Crosswind performance is way, way off guys.
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For anyone discuss their opinions here, would it not be sensible to list a few specifics of your setup? The various hardware & sensitivity settings will make a vast difference. At least two people with similar setups can compare their thoughts more easily then. At the very least:
- Type of rudder pedals
- Rudder axis sensitivity setting from the MSFS controls menu
I only recently discovered (hadn't checked before) that each named control profile in MSFS will save the sensitivity sliders along with that profile, so it's easy to have different sensitivities (if required) for each aircraft. This might help people to 'dial in' settings which work better in the Duke vs other (especially default) aircraft.
I find most aircraft to be 'twitchy' in pitch with my short-throw Saitek yoke, so I set my elevator sensitivity way down to -35% as standard. Works fine for most aircraft. But with the Comanche, I have to put it nearer to zero (i.e. straight line response) so it doesn't feel unresponsive in pitch. I guess that A2A aimed for a realistic feeling with default controller curves which most (?) player will be using. Makes sense, but it makes that aircraft feel totally different to default aircraft, meaning one control profile doesn't suit all aircraft now.
I'm probably preaching to the choir, but thought more specific data would help the discussion along :)
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I very sincerely respect everyone's personal opinions on this thread and I'm appreciative of all the insight offered. :)
I will restate that weathervaning with the Blacksquare Turbine Duke is grossly exaggerated. The new ground physics variables integral to SU15 do not address or fix this weathervaning behavior, although there is definitely better controllability with SU15 installed. The SU15 enhanced ground physics are far from a magic fix, however, and most crosswind takeoff and landings with the Blacksquare Duke are simply unrealistic.
Having said this, I'm convinced the Blacksquare Developer himself is an absolute genius and his achievements with the Dukes overall are nothing less than brilliant. It's just that MSFS2020 is a flawed simulator platform in general; Asobo/Microsoft would much rather cater to the gaming crowd and talk about how pretty the scenery is rather than seriously address core aerodynamic fidelity.
I honestly feel bad that brilliant developers even have to attempt to interface genius with stupidity (this is a direct shot at YOU, Asobo). ;)
99 percent of the simming demographic aren't concerned with how the aircraft behaves in a crosswind though, so it's no biggie really in the larger sense. Lots of people out there just having fun with everything without worrying about too many details, and that counts for a lot.
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My question is where does the dukes stand up within the sim to what other aircraft as to crosswind performance ???? Or are we comparing xplane to msfs or we talking rl to msfs ????
We need a baseline for how you conclude that the dukes are totally unrealistically in crosswind .
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@emmaflic The A2A Simulations Comanche 250 is the gold standard for how a real aircraft should behave in a crosswind, but A2A are using their own custom physics code that runs outside of the main MSFS platform (you can't fix stupid but you can completely bypass it, hehe). I would say the Milviz 310R is the second runner up. I can't give you a compilation of empirical evidence that supports my conclusion about the Blacksquare Duke's ground physics, but it will weathervane on a taxiway going 5 kts and go off the pavement unless significant rudder input is applied in even a moderate crosswind. The real aircraft has a max gross takeoff weight of 7000lbs - it shouldn't do this. MAYBE an ultralight in a similar situation. ;)
Good 'ole Microsoft hasn't even released a SDK that details how the new SU15 ground physics variables actually work to the best of my knowledge, but it's well known that Asobo disabled the variables at different times with successive beta SU15 releases. Who knows what state the final release version of SU15 incorporates in this regard. I can tell you that a lot of people on the official Flight Simulator forum are posting that they can discern NO difference with the default MSFS aircraft that supposedly incorporate the new ground physics variables.
Again though, all of this is subjective. If you don't agree with me and find the Turbine Duke flight dynamics perfectly acceptable as is, have fun flying and don't worry about anything else. ;)
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@Ballinger-France
I would agree the gold standard is the Comanche as far as an all round aircraft goes within the sim . As for the 310 I have the other version of it and I was never a real fan of the 310 in general so I will take your word on its flight model.
Now back to the dukes both in taxi and also take off and landing with a set crosswind I find I’m using about the same amount of rudder for both the dukes and the 414 reason I picked that aircraft is it’s comparable with the dukes being the piston one being a lot closer , for the turbine that is a different ballgame being its engines are added to a otherwise piston airframe so its performance is going to be different witch it is next to the piston one and I feel there is a big difference between the both dukes . On the weekend I will give the 414 and the dukes and the Comanche another round of set cross wind take offs and landing and see what I find . In my normal sim flying I’m using live weather so I’m at the mercy of the sim most of the landings to date have been find as in with the normal amount of learning the aircraft also with the flying I mostly do it’s more joy flights so I’m managing the aircraft and mostly in cruse I’m in outside view enjoying the view most would take that as more gaming but there are times I do like to do more flight training then I care more about the way the aircraft behaves hence my interest in things like crosswind performance and also IFR.
