So I finally got a shiny new set of rudder pedals and turned off Auto-Rudder in Assistance options and discovered I could not maintain stable flight after takeoff. I know the kodiak needs a lot right Rudder Trim (I don’t how much though). By Contrast I flew the C152 C172 and TBM and had no problems.
I saw a YT video yesterday by AvAngel that indicated a possible bug in the Kodiak flight model that SimWorks seem to have acknowledged they are at least looking into the issue.
So for those flying the Kodiak:
1/ Do you have Auto-Rudder enabled?
2/ How much Right Rudder Trim are you setting for take-off?
With both version SWS 1.04, and the mod by CanadianCaptainMoustach, the plane handles a lot better. P-Factor has been reduced by half by SWS, a little more by CCM.
I don’t use any rudder trim on take-off any more, just rudder input, which normally suffices.
As far as P-Factor the handling is very close to RL in terms of trim and effect. I don’t have CCM’s mod but if it reduces the P-Factor value for the sake of the value itself, it is definitely wrong.
Without getting into commentary about the core MSFS flight model, the P-Factor is numerically high because that is what gives the correct effect.
True, but as I understand it you were claiming the flight model was correct in the release version as well, and the advice was to use full right rudder, and remain at a shallower deck angle until airspeed builds In other words it wasn’t broken, and working as intended.
Two days after CCM released their mod, you released the 1.04 version with P-Factor reduced by about half.
I’m no pilot, but I do have a few hundred hours in the Thranda Kodiak, and even I could tell that was broken.
As I wrote somewhere, the instability was due to a value that slipped through release builds, something we discovered after reverting back to the build Daher signed off on. Even then, the plane was stubbornly tested by me on stream and by the Kodiak pilot in private, to confirm and see where, what and how it happens.
The P-Factor is lower than we would like in 1.0.4 but it is a hotfix, not a well-tuned and long tested update. Yet, 1.0.4 flies very very close to the real thing.
Quirks are there and will be ironed out, but reducing P-Factor to 1.0 just because 4.8 seems high shows lack of knowledge about the plane and the behaviour of single-engine turboprops. A 208, a TBM or a Kodiak are not people’s average C172. They have very powerful engines that are a handful and take P-Factor to another level.
A lesson learnt the hard way from us is that MSFS doesn’t like real values and if they are used, you often have to adjust using huge scalar values. That is why you see such values on numerous planes, because the SDK lacks the fine control we had with FSX, where scalars were usually 1s.
Regarding CCM & 1.0.4, when developing, we gather data, apply it, have type pilots test and adjust. Adjusting based on a feel/assumption of how it flies based on experience with other planes is not good enough and is literally a last resort solution. What feels like an improvement could break realistic or fine behaviours of the aircraft.
That said, it is a mod and people may elect to use it. Whether right or wrong, new knowledge will be gained from it.
I don’t think it was reduced to 1. It was 2.5 I think.
One of the other things that was adjusted were slightly increase flap drag, increasing the full flaps scalar from 1 to 1.5.
But as you suggest only someone directly familiar with the real aircraft can say for sure.
In any case, my biggest issue with the release version is “fixed” in both iterations, and that was climbing slopes. Bugalaga is easy now. Though from the videos on YT I have watched, the slope in the sim is massively exaggerated in the sim. The real on has an upward slope at first, which flattens, then increases into a more gentle climb. The sim is a gentle slope all the way up to the top, then a very steep ramp you would expect kids on skateboards to be negotiating!
Flap drag is a pain. As we don’t have propeller drag at low rpm in MSFS, flaps are a hack we used to artificislly add more drag.
We have a workaround in mind about this, which should let us get flaps back to normal drag values. The reason we are scarce lately is because we are switching from support, back to work.
You just need to download the file from the site again. The dates on our website, on the downloads page, are dates of purchase not release. The link always contains the latest version.
It seems both the Alternate Download Links are Broken. Only the Direct Download starts but it gets 10-20% done and barfs. Direct downlownload is failing consistently at exactly the same place in the direct download. Looks like I will use CCMS-Mod for the time being.
Yes. I will need to re-check our reference, but to my recollection CRS2 is INOP. I don’t remember why I did it. Could be that it is IRL or because we can’t have independent PFDs yet.
If it is the former, it could be because the Autopilot functions differ per aircraft based on the capabilities of its avionics and the plane itself. So some buttons of the GFC700 that would work on a PC-12 that carried it may be INOP on another plane.
I already answered this one. The CRS2 being inop is not a big deal because it can’t be implemented per the real operation which as you say needs an independent PFD2. @hobanagerik thinks it’s broke because the c208 has it set to control nav2 but that is all wrong and not realistic.
The latest SWS version is all you need. The mod just dumbs down the behaviour of the aircraft to be closer to the Asobo default aircraft. I don’t believe it to be realistic and will not be using it.
Dumbed down as in more docile and more forgiving. I prefer more of a realistic experience and I take @SiRRiPPERORiG at face value about the current behaviour being that.
Mods by the community are extremely appreciated in the situations where the devs are unresponsive regarding flight model failings but in the case of SWS, I think, as they are very hands on at the moment, I will always take their version of the plane over a community mod.
Thank You Sir, getting it now.