G force physical simulation

Believe me feel the force G is not something you would like to be possible. I believe that what you are looking for is the simshaker.

I find force-feedback sticks totally irelevant as in an Aircraft the feedback is through your backside not the stick. They may have a place in Helo flying but I am a fixed wing guy so I am not sure.

 

There are other realistic effects provided to fixed wing beyond stuff like rumble. Pitch trim of course. But more importantly, the tension in the stick will change depending on how fast you are going, which really aids in immersion. Not so relevant for FBW planes, though.

I’ve been looking at a 6dof motion sim. There’s a good one that is pretty good value, it’s only problem is it uses worm gear drive so can be shaky for slow small movement and needs a damper adding. I’m coming along with my sim rig design so incorporating this means starting over, but it certainly looks worth it. The software is very competent too and allows adjustments. I’ll have to prioritise weight loss ( me as well as the metal bits) to get it to work. I’ll know in about a year at this rate!

I would think you couldn't use any inside out tracking VR headset with a motion base, it would register the motion of the base as you moving your head. You'd need a system that use external trackers and they would have to also be mounted to the base.

 

Has anyone experimented with this?

I'm sorry, I was not clear, and I used a bad choice of words. I meant that if a person has to go through a lot of trouble to replicate G- force, ( such as wearing a G-suit, hooking up hoses, ETC.) many will skip doing it at all. ( They will ignore that setup!)

 

 

I was actually agreeing with you, that some sort of tactile cues would be the easiest, and cheapest way forward. That's why I'm going the exciter route. Hopefully, some Jet seat owners could speak out about if their is any merit to this plan.

 

Ya sorry man wasn't meaning to call you out or whatever. I agree that some means of being able to feel what's going on with the plane would be awesome. I see it sort of, like different categories or magnitures I suppose.

 

For example, consider landing gear: when you lower gear there's the sound and vibration of the motor, as well as an immediate deceleration you can feel in your straps. I've wanted to try a jetseat, I feel like that could replicate the motor vibration, the little thump when they lock down (I'm actually quite curious about what else if someone has insight to share). Harryharry's very impressive/ingenious contraption could probably give the feel of the slight deceleration. Those are cool with the immersion aspect.

 

There's a loss of SA without the physical sensation. For example, I find myself not realizing when i'm getting slow ikn BFM, or sometimes banking when head down messing with mfds, that kind of thing., that wouldn't happen IRL. Something, whether a jetseat (does it help with this?) or the straps (not sure this would) would be great, and result in better flying.

 

BUT, if we're talking about realism its just not there and i'm aware of no technology that can come close. One problem with gopro footage of BFM is you can't see the pilots' faces, but here's a maskless blue angel pilot at presumably no more than 7.5G:

 

So that's 7.5 with a suit, and you can see how hard he's working. Best analogy I can think of is a heavy deadlift, but that doesn't account for the breathing.

 

Every pilot has too many lost friends stories, but here's a similar camera angle of one of the coolest people i've had the pleasure of knowing (and fellow acro competitor, helo, glider, hang glider, wingsuit pilot, great climber and mountaineer.... just an awesome human), Hannes Arch,

in a similar plane to mine, pulling 11.5 in a red bull race:

 

That's a 1 minute race and he's exhausted.

 

Fortunately we don't have to sustain like fighter pilots do, but it doesn't take long. GCAS, a truly awesome innovation, saves another pilot in this vid - but you can hear the pilot take a breath before loading up but he GLOC 's almost immediately at 8G:

 

On that happier note, that feeling isn't being replicated by a couple small motors vibrating a seat or pulling on straps, or a multi million dollar torture device (centrifuge). Frankly I am fine with that. It would make DCS much less relaxing lol! But I also get why some of you would want the realism. Again though, if you haven't felt it, it's hard to describe. It's just hard to see anything that could be "realistic" in any meaningful way.

 

Useful and help address the loss of the seat of the pants feel, let us know what's going on with the plane? That would be awesome, and seems possible. But realistic? no way...

@sk000tch - Yeah I've seen video of pilots pulling real G's and no, I have no desire for that. I'm not even in good enough shape to even survive that!

