PC flight simulators

On 16 Nov 2003 18:51:41 -0800, (WaltBJ) wrote:

The only recent one I've messed with is Jane's Fighter Anthology - it
is deficient in that it does not incorporate the effect of gravity in
3-dimensional maneuvering. Pitch-over is same rate as pull-up which is
totally false. G limit is the same no matter what the pitch angle is
up, down sideways or in between. Zero-G acceleration is not modeled.
Fuel burn is also bogus - way below actual when in AB/reheat. Lots of
little quibbles but those are the major ones which really detract from
reality. BTW I speak from about 4500 hours in fighters and about 1500
hours instructor time also in fighters, from F86 Sabre, F102, F104 and
F4.

Every "game" simulator I've ever flown seemed to use the same math
model, one that, as you say, was not dynamically possible. Fun's fun,
but physics is physics.

Now, if you want to practice instrument flight and work on your scan
technique, Mcsft Flt Sim is quite adequate. Unfortunately no sim gives
you 'real motion.' You will definitely notice the sensations of motion
in the real aircraft, however. These must be ignored and will take
some getting used to. Your flight instructor should explain them to
you. Believe your instruments!

When I was at the F-18 RAG/FRS, they had three simulators, of three
entirely different levels of sophistication. The simplest one was
really just for practicing switchology on. The most realistic one had
a real cockpit and dome, with incredibly good CGI and the ability to
link with the other dome sim to fly in a two-man in a common scenario.
The third was about halfway between these two.

Each one has a place in the training. Sometimes all you want is a
cockpit with switches and working displays. Sometimes you want to fly
IFR. Sometimes you want to fly with every cue but motion, including a
wingman. If you've got the money and the technology, you can do that.
The airlines use moving-base simulations that are so good that the FAA
accepts them as being equal to actual flight for training. A lot of
airline pilots fly the airplane for the first time on their check
flight.

This level of simulation costs a lot of money. About as much as
actually flying. Even with the large general market that PC
simulations (for this discussion, MACs are PCs) have, which reduces
the cost of the software to very reasonable levels for entertainment,
just as it reduces the cost of the controllers, there's no way that
the complexity comes even vaguely close to the complexity of dome sims
or moving-base sims. It just can't. The sims are too generic, partly
because there just isn't enough time and space for a detailed math
model, because the FCS is proprietary and much too big to be modeled,
because the control surfaces aren't modeled correctly, the mass model
isn't right, and so on.

However, if someone is trying to learn switchology, etc, there are
simulators that resemble the PTT, Part-Task Trainer, that the USN
uses. They do have some value.

However, learning to "fly" with a fixed-base, low-fidelity sim game
isn't going to happen. All that will happen is that the student will
pick up responses and habits that will have to be unlearned before the
correct responses and habits can be acquired in the actual airplane.
I've heard flight instructors complaining about how they can always
tell if someone plays with MS Flight Simulator a lot, because it takes
a lot longer to teach them how to fly the actual airplane.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

Subject: PC flight simulators
From: Mary Shafer
Date: 11/16/03 9:11 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

On 16 Nov 2003 18:51:41 -0800, (WaltBJ) wrote:

The only recent one I've messed with is Jane's Fighter Anthology - it
is deficient in that it does not incorporate the effect of gravity in
3-dimensional maneuvering. Pitch-over is same rate as pull-up which is
totally false. G limit is the same no matter what the pitch angle is
up, down sideways or in between. Zero-G acceleration is not modeled.
Fuel burn is also bogus - way below actual when in AB/reheat. Lots of
little quibbles but those are the major ones which really detract from
reality. BTW I speak from about 4500 hours in fighters and about 1500
hours instructor time also in fighters, from F86 Sabre, F102, F104 and
F4.

Every "game" simulator I've ever flown seemed to use the same math
model, one that, as you say, was not dynamically possible. Fun's fun,
but physics is physics.

Now, if you want to practice instrument flight and work on your scan
technique, Mcsft Flt Sim is quite adequate. Unfortunately no sim gives
you 'real motion.' You will definitely notice the sensations of motion
in the real aircraft, however. These must be ignored and will take
some getting used to. Your flight instructor should explain them to
you. Believe your instruments!

