Major issues with turbulence - seriously unrealistic!

Something is going on with turbulences, they feel much more weaker and have little to no effect on the aircraft handling. While it still was a problem before, it feels like it has got even worse…I’ve totally lost the feeling of flying…it became a “driving” sim…

The most noticeable issue compared to real life ( I’m a PPL ) is the lack of any directional impact. You can literally take the hand off the yoke on gusty weather or storms and the aircraft won’t roll nor won’t be disturbed by the turbulence.

These issues were already reported in the past but haven’t got enough attention , let’s hope it will be improved for the next update. This is a very fundamental behavior for realistic flying experience.

Edit: added the summary of issue discussed.

Sim update 4 - weather effect on aerodynamics:

  • Ridge lift - exists
  • Turbulence doesn’t impact pitch and roll axises, highly unrealistic
  • Thermals - exists but only relatively close to the ground. Also, not as strong as IRL .
  • Thermals “Albedo” effect is still not implemented ( per developers, to be implemented in the future)
  • Turbulence in clear air and in clouds (SU4) - severely limited and weak
  • Updraft/downdraft velocity - limited to 500ft/min ( per developers )
  • Gusts are totally broken…

[ edited: links removed by moderator request ]

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Good observation; I think turbulence in the sim is only done by means of up, down, side wind changes, but there’s definitely a lack of rotational eddies from shears and off of objects in the flow.

Haven’t noticed this issue until you mentioned it; I’ve flown at 3000’ AGL in a 172 on a very convective day, and definitely once had a random gust that knocked my plane into a 30 degree bank without any pilot input (enough for me to disengage the autopilot and fly manually the rest of the way). That feeling is definitely missing in the sim.

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Odd, I find turbulence to be more pronounced on the Bonanza since the last patch. It has rolled me on the side a couple times while going over ridges, a lot more difficult to fly near mountain ridges with a bit of grace. I can definitely not take my hands of the yoke while going through turbulence (unless AP is on, AP seems to have no trouble with turbulence)

Turbulence in clouds does little though. It rocks the boat but only up and down. It only seems to roll near ridges.

The wheels gluing to the runway is still the same since last WU. Landing with heavy crosswind feels far too easy, as soon as the wheels touch the ground, the plane corrects and is completely stable. Seme while taking off, until the moment the wheels leave the ground, no problem going in a straight line. Then suddenly the plane (violently) rotates (horizontally) when the wheels are an inch off the ground.

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It’s more Need for Speed arcade than flying, for sure.

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Yep, exactly what I’m missing compared to real flying. My small airport has a tight pattern in an urban area and it’s nearly always keeping you on your toes to abruptly correct the shears and thermals on the final and touchdown. Also when enroute and especially in a nasty day, you can definitely get a good muscle workout in keeping accurate track and altitude…

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You’re correct, I do recall that the wind near the ridges did cause some abrupt changes and I suspect that the simulation of turbulent air is different. In one of the aerodynamic videos ( or Q&A ) they specifically mentioned that the air can hit a specific wing but it feels like that this isn’t implemented for turbulence.

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I tried on a 150 knots wind on approach, with 100 knots gust blowing from a different direction… I have to say, the turbulence is there… and rock my A320 wings violently side to side and up and down.

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Agreed, and I’d also like to add this topic to the list as well:

There was a point early on in the life of this sim where I felt like dynamic air mass behavior had more of an effect on the flight model. But they’ve definitely said they’ve tuned certain things down, like up/down drafts to a certain number, and will bring more realistic values back later on.

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I agree… added to the list

Well…that attempt will work at some point probably because it’s similar to the ridge lift. Feels like the simulation has a coarse resolution for large volumes of air that under certain conditions can sometimes gives the effect we are describing here. But what is really lacking here is also the higher resolution of air currents around the aircraft which varies rapidly during turbulence. If you only get that with insanely wind speeds and gusts…that’s still very much unrealistic…

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Didn’t they say in a Q&A something about dumbing it all down because they had complaints?

