Flight Modeling vs. Flight Handling.

[ElAurens]

Originally Posted by CaptainDoggles

Interesting topic indeed!

I don't buy it though, or perhaps just not the car analogy.



If two cars have identical accelerations then they'll hit the same speed at the same time. Period. If the driver of one feels like he has to "bully" the car into doing it then that's his problem. Just a problem with his perception - because we already know the car is doing it just as well as the other car. If it didn't, then the accelerations would not be identical.

As far as this can relate to aircraft, well, I'm not sure what ElAurens is advocating exactly, but it does raise the issue of how to simulate what basically boils down to a pilot's opinion.

Being an engineer, my belief is that the nebulous qualities that we call "handling" or "feel" will show up when we consider things such as the aircraft's stability. For example the Spitfire was widely considered to be a forgiving aircraft but (test) pilots complained that the early versions "did not have enough elevator authority" and that it was difficult to control the aircraft, pitch-wise. When the issue was investigated it was found that the aircraft had a very narrow longitudinal stability margin.

I struggle to imagine a concept that can't be quantified, or related to some measurable quantity in some way.

Nothing personal Doggles, but I suspect you have never driven on a race track (road course). Two vehicles of similar performance can behave very differently and one can indeed be easy to extract it's performance from while the other is a workout to drive.

In a sim there is none of this.

They are all easy. And if they are not (rare) then players tweak thier joysticks or put trim on a slider, or what have you, to make them easy.