 

 

Again, I believe what we really want are G- force cues, so we can tell what the aircraft is doing. (Without all the strains, and grunts!) I'd love to see a community project, much like the SFX motion project for this solution. We just need to figure the most reasonable solution, and then one of the very smart forum members that I know we have here to map out the way forward for the rest! I'm still interested in how G force cues can be conveyed using a tactile system, perhaps even more advanced than the jet seat if needed?

 

 

I currently have a motion cockpit, realistic flight controls, surround sound, VR visuals, and tactile, I just to figure out G force cues for full immersion!

Edited November 11, 2019 by Wmacky

Geeze man that's a lot of stuff. Honestly outside of training purposes this is the first sim i've ever played, and I got it maybe a year ago? I've bought a lot of hotas but that is more out of frustration and not liking how they feel.

 

How does the motion work with VR? doesn't the motion make your head move around within the cockpit?

 

Re your point - that's what I was basically saying too. I am a good stick IRL, can instruct in anything from a prop single to jets multis, with wheels or floats, wings or rotors, even several things without a motor for that matter... but as a virtual pilot my altitude is all over the place, as is my airspeed in BFM.... i constantly fight oscillations refueling, im always fuciing blind. It's a mess lol. I'm convinced it's because I am missing the feel of my butt in the seat, so I am 100% with you.

 

I was more just following up on the side topic from a few pages back - conversation has moved on but I don't check this forums everyday or anything so... anyway, you get the point

I would think you couldn't use any inside out tracking VR headset with a motion base, it would register the motion of the base as you moving your head. You'd need a system that use external trackers and they would have to also be mounted to the base.

 

Has anyone experimented with this?

My rift sensors are mounted outside the plattform. This works very good. For example when accelerating i sink into the backflaps perhaps 2 cm. So my head moves backwards in the Cockpit. When pulling gs i sink into the bottom flaps so my head goes Down relative to the Cockpit 2 cm. All movements feel natural and add to the immersion.

But on a big 6 dof platform i think the movement is too much to place the sensors outside the platform.

Do you think pilots base their maneuvers on feelings? if they did not see the horizon and had no instruments and relied on their sensations they would be almost dead :sleep:

Do you think pilots base their maneuvers on feelings?

 

Yes and no... :)

When flying on instruments you must disregard your vestibular system and rely on instruments as your senses can play tricks on your mind.

But when maneuvering visually, and flying close to the performance limits of the aircraft, you do rely on physical feedback from the aircraft. Pulling G or buffeting close to a stall, for instance. These are factors that are largely missing in flightsims.

I make my living as a commercial airline pilot and I have an aerobatic license.

As a commercial pilot I have to practice and check my skills twice a year in full size full motion flightsimulators. Even these airliner simulators have motion that simulates acceleration, deceleration and G forces to a certain degree. They won’t throw me up-side-down or anything, but the motion really adds to the feeling of beeing there.

So, you don’t need full on 100% realistic force feedback and 360° motion to trick your brain into believing you are flying.

I'm a hanglider Pilot and use a vario only to center thermals better. For me flying is a hobby which is all about sensing the wind, the temperature of the wind, the clouds, the turbulences, the speed, the g-forces .... I have a few hours in aerobatic planes as a passenger and had the chance to try some loops, turns,rolls and snap rolls myself, so i know how it feels to fly them. As a passenger i had to withstand several negative loops too and i therefore know that gforces are not a pleasure in all cases. I use dcs mainly to get this feeling of flight because the flight modell is pretty good. But of course it is mainly my imagination which is triggered by some Motion cues and the Main thing is happening in my brain. In my brain something magical happens when doing touch and goes in a p51 or aerobatics in a yak and thats why i invested a lot of time in my g-seat. I would prefer doing aerobatics in a real yak 52 but this is simply too expensive for me. I have almost the same fun flying dcs with Motion. What i want to say is, i know that sim flying has different aspects for each person. Sim flying is not real flying and everybody should do with a flight sim what makes him happy.

 

Unfortunately motion is like vr in one aspect. It is really difficult to Transport how it is by a video or description. And more, not each Person has the same feelings when experiencing it.