When I was at the F-18 RAG/FRS, they had three simulators, of three
entirely different levels of sophistication. The simplest one was
really just for practicing switchology on. The most realistic one had
a real cockpit and dome, with incredibly good CGI and the ability to
link with the other dome sim to fly in a two-man in a common scenario.
The third was about halfway between these two.

Each one has a place in the training. Sometimes all you want is a
cockpit with switches and working displays. Sometimes you want to fly
IFR. Sometimes you want to fly with every cue but motion, including a
wingman. If you've got the money and the technology, you can do that.
The airlines use moving-base simulations that are so good that the FAA
accepts them as being equal to actual flight for training. A lot of
airline pilots fly the airplane for the first time on their check
flight.

This level of simulation costs a lot of money. About as much as
actually flying. Even with the large general market that PC
simulations (for this discussion, MACs are PCs) have, which reduces
the cost of the software to very reasonable levels for entertainment,
just as it reduces the cost of the controllers, there's no way that
the complexity comes even vaguely close to the complexity of dome sims
or moving-base sims. It just can't. The sims are too generic, partly
because there just isn't enough time and space for a detailed math
model, because the FCS is proprietary and much too big to be modeled,
because the control surfaces aren't modeled correctly, the mass model
isn't right, and so on.

However, if someone is trying to learn switchology, etc, there are
simulators that resemble the PTT, Part-Task Trainer, that the USN
uses. They do have some value.

However, learning to "fly" with a fixed-base, low-fidelity sim game
isn't going to happen. All that will happen is that the student will
pick up responses and habits that will have to be unlearned before the
correct responses and habits can be acquired in the actual airplane.
I've heard flight instructors complaining about how they can always
tell if someone plays with MS Flight Simulator a lot, because it takes
a lot longer to teach them how to fly the actual airplane.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer


Good rundown. In 1943 I flew a simulator that was the cockpit and nose of a
B-26 complete with full reality sounds and feeling to the controls plus rough
air effects..My pilot was in the cockpit and we flew the simulator as a crew. I
did bombruns over Berlin that unrolled under us with accurate engine sounds and
flak impacts. It was as close as you could get to actual flying in combat
bombing and navigating. In fact we often got lost in the trainer procedure and
actually felt we were in the air on bomb runs, Comparing that to a PC is just
total a stretch beyond all reason.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

wow


On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 21:11:40 -0800, Mary Shafer
wrote:

On 16 Nov 2003 18:51:41 -0800, (WaltBJ) wrote:

The only recent one I've messed with is Jane's Fighter Anthology - it
is deficient in that it does not incorporate the effect of gravity in
3-dimensional maneuvering. Pitch-over is same rate as pull-up which is
totally false. G limit is the same no matter what the pitch angle is
up, down sideways or in between. Zero-G acceleration is not modeled.
Fuel burn is also bogus - way below actual when in AB/reheat. Lots of
little quibbles but those are the major ones which really detract from
reality. BTW I speak from about 4500 hours in fighters and about 1500
hours instructor time also in fighters, from F86 Sabre, F102, F104 and
F4.

Every "game" simulator I've ever flown seemed to use the same math
model, one that, as you say, was not dynamically possible. Fun's fun,
but physics is physics.

Now, if you want to practice instrument flight and work on your scan
technique, Mcsft Flt Sim is quite adequate. Unfortunately no sim gives
you 'real motion.' You will definitely notice the sensations of motion
in the real aircraft, however. These must be ignored and will take
some getting used to. Your flight instructor should explain them to
you. Believe your instruments!

When I was at the F-18 RAG/FRS, they had three simulators, of three
entirely different levels of sophistication. The simplest one was
really just for practicing switchology on. The most realistic one had
a real cockpit and dome, with incredibly good CGI and the ability to
link with the other dome sim to fly in a two-man in a common scenario.
The third was about halfway between these two.

Each one has a place in the training. Sometimes all you want is a
cockpit with switches and working displays. Sometimes you want to fly
IFR. Sometimes you want to fly with every cue but motion, including a
wingman. If you've got the money and the technology, you can do that.
The airlines use moving-base simulations that are so good that the FAA
accepts them as being equal to actual flight for training. A lot of
airline pilots fly the airplane for the first time on their check
flight.

