DCS Yak-52

Then FINALLY I can recreate that scene from Wonder Woman with a flight sim!

Dream satisfied!

Oh sweet! A couple of the pilots in the Bandit Flight Team (who do all the flyovers at NC State football games) have Yak-52ā€™s and the things sound incredibly sexy, especially as theyā€™re making circling passes over Carter Finley before kickoff.

Thereā€™s a Yak-52 in WW? I may have to go see that movie after allā€¦

The Yak-52 and its derivatives are a staple in aerobatic circles. In the states, they can be had CHEAP. Their operating costs are high but they are simply and strongly built and are very easy to maintain. Russia hosts a Yak-52 ā€œone designā€ aerobatic contest that brings in competitors from all over the world. The plane performs just well enough to manage an intermediate sequence in the box. This puts it on par with a Super D. The C-172 isnā€™t in the same league.

DCS really suffers in high AOA aerobatics. All sims do. Spins, snaps, hammerheads and tailslides are modeled poorly or not at all. WWII props would be great models for comparison but they are too precious to break so few pilots do these sorts of things with them anymore. Yaks are everywhere. And worldwide hundreds of pilots are doing their best to break them on any given day. So it is damn near the perfect airplane for DCS to model for a comparison. This reminds me a bit of the Su26 in the old IL2. I think I recall that Oleg put it in the sim as a easily accessable FM test.

I wonā€™t buy it because outside-the-envelope flying is so hopelessly modeled in the current stable of sims (RoF/BoS being the least bad). And if I just want to do a loop or some other gentle figure which the sim handles fine there are better performing ways to scratch that itch. Itā€™s potentially a good move if they use the human data that comes with the Yak. I donā€™t doubt that there are dozens of DCS users who wear them out on a regular basis. The question is: will ED listen or care.

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I hear ya, @smokinhole. On or outside the envelope edge flight is fraught with chaotic dynamic behaviour, that is by nature hard to simulate. Some sims does this better than others, as you point out, but none does it perfectly. And, it may be a lot to ask of a flightsim developer to copy this behaviour digitally.
The DCS Yak-52 is made primarily for a professional customer. And I guess they may care about this.
Not necessarily though, as they may only be interested in the module as a systems trainer. Sort of a interactive computer based training device.
Will be interesting to seeā€¦

I populate my hangar with everything ED has flying for DCS World 1 and 2. So, I will get the Yak once it is offered. But to fly it? Maybe if it has an English cockpit. My Russian is as good as my Chinese.

More to the point of my posting in this thread is the discussion on ā€œon or outside the envelope edgeā€ of flight models. When the DCS P-51D first split the virtual morning air with its Merlin, I almost swallowed my tongue trying to tail drag down the runway for take off only to end in a twisting roll into the grass to the right or left. Then, as the FM developed a bit, I got to simulate a climbing flat spin by yanking the Pony into vertical snap roll. Today, when I try it, I can feel the software fight me, preventing the flat spin. I quote smokinhole, ā€œDCS really suffers in high AOA aerobatics. All sims do. Spins, snaps, hammerheads and tailslides are modeled poorly or not at all.ā€

But DCS does come close sometimes. (Or didā€¦)

Sounds like you have autorudder enabled

I had not thought about that. Iā€™ll check it later today. Thanks for the advice. (It gives me a reason to fly today! :sunglasses:)

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I never found that it did. But thatā€™s ok, neither did X-plane or FSX. And like those sims, DCS is about a style of flying that would normally avoid the nether regions of the envelope. When a sim DOES appear to get it right it is usually because some expected behavior is at least partially scripted. I am guessing this is why Rise of Flight felt so good. Snapping and maneuvering while in some semblance of a stall was so much a part of WWI flying that they had no choice but to include ā€œtorque-yā€ ā€œsnappyā€ behavior in order to be believable. I am completely fine with using whatever cheat is necessary to make true aerobatics possible. PheonixRC is a much less sophisticated sim than DCS, X-plane, etc. But it also seems believable entirely out of necessity. RC people fly in mathematically challenging regions of the envelope more often than not so a sim for that market has to work in those regions. If it is just a bunch of tables that completely distort any real physics built into the sim, thatā€™s fine. The player shouldnā€™t care so long is the plane reacts as expected. I was shocked at how bad X-Plane was at this once I started flying the Pitts. But I realized that Lamcevaks and torque rolls are not important features in need of modeling in that sim. X-Plane is still accurate without peer regardless. But a little cheating would be nice for practicing advanced aerobatics.

I have never tried aerobatics in X-plane. I am assuming the software doesnā€™t come anywhere near what DCS can do for flight modelling. But since the fun stuff for me involves doing things planes should not do, EDā€™s P-51 does give me some pleasure. This evening, I checked on my auto rudder as Sobek suggested. It was not turned on. I did get a climbing flat spin out of her by keeping the kias rather low. But activity in stalls isnā€™t quite realistic. Snap rolls donā€™t feel right. The force/momentum stuff seems okay (spinning with no airflow) but flight controls in pre-stall conditions just doesnā€™t seem right.

Nevertheless, flying in DCS is bunches of tons better than X-plane or FSX. As for Lomcevaks, Iā€™ve never seen one in a sim. I donā€™t even think a real Stearman can do one without losing a wing or two; but Iā€™m sure everyone has seen the Pitts do it often on YouTube. I donā€™t think I will ever get one in the Mustang though I am willing to try really, really hard!

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Recently I got some Pony hours in DCS after quite long pause.
I also feels like Ponys FM was tweaked down a little!?