 

For flying i would prefer a gseat over a platform, because you feel the simulated gforces as long as they are there. If you pull some g's in a Plattform it moves 2 cm deeper and stays there until you release the stick. Then it goes 2cm back to neutral. The gseat squeezes you until you release the stick - so you feel it the whole time. The combination of both is very good. The Plattform works mainly for your sense of Balance while the gseat gives you the simulated forces.

 

I would really appreciate it if you get something going to construct like andres jetseat as a jacket or so. It would bring more people into Motion and would leaď to better and cheaper Motion experiences. Combined with vr this could bring more people into the sim flying Hobby which would be good for all sim flying enthusiasts.

Do you think pilots base their maneuvers on feelings? if they did not see the horizon and had no instruments and relied on their sensations they would be almost dead :sleep:

 

Today's lesson is to make sure you know what you're talking about, else you might sound like a jerk. I'm guessing a collective 5-10,000 flight hours experience, pilots w/ at least two type quals for planes modelled in DCS, two acrobatic pilots/instructors/airshow performers, and another who flies with no instruments at all - disagree with your sentiment. I used to put sticky notes over primary instruments to force student pilots to keep their heads up looking outside and not down at instruments. Stick and rudder skills are earned with your head up, not down. Lose sight lose the fight kid...

 

With that out of the way, as to the topic at hand - As I've thought about this more I think that addressing the 'missing sensor' is feasible. I am less concerned with a physical representation of Gs in any realistic sense, but rather finding a substitute for the vestibular and other combined senses. I forget the technical term here, but it basically refers to your skin, muscles, etc., that feel changes in pressure of straps, or the classic example of how you can feel an uncoordinated turn. I think this part is solveable with something like the jetseat. Fundamentally its just pressure being applied to your body at different points in the seat.

 

The inner ear is trickier. Again, i forget the specifics but there's plenty of literature for those of you who are really trying to solve the problem, but the inner ear has (3?) canals, again, not a flight surgeon, but there's little hairs in each with fluid that sense acceleration. They're oriented along different axis to detect movement. They're also not infallible. Pilots lose spatial orientation if IFR conditions all the time, but when combined with the visual cues they work very well. I think this is what makes ppl get VR sickness btw. My point though is that if VR makes you sick because you are seeing motion that the inner ear isn't detecting, it stands to reason that some sense of motion, obviously to a much lesser degree than in a fighter jet, could be applied to supplement what we're seeing in a headset.

 

This might be one of those things that takes some more evolution in hardware but intuitively it seems possible?

 

This is where my expertise ends unfortunately. I understand vestibular illusions from a practical standpoint, but certainly not the medical aspect nor would I begin to know how to manipulate them. For someone smarter than me, however, like I said, there's a ton of studies on it. Just google spatial disorientation vestibular canals.

 

I'm a hanglider Pilot and use a vario only to center thermals better. For me flying is a hobby which is all about sensing the wind, the temperature of the wind, the clouds, the turbulences, the speed, the g-forces .... I have a few hours in aerobatic planes as a passenger and had the chance to try some loops, turns,rolls and snap rolls myself, so i know how it feels to fly them. As a passenger i had to withstand several negative loops too and i therefore know that gforces are not a pleasure in all cases. I use dcs mainly to get this feeling of flight because the flight modell is pretty good. But of course it is mainly my imagination which is triggered by some Motion cues and the Main thing is happening in my brain. In my brain something magical happens when doing touch and goes in a p51 or aerobatics in a yak and thats why i invested a lot of time in my g-seat. I would prefer doing aerobatics in a real yak 52 but this is simply too expensive for me. I have almost the same fun flying dcs with Motion. What i want to say is, i know that sim flying has different aspects for each person. Sim flying is not real flying and everybody should do with a flight sim what makes him happy.

 

HarryHarry - I'd never though of the sensors on the motion rig, that's a cool idea. I'm trying to figure out what to do for a simpit now, if you have some pics or knowledge to share that would be helpful I"d appreciate it. I am new to sims generally but having a ton of fun flying with RL buddies. Btw, its been years but I enjoy hang gliders as well. I got tired of needing a truck with a rack plus wingsuits hit the scene around the same time so I sold mine.