This level of simulation costs a lot of money. About as much as
actually flying. Even with the large general market that PC
simulations (for this discussion, MACs are PCs) have, which reduces
the cost of the software to very reasonable levels for entertainment,
just as it reduces the cost of the controllers, there's no way that
the complexity comes even vaguely close to the complexity of dome sims
or moving-base sims. It just can't. The sims are too generic, partly
because there just isn't enough time and space for a detailed math
model, because the FCS is proprietary and much too big to be modeled,
because the control surfaces aren't modeled correctly, the mass model
isn't right, and so on.

However, if someone is trying to learn switchology, etc, there are
simulators that resemble the PTT, Part-Task Trainer, that the USN
uses. They do have some value.

However, learning to "fly" with a fixed-base, low-fidelity sim game
isn't going to happen. All that will happen is that the student will
pick up responses and habits that will have to be unlearned before the
correct responses and habits can be acquired in the actual airplane.
I've heard flight instructors complaining about how they can always
tell if someone plays with MS Flight Simulator a lot, because it takes
a lot longer to teach them how to fly the actual airplane.

Mary

Subject: PC flight simulators
From: user
Date: 11/16/03 10:24 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

wow


On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 21:11:40 -0800, Mary Shafer
wrote:

On 16 Nov 2003 18:51:41 -0800, (WaltBJ) wrote:

The only recent one I've messed with is Jane's Fighter Anthology - it
is deficient in that it does not incorporate the effect of gravity in
3-dimensional maneuvering. Pitch-over is same rate as pull-up which is
totally false. G limit is the same no matter what the pitch angle is
up, down sideways or in between. Zero-G acceleration is not modeled.
Fuel burn is also bogus - way below actual when in AB/reheat. Lots of
little quibbles but those are the major ones which really detract from
reality. BTW I speak from about 4500 hours in fighters and about 1500
hours instructor time also in fighters, from F86 Sabre, F102, F104 and
F4.

Every "game" simulator I've ever flown seemed to use the same math
model, one that, as you say, was not dynamically possible. Fun's fun,
but physics is physics.

Now, if you want to practice instrument flight and work on your scan
technique, Mcsft Flt Sim is quite adequate. Unfortunately no sim gives
you 'real motion.' You will definitely notice the sensations of motion
in the real aircraft, however. These must be ignored and will take
some getting used to. Your flight instructor should explain them to
you. Believe your instruments!

When I was at the F-18 RAG/FRS, they had three simulators, of three
entirely different levels of sophistication. The simplest one was
really just for practicing switchology on. The most realistic one had
a real cockpit and dome, with incredibly good CGI and the ability to
link with the other dome sim to fly in a two-man in a common scenario.
The third was about halfway between these two.

Each one has a place in the training. Sometimes all you want is a
cockpit with switches and working displays. Sometimes you want to fly
IFR. Sometimes you want to fly with every cue but motion, including a
wingman. If you've got the money and the technology, you can do that.
The airlines use moving-base simulations that are so good that the FAA
accepts them as being equal to actual flight for training. A lot of
airline pilots fly the airplane for the first time on their check
flight.

This level of simulation costs a lot of money. About as much as
actually flying. Even with the large general market that PC
simulations (for this discussion, MACs are PCs) have, which reduces
the cost of the software to very reasonable levels for entertainment,
just as it reduces the cost of the controllers, there's no way that
the complexity comes even vaguely close to the complexity of dome sims
or moving-base sims. It just can't. The sims are too generic, partly
because there just isn't enough time and space for a detailed math
model, because the FCS is proprietary and much too big to be modeled,
because the control surfaces aren't modeled correctly, the mass model
isn't right, and so on.

However, if someone is trying to learn switchology, etc, there are
simulators that resemble the PTT, Part-Task Trainer, that the USN
uses. They do have some value.

However, learning to "fly" with a fixed-base, low-fidelity sim game
isn't going to happen. All that will happen is that the student will
pick up responses and habits that will have to be unlearned before the
correct responses and habits can be acquired in the actual airplane.
I've heard flight instructors complaining about how they can always
tell if someone plays with MS Flight Simulator a lot, because it takes
a lot longer to teach them how to fly the actual airplane.

Mary


Those FS programs can be quite counterproductive and in some cases destructive


..
Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...

