DCS Yak-52 Advanced Spins and Inverted Performance Review

So spent a little time this afternoon with advanced spin and inverted flight performance and observed a mixed bag. I recorded the flight but am not going to post it since most of the behavior was incorrect.

Power On Spin

The Power On Spin was close to correct. The airplane displays a real desire to continue flying with power on and the deck angle will be surprisingly high. When it did finally depart it was classic over the top and to the right even though I had been cheating with left rudder, I reversed rudder input and it developed through the incipient phase, I removed power and recovered uneventfully.

Inverted Spin

The DCS model lacks sufficient elevator authority for inverted spin entries which is wholly inaccurate for the real plane, I've flown entire sorties focusing only on inverted spins and know that at essentially any weight it will give you a clean inverted entry. I tried even with full nose down trim and it was still not enough stick authority to force the inverted departure. ED has work to do here.

Flat Spin

The Flat Spin mode is close but not quite correct. Entry is from a low energy entry into a botched Hammerhead. As with ALL spin modes observed now, the nose is too low which is I think keeping the airspeed artificially high and probably effecting AOA needed for spin. Rotation rate was close, maybe 80-85% correct.

Link below shows a Flat Spin in the real Yak.

Aggravated Spin

Out-Spin Aileron causes a reversal into a spiral dive in the direction of the aileron regardless of rudder and elevator position in the model which is not correct.

In-Spin Aileron was closer to correct in that it accelerated the spin rate of rotation and flattened it out a little, still too nose down - and not correct for aggravated spin in the real Yak.

Link below shows an Aggravated Spin with Out-Spin Aileron in the real Yak for comparison.

Crossover Spin

The Crossover Spin is a mode that actually kills people in the Yak because they miss the crossover and end up riding the plane into the ground. Due to inability enter an inverted spin from a low energy situation, the DCS model is not capable of a Crossover Spin at this time.

Link below shows a Crossover Spin in the real Yak (@1:05 in).

Stick Snatch/Snap

I did wind-up turns in both directions and the stick-snatch/snap behavior was accurate and well modeled, recovery is simply unload the stick a fraction and the model recovered just as the real Yak does.

Overall, the more advanced handling characteristics appear to need a lot of work in order to be a reasonable approximation of the real plane and of any training value, especially inverted and spins.

'Gimp (DISCO vVMFA-122)

Fantastic. I hope ED can make some corrections with this constructive feedback!

I have to disappoint you, guys... so, I should have said it earlier as I did it on Russian forum: the final FM regarding post-stall behaviour was not included in release by technical mistake. At a moment we have very early and, generally, non adjusting post-stall model. We all are very sorry about it, because the spins you have now are very different from our internal version.

Anyway, we have some features we plan to implement for the final model, so. I hope, the result will be much closer to the real plane.

 

 

And I ask again: please use the DCS maps with airfields elevation that is comparable, for example, to San-Diego. So, Nevada map with 700-800 m airdrome elevation can give different results with San-Diego fields. I think, the default map of Caucasus is the best analog...

If you have an internal build with more accurate stall behavior as well as the functioning trim tab then I expect when that build makes its way to the users we'll see an improvement.

Actually glad to know that this is the case since this is inaccurate as-is - better to know it is truly incomplete then to find out ED thinks it is complete/correct.

With respect to altitude I flew today's session at same altitudes I fly them in real world 1800-2800 M so no difference of distinction there in my observations.

'Gimp

... the final FM regarding post-stall behaviour was not included in release by technical mistake. At a moment we have very early and, generally, non adjusting post-stall model.

So can we expect the correct FM in the next open beta update?

It's good to have all this feedback from the RW hands/feet-on experience.

It's also good to know from Yo-Yo we're actually using a EA version which is not the one which was supposed to be made available, and, sorry for putting it this way, but indeed in almost all of the modules I bought ( ww2, f-86, uh-1h and now this great Yak-52 ) this has been a constant.

Most of the time Yo-Yo describes features that are supposed to be working on the released version but didn't sync on time, and I believe it means there being a bit of a discoordination between developers ( at least in the flight dynamics and systems areas ) and code revision control ?

Then again, most of the time after noticing it, we can see a few DCS updates being released but nothing changing, or then something changing in another feature, either broking it, or fixing it, but there being usually very few information about what actually changed - a decent change log.

This is an area where ED could certainly improve, IMH.