On behalf of Yak-52. It looks really good but I will buy it only if ED will implement multicrew where only one player needs to own the module :slight_smile: pleeease

I smell a main site article in your observationsā€¦! A bit of comparisons between sims - what they do good near and outside the edge of the envelope and what they donā€™t do well. If anyone is qualified to write something on that - it is definitely you! Nudge, nudgeā€¦ :smiley:

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Itā€™s been a long while, but it seems to me that I could do some basic aerobatics in FSX in a 3rd party Citabria that had some sort of highly tweaked FM going. Barrell, four point, and snap rolls, hammerheads, loops, inverted flight, etc. But having only done a basic course in the real plane, probably not a good judge of the FM like @smokinhole. Has anyone tried the Extra in XP11?

For both prop and jet?

With props thereā€™s a lot of strange, coupled interactions happening when torque from the engine, flow over the airframe, and the air being blasted back by the prop all start exerting about the same influence on the aircraft which is pretty hard to model well at an engineering level, let alone in a real-time consumer sim. Jets are a little less arcane.

@BeachAV8R. That does sound fun actually. (Someday). And actuallyā€¦the Yak would be a nice test. I have never flown one but I have watched them fly at a couple of contests. I feel like I have a basic idea of what they can do. I wish my Pitts was big enough to fit a GoPro inside but it isnā€™t. Iā€™ve strapped one to my forehead but kept hitting the canopy when I looked left (where one looks 90% of the time). But I would love to show how easy it is to enter and recover from any snap or spin exactly on point with minimal effort. Itā€™s like an ON-OFF switch. MY PITTS feels scripted and ā€œovermodeledā€ in this regard. Few sim pilots have an appreciation for how easy this stuff really is!

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Just for props. Few jets fly in this range and you are exactly right in how you describe the differences in airflow. I have never flown hard aerobatics in a jet and never will, so I have no way of knowing what is right. Friends have told me that they did crazy stuff with the Buckeye back when the Navy had them. Thatā€™s the only non-FBW jet I have ever heard a pilot admit to intentionally snapping. I am not trashing DCS or X-Plane. Both do 99% right as best I can tell. And the other 1% is arcaneā€“mostly. I do however believe that IL2:New is an order of magnitude ahead with that ā€œ1%ā€ since the recent skid/slip modeling update this summer.

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I think thatā€™s mostly because the late-3rd and 4th gen jets modeled in DCS are specifically designed to minimize regions like that in the flight envelope- thereā€™s a great design notebook that Northrop published in the late 70ā€™s talking about the fundamental design process for the T-38/F-5. Thereā€™s a part where they discuss desirable handling characteristics, and they introduce the concept that a massive envelope which requires all of a pilotā€™s skill and attention to probe the edge (think the F-100) is inherently less capable than having a more modest envelope with characteristics that let a pilot reliably hit the edge, depart, and return (T-38/F-5).

Coming from an analytical instead of a practical background- yeah, behavior in IL-2 ā€œlooks more rightā€ than DCS, though in my opinion trying to fly a warbird with totally analog controls with a stick on your desk is a hard bargain to begin with. In DCS I can snap back my stick say 20 degrees in a fraction of a second- not so much when Iā€™m in my mustang at 400 MPH when pulling on the stick takes a certain amount of muscle. I donā€™t think IL-2 or DCS do a great job modeling the virtual pilot between the player and the plane in this respect eitherā€¦

I promise that I am not trying to pick a fight. But I do want to be certain that I have been clear about the precise little aspect of flying that I am criticizing. Nothing I have been discussing takes place at 400 mph unless to pilot wishes to be permanently 2 inches shorter. This is low-speed or no-speed flying. Whatever throw-speeds you can manage on your stick at home you can probably exceed in a P-51.

This is a couple of years ago but as you can see my skinny little girl arms have no problem moving the stick quickly. I think I am faster now actually.

Pitts Practice

Another one

A P-51 is much bigger but at low speeds, the airloads are not much different and the mechanical advantage is better. So the P-51 pilot is just as fast. (Hopefully faster if heā€™s being shot at). As an aside, I believe that IL2 tries to model high-speed stick forces under airloads somewhat by modifying the rate of stick movement and range of displacement. Anyway, the phase of flight I am talking about is that where torque and rudder are doing most of the work and ailerons are flapping around doing mostly nothing. It is not a place where you want to be in combat unless you have used every other card in the deck. It is a place of reverse airflow and wildly asymmetrical angles of attack. But it is also a place that most propeller driven combat planes could inhabit perfectly safely and controllably. The term ā€œflat spinā€ has been used a few times above. That really only exists in movies, airshows and accidents with horribly aft Centers of Gravity. To do it, you just enter a normal spin but add power during rotation. If there is sufficient torque, the appearance to the audience below will be of a somewhat flattish spin. Anyway, the math for all of this stuff must be really difficult. And maybe the only way to satisfy nerds like me is to script the behavior so that I see what I think I should see without worrying about aerodynamics. For purists, that may be a bridge to far. The purists probably outnumber the acro nerds so I will shut up now. Having talked about it so much I will probably have to buy the Yak.

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We played the long conā€¦ :rofl:

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I admit, I donā€™t understand the fascination with post-stall/spin simulation. As stated, the objective in combat and civilian flight is usually to avoid those areas because itā€™s dangerous and (in combat) ineffective. If a plane is designed for the express purpose of exploring those areas while offering little to nothing in the areas I am concerned with (getting to places and shooting things), then the plane itself does not interest me.

I would just as gladly avoid ever stalling or spinning in any sim and not worry about whether itā€™s doing it right or not.