Those FS programs can be quite counterproductive and in some cases
destructive

Of course, but then if you thought you could learn to drive a car safely and
become a responsible user of an integrated road system after playing Gran
Turismo you'd be seriously kidding yourself. When I took PPL lessons my
instructor said he felt my instrument and control familiarity from playing
sims helped a great deal, but only to a certain extent, naturally. It
doesn't teach me how to use depth of field or how to "see" properly, and it
doesn't instill in me the responsibility I must learn to show to other air
traffic. But it gave me a few hours head-start.

What modern flight sim games excel at is dynamic environments. Military
sims generally simulate the performance of the vehicle being modelled in
almost scripted environments. I seriously doubt there's a "professional"
aircraft simulator out there that attempts even a tiny fraction of, say,
Falcon 4's wider campaign and arena modelling. I think the majority of home
games players would be thoroughly sick of the limitations of a professional
simulator in a matter of hours.

No-one's suggesting a game will teach you about the seriousness of your
duty, or the very real fear of dying in combat, just as Medal of Honor isn't
going to really teach you what it's like to storm the beaches of Normandy.

To answer the original poster's question: FS 2004 is a fantastically
detailed product for civilian flight, and Falcon 4 has yet to be beaten for
sheer wealth of features and attention to detail in the military games
market. But they are, in the end, entertainment products.

Si

Subject: PC flight simulators
From: "Simon Robbins"
Date: 11/17/03 10:35 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

To answer the original poster's question: FS 2004 is a fantastically
detailed product for civilian flight, and Falcon 4 has yet to be beaten for
sheer wealth of features and attention to detail in the military games
market. But they are, in the end, entertainment products.

Si



Exactly. I think that is what I pointed out in my original reply.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Every "game" simulator I've ever flown seemed to use the same math
model, one that, as you say, was not dynamically possible. Fun's fun,
but physics is physics.


Actually one that I found, which had an outstanding flight model, was A-10 Cuba
back from 1997.

They concentrated more on getting the only the A-10 modeled correctly, and
worried less about eye candy or having other planes you could fly. Its still
fun to go fly around with, because of that.




Ron
Pilot/Wildland Firefighter

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 21:11:40 -0800, Mary Shafer
wrote:

Every "game" simulator I've ever flown seemed to use the same math
model, one that, as you say, was not dynamically possible. Fun's fun,
but physics is physics.

.... yet any game uses a completely different engine to create the
flight model. The differences are where the game engine does its short
cuts to allow realtime operation.


The sims are too generic, partly
because there just isn't enough time and space for a detailed math
model, because the FCS is proprietary and much too big to be modeled,
because the control surfaces aren't modeled correctly, the mass model
isn't right, and so on.

The main problem of PC flight simulations is that the performance of a
PC is not sufficient to calculate a realtime aerodynamic simulation.
Mass models are ok these days in most flight sims, as well as
performance and envelope data which are in some cases very close to
reality. Only few PC simulations even try to simulate engine torqe
effects on prop aircraft.

The problems start if the simulated aircraft does non-linear maneuvers
(post-stall, spins) - this is when some PC simulations can get very
erratic because their simplified physics model needs to rely on
pre-calculated data (to save computing time). The result is either a
"standard" stall routine (always the same spin, independent on how you
entered it), or erratic movements that does not even look close to
what a real aircraft would do.

So far the only PC simulations that attempt to simulate post-stall
effects are MS Flight Sim 2002 and 2004, MS Combat Flight Sim 2 and 3,
and X-Plane, but the results are not entirely convincing yet.

Any PC simulator is (of course) handicapped most by the input devices
- a PC joystick and a mouse simply cannot give even a similar feeling
to the stick of a real aircraft (or a full cockpit simulator).This is
the cause why the characteristics of a PC simulated aircraft cannot be
even similar to the real thing, even if the performance data
throughout the envelope are very similar.



However, learning to "fly" with a fixed-base, low-fidelity sim game
isn't going to happen. All that will happen is that the student will
pick up responses and habits that will have to be unlearned before the
correct responses and habits can be acquired in the actual airplane.
I've heard flight instructors complaining about how they can always
tell if someone plays with MS Flight Simulator a lot, because it takes
a lot longer to teach them how to fly the actual airplane.

Indeed.
The training effect concerning a PC simulator is that of a procedure
trainer. You can learn to fly standard procedures (even with ATC these
days), learn to program an FMC, to learn where to look at to keep the
plane under control, but the feeling of flight cannot be learned.
Flying a PC simulation too often indeed tends to teach a couple of bad
habits that are hard to train away again (looking a the instruments
too often is one of them).


