Doesn't A-10C feel more flight capable in real life?

If a pilot, flying an imaginary plane using very different and unrealistic controls, makes a report, it MAY be accurate. It depends on what he's reporting. The ''feel'' of the virtual aircraft will by definition be wrong.

That's one of the typical armchair pilot comments which used to make me puke.

FYI it's things like e.g. roll acceleration and roll inertia which aren't described in any manual, and if an ex or active A-10 pilot says the A-10 'feels' strange/different etc. it does mean a lot, at least to other RW pilots.

Do you really think that a pilot can't translate the 'feel' from his real aircraft to the simulated one?

Yeah, but the controls will still be competely different and unrealistic. So things like muscle memory etcetera go straight out the window regardless.

I don't know what muscle memory (this term didn't even exist until a few years ago, at least in aviation) has to do with this.

If I e.g. apply full aileron I know how and how fast the aircraft reacts. Muscle memory etc. is no factor in this case.

Another point is CG. Especially larger airplanes have a very different pitch 'feel' with forward and aft CG. So muscle memory doesn't help/apply IRL either in many cases.

Yes, you know how the AC reacts if you know the machine and its behaviour at full control deflection. But the situation is akin to driving say an old unboosted GMC truck then jumping into a modern small town car with power steering and braking. Now what will happen if you try to physically handle the town car as you're used to with that truck? And is the control feel, for want of a better expression, even remotely similar?

Now what will happen if you try to physically handle the town car as you're used to with that truck? And is the control feel, for want of a better expression, even remotely similar?

Sorry, I really don't understand what you are trying to say. I did mention already that a RW pilot is usually perfectly able to translate the 'feel' from the real aircraft to the simulated one.

Your above example only confirms why muscle memory isn't of much use.

In the aircraft I really don't care how the controls 'physically' handle, the only thing I care for is the reaction to my control input, which greatly differs with CG, weight and distribution of the external loads.

Well, maybe I can't express myself clearly enough. Not the first time, won't be the last.

But suffice it to say regardless that the characteristical gap between real and virtual worlds, controllers and situations is in many ways unbridgeable. And yes, jumping between wildly differing real world vehicles often results in driver induced mishaps such as oversteering etc. as well. Different controlling forces, control throws and suchlike at play.

So yeah, it does make a difference.

There seems to be some misconception about RW professional pilot abilities, even among flightsim developers.

I remember laughing out loud when I read a post in the Heatblur forum by one of the devs.

They were surprised that a real F-14 pilot was able to fly and land their F-14 noticable more precisely on his first try than any of their devs after hundreds of hours.

I thought, why is that surprising? What do you expect?

And yet there're some old-school pro pilots who, having sat in front of a computer with a crappy controller pack all on linear and giving that setup a go, have said how "all of this is just wrong" - and only after controller curves etc. have been set, have they tried again and re-said how "maybe this isn't that wrong at all, actually". So where does that leave us, pray tell?

The important question is, did these 'old-school pro pilots' have previous desktop PC experience?

Yeah, but the controls will still be competely different and unrealistic. So things like muscle memory etcetera go straight out the window regardless.

As a r/w pilot, I manipulate the controls in order to make the a/c do what I want. If you were to ask me after a r/w take off, how many inches did move the stick aft on rotation? I would say I honestly dont know... I move the controls to achieve the desired result. Same in sim. Fly the aircraft not the controls.

Now if we are talking about flying a sim with keyboard or mouse for flt controls, I would agree with your above statement.

Cheers,

:pilotfly:

Fly the aircraft not the controls

Can't fly the AC if the controls are all feeked and twitchy as hell. Control throws & precision etc. have a profound effect on everything.

have previous desktop PC experience?

Shouldn't have been a requirement if what you said previously was a universal truth.

Anyway, we're kind of mumbling past each other here, are we not? Though I do get what you guys say - and neither do I think of how many inches of displacement do I pull when rotating, say, the ZA Albie, because as you well know all that is dependent on my TOW, environment, &c. Still, seems to me that you're as right in this as I am... well unless you convince me otherwise ;)

S! guys and safe skies.

As a r/w pilot, I manipulate the controls in order to make the a/c do what I want. If you were to ask me after a r/w take off, how many inches did move the stick aft on rotation? I would say I honestly dont know... I move the controls to achieve the desired result. Same in sim. Fly the aircraft not the controls.

