Extracting the flight model

[GodAtum 68]

Do you think the 777 will have an extracted flight model like the Majestic plane to get better FPS?

[Nuno Pinto 1,394]

You mean external. And it all depends on the complexity and how it was programmed.

[Sam 68]

Pmdg have done things outside fsx for a long time now, so it wouldn't be any different now I think

[jcomm 5,880]

Yes, as far as possible from the ESP flight dynamics core will help :-) even if sometimes even that way they can't escape some glitches... :-(

 

If only DCS World started accepting airliners and a World Scenery ....

 

I only use Prepar3d to fly PMDG, RealAIr and A2A stuff... For the sensation of flight, I have to fight in a Combat scenario that offers the ultima flight and systems modelling - DCS World - and I know the PMDG crew is there too, online sometimes ;-)

[Jackal. 25]

Guys, what's an extracted/external flight model?

[JB3DG 225]

Basically a physics engine running outside of FSX that controls the 6DOF velocities and 3D position of the aircraft, rather than FSX doing this itself.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

Guys, what's an extracted/external flight model?

 

They run all the calculations outside of flight sim.  The dynamics are run by an external process and then injected into Flight Sim in FSX's terms.  It allows them to do things that FSX would not understand/allow.

[Tabs 2,790]

No, we're not doing this for multiple reasons:

 

1. We already do something quite similar - the NGX is already completely "fly by software" - we intercept the joystick prior to FSX and modify the inputs behind the scenes to produce things FSX can't normally do. Remember that the guy who programmed these algorithms here is an engineer with a PhD in computational fluid dynamics - I've seen people who appear to think we're just using FSX defaults or something and nothing could be further from the truth. This guy designs these types of mathematical physics models in real life industry. Simply put, using some other FDE would be pretty redundant here, Vangelis is already doing a ton of work of his own that's similar to this. It isn't just the flight modelling either - we do almost everything on its own outside the sim - fuel, pneumatics, autobrakes, electrical etc - it's all custom. Apparently we need to highlight this a bit more in the marketing we do, because a lot of people seem to be under the assumption that we aren't doing these things when in fact we were one of the pioneers of it going all the way back to the first NG we did in 2003.

 

2. The jet modeling in FSX is not nearly as bad as the free-rotating turboprop is. We can get very very close by tweaking/massaging the FSX model into doing what we need and it'll do 99% of the envelope right on the numbers from Boeing. Edge of the envelope is extremely difficult even in multimillion dollar full motion level D sims. I've personally seen level D sims completely "spazz out" and require reloading the situation if you get it into certain edge of the envelope states that it can't process. (it just starts flipping around unrealistically like crazy, it's pretty funny actually) Separated airflow/high AoA/stall physics is not something that is easy to model at all even for the best simulations in the world. Unless you are a Boeing test pilot, stalling a 737 or 777 is absolutely the last thing you'd ever want to do in the real airplane anyway.

As an aside on this - I've seen some people make claims in the past week to the effect that the NGX doesn't "feel" realistic. The idea that a large swept wing jet should fly in a similar manner to a smaller and much lighter straight wing turboprop is something that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The weight and the way the wing of a larger jet works is going to smooth out a lot of that "loose" getting-thrown-around-by-the-airmass type feeling you get in a smaller plane. You can feel this difference as a passenger even - a couple months ago I got off a 757 straight onto an ERJ-145. There's a very pronounced difference there - the 757 feels very stable and has that almost "on rails" thing going on.  It's a big airplane that's displacing a ton of air and you don't notice little bumps and gusts. The ERJ on the other hand is more like a turboprop - it's small, has a straighter wing, and you feel the airmass a lot more. We had a ton of real life pilots on the 737 test team (and even more on the 777 team), we got to fly the full flight simulators ourselves, Robert himself has an ATP and has flown large jets. etc. I don't think we're wrong about how they fly after all of that.

 

3. To do this sort of thing you have to run FSX in what amounts to slew mode where the external FDE is just positioning the plane where it wants it based on the algorithms - this breaks compatibility with a ton of addons and hardware that read information out of the FSX flight model, causes the aircraft to not respond to the FSX weather events like turbulence, and so on. We're definitely not willing to do that - we'd have a ton of complaints if we did with how big our market is.

 

4. Running more processes like this on top of what FSX is already doing is not going to improve framerates. I suspect their FPS are higher largely because their VC has a lot less clickspots, animations, draw calls and texture resolution than then NGX does, not because the flight modelling is somehow granting it a ton more frames. As well done as their simulation is, it's also a fact that a Q400 is a much simpler airplane (in real life) than a 737 or 777. Full geometric path VNAV that takes into account both altitude and speed with all manner of soft and hard constraints, variable target descent speeds and limits, autothrottle logic etc is very heavy math. (There's all kinds of calculus and differential equations involved in doing it) Look at what our LNAV is doing too - all the turn prediction curve drawing etc - those aren't static things that get drawn once, they're dynamically generated based on the current flight situation and get recalculated with every "tick" of the aircraft's system timers. Again, very heavy math that the Q400's route line drawing doesn't have to do.

 

To sum up - I do really like what Majestic's done - I've been flying it a lot since it came out, but this kind of flight model thing as it's implemented in the Q400 is not something we're going to be pursuing for all the reasons listed above.

[WotanUK 289]

I am aware that it breaks external addons FSCaptain for one, but breaking weather effects is a little ironic considering that Majestic have 'modelled' the weather radar.

