Better flight model?
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@delta558 said in Better flight model?:
There is certainly no lack of interest in updating this (and the rest of the PA28 series). There is, however, a lack of interest in updating it only for it to have to be updated a month down the line when the next SU drops. I have very limited time because of both real-world work and an ongoing family issue, I have already spent the best part of a year chasing down issues in my own spare time which have been created by the instability of the core FM. The whole thing will have to be re-written for CFD, and there is no point in doing that until the core flight model is documented and at least a hell of a lot more stable than it currently is.
You have attempted to help me in other threads I initiated and again thank you for your responses.
It is up to you (as in the developers of this product, not just you in particular) to decide if you want to focus on updating the product or not.
That MSFS is a constantly evolving product sounds like an excuse: we as customers who are not idiots, can see other developers (not all, but at least some) try to adapt to the SUs, with often success. Besides, it should be obvious to everyone that MSFS is still going to be in development for years. Waiting for the sim to have completely stabilised is futile and I think, or at least hope, that you realise this.The fact that you have family and other form of commitments seems to be the real reason. We can understand these commitments, we all have some. Although I don't see why customers should bear the consequences. In my line of work (I work in investment banking), never would my customers, including retail customers, accept these sort of reasons.
With that said and with respect to the OP's initial post. I'm flying a PA28 at my local airclub (Archer, not Warrior, but close enough) and it's not that bad for me. The pitching issue is the biggest one for me, even tweaking my yoke to the best I can. It just doesn't feel right. Bank, power etc... all this looks fine to me. Also, I went into the trouble of spending a few hours comparing the performances of JF's model with the performance tables provided in the manual handbook of the Archer I fly, and I find them to be very, very close. In terms of performance, I doubt anyone could make the difference. Well done for that :thumbs_up: . But the pitching issue is a big issue for me. It's a shame.
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I really hope this gets addressed. I fly PA28s regularly and it was my go-to after transitioning from X-Plane. Now, I have strait up just stopped flying it as a result.
I know Asobo changes things often, but since the product is actively being sold updates should be expected. From a company with the reputation of JF I am surprised we're still having to make forum posts begging for them to update their product, since SU8 was in beta.
@jrkob When's the last time you had a 2000fpm climb-out in your club archer? The JF Warrior seems to do that most flights, with totally unrealistic performance.
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@thtanner said in Better flight model?:
@jrkob When's the last time you had a 2000fpm climb-out in your club archer? The JF Warrior seems to do that most flights, with totally unrealistic performance.
@thtanner I'm not getting 2000fpm climb outs. The manual of the Archer I fly indicates that the performance charts of climb outs are given for a speed of 76kt. At that speed, I'm getting a VS of about 700fpm at sea level in the sim. As far as I'm concerned this is very realistic. This is, of course, at MTOW for which the performance charts are also given. See below screenshot. A climb out to 10,000ft in the sim takes within 30 seconds of what the (Archer) manual says it should take. My cfg files have not been modified.
The OP says he finds the plane hard to land. I agree. Hard, and very unpleasant. Because of the pitching issue.
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@delta558 said in Better flight model?:
the whole thing will have to be re-written for CFD, and there is no point in doing that
I've read that statement from JF in several post for a very long time now. Since then I've purchased several planes from other developers. They, in fact, understand the current flight model and delivered timely updates.
So again my question: When can we expect the update for a already paid product? Maybe the SU11 expected in November is a good date with the enhancements promised by Asobo.
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@jrkob said in Better flight model?:
The fact that you have family and other form of commitments seems to be the real reason. We can understand these commitments, we all have some. Although I don't see why customers should bear the consequences. In my line of work (I work in investment banking), never would my customers, including retail customers, accept these sort of reasons.
I am not full time with JF, I had hoped not to have to spell this out in public but it seems as if I need to, and this is my point of view not that of JF: The work I do is completed around my day job and family in my spare time. At the moment, I have one terminally ill parent and the other I am doing my best to support - they live a couple of hundred miles away, my spare time is spent visiting them. Whilst I understand that this is not ideal for customers, whether they accept it or not really doesn't bother me as I have far more important things I need to deal with.
Having got that out of the way, I have just opened the game for the first time since this thread was started (first chance I have had). Bluntly, the aircraft still flies near-enough as it did when released. There are a few minor issues which I have also noted in other aircraft - of the three primary axes, yaw has definitely been affected (SU10). It wobbles sideways a hell of a lot more than it ever did before.