Now to the sim , I started flight simulators when I was doing flight training and I would use xplane with piper arrow as at the time I was flying a piper warrior and my goal at the time was to do my lesson n jump in the sim to practice what I did for the day , I didn’t think much about the way the sim plane flew and I hated that the visuals were just average next to what we have now with both msfs and xplane . Now I’m sure asobo has taken msfs 2020 as far as it goes with the underlying code as to how how the planes behave and time will tell if they address the shortcomings with 2024… -
@emmaflic Sounds like you know your stuff, especially with both real-world flight experience and extensive time using the sims. I'll be really interested in your take on the subject.
I have a PPL, tailwheel endorsement, and a current medical. I have time in a Piper Cherokee, Piper Pacer, and a Aeronca Champ (Flying Bathtub). We are already seeing 100F+ days here in Texas so in the afternoons you do about as much bouncing as you do flying. ;)
It's easy to get frustrated with MSFS when one sets expectations too high though; there have been and always will be serious limitations with the platform. Really, really in-depth addons like the Blacksquare Dukes come along and I get super excited about the chance to experience something ultra-realistic in a vast sea of crap addons, lol. I want it to be perfect but I lose sight of the bigger picture and the endless challenges MSFS imposes upon even the most gifted developers. It's also quite easy to simply 'disable' crosswind effect altogether on the ground in MSFS by making a quick tweak to the Flight.cfg file. This is not realistic at all but then again neither is the weathervaning.
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My current situation for rl flying is waiting for my medical due to being grounded in my training for high blood pressure so to keep my skills I spend enough time in the sim . I can understand your frustration with some of the planes on offer and course some of the aircraft are going to spoil you. As in the Comanche but as I said the dukes sit well with the other twins within the sim . Funny enough one of my fav aircraft in the sim is the c510 mustang and after flying that you forget about systems that are missing and just fly it and it was a very enjoyable plane even thou I get so frustrated with it double edge . If you get bogged down with perfection Then none of the sim planes are ever going to be good enough but if the aircraft can fool your eyes into feeling it then it does its job. For me the fact you even get to move the rudder rather than the plane run on rails means at least there is progress .
Anyway I will test them a lot more and see what happens. -
Final thought on this subject before I leave the forums here permanently as I have deleted the Blacksquare Turbine Duke from my computer and have no intention whatsoever of using it again.
The Developer here probably initially had good intentions but over-relied on Asobo's own hype in regard to progress with flight dynamics. One has to bear in mind that the MSFS2020 platform is primarily a scenery simulator, not a flight simulator, and that Aboso will NEVER properly grasp real world aircraft flight characteristics. Microsoft caters to the gamer crowd because that's where the money is; the gamer crowd could ultimately care less about flight dynamics as long as they can land someplace without crashing. Win/win for everybody here.
Asobo's vaunted ground friction variables with SU15 simply do not work as advertised and of course they never will. The supposed new aileron action required for proper lateral tracking in a crosswind situation is the stuff of an arcade game with little in common with real-world flight behavior. Blacksquare embraced Asobo's B.S. here and promotes it as a fix for all the flawed flight behavior in previous SU releases, knowing full well that this wasn't a fix for anything but rather a way to try and sugar coat bad flight dynamics more than anything else. Blacksquare, like Asobo, are ultimately about profit mongering and overhype rather than actual quality and realism.
ALL Blacksquare products have flawed flight dynamics, irregardless of over-hyped claims that are promoted about their products. Blacksquare knew the flight dynamics were broken with the SU14 release of MSFS, and tried to claim everything would magically be fixed with the SU15 release, knowing full well that this wasn't the case. Otherwise, one can't hype a product being perfect and garner initial sales volume.
I now have zero respect for the Blacksquare developer at this stage, despite his obvious technical talent (which I justifiably lauded in this thread), but some individuals demand far less respect than money. Sad. At least now I have more hard drive space.
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@Ballinger-France While I am very saddened to hear about your experience, and wish you luck finding only the best flight simulation addons in the future; however, I cannot let this message stand without a brief rebuttal, as I find your characterization of me greatly offensive.
I have dedicated my life to these addons over the last few years, spending around 16 hours per day working on them, because I care so much about preserving recent aviation history, and giving tomorrow's pilots the tools to learn. Around half of each day is spent responding to my users, implementing custom code solutions for their specific needs, and fixing unnoticeable bugs in aircraft released two years ago, just because I enjoy it. I am currently updating my TBM 850 with all the new technology I created for the Dukes as a free upgrade, and have already done so for the Baron, Bonanza, and new WT avionics in the Velocity. To suggest that I am profit motivated is an insult to the thousands of hours that go into creating each of my aircraft, often with weeks spent focusing on minute details, just because I know it will make someone smile.
