Kodiak 100 V1.3.3 from Oct.12th: Way less powerful on takeoff and worse climb speed?

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Hi there
I updated the Kodiak (wheeled) to the new release from Oct. 12th 22 and feel like it performs “different” than the version we had before.
Way less powerful, especially at take-off.

For example, I tried this flight here:

I took off from the same airport (KSNA), same runway, and: had the same amount of fuel and payload, like they show it in the video minute 3:23
In this video, he rotates at 55 knots and climbs with 1400 fpm…
But I find that very hard to achieve in the sim.
Especially rotating at 55 knots is pretty much impossible and it does not take off until about 75 knots and then I can “only” get to around a climbrate of 900 without loosing too much speed.

What do you think @SiRRiPPERORiG ?

In general I feel like the plane is a lot “weaker” than before.
What do you guys think?

Kind regards, Oliver

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We just cross-checked the flight models from December 2021, June 2022 and September 2022. The first one was by the book, subsequent ones were gradually more and more underpowered, despite having increased lift in each new flight model to counter that.
There are certainly other factors at play too, but undocumented changes in the core FM through Sim Updates are making it harder to find problems. An example of that is that since SU8 the Kodiak would drop like a rock if you pulled to idle and flew less than 70kts. It didn’t do that before. We only found a fix for this in late August. :smiley:

That said, we have pounced on the problem and will sort it.

Edit: Also, it is version 1.3.3 not 2.0.

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Thank you for the quick reply.
Sorry my english is not the best… so, just to clarify:
Do you agree that it performs “wrong”/very weak since 1.3.3?
Or not?
Because to me it feels off compared to previous versions.
Therefore can we expect a fix in the next days?

It’s a bit sad to feel like a beta tester after so many months of waiting for the update.

Thanks a lot!
Oliver

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Yes it does. The thing is we don’t know why it does, since we actually gave it even more lift. We are working on it already.

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Thank you very much! :)))

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Good news might come tomorrow.

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That would be wonderful :))

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Fully confirm issue. Unflyable. When loaded up (but not beyond max) airplane has no climb rate at Vx.

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They wrote on Facebook that they will release a hotfix beginning of the week…
Fingers crossed.

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Seems like the update just got published :slight_smile:

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Anyone test the update yet? Is the performance fixed?

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Yes, a lot better now :slight_smile:

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Do we know if the amphibian version is having issues too? Something feels off, especially when landing in water. It feels like I’m landing on land, not water. It doesn’t feel anywhere near like how the xclub, pc6, 172 or dhc6 that I have feel like when they land on water.

I just tried to land in water near NPS Ford Island NALF, Honolulu. It feels like I’m landing on a dirt runway and not water.

Secondly, it feels very underpowered vs the kodiak I fly in FSX by lionheart creations. I haven’t tried the wheel version since and am exhausted and going to bed. Thanks for the info!

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What you feel is pretty much what it is: a dirt runway 0.5m under the water. Water physics in MSFS are lacking, hopefully they will improve them when the Beaver comes out.

In terms of power, the amphibian is 7-8% slower than the wheeled variant in cruise and also slower to climb due to drag from the floats.

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Flying the latest update from 15.10.22 and it still feels a lot less powerfull then before was it SU9 or SU10.
Better then the update from 13.10.22 but still at 8000ft elevation and 83% load it really struggled to keep a positive rate and get to flap up speed.
And even climbing to 13.000ft at 104kts ias, is going at like 600-800f/m with the engine right at the 99.9 limit (that was the limiting factor, not TQ or ITT)

Now 83% of MtoW is quite heavy but i imagine it would climb better?
Pre SU9 it would climb at rates closer to 1500 - 2000f/m even when heavy.

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Thank you for the info.

TL/DR After testing again it’s the bounce physics.

I’m sorry, there is definitely something wrong beyond the sims physics for water. The plane feels like a feather when landing on water and bounces like a Bethesda ragdoll. I just flew all of the planes I listed above with pontoons and landed them in the water in the exact same spot. The kodiak, despite not being the lightest of the bunch, bounced off the water excessively worst than the rest.

None of the other planes in 2020 bounce off the water to this extreme; it makes the plane feel weightless.

I understand the part of the water physics issue you explained now, but that’s still not the full issue. I have been simming since the beginning of MSFS (80’s) and still go back to FSX almost as much as 2020, which I just picked up a month ago after finally building a pc that could run it well.

My FSX install has so many hi-res addons, especially these late release (2016+ aircraft) and I’m still new to 2020 so sometimes I forget which sim I’m in; I know that sounds nuts, but that’s still not 100% of the issue. Yes, the water physics in FSX are definitely different. With that said, this is not what I’m talking about. I do want to clarify that this morning I loaded up FSX, gotten the Kodiak, and landed it on the water. It was a very different experience than in 2020, I understand what you are saying and it’s true however….

That’s only a small part of what I was confused about (I have water moded too in FSX so it’s very realistic in my FSX sim), there is still an issue with the plane in 2020, in my humble opinion.

