MSFS2020 Soaring Thread

I like that you can customize your glider launch method - in the aircraft customization menu, you can select either a tow plane or choose between 3 different glider winches. Also when you have a glider selected, the map will show glider (custom?) airfields as blue starts.

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Oh, cool! I had not noticed that last feature yet, I picked the airport before I picked the plane.

And yeah the winch variety is a nice little feature.

I also read that you can hack any airplane config file with something like “istowplane=1” and you will get it as a tow plane. It might cause a crash though, so be careful.

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Wonder how would that worked with Darkstar as a tow plane…

Speeding Evan Peters GIF by 20th Century Studios

Exceeds the Vne of any glider except the Space Shuttle before it even takes off. :smiley:

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Some more thoughts/observations based on yesterday’s short flight:

  • The LS8 has a bug I think, it just cannot take off when aerotowed. Winch launch works OK though.

  • I am searching for realistic weather scenarios to check out different thermal generation effects. (cloud, ridge, wave).

  • wind creates super thermals, clouds not all that much, still not sure if waves exist or not. Hard to reproduce.

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I did a few tests tonight but it is a bit late to write the report. I’ll do it tomorrow.

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Ok, first thing for today:

Can y’all who have accounts there please upvote this thread (and posts in it)?
Those guys are doing similar work as I do and mostly come to the same conclusions it seems.

Now, let’s see what I noticed yesterday:

I set up a flight over rural Kansas (flat, no large cities, no large forests or large bodies of water etc).

I then set up the weather, starting in July, at 1pm local time, with no wind, few clouds, OAT 70°f (21°C), barometer 30.00
I deleted all cloud layers except the lowest one, which I placed base at 2000ft AGL and 1000ft thickness at first, but varied during the tests, see below.

I winch launched the LS8 and used both the glider’s instruments and the 3D visualization to get an idea about how the cloud thermals work. One observation was that the 3D particles not necessarily provide good info.

At first there was very little lift across the area. With no noticeable difference between the air below the cumulus clouds and the air next to them.

I always tested the following areas:

  1. Centered below the cloud (expecting updraft, weak when low, increasing toward the cloud base)
    Edit: forgot to mention that of course updraft also gets gradually stronger from outer to inner.
  2. Right next to the area below the cloud (expecting a downdraft as well as a turbulent area where #2 borders on #1)
  3. Within the cloud (expecting strong updrafts but more chaotic behavior of the airmass)
  4. Not near a cloud (expecting a little up or down, depending on how the ground looks)

The above is basic stuff about soaring. I’d call it the bare minimum, simplified basics of cloud thermals.
In a real glider you notice those by wings dipping, sounds, even smells (not joking).
Edit: also by looks btw. A cumulus with a flat base but looking like it is “blossoming” (I don’t know the English term, the German one is ‘entwickelnd’, which translates to ‘developing’ ) usually has a good thermal.

I then varied a few parameters and looked at the results. Observations about that:

  • Surprisingly the temperature had far less effect than anticipated. That was the case in earlier iterations of the atmospheric model though.

  • humidity also has little effect.

  • thickness and density of the clouds has a large effect. When you slide the slider while flying below a cloud that becomes very obvious. This is realistic, but sadly the clouds have to be quite thick and/or dense in order to feel any effect.

This was of course just a short first test, and I admit that I haven’t documented it well at all. After all I am not an experienced glider pilot (not even in the sim), so someone who knows what they are doing should do these tests obviously, but I want to do my best to help with the little I know, so here is my 2ct:

They actually made the atmospheric model worse than it was before. I could soar below reasonably sized cumulus clouds without any 3rd party mods after SU10.

I admit that my enthusiasm led me to be a bit too positive about the state of soaring in MSFS in the last few days, I apologize if I mislead anyone. I still think this has great potential, but it needs work.

With SU11 soaring feels nicer near ridges, and if you have wind. But again: this needs a lot of work, especially thermals related to clouds.

I also read that waves are confirmed not in the sim by a dev, so I will stop searching for them (bummer, I was looking forward to that).

But I surely won’t stop soaring in MSFS now, this is just the beginning and I am having fun, despite the shortcomings.

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Angry Jasmine Goode GIF by Bachelor in Paradise

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Thx! The devs decide priorities based on votes and popularity of threads, so that really helps.

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Voted :slight_smile:
After flying in Condor2 for a long time, Asobo has some work to do for sure.
I hope they improve realism a lot, in its current state, it’s dodgy.

Looks great but doesn’t feel realistic.

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When the Condor team get their act together and get VR working well for more than just the Oculus Rift CV1 and 2 without having to do back flips, blindfolded with one arm tied behind your back…then I’ll definitely go back to it.

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Yeah, as weird as it feels to me, I think MSFS might actually be closer to getting the atmospheric model changes and glider flight models right (or close enough) than Condor to improving all the other stuff.

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I was similarly expecting more from latest update.

I am not even happy with the LS8. FM feels reasonably good but the cockpit is hardly readable on 17" laptop screen :slight_smile:

but had some fun with Cessna as tow plane, had to release few times as AI was trying to kill me hitting hills surounding airport. then from reasonably flat airport I was able to takeoff finally.

Yeah towing (and even winch launch) is another topic, it is very barebones.
If the tow plane at least had a steady climb rate and simple left and right steering it would help immensely.

For winch launch I discovered that apparently the length of the runway determines the cable length, which sucks because the real life cable length of my nearest glider airfield is twice the length of that (very short) runway.
If you winch launch there in MSFS you are barely high enough to fly a pattern and land. Feels like a medium altitude cable break.

What is a typical length of a glider winch cable, and what altitude can you get from a winch launch?

Typical cables are 1500-3000m long, and a common altitude to reach (depending on winds etc.) is 30-50% of that.

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3,000 ft cablr gives about 1,000 height

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I recorded a video of me having some fun in the LS8 over the alps if someone wonder how it looks ingame, not only teaser or news videos.

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That was pretty cool. What is that noise in cockpit? It is constantly going from low to high pitch. It must be some gadget in the glider so what is the instrument and what is it telling you as the pilot?

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That’s the sound of the variometer.

Whenever the tone is steady, you are sinking. When it is beeping then you are climbing. Higher pitch means better.

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