 

It's a good shot at dethroning the NGX and has probably the JS41 as my second favourite plane. 

[Jackal. 25]

No, we're not doing this for multiple reasons:

 

1. We already do something quite similar - the NGX is already completely "fly by software" - we intercept the joystick prior to FSX and modify the inputs behind the scenes to produce things FSX can't normally do. Remember that the guy who programmed these algorithms here is an engineer with a PhD in computational fluid dynamics - I've seen people who appear to think we're just using FSX defaults or something and nothing could be further from the truth. This guy designs these types of mathematical physics models in real life industry. Simply put, using some other FDE would be pretty redundant here, Vangelis is already doing a ton of work of his own that's similar to this. It isn't just the flight modelling either - we do almost everything on its own outside the sim - fuel, pneumatics, autobrakes, electrical etc - it's all custom. Apparently we need to highlight this a bit more in the marketing we do, because a lot of people seem to be under the assumption that we aren't doing these things when in fact we were one of the pioneers of it going all the way back to the first NG we did in 2003.

 

2. The jet modeling in FSX is not nearly as bad as the free-rotating turboprop is. We can get very very close by tweaking/massaging the FSX model into doing what we need and it'll do 99% of the envelope right on the numbers from Boeing. Edge of the envelope is extremely difficult even in multimillion dollar full motion level D sims. I've personally seen level D sims completely "spazz out" and require reloading the situation if you get it into certain edge of the envelope states that it can't process. (it just starts flipping around unrealistically like crazy, it's pretty funny actually) Separated airflow/high AoA/stall physics is not something that is easy to model at all even for the best simulations in the world. Unless you are a Boeing test pilot, stalling a 737 or 777 is absolutely the last thing you'd ever want to do in the real airplane anyway.

 

As an aside on this - I've seen some people make claims in the past week to the effect that the NGX doesn't "feel" realistic. The idea that a large swept wing jet should fly in a similar manner to a smaller and much lighter straight wing turboprop is something that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The weight and the way the wing of a larger jet works is going to smooth out a lot of that "loose" getting-thrown-around-by-the-airmass type feeling you get in a smaller plane. You can feel this difference as a passenger even - a couple months ago I got off a 757 straight onto an ERJ-145. There's a very pronounced difference there - the 757 feels very stable and has that almost "on rails" thing going on.  It's a big airplane that's displacing a ton of air and you don't notice little bumps and gusts. The ERJ on the other hand is more like a turboprop - it's small, has a straighter wing, and you feel the airmass a lot more. We had a ton of real life pilots on the 737 test team (and even more on the 777 team), we got to fly the full flight simulators ourselves, Robert himself has an ATP and has flown large jets. etc. I don't think we're wrong about how they fly after all of that.

 

3. To do this sort of thing you have to run FSX in what amounts to slew mode where the external FDE is just positioning the plane where it wants it based on the algorithms - this breaks compatibility with a ton of addons and hardware that read information out of the FSX flight model, causes the aircraft to not respond to the FSX weather events like turbulence, and so on. We're definitely not willing to do that - we'd have a ton of complaints if we did with how big our market is.

 

4. Running more processes like this on top of what FSX is already doing is not going to improve framerates. I suspect their FPS are higher largely because their VC has a lot less clickspots, animations, draw calls and texture resolution than then NGX does, not because the flight modelling is somehow granting it a ton more frames.As well done as their simulation is, it's also a fact that a Q400 is a much simpler airplane (in real life) than a 737 or 777. Full geometric path VNAV that takes into account both altitude and speed with all manner of soft and hard constraints, variable target descent speeds and limits, autothrottle logic etc is very heavy math. (There's all kinds of calculus and differential equations involved in doing it) Look at what our LNAV is doing too - all the turn prediction curve drawing etc - those aren't static things that get drawn once, they're dynamically generated based on the current flight situation and get recalculated with every "tick" of the aircraft's system timers. Again, very heavy math that the Q400's route line drawing doesn't have to do.

 

To sum up - I do really like what Majestic's done - I've been flying it a lot since it came out, but this kind of flight model thing as it's implemented in the Q400 is not something we're going to be pursuing for all the reasons listed above.

 

Silly question, but is there a reason airliners or pilots don't use the PMDG as a training aid? Or do they? 

[Joduv 90]

I am sure a lot of them use it ! And I know few Airline Pilots who used the NGX, as a preparation to learn their flows/procedures before going to the Full Flight Sim...

[EGLL77W 1,508]

If I were to get hired by for example, RyanAir on their 737NG fleet. I'd more than definitely fly the NGX piror, read all the manuals and possibly AoA's course since a lot would be relevant in the real TR.

 

Of course I wouldn't as my primary training source, only if I had spare time prior to TR.

[Tabs 2,790]

Silly question, but is there a reason airliners or pilots don't use the PMDG as a training aid? Or do they? 

 

While we don't specifically market/certify it for that, there's certainly a bunch of real world pilots who buy our stuff to practice on, prepare for transitioning to a new airplane in their career, etc.

[rtodepart 761]

Around the time the NGX was out . I was doing 2 or 3 charter flight's a month in real life and there were plenty of times that i recreated the flights here at home using REX weather just to refresh some of the routes and posible STARs ......

[The Fly 2]

Good topic, and good answer. Thanks guys!