Soft-Body Physics and Structural Flexibility for Aircraft surfaces (WING FLEX)

In real-world aviation, aircraft structures are designed to endure incredible forces, with materials engineered for both strength and flexibility. Critical components such as wings, control surfaces (like ailerons, elevators, and rudders), and engine mounts are built with a certain degree of flexibility, enabling them to absorb and react dynamically to aerodynamic forces, turbulence, and maneuvering stresses. Currently, this is not simulated correctly natively by MSFS, rather a developer specifically puts a lot of time into developing such a simulation themselves, which is time consuming and not done by many. Seb mentioned adding this to the simulator in a recent interview, and I think it should be considered by the devs. It will add a lot of extra fidelity to the sim, and make features possible that are currently not offered by others.

Current versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator handle wing flex and other structural “deformations” as animations rather than real-time simulations based on physics. While these animations can visually represent flexing under certain flight conditions to a varying extent, they do not accurately reflect the dynamic interaction between aerodynamic forces, environmental stress, and structural elasticity of aircraft components.

Real aircraft wings flex in response to lift forces and aerodynamic pressure. This flex behavior isn’t simply a preset motion but is continuously shaped by fluctuating forces on each part of the wing. Engines, especially larger ones, also often flex under different loads. The system could also be applied to things like aircraft suspension. In real life, upon touchdown, the main landing gear often doesn’t immediately compress fully. Instead, there’s a brief delay before the aircraft’s full weight settles onto the suspension system, resulting in a noticeable “clunk” as the landing gear and struts absorb the load.


While we can achieve some of these effects today, it is mostly done using hard-coded animations, which really do not look realistic and behave correctly under all conditions, and they’re prone to being animated in low framerate which really ruins more immersion compared to what they add. A proper simulation of airflow actually affecting the flexibility of the wing would be a great addition to MSFS, and something which many people most certainly would pay a high price for.

Regarding the suspension, here is a video illustrating that aspect, from a modified X-plane 12 setup. You can see the landing gear bearing the weight of the aircraft as it “clunks” down, and also the wing bouncing up and down, though maybe a bit overexaggerated.

(Credit: u/derpitroxxxx from r/Flightsim reddit page)

…if I can add, Also show the animation of the flex in replay.

Drives me crazy when my blades don’t flex and cone using the built in replay tool.

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Liked your updated profile comment about flying Robinson’s…lol :laughing:

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Cessna pilot here. Voted! I’ll be following this thread closely.

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If you fly any aircraft outside of its’ limitations it could kill you… :rofl:

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This is an interesting topic on how it could be approached. Just like the CFD flight dynamics conversation in another topic. Real time simulation of these characteristics would take a lot of computing power. I would settle for some form of combination of calculations and animations to match.

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I noticed today on the live dev stream when Hans was taxing the new Twin Otter around St. Barth’s the plane was leaning left and right as he was turning, which seemed like the soft body flexing of the struts and gear structures. I definitely seemed to me much more realistic compared to MSFS2020.

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Agreed. I noticed this same behavior and things like the nose dipping when you tap the brakes when I had tried out the tech alpha. Improvements have been made here, but can always be pushed further.

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It looked like it was improved in 2024 yep. I’m mostly looking for better wingflex, which is really lacking in MSFS at the moment.

The Aerosoft Twotter for MSFS2020, also developed by Hartmann, also has an (IMO exaggerated) tendency to bank (lean) on the ground, both when turning and when using the rudder during take-off. What you saw might not be related at all to MSFS2024 features.

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