 

Now if we are talking about flying a sim with keyboard or mouse for flt controls, I would agree with your above statement.

 

Cheers,

 

:pilotfly:

Agree...

PP-ASEl here

But it doesn’t negate lobo’s comment.

As a r/w pilot, I manipulate the controls in order to make the a/c do what I want. If you were to ask me after a r/w take off, how many inches did move the stick aft on rotation? I would say I honestly dont know... I move the controls to achieve the desired result. Same in sim. Fly the aircraft not the controls.

 

Now if we are talking about flying a sim with keyboard or mouse for flt controls, I would agree with your above statement.

 

Cheers,

 

:pilotfly:

I have never flown a powered aircraft (gliders here) that makes a lot of sense.

:thumbup:

Regular pilot is not reliable source of information. He is not qualified to describe characteristics of an aircraft. You need test pilot for that purpose as he passed through educational process required to evaluate an aircraft.

Don't know what a 'regular' pilot is and what pilots you have talked to, but your statement is definitely not true and you can not simply generalize all pilots.

I've met surprisingly bad airline pilots and surprisingly professional GA pilots during my career.

As I have stated before, especially military pilots are usually a very reliable source of precise information.

Yo-Yo can only go so far manipulating the equations to "fit" ALL the pilots and that did work on the A-10c PLUS hit the charts closely as an engineer.

It's sort of like a race car driver explaining what he needs to an engineer out of the car.

It should do this out of the corner etc. Yo-Yo then has to look at the complete model and think where would this be? Without destroying what's already correct with feel and charts. Very hard to get that last 3 to 5% without messing up the spiderweb.

That's one of the typical armchair pilot comments which used to make me puke.

 

FYI it's things like e.g. roll acceleration and roll inertia which aren't described in any manual, and if an ex or active A-10 pilot says the A-10 'feels' strange/different etc. it does mean a lot, at least to other RW pilots.

 

Do you really think that a pilot can't translate the 'feel' from his real aircraft to the simulated one?

I think you guys are continuing to misunderstand, and/or believe in some sense of self-superiority that's blocking your ears. I find many pilots are prone to unwarranted arrogance @@ They're not superhuman and despite their experience, competency and reliability vary greatly. They're also HUMAN with all the mental shortcomings and biases that implies.

Yes, in principal, things like inertia and such can be described under certain circumstances by ''feel''... I'm talking about more specific technical aspects that are in performance charts, for one... btw, the notion of 'engineers putting whatever they want down' is bs... those performance graphs are typically generated via test pilots in the air, NOT a guy at a desk, which goes back to my INITIAL POINT that you guys are continuing to ignore/misunderstand, which was that the statement that performance charts/graphs can be easily dismissed in the face of ''feelings'' is totally backasswards thinking. Those graphs are a visual representation of a test pilot deliberately and methodically flying a specific regime while reams of data are being recorded by onboard instruments. It is ''pilot feedback'' combined with ''precise measurement''.

And as for ''Fly the plane not the controls'' YES IT MATTERS. That is why control layout and design is such a big deal in real aircraft. That is why people spend tons of money on high quality controls, extensions, etc, because it fundamentally alters your precision and ''feel'' of the whole experience. Case and point, my old X55 was crap compared to my VKB Pro w extension. One felt nothing like a real plane while the other has deflection and sensation very similar to the real aircraft I fly (albeit with much less control force). Wait... ''real aircraft I fly''? Oh, I guess that goes back to that whole ''unwarranted arrogance'' I mentioned earlier, since I'm not actually a mere ''armchair puke'' afterall.

Point is, yeah, your controls significantly alter the ''feel'' and your ability to smoothly and correctly perform maneuvers, otherwise we'd all be using cheap T-Flight gear.

Again, as repeated a couple times already, there is a time and place where ''feel'' from a pilot reference or SME is very valuable, but no, they don't dismiss performance graphs (generated by test pilots, not desk bound engineers), and there is no real way to quantify those ''feelings'' to a 3rd party in very useful terms except in very specific circumstances.

Doesn’t matter if your stick is crap or top shelf. In either case you move the controls in a fashion which makes the aircraft do what you want it to do.