 

Anyway, you mentioned something near and dear to my heart. Stay away from Yaks.

 

They have the same M14P as my Sukhoi. Its a glorious engine. 620 C.I. bullet proof 9-cylinder supercharged radial,,, BUT, they burn ~2 quarts of oil/hr, 30-35 gal gas/hr, have a TBO of 750 hours, and parts have become very difficult to obtain. I'll save the details, but largely due to the red bull series some shops started producing modifications that replaced a number of the problematic or quirky parts, and upped the power to around 450HP on a 91/115 blend. But it's expensive upgrade, and expensive fuel. I love the engine, aside from a merlin (I qual'd in TF-51 maybe 15 years back, weekend warrior style), it is my favorite power plant i've flown. She is absolute beast, but what was a relatively cheap plane at the time to buy turned into a huge expense. My co-owner on it was fresh on 737s at the time (ex-f15c pilot and DCS player ironically), had only been out a few years and it hurt him even worse.

 

That said, guys don't start out racing F1, I see citabrias and decathlons for sale for less than a used Honda all the time. It's never a cheap hobby, and, as you said, people should do what they want. But if its something you dream about don't give up so easy - it may be more attainable than you think.

Ok serious post this time not just busting the "omg pilots have instruments dumbass" kid's balls...

 

I did some research following my previous post, and we are certainly not the first to contemplate this. Several studies, thesis papers with prototype devices, and dozens – hundreds actually – of studies, papers and other research contemplate the issue, from the perspective of flight specific technology to improving VR experience.

 

As I was lazy and didn't look up terminology I should define some terms up front. Pilot’s spatial awareness is derived from their senses. This is an obvious point, but worth categorizing, and discussing separately. Foremost among these is vision - the brain interprets what the eyes see, such as the horizon. Less important for spatial awareness is aural inputs, but certainly the changing pitch of air noise as a plane accelerates or decelerates, or the unusual sound when a nosewheel fails to extend are important.

 

The two we are concerned with in this thread are the vestibular organs in the ear, which I discussed before, and proprioceptive, which I could not recall the name of. Vestibular again is responsible for sensing motion, balance and equilibrium, and are responsible for VR sickness (and simulator sickness). The other I could not recall is proprioceptive, which is just a big word for nerves in skin, muscles, tendons and joints. This is not just the feeling of G forces pulling you into the seat but also changing pressure points on you butt and hips in an uncoordinated turn – the reason good rudder work is so difficult in sims.

 

Fortunately, it’s not a perfect system. It’s easy to trick in flight, usually manifests as a feeling of climbing or descending in level flight, or a feeling that a plane is banked when its not after a quick correction to level flight after a very gradual entry. Pilots here have heard graveyard spiral, or coriolis. These are somatic illusions, which the FAA discusses in this well illustrated publication here.

 

I see these as distinct issues. The proprioceptive sensors are critical to good stick & rudder pilots. Probably most important is vision -- obviously critical for good pilots (though less so these days), but this is also the seat of the pants flying that I was complaining about lacking. I think here, evolution and continued improvement of jetseat, or some of the other topics discussed in this thread like pulling straps and such should be able to partially, enough to improve quality of experience and flying, address the issue. The FAA produced a corny video explaining the topic, and for those who really enjoy the ground school flashback they made a video on special disorientation as well

 

The vestibular is a different animal, but it is a problem that a lot of research is going toward. It will take someone much smarter than me, but Galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) seems particularly promising for flight sims. GVS is the transcutaneous delivery of electric currents to the vestibular afferents with both semicircular canals and otolith organs. It’s a complex topic but potential solutions, or at least improvements, don’t necessarily have to be. The advantage is that GVS is a simple and safe, can be as simple as electrodes placed on the mastoid bones behind each ear. The resulting effect is that wearers feel a pull or sway towards the positive electrode and thus the system affects one’s sense of balance in that direction.