I want to prefix this with I’ve never landed a real pontoon plane, so please I’m absolutely not an expert. I just have many years in flight Sims, and experience with a lot of GA paid addons as I love to fly GA aircraft.

If you’d like to understand what I’m talking about, load up any other pontoon plane, go to Honolulu, takeoff and within less than 20 seconds you’ll have water in front of you to land on. JFK will also work as you take off over water so it’s a quick test.

Try different aircraft and see how they react when you try and land. At least in my case, when I do the exact same thing I do with the other aircraft in the Kodiak, I shoot up (an bit of an exaggeration as it’s not exactly into the stratosphere) like a bugged enemy ragdoll in Skyrim that you just eliminated, and for whatever reason it shot up into the stratosphere. At least some of you may understand that analogy.

I’m entering the water at about 60 kn, with the front pontoons raised, at about a 2° angle. That’s how I do it with the other planes, and zero issues. I’ve done it with full flaps, I’ve done it with half laps, it doesn’t matter the angle I enter the water, I’ve tried multiple angles, and I can’t go any slower without stalling and hitting the water hard causing an even bigger bounce.

Even stalling it in the water just about a foot above will send a plane into a major bounce, much higher than it really should be bouncing after hitting the water at that height and that speed. I stalled it in right at about 50 kn, again was matter of inches over the water, when the plane stalled and hit the water it shot up at least 6 to 8 feet into the air, which was way more than I expected for a plane of this weight. It feels like the ultralite hang glider in FSX hitting the ground when it lands on water. There isn’t “weight”.

Maybe I’m just an awful pilot, and believe me I’m not a safe spacer so feel free to tell me that the past 30 years of simming has been wasted. I’m not gonna cry about it, however my view of the real life Kodiak will be very different from this point forward if this is actually how the thing lands in the water.

It’s not like any other plane I’ve ever landed in the water in either 2020 or FSX, including the lionheart kodiak in FSX I own and fly often.

Man that bounce… seriously try it. I just tried it again, and was finally able to land without bouncing through the stratosphere this time really at minimum speed, stalling in at about 55 kn, however after successfully landing moving across the water for about five seconds out of nowhere the plane hit another “bump” shot straight up and then came crashing down with the same ending “you crashed into the water.”

Maybe it’s me…

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I hate the double post, but it’s not letting me edit my post. I just tried it outside of JFK where the water seems deeper and it’s definitely less of an issue.

Again anybody who wants to test this issue that Honolulu airport that I mentioned above is the one where I seem to be having the most problems. I landed outside of JFK with a small bounce without issue this time. I then went back to Honolulu and tried to land outside of that airport, had major issues again.

Maybe it’s what was posted above, underneath .5 feet of water there is land, and the land isn’t perfectly done, so depending on the water depth even though outside of Honolulu you should be able to land without issue, in the SIM it might be “not deep enough.”

A test Im doing while I am typing this I’ve been letting the plane “drive around” on the water at various speeds outside of New York JFK. I’m not having any issues with the plane bouncing off the water and hitting it again resulting in a crash just “driving around” at 13% eng power with the prop dialed back to half speed too. TAS is about 12 kt and again I’m not bouncing off the water, then crashing back in with the same ending like I was doing outside of Honolulu when I did the same thing. This to me means that there is a difference between the water outside of JFK and Honolulu. Weather shouldn’t be a factor because it was both the same, visually the waves look the same, but feels very different.

Maybe it’s just a matter of the water outside of Honolulu not being deep enough. Somebody tell Bill Gates MSFS needs some global warming stat.

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I purchased it a couple of days ago and have been flying it since. Here is my experience from the last two days:

Can’t rotate at 55 kts definitely but on full throttle and suggested climb rate and torque as mentioned in the cockpit on a sticker, I have climbed at 2,000 fpm at 135 kts. So I don’t see a problem there. But it needs to be flown at 80% throttle, anything below eventually causes a stall after a while and subsequently a crash as the stall on this airplane is unrecoverable. So definitely some issues with the power in general.

My gripe is that no matter what weight I add to the shelves it doesn’t show any payload in the cabin - just an empty cabin - but with the weight logged.

Secondly, taxi lights and landing lights do not show any illumination. I can see the lights falling on the runway - in an uneven manner - but the wingtips with the lights only show tiny white dots.

Lastly, the aircraft doesn’t glide at all. With the throttle set to idle, it stalls and drops like a stone within seconds. The flaps drag doesn’t seem realistic either - it’s way too much. Hence, I am not enjoying any smooth landings, and I have been practicing on runways before I head to the backcountry bush strips - the very reason I bought it.

To top it off, Simworks Studios are not responsive either anyhwere. I have dropped them a line each on Twitter, their website and now here, but no response so far.

I also want to know how I would be notified about any updates on this product. I bought it off their website. It was an installer that unpacked itself into the community folder. That did not get synchronized with the Kodiak 100 on the Marketplace and it still shows an option to install it.

Any advise?

Thanks.

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Exactly my findings that I mentioned below a moment ago and now reading this account of yours!