You don’t fly by saying “I must deflect my stick “X Amount” to pitch up 30 degrees”

You pitch up 30 degrees using however much stick deflection is required. Whether that requires X Amount, Y Amount or Z Amount is irrelevant.

This is where PC pilots get hung up Vs real world flying. PC pilots want “digital” controls (exactly three taps of the down arrow to climb at a specific value) whereas real flying is far more fluid and organic. I guess it’s just the lack of feeling in the seat that makes sim pilots expect stuff to be cut & dried.

Doesn’t matter if your stick is crap or top shelf

Huh? Of course it bloody matters. You can't use a cheapo non-FFB JS in a fashion that reproduces what you'd do with a real controller, because the precision is awful, the stick throw short and there're no physical counter forces present. So what you'll need to do is use curves, because you just CANNOT be precise enough without, but rather end up twitching all over the sky with even a tiniest deflection of said POS controller.

You don’t fly by saying “I must deflect my stick X amount

No-one here said you should. Where did this even came from?

PC pilots want “digital” controls

You're missing the point completely, because what we actually want is the exact contrary, i.e. high precision long throw controllers. We're just forced "digital" because of the less-than-stellar cheapo JSs most of us are forced to use. And you're saying it doesn't matter if the stick is crap or top quality??? :doh:

expect stuff to be cut & dried

Again, missing the point completely.

otherwise we'd all be using cheap T-Flight gear

Which I incidentally am :D So yep, I know exactly what you're talking about.

I’ve flown well rigged planes and I’ve flown not so well rigged planes but the bottom line has always been to move the controls to get the desired pitch / roll / yaw I want.

The degree to which I have to move the controls has never mattered until or unless I hit the stops before I get what I want.

I flew the A-10C for a couple of years with marginal CH gear. I fly it now with TM. I never once thought that the axis controls were lacking with the CH stuff. I got a Warthog so the HOTAS would be correct and match the training videos I was watching.

Same held true when I was training for my private ticket. I started in clapped out normally aspirated C172s but I moved to fuel-injected C172SPs because the training course I was using was shot in SPs. The actual maneuvering was identical in both.

I understand what you’re saying, but it really does not apply in real world flying.

has always been to move the controls to get the desired pitch / roll / yaw I want

And where did I claim otherwise? I rather tried to explain that a cheapo controller is so twitchy and oversensitive, that the physical force needed to achieve a deflection needed for a desired result is so small that you'll very easily end up oversteering. Why is that so hard to understand?

but it really does not apply in real world flying

And where did I claim it does? I'm just pointing out the limitations and sheer impossibilies folks have in mimicking RW flying with their POS cheapo desktop controllers. Again, why is that so hard to understand? Are you being purposedly obtuse or what?

Of course I can generalize. It's not about good and bad pilots. It's about different skill set and knowledge required. Otherwise, all pilots would be test pilots by default.

This is all true. Test pilots train for a completely different job than regular pilots, and they have a completely different skill set and way of approaching things. That being said, a real world A-10 pilot is going to be a more reliable source of info than any of us posting on a sim site about what we "know". Seems to me the OP just had his aircraft overloaded. If you put a realistic load of weapons and fuel on the DCS A-10C, I think it performs just fine.

Of course I can generalize. It's not about good and bad pilots. It's about different skill set and knowledge required.

Of course you can think or believe whatever you want. I should have said that one shouldn't generalize.

My statement about good and bad pilots was just an example that there's a wide range about pilot abilities.

It appears that you don't have much insight about the skill set and knowledge of different pilot groups and their tasks.

E.g. In my company there's a graduate from the USAF test pilot school who's a really bad copilot and he even failed his captain upgrading.

Last but not least, more than one airplane has crashed due to the test pilots gross incompetence.

Again, civil aviation requires different skill set and knowledge compared to military aviation.

Captaincy requires different skill set and knowledge.

 

 

Your USAF test pilot school graduate is not a bad pilot. He was just trained to work in completely different environment. It's a common and well known problem and training department has to be creative enough to offer different training techniques for such people. If you do not understand that, you're the one that don't have much insight about the skill set and knowledge of different pilot groups and their tasks.

The way we train is based off DATA of the aircraft and it's limitations.

Watch Mover explain BFM (Basic Flight Manuevers) and how he is calling out speeds and G readout of turn to new heading..

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