5 minutes ago, Slides said:

I bought it online and they shipped to the US from their China manufacturing partner

Well, I can buy a warthog that will arrive 4th of september at my doorstep. How do the warthog compare to the VBK in regards to quality and price?

Just now, Andreas Stangenes said:

Well, I can buy a warthog that will arrive 4th of september at my doorstep. How do the warthog compare to the VBK in regards to quality and price?

I have not owned a Warthog but from others who have owned both, VKB is a superior build quality and product without a shadow of a doubt. You can check reviews online and on reddit Hotas subreddit.

1 minute ago, Slides said:

I have not owned a Warthog but from others who have owned both, VKB is a superior build quality and product without a shadow of a doubt. You can check reviews online and on reddit Hotas subreddit.

Thanks, I will check it out!

Just now, Andreas Stangenes said:

Thanks, I will check it out!

Apart from VKB, I can recommend the Virpil sticks as well, they're supposedly comparable to VKB in terms of build quality of the interior gimbal.

Most precise stick I ever had.

Here's a light diversion from the subject (well almost). A Ryanair pilot landing a 737 with pretty good skills, (though you only see the first officer side but you can see the yoke repeat from the captain's input). This post doesn't seek to defend Ryanair's economic policy but it is reasonable to point out that Ryanair has never had a significant accident and their pilots are much maligned, yet do an amazing job of the quickest turnaround in aviation while not actually thumping aircraft down on runways routinely (contrary to popular myth).

This also gives me the opportunity (sorry) to illustrate yet again that pitch stability is very obvious on this aircraft yet the control movements are very assertive. I'll leave it there and persuade you that Ryanair pilots are pretty good, whatever you think about the big fat/thin controller who pays them. I once did a refresher gliding course at Shenington gliding club - one of the busiest in the UK. One of the bigwigs there was a Ryanair training captain. He was very self confident but not unapproachable. He was quite frightening but my goodness he was a fantastic pilot whose knowledge was unmatched. He actually fixed, DIY-style, a glider tail wheel I bashed to bits when not realising the border between grass and concrete was not a valid runway, and I was pretty impressed.

But coming back to the subject (do forgive), yet again, an illustration that aircraft, big or small, have quite a large inertia and while landing or taking off, you require substantial control inputs to deviate from attitude. And in yaw, roll and pitch aircraft do not gratuitously twitch all over the place unless you apply a positive control command, or unless there is a lot of turbulence.

As to the general discussion on this thread (which by the way I did not start), I recall that this is almost a carbon copy of a similar discussion from many, many years ago. I leave you to guess which simulation that concerned, and the outcome.

 

Edited August 13, 20205 yr by robert young

42 minutes ago, High_Alpha said:

I mean considering both of those are large aspects of aviation I think they were right to invest heavily in them compared to study level aircraft. If the world itself is not well simulated what’s the point of having a very in depth aircraft? There will always be 3PD’s who make study level planes, it takes a massive company with huge assets like bing maps to make the whole world VFR accurate...

Ah, there it goes again! So getting a reasonably good flight model equals "study level". I don't get it. It's a simulator of Flight, the operative word being "Flight". So an aircraft has to be "study level" to fly decently? Sorry but I don't get your logic. A fair comparison might be a ski simulator. You've got great snow (which was a justified investment), fantastic skies, really cool sunglasses (!!), great apres ski bars, a nice looking chalet (necessary investment), but the skiing was not so convincing. But the snow and shades were large aspects of skiing. Of course I exaggerate for argument's sake but I think you get my (snow) drift.

1 hour ago, Chock said:

How these work is purely by deflecting air downwards which therefore utilises the principle of Newton's Third Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, which forces the wing the opposite way, i.e. upwards.

Let the arguments commence...

 

 

Yep, precisely. There was a fascinating documentary on this decades ago. Think it was BBC Horizon. Yes, the curvature of the wing generates lift because air is a fluid and all fluids cling to a smooth surfaces. Thus air follows the curved surface and creates a vortex at the rear which sucks air faster over the top of the wing, thus lower pressure on top.

However... angle of attack also generates lift. Newtons Third Law indeed. Precisely why an aircraft can fly inverted.

The point they made in the documentary was that the mathematics works, so nobody cares, but yes, it's not just the Bernoulli Principle.

40 minutes ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

Thanks, I will check it out!

I highly recommend the VKB stick as well. I also got the stick extension to use it as the cyclic for helo flying. It works great for that! This was a few years ago now, but at that time they shipped it DHL Express originating from somewhere in Asia.

3 minutes ago, robert young said:

So getting a reasonably good flight model equals "study level". I don't get it.

Me either, but apparently Carenado understands this mindset as well! <JUST KIDDING to all those fans, DON"T HURT ME 😂>

Seriously though,simulating flying at home on a pc is alot different than doing it in an actual full size level-d simulator.

