Turbulence on MSFS rocks the airplane around its vertical axis (yaw) pretty hard, but it does not cause wing drops associated with turbulence at all. Try the C172 with a 20kt gusty crosswind. You can approach with ailerons neutral. IRL, it requires a great deal of roll inputs just to keep the wings level on final if it is bumpy. This makes MSFS very arcade. Please Asobo, correct this!
Try with 150 knots… with 50% gust blowing perpendicular to the wind direction at 10 second intervals.
Still nothing! 
Without being an expert on the subject, nor a RL pilot, I believe that as things are now weather has very little effect to the actual flying. The impression I’m getting is that you can grab your little C152 and literally fly anywhere, dive into the biggest clouds, challenge CB formations etc without damaging your aircraft one bit. Sure, turbulence creates lots of shaking and you may have a hard time taking off or landing, but other than that neither weather nor wake turbulence can really compromise safety.
I remember an excellent post I read a few days ago in https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/will-we-have-a-better-failures-simulation/386122/12?u=zeppos about the effects of weather in MSFS:
This is why I got back to Xplane for the benefice of birds that have Wear/Tear/Maintenance as REP Simcoders, the TBM900 HotStar, the vintage PT-19, so on… and for Xp flight dynamics, the system weather via Active Sky (that is not perfect) but that doesn’t allowed me to fly a C172 through TS or dark CB (any danger in MFS2020 no matter the degree of unsafe severe weather conditions so that, as a matter of fact, MFS2020 behaves like an arcade game in this area knowing that the weather in real aviation is one of the corner stone) For instance, my concerns in VRF flight in real life are, in the first place, based on the weather condtions when I create/publish my flight plan, same for IFR. Indeed my friends I won’t fly a PA28 under CB or through those dangerous and scary clouds just because it won’t be safe with regard to huge vertical mouvement of updraft/downdraft winds etc. MFS2020 do not simulate this ultime important thing! (only tiny or moderate turb !!!)
In Xplane I remember that I had sometimes structure damage because of severe weather conditions when I don’t pay attention enough to the conditions of the day like flying the excellent study level ultra light SP-30 too closed to the base of CB, the way the bird did behave that day was so realistic that I was speechless and very challenging because of the very accurate flight model and the feel of “fragility” of this light airplane to maintain a safe envelope in this case of flaps failures … for example even if you put the flaps down at only 5 to 10 kt above VFE then you have a flap failure with huge difficulty to keep the control of the plane except if the imputs on the rudders and the stick are well coordinated with a tiny marging of error. I did kiss the ground many times testing this bird that I’ve never flew in real hhh. That is fun and still learning in the same way.
It’s not all fluffy clouds and great lighting and visuals, at some point realistic weather effects (turbulence included) will have to be introduced as a major feature of this sim.
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I took off in a Cessna 152 with a wind of 25-40 and gusts of 50. The wind blows across the runway, and it was hilarious I was crabbing down the runway at about 45 degrees and managed to lift off and fly succefully the entire time. Of course the plane continuously crabbed as well.
There are so many discrepancies in the game that I wonder if anyone involved has even been in a plane yet alone flew one.
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I agree. If they at least could copy xplane’s dynamics, it would be the best sim by far. The turbulence is so dead wrong that I also doubt the developers have more than 40h flight time IRL. The airplane is stable like a table around its longitudinal axis and shakes too much in yaw. Asobo, I’ve already said that…I would be glad to test fly it to you until it’s closer to reality. Let’s make a perfect sim…!
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I’ve filed a bug report. The more people submit the bug, the more chance we will get it working some day. At least I’m trying to believe, because after launching that other sim I can’t stant how the small aircraft responds to wind.
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same i hope they correct it!
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There actually was wing drop in when the game first released. People who just want to watch the scenery and play the game like an arcade game complained. Instead of making it an option which you could toggle on or off they took it out completely. I would agree they should bring the real flight dynamic effects of wind and turbulence back but who knows they seem more intent on making an Xbox game now. It is getting to be quite a joke. Like literally all x-plane or p3d would have to do is add Bing scenery and the whole sim world would never look back. I’ve been saying it should be renamed to flight game. Who knows maybe they will care about sim pilots one day.
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I don’t agree with you, the simulation isn’t perfect but saying that wind and associated turbulence doesn’t affect roll isn’t true:
Video made with 40 kts crosswind approaching Dubrovnik airport. I have flown here in real life (although not with such a small aircraft) but it certainly doesn’t seem unrealistic to me, the downdrafts and turbulence occure exactly where I would expect them in real life and require a lot of input to correct.
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Another video trying to prove something doesn’t exist that the developers themselves have already admitted to. i do feel for all these people wasting time to prove a point when it’s already a known issue.
The developers have told us they turned down weather effects because apparently it made it too hard for a lot of people who complained. And rather than give us the option whether we want realistic wind and turbulence or not, they just removed it. So we know what their target audience is.
