@smokinhole - I seem to recall you have a Pitts right? I think this is lightly modeled as far as the cockpit is concerned…but thought it might interest you…
BeachAV8R
Looks good! And thanks for the heads-up! Before I bought my Pitts I purchased Alebeo’s S-2S for practice. It served the purpose but ultimately it was just so far off that I stopped using it. It was good for getting accustomed to approaching at high sink rates and landing with poor forward visibility but the FM was horrid. Those guys normally do a good job so the problems might have been more attributable to X-Plane. What I would love is for a sim to be able to model high alpha and stalled flight (spins, snaps, slides and tumbles). Then it could be used to acro. We just aren’t there yet.
1 Like
@smokinhole - It will be interesting to hear your impressions of what VR headsets feel like compared to the real thing. Of course, until they integrate a centrifuge…it’s all cake on the PC…LOL…
You will likely get into VR before I will. And since you are 100 times the technical writer that I am, it is I who eagerly awaits your thoughts on VR. I don’t think VR will change virtual aerobatic flight relative to real any differently than it does virtual “normal” flight relative to real. We both spend one or two days a year flying million dollar virtual machines. I don’t know about you but they make me very uncomfortable. And not just for the obvious “your career is on the line” reasons. When my inner ear doesn’t feel what my eye sees my brain starts freaking out. The motion in full-flight simulators makes this experience more uncomfortable because the motion still doesn’t match the accelerations we would feel on the line.
What the Pitts has taught me (or more accurately, reminded me) after so much virtual extreme flying is how much easier the real thing is. The ability to feel when one wing is stalled and actually push just enough to keep the other one flying would seem to be a god-like skill if judged by how hard it is simulated. But it’s child’s play in the air. Same goes for timing a spin or staying in a corner without snapping. Those will always be very difficult virtual skills but relatively easy real ones. And that is the message I always wanted to communicate back when I was siming regularly: the stuff that seems so difficult in the sim (professional or desktop, but especially desktop) is so much easier in reality. Sometimes it seems like the developers want to make it extra hard. Try making 3 consistently “squeaker” two-point P-51 landings in DCS and compare that to the real thing. It’s crazy.
(Oh wait, I’m just typing random stuff that has nothing to do with the topic. I better get back to studying…)
2 Likes
Just tried it. It flies really well. Too well! initial climb at 100mph 3000+ FPM and a roll rate about 50% better. The visibility is correct and it lands pretty accurately. My problem, just as it was with the other model, is that it doesn’t spin or snap at anywhere approaching real. Stall airflow is a tough thing for a sim to model I guess.
Thanks for the heads up! This will be my goto Pitts, replacing the one I paid $20 for.
3 Likes
Yeah, not everybody goes for the full-fidelity flight model. Takes too much simulation/analysis/research.
2 Likes
Dat udder flutter…
1 Like
It’s simply…bovine.
1 Like