@werewolf said in Better flight model?:
They seem sluggish on the controls, pitch is hard to control, landing is rather difficult. The real PA28 is used as a trainer for a reason: It should be easy to fly. Pitch, power, aim for the numbers and it lands itself.
Are you using the control sensitivities (linear curves, max sensitivity, max reactivity, min dead zones) as recommended in the manual / on this website? Your experience does not reflect what I am seeing.
@thtanner said in Better flight model?:
I know Asobo changes things often, but since the product is actively being sold updates should be expected. From a company with the reputation of JF I am surprised we're still having to make forum posts begging for them to update their product, since SU8 was in beta.
See first paragraph.
@thtanner said in Better flight model?:
@jrkob When's the last time you had a 2000fpm climb-out in your club archer? The JF Warrior seems to do that most flights, with totally unrealistic performance.
I think (but am willing to be corrected) you are the only person that has reported this. I still cannot achieve it in any of the PA28s, even with your prompting others are not agreeing and nobody has come out of the woodwork saying "yes, I see that". The climb rate is around the right mark (one person did calculate it and found that they were somewhere in the region of seventy fpm better than the POH from memory). I really do not know what to suggest - I'm not saying you're not seeing it, just that it does not appear to be a problem with the Warrior. In the brief check flight I just tried in the game, half fuel and I was around 800 fpm so even the game's calculations of how weight should affect do not seem that far off.
@derek said in Better flight model?:
@sebastianr said in Better flight model?:
MS / Asobo is constantly improving its product,
I think the word you need there is 'changing'.
100%. They are changing, not keeping us informed what or how, expecting us to guess. CFD, when the ONLY definition we can make of a fuselage is diameter, length and centre point, is just not accurate enough. The new prop model threw up so many problems that some other companies have also refused to use it, preferring the old tables which still give much more control. I tried to build the engine using the 'new' prop and engine, the results were awful. Far less points at which everything was accurate.
Just because Asobo bring out something 'new' it does not necessarily mean it is better. I am probably more frustrated than any of you over this whole situation - seeing the flight model pulled and pushed in so many directions with seemingly no fixed point to anchor it. We (JF) and other companies have been using the DevSupport forum to try and get answers. We have sent them videos specific to issues we are seeing with the PA28s, and so far heard nothing back. The flight model section regularly goes unanswered - to give you just one example, I asked back in July what we are supposed to do when the accurate geometry the game supposedly relies on does not give the required / accurate behaviours. I've bumped it a couple of times - deathly silence. Almost as if they don't know themselves . . .
It's not through lack of trying.
@werewolf said in Better flight model?:
I've read that statement from JF in several post for a very long time now. Since then I've purchased several planes from other developers. They, in fact, understand the current flight model and delivered timely updates.
Yeah, there is actually a post on the DevSupport forum right now in which I tried to help another Dev with a problem and they responded "at least it's not just me that's struggling with the flight model". Multiple Dev houses are struggling to find people to work on flight dynamics, many of the people who used to in previous versions have just walked away from it. As a Dev, it is a really frustrating situation. The core flight model is simply not capable of delivering the level of accuracy I am used to working at, I do not use code to mask the problems.
@werewolf said in Better flight model?:
So again my question: When can we expect the update for a already paid product? Maybe the SU11 expected in November is a good date with the enhancements promised by Asobo.
I have no idea, sorry. See my first paragraph, see my question to you earlier in this post which may help, and see my comments above regarding CFD and Prop.
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@delta558 Asobo can be frustrating for sure. Some very simple bugs reported over a year have been ignored.
I'm very sorry for your family situation, personally I wouldn't push you to do the fix. I don't think it's been mentioned but I don't see why all this pressure has to be put on you as an individual.
If Justflight is a company and our purchase agreement is with Justflight then the request for maintenance of the product is with Justflight.
It's up to Justflight who they assign to fix and how to work as a team including covering for people away. We shouldn't get into details about specifics, but Justflight addons have a reputation for high quality since the last few years.
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@taipan303 said in Better flight model?:
@delta558 Asobo can be frustrating for sure. Some very simple bugs reported over a year have been ignored.
I'm very sorry for your family situation, personally I wouldn't push you to do the fix. I don't think it's been mentioned but I don't see why all this pressure has to be put on you as an individual.
If Justflight is a company and our purchase agreement is with Justflight then the request for maintenance of the product is with Justflight.
