Flight Modeling vs. Flight Handling.

[Upthair]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

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You can have two cars with identical performance numbers across the board, top speed, braking, acceleration, lateral Gs, etc... Yet one will have to be bullied into doing it and the other will behave as if connected directly to your brain.

His assertion is that (or seems to me to be that) just knowing the numbers and having the virtual aircraft meet them is not enough, you need the actual pilot's input on how the aircraft behaves in your hands, how it feels, how easy or hard it is to fly and operate.

This is what, to me, is missing in most simulations that I have experience with.

Discuss.

The way I understand it:



There are different paths - an infinite number of them, actually - that connect two or more fixed points (in the graph, points A and B). These fixed points are the performance numbers; those different paths, the distinct handling experiences, or distinct 'feels'.

It would be fortunate if for a certain WWII aircraft modelled the correct 'path' can be picked out by a real-life pilot of it, but in most cases the 100% genuine aircraft does not exist now.

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