ORIGINAL: RealtyViking
MSelig,
Regarding post 1203 where you said "I could talk about the physics, but I'll let the videos do that."
I for one would be extremely interested in your opinion on the physics involved comparatively in the different simulators recognizing that you are one of the FSOne developers. I did some cursory internet searching and would say that your qualifications, if good enough for NASA research among other projects, stand on there own. I have already been impressed with the ability of your product to translate to the field better than the other programs I have significant experience (RF G3.0-3.5 and FMS). I would like to know how you were able to do this while the others were close, but missed the mark?
I know you have worked with Real Flight in the past specifically with G3.0 so you have the insight and have probably compared the others to videos. Would you mind sharing since the aerodynamics and acurate physics seem to be your products niche in this growing market?
I do not expect you to slam the others and understand that this would be one sided, but it would be interesting for myself and others that are considering purchasing a simulator.
Thanks
Good question.
First, I don't know what's inside the other sims.
When it comes to RealFlight, they did include the UIUC Airfoil Database in their latest version and that comes under the GNU GPL. They presented to me some paperwork to sign so that they could include it in G3/3.5/etc, but I said 'no' it's GPL which means anyone can use it freely ... and they have. They do acknowledge UIUC/me. Maybe that's why you thought I once worked w/ RealFlight.
I've not worked with RealFlight in any way. I maybe came close one day when I was at Hobbico and told some of the management what I thought they needed to do to improve RealFlight. They did not follow through with any of that. I don't think they understood it.
One thing that's helped in developing the aero side of FS One is that there's 'no fudge'. If things are fudged at one point and then another point and another, etc, it becomes totally impossible to figure out cause and effect. I learned that by working on cars - keeping old ones running. If one thing breaks, it needs to be fixed because otherwise when a second thing breaks and then a third, etc, it's hard to figure anything out with all the interactions. One benefit of taking this approach is that when things did not work, it meant that some element of the physics was missing or wrong. So that would start a cascade of debugging (either code or physics). As things progressed like this, many new aero phenomena were figured out and also new approaches were taken to solving old problems. At one point halfway through I counted 14 things that were different than past methods and know-how. So in this sense there are A LOT of "trade secrets" inside the aero part of the sim. For the most part these things came out of having to solve the 3D aero problem where the flow can come at the airplane from any direction while the plane is spinning/doing whatever. That kind of thing is not encountered in the standard aero textbooks, so it required developing a lot of new things. The fact that FS One can do plausible spins that mimic real video/planes says that something under the hood is very different. I don't think there's any other sim that can do the spin problem so robustly w/ myriad configurations. An interesting example there is as things were developing on the aero, I was always wondering how I'd ever sort out the 3D blender maneuver (inverted flat spin). Then one day I jammed the sticks a certain way and 'bam' things got into an inverted flat spin. So that gives you some insight that really on some level I actually don't know how all this aero stuff works, yet I wrote the code for it!
I don't know if that answers all your questions/thinking, but off the top of my head that's what I think about when it comes to comparing things with other sims (including full scale sims).
Postscript: I think Hobbico is still missing the boat on the things I mentioned years ago to them. I can say that now w/ a bit more certainty. Of course, all of this is my opinion. Also, on my own side, I know there's more to do and understand on the aero side. VPP!
Michael