It's up to Justflight who they assign to fix and how to work as a team including covering for people away. We shouldn't get into details about specifics, but Justflight addons have a reputation for high quality since the last few years.
Well said. I've been thinking for some time now that this seems to be (partially at least) a Just Flight resourcing issue.
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Hi all,
Sorry for my late contribution to this thread.
I'll start by clarifying the situation as the nature of FS development can be somewhat confusing, especially when compared to less hobbyist industries where you have large teams working full-time etc. We've worked closely with Paul for many years now, from our Canberra PR9 for FSX through to our latest MSFS aircraft, but as he points out above he is not an employee and does not work full-time in his role as a flight model developer, which is a very common situation in this industry (particularly prior to MSFS). Paul isn't our only flight model developer - just like with our artists, coders etc, we have different developers working on different aircraft, some full-time, some part-time and our team continues to expand. However the complex nature of flight models, especially for a constantly evolving and sometimes poorly documented platform like MSFS, means that if at all possible we try to avoid switching or having multiple flight model developers attached to a particular aircraft, and therefore Paul has persisted in trying to track down the causes of these issues.
As Paul rightly points out, for a significant period following release the PA28s all behaved very well and were considered some of the best GA in terms of flight models, but one or more Sim Updates introduced issues, most noticeably the 'pitch jerking'. I understand the temptation to refer to other developers who aren't experiencing these issues (but no doubt have some of their own challenges), and it should be noted that some of our own aircraft such as the 146 are 'jerk free' too so this isn't a Just Flight bug, but the MSFS FDE means that each aircraft type and airframe has its own quirks which aren't applicable to others. The problem we face is finding what causes the issue on the PA28 family so it can be addressed.
We’ve spent months working with Paul to find a solution, including trying to get help directly from MS/Asobo, but we've yet to find an adequate solution. Paul’s personal situation is obviously a factor in his availability but to be clear it’s not the reason for the lack of a solution. And I should also be clear that we of course don't expect our paying customers to consider our staffing when rightly expecting fixes for our products. Hopefully it's apparent from our many regular MSFS updates for all aircraft that we are very proactive in fixing any issues and communicating directly with you about them, with Paul's detailed explanations and honesty above highlighting just how frustrated we too are about this.
At no point has work halted on our flight models and this has always been a priority for us. Most recently we've been assessing the changes introduced by the final SU10 build so we can go back to MS/Asobo with our latest findings. Additional staff and resources have also been brought in to help.
We really appreciate the understanding and patience shown here and will continue to update you on our progress.
Thanks,
Martyn -
@martyn Thank you for these explanations and we keep our fingers crossed for further work on the amendments. As a community strongly involved in their development, we are available to not only criticize but also support our experience, often with real aviation and impressions of the simulator.
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Hi all,
A quick update - work continues on the flight model updates following the final release of SU11 and we are aiming to send a new test build to our kind volunteers (https://community.justflight.com/topic/3924/flight-model-updates/1) and testing team this week. If that goes well then we can proceed with releasing those.
Thanks again for your patience,
Martyn - Just Flight -
@martyn Great news. I just bought this aircraft at the MSFS Marketplace, based on great reviews, and was a little let down by the flight model deteriorating after some sim updates. I am glad to see you are actively working to fix this.
Will the update be available within MSFS, or will I need to visit here and download it? Thanks.
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It's been a journey regarding this topic, but with v0.3.6 just around the corner, I am really excited to get back into the JF PA28s! Big thanks to Paul and the rest of the JF team for moving this towards resolution.
Had I been paying attention to the forums I'd have jumped at the chance to test, but seems we're days away from release. Fingers crossed!
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After some further tweaking I'm happy to report that the PA28 updates are now being processed for release, with release currently planned for Monday. The final change log can be found here:
https://community.justflight.com/topic/2476/update-change-logs-v0-3-5-released-edited-20-3-23
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Hey guys,
I'm no expert, nor a real life pilot, but has anyone looked at this recently to see if something needs adjusting/tweaking again? I went to fly today, and winds were 300 at 12G28kts. Even just taxing around, as soon as I started any forward movement there was some severe weathervaning and required a LOT of rudder input to correct, and on takeoff (runway 34), once I hit about 40 knots or so IAS, again with the severe weathervaning and it just careens into the wind.
This is on a fresh install of everything, from Windows to the sim to the plane. I checked and all assists are off.