You should look at real-life videos of jets landing in 40 knot crosswinds, it’s at the the of limits (many autopilots aren’t certified for it) there are often go-arounds and diversions, very high crab angles. Your angle only proves the point that wind and turbulence effects are far less than they should be if you can land like that in a little prop with little crab angle. This is why landing in jets is so boring in the game.
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How many planes have you landed on crosswind limit in real life?
I’m not saying its perfect, but turbulence (gusts are a form of turbulence) within the friction layer due to obstructions like hills, mountains, buildings and even trees is currently present in the sim (SU5). I do agree the effect isn’t always strong enough and should extend further downwind. Then there is the annoying bug (or wrong implementation) cutting the wind speed at ground level in half, making it way too smooth at lower altitudes. But the effect is definitely there, saying turbulence does not affect the flightpath or roll is just plain wrong (see video).
I have visited some airports in MSFS which I have flown extensively in and out of and the turbulence, downdrafts etc., are all at the locations I have encountered them in real life. I think that is quite an achievement.
Does real life experience count? I don’t know what you mean with many autopilots aren’t certified for this? Are you talking about flying the approach itself or autoland? For a non-precision or CAT I approach without autoland there aren’t any specific autopilot limitations. Regarding CAT II / III including autoland the wind limitations are often pretty strict, therefore you won’t find any landing in extreme conditions flown on autopilot below minima. Neither does low visibility and high winds happen often at the same time.
Example the aircraft I’m rated for:
CAT II / IIIA using autoland:
Max. headwind = 25 kts
Max. crosswind = 15 kts
Max. tailwind = 10 kts
CAT II / IIIA no autoland:
Max. headwind = 37 kts
Max. crosswind = 16 kts
Max. tailwind = 10 kts
Those are quite typical values, we are talking about surface wind of course and not the wind on approach. For CAT I / NPA / APV approaches there aren’t any specific limitations. Just the regular crosswind and tailwind limits.
40 kts is already over the limits for most aircraft, I have flown the ATR 42 which has a 45 kts crosswind limit, otherwise I haven’t flown or know of any aircraft with a 40 kts or more crosswind limit. Yes the crosswind in my video over the runway is 20 kts (1/2 wind bug as explained before) so yes you are right, a real 40 kts crosswind landing looks different and won’t leave the 172 in one piece, this 20 kts crosswind landing in the video is already over the limits, even with full rudder and a bunch of aileron it won’t stay on centerline. That wasn’t the point of the video.
For a 40 kts crosswind in MSFS you need to select 80 kts (!!) wind in the weather menu and therefore you wouldn’t be able to overcome that downdraft on approach. The part you are talking about which has been dumbed down is up / down drafts in relation to thunderstorms.
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For this 1/2 wind at ground level bug (feature?) which you have discovered. Did you also find out if it applies to any terrain? Meaning, does it also occur when flying close to a ridge at an altitude of let’s say 6000ft as it common eg in the Alps or any other high mountains?
I know for sure it doesn’t matter whether the airport is at sea level or above. I will check.
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Will also check. Need a bit to get home. Been out flying :-).
Alright here we go… the northern ridge of the Inn Valley with a ca. 20kts wind from 330deg. Should create some major downdrafts and turbulences on the leward side (even with the 1/2 wind bug) …
Judge for yourself… or try it out …
…
It just looks completely wrong. That’s not how turbulence is supposed to be like. Too much pitch variation, little yaw, little roll variations. How do I know it’s not pilot induced in your video? Ideally, we should see the yoke. But just set up an airport with no mountains nearby, 20kt gusting 40kt with many gust per minute. It is not even close to real life turbulence. But I won’t argue anymore about it. If one day Asobo fixes it, good, I will fly MSFS. If not, I will stick to my XP11.
If you don’t believe me, compare the yoke inputs in that situation with a video of a RL landing from the cockpit on youtube. And I don’t care if people say that’s what I can get for a desktop sim, because it’s not. It’s a matter of them fixing it, using the sim’s engine full potential. I fly a corporate jet IRL and I can get very similar handling in my XP11 setup.
One more thing I did the other day…flew the CJ4 and TBM inside a hurricane. No turbulence at all. Plain smooth. Weird. I have the feeling that the first release simulated turbulence better.
My point is, set up the winds at 40kt and don’t touch the ailerons on final, as if they have failed. You will probably be able to fly straight and land. That’s impossible IRL.
That’s a lot of text to say you agree with me, and a landing you could fairly easily make in MSFS, wouldn’t leave that plane in one piece in real life.
You make a lot of assumptions you know more than the rest of us (obvious copying and pasting things is less convincing than you think), but then accept the game is nothing like real life and far too easy, so why does all of that matter anyway? As I said, the developers have freely admitted they turned it all down, so what are you even trying to say?
Fully agree. But then people will come and tell you there’s no problem, even though the games own developers have admitted to the problem, as with so many things.
People uploading videos of how well easily they can land a Cessna in a 40 knot cross wind thinking that proves the game is OK, when in fact it is absolutely ■■■■■■■of the game. It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry.
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