There are a number of pretty realistic combat flight simulators out
there that simulate aerial combat. If the game engine is good,
real-world combat tactics need to be flown in these games to win a
dogfight. It might be interesting to compare such a game to real-world
dogfighting.

Bye
Andreas

Subject: PC flight simulators
From: Andreas Maurer
Date: 11/17/03 8:05 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 21:11:40 -0800, Mary Shafer
wrote:

Every "game" simulator I've ever flown seemed to use the same math
model, one that, as you say, was not dynamically possible. Fun's fun,
but physics is physics.

... yet any game uses a completely different engine to create the
flight model. The differences are where the game engine does its short
cuts to allow realtime operation.


The sims are too generic, partly
because there just isn't enough time and space for a detailed math
model, because the FCS is proprietary and much too big to be modeled,
because the control surfaces aren't modeled correctly, the mass model
isn't right, and so on.

The main problem of PC flight simulations is that the performance of a
PC is not sufficient to calculate a realtime aerodynamic simulation.
Mass models are ok these days in most flight sims, as well as
performance and envelope data which are in some cases very close to
reality. Only few PC simulations even try to simulate engine torqe
effects on prop aircraft.

The problems start if the simulated aircraft does non-linear maneuvers
(post-stall, spins) - this is when some PC simulations can get very
erratic because their simplified physics model needs to rely on
pre-calculated data (to save computing time). The result is either a
"standard" stall routine (always the same spin, independent on how you
entered it), or erratic movements that does not even look close to
what a real aircraft would do.

So far the only PC simulations that attempt to simulate post-stall
effects are MS Flight Sim 2002 and 2004, MS Combat Flight Sim 2 and 3,
and X-Plane, but the results are not entirely convincing yet.

Any PC simulator is (of course) handicapped most by the input devices
- a PC joystick and a mouse simply cannot give even a similar feeling
to the stick of a real aircraft (or a full cockpit simulator).This is
the cause why the characteristics of a PC simulated aircraft cannot be
even similar to the real thing, even if the performance data
throughout the envelope are very similar.



However, learning to "fly" with a fixed-base, low-fidelity sim game
isn't going to happen. All that will happen is that the student will
pick up responses and habits that will have to be unlearned before the
correct responses and habits can be acquired in the actual airplane.
I've heard flight instructors complaining about how they can always
tell if someone plays with MS Flight Simulator a lot, because it takes
a lot longer to teach them how to fly the actual airplane.

Indeed.
The training effect concerning a PC simulator is that of a procedure
trainer. You can learn to fly standard procedures (even with ATC these
days), learn to program an FMC, to learn where to look at to keep the
plane under control, but the feeling of flight cannot be learned.
Flying a PC simulation too often indeed tends to teach a couple of bad
habits that are hard to train away again (looking a the instruments
too often is one of them).


There are a number of pretty realistic combat flight simulators out
there that simulate aerial combat. If the game engine is good,
real-world combat tactics need to be flown in these games to win a
dogfight. It might be interesting to compare such a game to real-world
dogfighting.

Bye
Andreas


Excellant point by point rundown. I think that we can assume that the claims
made for consumer simulators is gross overpromise at best.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Andreas Maurer wrote in message ...
Flying a PC simulation too often indeed tends to teach a couple of bad
habits that are hard to train away again (looking a the instruments
too often is one of them).

Perfect for learning to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) as opposed to
VFR (Visual Flight Rules).

Anyone who flies at night, or in conditions with poor visibility, or in
clouds, needs an IFR rating. Under these conditions, your instruments
are all you have.

I agree that in conditions where VFR is possible within the sim, the
trouble is that the player has limited visibility, and "looking" around
is more cumbersome and less natural-feeling than just turning your head
around - so the player just looks forward, at his/her instruments.

I fly MSFS2002, and use the virtual cockpit view with "ActiveCamera",
which allows me to "look around" using my mouse. It includes head lag,
so that you get a better impression of movement as your "head" is
"pushed" to one side as your aircraft turns. And because MSFS features
dynamic virtual cockpits, all the instruments are still visible in full
working order within the 3D environment (independant of the 2D panel it
renders when in 2D cockpit view).

Cheers
Graeme