Personally, I want it more realistic. If I add a cloud that extends from 8000ft to the stratosphere, I expect a ton of effects below, around and inside those clouds.

If there is a brisk wind, I want to feel effects downwind of large obstacles.

If it is a nice warm day with good solar heating, I want to feel thermals going up.

They have stated that they won’t be opening up the weather systems for developers but at the same time won’t do the right thing. It is frustrating.

Make it realistic. Add a slider in the menus to “tone down” effects if you must. Job done. :+1:

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hmmm - the necessity alone of setting such values in order to have “turbulence” says it all. At 150 knots you would probably be swept out of the “sky” in real life. I’ve already mentioned this several times, it’s not there from the weather announcement at the beginning with the " drifts " in the clouds etc.
Some things were toned down (also according to statements by Asobo) because people wouldn’t “believe” it, which in my opinion is “ridiculous”. here they keep talking about a simulation, or am I mistaken? The solution would be simple - setting with “real turbulence” or percentage settings would simply be enough!
There is never any CAT except over the mountains, but otherwise the planes fly like on rails (“need for flight” :slight_smile: ) !

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Now that you mention it, I suspect the modeling of proportional grip to weight applied is either non-existent or not working as intended. Generally speaking a tire should never be able to resist more lateral force than it’s downward force. IE if you have a 3000 pound aircraft on 3 wheels, each wheel can resist a maximum of 1000 pounds laterally. In practice It’s way less since the tires on aircraft are very skinny. But that’s besides the point.

In the sim, It’s just full grip even at the last seconds before the aircraft achieves a positive rate of climb. There would only be a few pounds of downward force on them during that stage of the rollout yet they still seem perfectly capable of applying hundreds of pounds of lateral friction…

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Is it really necessary to open yet again another thread, knowing that there are already a lot of them? Why don’t you all just add your comments in the existing threads?

It gets more and more a mess to follow, to vote and for the devs to consolidate all the feedback.

Things are written twice, discussions split up, votes get segregated etc.

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Easier said than done, first they need countless meetings, Q&As and finally, a thread to vote on asking why we need such an option.

I don’t mean to replace the other threads, but to highlight them and the problem. That’s the reason why i’ve included the links to the other threads. We have to re-ignite the attention to this as the issues related are spread across many threads and some are very old…they won’t stand out enough to highlight this acute issue.

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I overstressed the TBM at FL29 because of turbulence over the Andes two days ago.
That has never happened before, so I cannot confirm that turbulence has been turned down in SU4.

Is this sarcasm? Maximum crosswind on landing for the A320 is 38kts. Having 150kts + 100kts crosswind on approach should just make the flight impossible in a realistic sim. Not « rock it side to side and up and down. »

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Nope that wasn’t sarcasm, got it recorded at one time, but I had it deleted. I might do it again soon just for the challenge once the Payware WHHH is released. VMMC to VHHH is my favourite route to do short flight testing as well as stress testing the aircraft.

I guess if we’re talking about unrealistic turbulence, then a severe rocking side to side would be evidence enough for a bug report.

But then again, if I fly with stress damage turned off, then it probably isn’t a good testing. I had to turn it off last time because as soon as the wind hits, the flight session ends due to overstress to the airframe, and I couldn’t get enough recording of the turbulence. But doesn’t that make it realistic then? If my A320 just got shredded in those winds?

Regardless of what you think is happening or not, there are two things I’d say are true:

  • Asobo (specifically, Sebastian Wloch) explicitly stated that they turned down these effects on the whole because of user complaints/disbelief.

  • Asobo has a way to go in terms of doing a better job at demonstrating their air mass model, specifically how terrain/buildings/obstacles affect the local wind. I think a streamtrace field of the local air mass would go a long way in terms of showing this off.

It looked to me that, on their dev maps, they were going to address most of these issues in 2022. Hopefully we can get a glimpse of those changes before then.