A real life pilot's first sim experience

In article .com,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

I'm looking for a better solution, because I want absolute realism.

Get in Atlas. :-/

you can't have absolute realism in a simulation.

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

I'm looking for a better solution, because I want absolute realism.
Unfortunately, in the absence of "force-feedback" rudder pedals, I
don't know what else to try.

Rig up some real rudder pedals (the right distance apart), with springs.
Connect them via bungee cords or other springs to the CH pedals. If
you do it right, you'll be able to press either (real) rudder pedal
independently, but have that motion transferred to the CH in the
differential way it needs. The force fed back to your legs would come
from the (big) springs, and the force from the (wimpy) CH pedals would
be transferred to the (real) pedals via the (only needs to be wimpy)
bungee cords.

Jose
--
Humans are pack animals. Above all things, they have a deep need to
follow something, be it a leader, a creed, or a mob. Whosoever fully
understands this holds the world in his hands.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jay Honeck" wrote

I'm looking for a better solution, because I want absolute realism.
Unfortunately, in the absence of "force-feedback" rudder pedals, I
don't know what else to try.

Without knowing exactly how they are constructed, I'll take a guess, but you
will get the general idea, and be able to alter it to meet your needs.

A narrow steel plate could be through bolted to the pedals with some small
machine screws, or liquid nails and screwed to the pedals, so the steel
extends to the sides of, and clear of the housing. Drill a hole in the
outboard part of the steel, and attach a spring, and run it back to the back
of the housing, or a plate on the backside of the housing, or to the Kiwi,
if the unit is permanently attached.

The springs will attempt to keep the pedals centered, if a moderate amount
of force is applied to both, evenly. When the one side goes towards the
floor, it's spring will go slack, and the other side's spring will try to
pull it back to neutral.

You will also get the advantage of keeping the pedals for the big ones,
since the little ones can not reach the pedals, and the springs will keep
the units neutral.
--
Jim in NC

Jay Honeck writes:

The basic trouble is this: The CH pedals are differential, meaning
that they are linked together, When you push the left one down, the
right one comes back, and vice versa.

Thus, the only way to keep pressure feedback on the pedals is to
"train" yourself to keep pressue on BOTH pedals, so that when you push
one, the pressure of your other foot is keeping you from slamming it
all the way to the floor.

What type of pressure feedback do you need? Aren't real rudder pedals
connected in the same way? (One goes forward when the other goes back.)

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

"Tony" wrote in message
oups.com...
because with an IO 540 this thing should want to turn really badly --
in the M20J I used rudder mostly to keep it on centerline during the
early part of the takeoff roll, figured my little left and right
arrows would have to do the job here.

The Bravo tracked straight down the centerline without any help from
me! This is supposed to be an accurate simulation, with no P effects?
Gimme a break.


TIO 540 in FSX, probably in FS9 also. Maybe you paused to wonder about 35"
MAP; maybe you didn't.

Auto-rudder is on by default; think of it as a perfect yaw damper.

For those of you who get pleasure from the MSFS, more power to you. It
did not work for me. There is a possiblity my mind has been poisoned
to the sim experience, but probably not, I hoped it might be fun ro do
on late nights. Oh well, it was a $20 experiment. The good news is,

Yup. I'd say you plumbed the full depths of the package. Next time, just put
the $20 in an envelope and mail it to me.

that was cheap. Most of my 'experiments' cost a lot more than that.
Want to know how to burn some VC's couple million in a startup
venture? Talk to me!

Why, you're just one of a kind, bragging up two major accomplishemnts in one
post. Just wondering here if your education helped you in anyway to reach
your station in life.

On Feb 28, 9:18 pm, "Tony" wrote:
The deal is this: I wanted to fly a loop in my M20J for a long time,
but it's hard to get around the 30 degree pitch limitation
certifications and do a loop. isn't it?

MSFS2004 offers an M20M Bravo! And Comp USA is selling that program
for less than $20.

So the four disks came in a couple of days ago, and got loaded into my
laptop. Problem 1: no number pad for pitch and bank. I messed around
with the C172 model and found the up down, left and right arrows did
all of that, although I did not locate a key for return to neutral.

OK, so I played student pilot and F3ed full throttle in a 172, figured
out how to take off and land. TT maybe 15 minutes, and not an
enriching experience.