As for the aerodynamics, all I can claim is that I have tried to do my best, included several fellow real world pilots in the process, and refer to respected members of the flight simulator community before every release and update for improvements. If, by your own admittance, Asobo's aerodynamics are less than satisfactory, then I find little use in attacking the aircraft designers who do our best with what the simulator can offer.
Please let me know if there is anything else, within reason, that I can do to otherwise improve your experience with my aircraft, and I will do my best to make it happen, as I am always happy to do for those who enjoy my work.
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@Black-Square - trust that the vast majority of us are 100% thrilled with the quality of your work, as well as your dedication to continually improving upon it. There’s always somebody like this, and from their first post I could unfortunately tell which direction this thread was going to go. I’m sorry you had to deal with it - I suppose it comes with the job, though. Once, many years back, I had to spend two hours listening to a guy on the phone threatening my company over a trivial and rare bug in our award-winning software, saying he was going to “go to the media and expose us” and so on. That’s the less fun part of software development.
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I don't understand the tirade. The claim that the A2A Comanche is a "gold standard" seems far-fetched. I like the A2A Comanche, but it can become an amusement park ride pretty fast in windy conditions during takeoff. I haven't tried it since they updated for SU15, so maybe it's better.
The fact is, no simulator is excellent at capturing flight dynamics, even million dollar Level-D sims. You work with what you have, and accept the flaws. I see people complain they can't keep the Fenix A320 on centerline, but I've never had an issue, even in high winds. It's important to put some perspective on things regarding individual hardware. For years I used the CH Yoke in FS2002, FS9, and FSX. I became adapted to the twitchy nature that I believed to be the sim, applying the FSUIPC curves and such. Then I decided I wanted the new Thrustmaster Boeing Yoke. It looked better and the CH was having issues. I was still using FSX Steam, as I didn't have money to upgrade to a new computer. To my shock, the A2A Bonanza, Comanche, Majestic Q400, and other add-ons were actually controllable. There was a heavy translation to the movement and I could bank aircraft without diving 2000 feet a minute. Needless to say, that TM Yoke has an entirely different feel to it than the CH Yoke. So people who complain about flight dynamics are often using hardware that frankly sucks in my opinion. The other half of that is spending time tweaking curves in the sim to dampen the twitchiness that is unfortunately part of the sim, regardless. I can take off in a rather strong crosswind in the Duke and not roll all over the place now. It is subtle, but I am personally not experiencing an uncontrollable roll which seems to be the complaint here. I have flown the Duke almost exclusively since its release, and have no problems with flight dynamics.
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@Ballinger-France I got second hand embarrassment from reading this.
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At least 20 people are on the side of reason based on the post reactions, might be a new record!
For anybody to give such a strong opinion on the handling and expect something to come of it, but provide little detail besides opinion and 'credentials' is laughable indeed. Any testing or comparison has to be done under controlled environments so others can replicate it and give feedback. That means using:
- consistent, fixed wind speeds & directions (not real-life weather, which will gust and fluctuate during the take-off run, especially if trees are in the area)
- published control curves & deadzones
- preferably identical hardware - or at least with similar travel limits
Without any of those specifics being posted here with respect to the setups in use, everything is just hearsay, opinion, expectations and 'feel'. There's nothing scientific in the discussions, so comparing experiences and perceived faults is relatively meaningless.
Compared to FSX, MSFS feels light years ahead with ground dynamics. It receives a lot of criticism in this area and of course it's not perfect, but aircraft actually feel like they are starting to flying before they leave the ground; something I never felt in FSX. I don't recall any small GA aircraft in FSX picking up a wing on the ground roll during crosswind take-offs (if not countered), not even the A2A range, but in MSFS it happens all the time with all kinds of aircraft.
There are many of us that are very appreciative of all the work done, who can enjoy what we have even if it's not perfect in every single way.
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I did some flight tests in cross wind with the turbine duke the 414 Cessna the c510 mustang and the Comanche airport was YMLT runway was 32L wind was set to 49 degrees speed set to 22.4 knots gusting wind was I think set to 22.69 wind was custom from ground to 10,000ft same wind speed and direction controls thrust master hotas and thrust master TRP rudder pedals all set to neutral just toe brakes set to + 19 sim set to realistic . With that I was able to fly all the planes and land them mostly on the centerline and all performed well all planes got pushed with the wind in the circuit but I was able to correct them with rudder input. Last weekend we had some nasty weather in Melbourne and Tasmania flying the duke in my normal flight from ymmb to ysth the sim produced some wild weather and we had some really wild crosswind at st Helen’s (ysth) landing was so much fun even though I had to fight it to the ground . Smiles . All up black square did amazing job with both the dukes and tbm . As for the gold standard of the A2A Comanche that plane always has the upper hand but not so much because of the flight model I put the dukes level with it , it’s the walk around and persistence that’s the things I love about the Comanche. But for my sim missions it’s only really a VFR sunny day plane for me the turbine duke is my go to for most of my flying . Smiles
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me thinks this "ballenger france from texas" is a troll bot.
