it. I don’t think they should release piecemeal bits of it in what was supposed to be a scenery update.
I agree totally. I don’t understand those actually defending asobo! I totally agree that this is going to be the best flight sim ever but they have wrecked the tbm.
Impossible to keep a straight line whilst taking off, lift off occurs at stupidly low speeds, and landing without ap assistance is much harder. As many have said, the plane just won’t settle and then won’t stop!
There is a problem and it needs fixing urgently. Though sadly thats never actually happened yet.
Richard
Let me be clear. I don’t think it’s okay how they have handled this AT ALL. But it is what it is. And given the alternative of not having any form of the sim, I’ll take it and suffer through the growing pains without complaining too much as long as it lets me entertain myself for a few hours at a time.
I kind of look at it the way I do movies about flying. I go into it knowing that there are going to be glaring inaccuracies and “Hollywood” moments. I do my best to ignore them and enjoy the story.
Now while this sim isn’t a movie, I knew from the very first trailer that there was going to be a lot of “Hollywood” moments. I kind of expected it to be a sort of interactive movie. My hope was that it would be enough of a sim to let me ignore those inaccuracies.
I don’t think I would be anywhere near as frustrated as I am if this was only an arcade flying game and didn’t have the potential to be a great flying sim. But it’s so close I can taste it, and that makes me want it very badly.
Could they have done it better? In my opinion, yes. Are they going to continue improving? In my opinion, yes. Can I have fun flying until they do? Yes.
So other than to put pressure on Asobo to improve in my choice of priorities, why complain when I can go flying?
Don’t think much of the hollywood analogy. Hollywood inaccuracies are deliberate attempts to make a story, who cares about the truth!
And if you enjoy flying at 30000 feet for hours, then great. I don’t. I enjoy relatively short flights into interesting airfields, through stunning scenery. And that has been spoilt with take off and landing wrecked!
Richard
I agree. I don’t fly the airliners, and rarely fly above 12,000 feet.
But here’s the difference between our experiences – I know how to tweak the TBM config files to increase the drag. For me, the update has been an improvement after I tweaked the files.
And here’s proof that I am NOT a general Asobo defender. I agree that they should have tweaked the aircraft files themselves to match the changes in the core flight model. Why must third parties do that?
But the good news is that third parties CAN do that on all but the premium planes. Will Asobo ever change their habit of breaking stuff with every update? I see no evidence that they ever will, and if all the complaining they’ve seen in the forums over the last six months hasn’t affected them, then don’t hold your breath.
If you are unable to find a favorite plane with good mods for it, then you’re stuck with what Asobo gives you. I would put my energy into finding one.
Guys - I’m no expert in this at all, but want to share my experience in the TBM - for info as much as anything if it will help. In the video attached, I did a little flight around Edinburgh to show off the new scenery and the replay tool I’ve just bought. All good.
The interesting bit is at 2:46. Here I’m lining up with the runway and lower the gear AND put flaps down one notch at the same time (don’t mock my flying please - no idea if that’s what you are supposed to do). What I experienced, and what you can clearly see in the video was a sharp pitch up of the nose. You guys will know better than me if this is what should happen or not.
Also, as I approach and am about to touch down, you can see how long the float is at very low altitude (at about 3:20 on the video) - again not sure if this is how it is supposed to be or not. Just wanted to share if it helps.
Low quality video, but I don’t know how to upload the original one. I have to use full rudder to maintain the Robin DR400 on the runway, and even that way is difficult. I don’t think that’s how it should work, because it didn’t before this update.
When you drop flaps, especially in the TBM, you’ll get increased lift. That’s true of all aircraft, and why that first notch in the TBM is labeled T/O (Take Off) - a small (ten degrees) addition of flaps helps increase surface area, especially on an A/C equipped with Fowler flaps. That’s one of the reasons I loved my old C150E: it was the last model to have manually operated flaps… like a parking brake handle between the seats.
That said, the plane shouldn’t float like that… not even a little bit.
Last night I flew the PA-44 Seminole on a short hop. At zero throttle the plane started moving when I released the parking brake. With enough runway, I think you’d get sufficient airspeed (maybe?) to actually get airborne with zero throttle and fine pitch on the props! That’s not right. The plane won’t stay put without the parking brake. It gets airborne in less than 200 feet and accelerates like a Citation.
Wrong, just wrong. It did not behave like that prior to the update.
