I think we should create a feature wish-list, containing all the things we would like to have from official glider support
Yes that is also what I have been thinking for a long time - we need to communicate to Asobo what we are lacking before gliders are officialy in MSFS - as now they have the (3rd party) manpower to implement it, later on it will be probably end of “glider project”.
After the success of getting through with a question about thermals and soaring weather at the last Dev Q&A I think the next question should be smthing like “Describe all the features that are being done to properly implement gliders in MSFS” (I am not a native speaker so probably it could be stated better and simplier) and in the question body we could state sorted by importance all the features we feel are lacking now.
Some time ago I tried to make such a list in google docs but it quickly become unwieldly long and boring so what I think is important is to concentrate on things that cannot be implemented with required level of realism by third party (because of lack of API or is a part of core sim).
For example winch start seems essential and important BUT we already have good enough winch launch made by third party (of course it could be better, but I don’t think it couldn’t be made better by 3rd party) so it is not a thing to bother about (they already said they do it anyway).
On the other hand I am not sure if proper tow plane start can be realistically implemented - and by that I mean that the tow plane is not flying on rails - that what I do with the glider should through the rope affect the tail of the tow plane and thus it’s trajectory - every RL glider pilot knows that rising too much above tow plane should lead to a disastrous configuration of tow plane plunging to the ground.
In the same vein paradoxically not the official gliders are the most important feature that we want from official glider implementation - as we already have good enough ones.
We need MSFS flight model to be better at properly expressing how real gliders fly - even though I see adverse yaw in unofficial gliders I still don’t need to use much (for slow turns none) rudder to make a turn! Everytime I invite friends from my gliding club for VR session they all push rudder way more then MSFS needs and are unpleasantly surprised by not needing to do it that strong - changing sensitivity curve is not a solution.
Last showcase video with gliders doesn’t display neither yaw string nor turn coordinator - at least one of those instruments realistically modelled are essential for proper turning. Now B21 is trying in their’s Ka7 to circumvent faulty readings of MSFS’s simvar that gives turn coordinator’s ball position - that is embarassing for a sim developed for 40years.
Some experienced people from Condor 2 community stated that flaps are modelled incorrectly - I really expect that those official gliders will have polar data at all flap settings rigorously verified agains real life gliders - you cannot say you model a given glider (no matter how shiny the 3D model looks) when polar data are wrong.
Another very important (if not the most important) glider feature is the weather - even in SU9 we don’t have proper thermals - there are some updrafts, even a lot of them but they often too quickly come and go, they very rarely form a tight, long lasting updraft - that should be surrounded by turbulent downdraft (like a fountain). Weather features such as turbulence, cloud types and shapes should be emergent - by which I mean they should be result of proper airmass simulation not smoke & mirrors/movie props unrelated to airmass state. Settings for presets should be more elaborate - we should be able to define temperature gradient - like skew-t diagrams - this would allow us to model good or bad soaring day (no dumbed down thermal sliders!).
Live weather for gliders MUST be synchronized and exactly the same for all players - every updraft must be in sync otherwise we cannot fly together. At least I should be able to click other player and choose “sync weather” option to get other’players weather to fly together.
Online competition feature at least should allow 3rd party to implement cheatless glider version of reno air races - and of course the best whould be to have such an official (payware if you will) glider races add on.
I could go on and on but I think that are essentials. I am happy to read others people ideas - once again - that really require changes in the core sim to be properly implemented and cannot be implemented by 3rd party.