Hi Asobo! Thank you very much for bringing gliding to the sim! I am very much enjoying it and look forward to the improvements that can still be made. For the launch methods I have some feedback that might be useful!
Aerotow:
- Noises during towing are loud because of turbulent airflow, relatively high airspeed, and noise of plane/cable in front. Currently missing these increased noises during take-off.
- Would be nice to have a robin/cub/husky as towplane. They are the most common towplanes here in Western Europe at least. Never seen a Cessna towing.
- The tow plane climbs out quite fast. This is not wrong, but some tow pilots donât do this. They try to get airborne as fast as possible to reduce roll drag. After which they fly in the ground effect to pick up speed. Once a good airspeed is reached they start climbing. Could be a nice addition.
- A nice addition would be to let the user ask for a specific towing altitude.
- Would be nice if I could do a cockpit checklist before flight (instruments, controls etc.), without releasing the cable or activating the tow.
Winch launch:
- Great job on physically modelling the different winches! I love them.
- Airspeed increases too fast once airborne in the lower part of the launch. It can be improved with more gentle forces to allow the pilot to rotate smoothly. In real life it is extremely dangerous to rotate quickly to steep angles. With the speed/forces rising too quickly in the bottom part, people might get used to this and can make very dangerous mistakes when they do this in real life.
- Sounds in the winchlaunch due to cable travelling trough the air are pretty loud in real life. Currently missing.
- Sound cueing at the end of the winch launch to announce the winch throttling back are too weak.
- Cable breaking sounds are missing.
- Would be nice if I could do a cockpit checklist before flight (instruments, controls etc.), without releasing the cable or activating the launch.
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The climb rate is unrealistically high.
I made a test started in clear sky weather preset at EPPR (sea level asphalt airfield), from lift off to release at 920m (3018ft) it took magic msfs C172 cessna only 4min 15sec - that gives average climb rate 4.46m/s (8.6 knots).
In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsYc4IQl2TE a pilot states C172 tow performance:
- a four pot 160 hp O-320 fixed pitch propeller
- max tow 500kg, max take off weight 820kg
- 500m take off roll (asphalt)
- flaps 10 - airborne at 60 knots
- climb rate from 350 fpm [1.76m/s] to 450 fpm [2.28m/s] - 4 minutes to 1400 ft [that gives 1.778m/s]
So âMsfs SuperCessnaâ has significantly higher performance.
And as you stated - right after takeoff Cessna would fly near the ground for a while to gain safe speed.
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True, the climb performance is indeed too strong. Thanks for the addition!
Nice feedback. Agree.
To be able to choose the tow plane would be nice. And then set the desired altitude. Adding those 2 fields to the dialog where you choose the launch method will be a great improvement.
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A member at my gliding club was killed when his glider climbed too steeply, he spun in from around 300â!
It would interesting if the winch could actually respond to a âtoo fastâ signal from the glider. Itâs the norm to lower the nose slightly to take the tension off the cable and yaw the tail side-to-side using rudder. I donât know if cable breaks are modelled either. How good it would be to have an advanced option to enable thisâŠ
Charles.
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Ah ⊠winch launches and cable breaks ⊠yes, if you are pulling back to get as much altitude as possible the cable doesnât like it.
We would practice cable breaks at 50, 100, 200 and 300 ft.
For a small field , the drill was to land straight forward for breaks below 100â and try to do a downwind landing ( shallow 180 turn and land ) for breaks between 200 to 300 ft.
If you are at the edge of stall trying to climb as hard as you can, and the cable goes, you will spin and crash !!
Maybe the cable can be modeled as a âaircraft component â and have an associated /settable MTBF. would definitely make life more interesting !!!
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I am not in front of my MSFS PC, but there is a Failures menu at the same place where you choose Liveries. Donât they list cable breaks there? If not that would be a great place to put them.
3 Likes
There is also the scenario which can lead to a fatal accident. It is now common practice to hold onto the cable release yellow âbungâ during a winch launch. If the wing holder lets go of the wing too early during the initial acceleration of a winch launch, the wingtip can hit the ground. If there is tall grass at the edge of the runway, be aware! If the cable is not immediately released by the glider pilot, the glider can rear upward and do a type of ariel ground loop in which the glider becomes inverted and hits the ground in an inverted state, usually killing or seriously injuring the pilot and/or instructor. Whilst I donât expect the actual physics of this event will be simulated, (perhaps it should be as a lesson/reminder to real-world/aspiring glider pilots) the winch launch should terminate with a crash ending scenario within the simulator. I have yet to try and deliberately put a wing down on the ground during the âall-outâ phase of the winch launch to see what happens in the simulator. This will be my next mission, I encourage you to try this and see what happens in the simulator, hopefully it will terminate in a crash. The pilot should never try and lift the wing off the ground using aileron, the cable release is used immediately to avoid the scenario mentioned above.
It will be interesting to experiment with launching in a stiff X-wind to see the effect on the glider. It is correct to put the into-wind wing down to correct for X-wind during the launch and to get the cable dropping within the airfield boundary. Rudder is used in anticipation of the initial weather-cocking effect during the initial acceleration of the launch. Hopefully gliders within the simulator will need these real-world corrections. Something else to try and experiment withâŠ
Charles.