 

A Mr. Erik Krivorukov from Tallinn University did his thesis on GVS in VR. Though there’s a lot of material out there, I’m including this because its loaded with citations for further reading and includes a thorough description of the Arduino based device he built, even his code. Mr. Krivorukov's thesis: Control of Balance in Virtual Reality Interactions

with a Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation

 

The famous MIT Media lab has been working on this as well. This is an exciting article in the sense that it really bodes well for the future of our hobby. Like the thesis above, they created a device to provide DVS. They do not detail it's design as thoroughly, but its increased sophistication produced more impressive results results. Interestingly, they tested it in a VR roller coaster app using a Vive, and note that because a coaster experiences G forces in a single axis only two electrodes are required. A third could be included to account for forward acceleration, but otherwise a flight sim doesn’t require lateral. The results were impressive, overwhelmingly testers preferred the experience with the GVS over vanilla VR, reproting increased immersion, a feeling of "being there," and less VR sickness. An extended abstract of Misha Sra, Abhinandan Jain, and Pattie Maes 2019 Adding Proprioceptive Feedback to Virtual Reality Experiences Using Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation

 

Given the simplicity of the device its pretty promising, and that each technology tends to be complimentary with the others – such that a jetseat type or other haptic device, force feedback sticks, continued evolution of VR tech – in a few years many of the shortcomings of simulators (in the sense of whether they accurately simulate flight) could be mitigated significantly or gone in some cases.

 

So there ya go Harry… you might need to increase the amperage a bit to simulate 9Gs, but perhaps you won’t need that Yak after all ;)

 

Seems to me like we're going to need some volunteers...

I meant

Under certain conditions it is not possible to understand if you are for example at 10 or 20 degrees of roll, especially if the roll starts slowly, I have never been able to distinguish a variation of this type. The ascents the descents, the same within a certain degree, if you begin the maneuver slowly, it is not easy to understand only from the physical sensation. We can understand our position with certainty when we are at; +/- 90 ° roll (1g) -180 roll (1g) +/- 90 pitch, these 100% in each situation (1g) guarantee correct sensations. For all the other sensations without horizon and instruments you can die, think about landing ...

And if you find any system with DCS that in VR can trick your mind into believing you're in there, let me know.

There is always a Motion cueing Software between the simulator and your Motion System so that you are free to decide in which direction you want to roll, pitch,...and so on depending on how much degrees of freedom your System has. We are sensing motion all a little bit different and its important that you create a Motion profile that suits exatly what your brain needs. This is a longer process, better measured in days than in minutes. ;-)

If you want to Simulator to feel like an aircraft then you aren't free to decide. We all feel the aircraft the same IRL and in the Sim, meaning real multi million dollar simulators. If you want it to just throw you around a bit then I guess you are correct it just won't feel like an aircraft.

 

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We can understand our position with certainty when we are at; +/- 90 ° roll (1g) -180 roll (1g) +/- 90 pitch, these 100% in each situation (1g) guarantee correct sensations.

 

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here, but...

It’s totally possible to be +1g and inverted. Which is why relying on your vestibular system can be dangerous.

 

But that’s not what we’re talking about here.

 

This is about physical ques that will aid your immersion in a flightsim.

For this, you don’t need full g-force simulation.

Harness restrainers, seat pushers, vibrators, etc, will fill in some of the blanks when flying a flightsim.

There are other realistic effects provided to fixed wing beyond stuff like rumble. Pitch trim of course. But more importantly, the tension in the stick will change depending on how fast you are going, which really aids in immersion. Not so relevant for FBW planes, though.

I am very interested in the trim thing the force in the stick which did ramp up at speed in the Tornado was kind of subtle as in I don't miss it. Apart from the stick shaker as I previously mentioned most feedback is from your backside as to how the aircraft is handling.

 

I am very interested in your trim idea tho. I would pay for a stick that lets me trim forces out to a position as in real life rather than always trimming to stick centered as we do in DCS. Does this work as of now with a FFB system I was under the impression they didn't allow much movement to start and we're more akin to an F16 which auto trims anyway.