Loaded in the M20M Bravo. This beast gets yanked around the sky with a
IO 540, my 201 does it with a IO 360. Lots more fuel usage, and a lot
more airplane than I can afford in RL. Never the less, I called up
KBED RR 29, and there I was, at the controls, position and hold!

Neat. No checklist at hand, so I did the best I could with cowl flaps,
wing flaps, trim, fuel pump, and the like, so it looked like this
airplane just might fly. Hold down F3, RPMs came up nicely, and
nothing happened! Message flashed -- parking brake is set, press . to
release.

What frigging pilot pulls onto the active and sets the parking brake?

OK, I put a period to the program, and started to roll, feet twitching
because with an IO 540 this thing should want to turn really badly --
in the M20J I used rudder mostly to keep it on centerline during the
early part of the takeoff roll, figured my little left and right
arrows would have to do the job here.

The Bravo tracked straight down the centerline without any help from
me! This is supposed to be an accurate simulation, with no P effects?
Gimme a break.

OK, I down arrowed at 70 kts -- this takes a lot more rotation (read
that as down arrow) than did the 172, I don't think I broke free until
about 90, way too fast!

Set up a straight ahead climb right out the 11 localizer, my memory
claimed the student practice area was a bit to the north of the 11 29
extended centerline.

Is there anything more boring than watching a simulated climb to 7000
feet? Like watching grass grow.

My plan was to reach altitude, dive the thing down at 45 degrees, let
the speed climb to top of the green, then hold down the down arrow,
and when I was at the top of the loop close the throttle, pray a
little, and try to recover smoothly at the bottom. Guys who have flown
aerobatics know the way you do them is look at the horizon to the
side. I worried about that a little, since the side image was going to
be in front of me, but it turned out to be a non issue. I couldn't
figure out how to get that side view.

The hell with it. I pushed over, and the speed went up really fast!
Mooneys are aerodynamicly clean GA airplanes. I downarrowed (which
means yoke in my lap, I think) and watched the windscreen view change
from ground to sky, saw the AH tumble, saw the ground in the top half
of the windscreen, closed the throttle, and somewhere near the bottom
went forward stick. It was NOT pretty. I didn't have that side view I
wanted. I still don't know how at one point I wound up in a 60 degree
bank! Never the less, I got back to straight and level, and remember
having started the dive from 7000 feet was more than a little suprised
to find the airplane was at a simulated altitude of 5500.

The guy who showed me some things in a 150 Aerobat would have been
ashamed of me. Never the less, I did a loop.

About then the phone rang, and a friend suggested I meet with him and
a few others for lunch. That sounded good.

The sim was paused 30 miles or so from BED, After I got back to my
home office there were some other matters that needed attention and
computer memory. Exit sim

That's it. It was as fulfilling an experience for me as eating cotton
candy -- there just wasn't much there. It simply didn't provide the
kinds of feedback I'd want, and I'm not going to buy a yoke with force
feedback and rudder peddles (sims who use a joystick instead of a yoke
in airplanes that come with yokes are another step removed from at
least what is my reality.

For those of you who get pleasure from the MSFS, more power to you. It
did not work for me. There is a possiblity my mind has been poisoned
to the sim experience, but probably not, I hoped it might be fun ro do
on late nights. Oh well, it was a $20 experiment. The good news is,
that was cheap. Most of my 'experiments' cost a lot more than that.
Want to know how to burn some VC's couple million in a startup
venture? Talk to me!

MS2004 'out of the box' is very poor and has its limitations. Its
basically a base tool for a huge userbase. The huge amount of add-ons
certainly improve it. The default planes included are basically crap
compared to good quality 'payware' planes which have better flight
dynamics and far superior cockpits and controls. Scenery, sky and
real-time updateable weather add to the sim as well if purchased.

I guess by your experience you were using a keyboard which is a big
big no no for any enjoyment in FS. The way the keyboard controls are
initially programmed creates a 'lag' then accelerates the control
input adding a serious sense of unrealism. Joystick or even yoke
controls with separate throttle controls help. Another great hardware
add-on is TrackIR4Pro which allows all head/body movements to be
accurately and smoothly replicated on screen in the virtual cockpit.

You either like it or not and for some less fortunate to fly IRL its
the best we can get ;-)

Ibby