In a real simulator, touch/sound/modeled systems/physical movement/control response and flight physics are all of importance...but at home you really only have visuals and sound available to fool you. Even the flight dynamics become less about control response and more about visual perception than reality when it comes to doing this stuff at home. I feel that sound is even more ignored than the flight dynamics in many situations. Flight dynamics are of very high important to the hardcore audience, but if that's what MS put most of their time into then something else would have to suffer...and folks have been asking for better graphics and performance since this dance began.

I personally agree that the physics should be a top priority in a flightsim, but I also feel that a living world (including landmass and weather) and all the sounds within the aircraft are also of great importance if you're trying to make a convincing simulation. If they haven't given us aircraft with perfect physics, at least they're now trying to lay the ground work in a new physics engine that has the ability to provide us with aircraft closer to reality than what we've had previous.

13 minutes ago, robert young said:

Ah, there it goes again! So getting a reasonably good flight model equals "study level". I don't get it. It's a simulator of Flight, the operative word being "Flight". So an aircraft has to be "study level" to fly decently? Sorry but I don't get your logic. A fair comparison might be a ski simulator. You've got great snow (which was a justified investment), fantastic skies, really cool sunglasses (!!), great apres ski bars, a nice looking chalet (necessary investment), but the skiing was not so convincing. But the snow and shades were large aspects of skiing. Of course I exaggerate for argument's sake but I think you get my (snow) drift.

I’m afraid I don't quite get your point... I can’t speak to the airliners but the GA aircraft are the most convincing in terms of flight model I’ve ever seen in a sim (taking into account how they interact with the environment) once third party developers start making high detail (including flight model) aircraft that conform to operating manuals I don’t think other simulators will be able to compete... Last I checked X-Plane didn’t have study level aircraft as standard but that didn’t stop the sim from growing into a much more realistic piece of software, it also didn’t have any of the other features that make the new sim so potentially groundbreaking... I still think the best way to release a long lifespan simulator is to focus on the engine itself and give the 3PD’s the most tools possible to make their products. If you wanted everything out of the box it would never be released commercially...

that’s just my opinion...

3 minutes ago, High_Alpha said:

I’m afraid I don't quite get your point... I can’t speak to the airliners but the GA aircraft are the most convincing in terms of flight model I’ve ever seen in a sim (taking into account how they interact with the environment) once third party developers start making high detail (including flight model) aircraft that conform to operating manuals I don’t think other simulators will be able to compete... Last I checked X-Plane didn’t have study level aircraft as standard but that didn’t stop the sim from growing into a much more realistic piece of software, it also didn’t have any of the other features that make the new sim so potentially groundbreaking... I still think the best way to release a long lifespan simulator is to focus on the engine itself and give the 3PD’s the most tools possible to make their products. If you wanted everything out of the box it would never be released commercially...

that’s just my opinion...

Sure I get your opinion. No worries. I have a pretty skeptical view of the term "study level". I don't quite understand what it means. Every aircraft has "study level" aspects. I've flown very inexpensive but simple addons that are threadbare except that they fly very well. Equally I've purchased graphically and procedurally flawless addons that fly not so well. I think "study level" is a trendy phrase of the moment, but it could mean different things to different people.

I take you back to previous statements. You don't need a study level sim aircraft for it to fly in a reasonably realistic manner. 

 

32 minutes ago, hangar said:

Seriously though,simulating flying at home on a pc is alot different than doing it in an actual full size level-d simulator.

 

Agree on everything, except I am not so sure "they" have given us a new physics engine. If you read in detail their last press release, you learn that they have not in fact achieved that at all. But I didn't think the core physics were that bad in the first place, only the implementation of them.

Edited August 13, 20205 yr by n4gix
Removed unnecessary long quote!

7 minutes ago, robert young said:

Agree on everything, except I am not so sure "they" have given us a new physics engine. If you read in detail their last press release, you learn that they have not in fact achieved that at all. But I didn't think the core physics were that bad in the first place, only the implementation of them.

Could you please link that press release?

9 minutes ago, robert young said:

Sure I get your opinion. No worries. I have a pretty skeptical view of the term "study level". I don't quite understand what it means. Every aircraft has "study level" aspects. I've flown very inexpensive but simple addons that are threadbare except that they fly very well. Equally I've purchased graphically and procedurally flawless addons that fly not so well. I think "study level" is a trendy phrase of the moment, but it could mean different things to different people.

 

It has yet to be seen how third party aircraft from venerable developers compare in terms of flight model, I am optimistic they will be even more refined than the stock aircraft and also include complete and accurate systems management. That is my interpretation of study level. I don’t think the sim in it’s current form is even close to completely utilizing it’s “game” (for lack of a better word) engine...

Perhaps we are talking past one another, if that is due to my misinterpretation of the discussion my apologies.

 

 

54 minutes ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

Could you please link that press release?

Hi Andreas,

It was a few days ago. Sorry I cannot find the precise link. They made a statement saying that they had in fact not implemented their 1000 point lift equations and were reverting back to what sounded like an altered version of FSX dynamics. I'm not sure of the precise wording but that seemed to be the gist of it.