 

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Sk000tch, a good entry point for gseats is

from bergison 2014. He has some more very good videos from his newest Motion integrated gseat which is if i understand it right, basicly a motionplattform with a gseat on top which is indirectly driven from the Plattform actuators. I used this kind of System for half a year now and was very happy with it. Of course to work it properly you have to do the right settings in the setup for the plattform. Basicly you would use heave, surge and sway on the Plattform instead of heave, pitch and roll which is normally used. From my experience this worked better for me than the plattform alone. A friend who is a glider Pilot irl does also like this setup more than the platform alone. He is very impressed. Since September i have 4 Motors extra for the flaps of my gseat and this gives me a few more possibilities to setup the System because now i have heave, pitch, roll on the Plattform and heave, surge and sway on the gseat. As expected i like this setup even more but i would not begin with that because it needs a lot of tuning the parameters of 8 Motors and could be overwhelming and therefore frustrating from the start. The gseat gives also the possibilty to rotate the body a bit which is very usefull to sense the rotation along yaw axis while hovering in a heli.

 

Very impressive how fast you could collect information

about future possibilities to manipulate our balance System.

 

I get Motion sickness in vr very fast. If i have setup the whole System right i can fly for hours. But unfortunately you have to find the right Settings First whenever you change the System fundamentally.

And this is a pain for me. So i do not plan to change something in the near future.

HI Harry -

 

How is the DCS plug in coming along?

 

 

(For those that don't know harryharry is the gentleman that is working on the DCS plugin for the SFX-100 motion system!)

Hi wmacky, i finished the plugin in the middle of may and use it very often since then. Roller25 did some Updates but i didnt try because they are all for the f18 and i prefer the yak to which his version is not compatible at the current state. Some people who tried his version are very enthusiastic. Worked on the gseat in Summer and am very happy with the results.

Do you use the plugin? Is your System finished?

I am very interested in the trim thing the force in the stick which did ramp up at speed in the Tornado was kind of subtle as in I don't miss it. Apart from the stick shaker as I previously mentioned most feedback is from your backside as to how the aircraft is handling.

 

I am very interested in your trim idea tho. I would pay for a stick that lets me trim forces out to a position as in real life rather than always trimming to stick centered as we do in DCS. Does this work as of now with a FFB system I was under the impression they didn't allow much movement to start and we're more akin to an F16 which auto trims anyway.

 

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Yes, you can trim out the forces. Having said that, some implementations leave a lot to be desired. Ideally, at full pitch up trim, the stick would be near or at full deflection forward, and same for all the other axes. But in some modules it seems like the "trim zone" is so narrow that trimming by feel is not very effective since the stick will only move a small part of the travel when trimming. It really depends on the module. Or maybe this is realistic to those airframes? I'm not a real pilot so I wouldn't know. It would be nice if implementations were more uniform or tweakable. There is a 3rd party utility called simFFB that allows you to trim the full range of each axis, and with that you can definitely trim by pulling/pushing on the stick and trimming until you feel no more forces. Downside being you lose all game-specific effects.

By game specific effects do you mean the stick shaking in which case I would be happy as I use the jetseat for Aircraft feedback as I find it way more realistic.

 

What ffb stick would you be using ?

 

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Since I built a DIY feedback system, using a sound puck, amp, and the SimShaker software, I've been unable to fly without it. It does add to the 'process' of getting the sim up but, if it's missing, I notice immediately. Things feel dead without it. I have mine set to start giving me feedback at 1.5 G. The important thing is to keep this constant so your butt learns, say, what n-G's (of vibration) feels like. All the other bells & whistles (Gear, flaps, probe, etc) are cool too, but the G, and stall buffet, are the biggies, imo.

 

Not scientific but I think I fly more smoothly. I need a bigger system (puck and amp) to make it really kick me in the arse (peaks at about 4-5 G) but, it does train you via feedback. I WISH this type of support was more deeply supported. JetSeat may be on my list if mine breaks, or I'll just rebuild it.

Edited November 12, 2019 by jross194

By game specific effects do you mean the stick shaking in which case I would be happy as I use the jetseat for Aircraft feedback as I find it way more realistic.

 

What ffb stick would you be using ?

 

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Yes, stick shake, but also force change depending on airspeed; basically any effects programmed in the module inside DCS. If that's not important to you, then it might work for you. It also offers some constant damping and friction forces to tweak how the stick feels. I use a jetseat as well and I love it. Really adds to the experience. I'm using an MS FFB2 modded with an extension and F-22 grip and the resistor mod to double motor strength:

 

 

 

Kk thanks

 

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