All plank/heli flyers out there, is FMS very relistic? I've been wanting to get a pitts, and FMS has the model.

i find FMS to be a tool for newbies to find how to fly, orentation, stick control ect, not how a unknown type of plane flys, its good for learning the basics, but it dosnt demonstrate acurate flight dynamics, it has no side area for one, hard to prophang, well, its easy, but very unrealistic. the helis seam better.

Absolutely! And that's what we've been using it for a lot! A lot of stick time on FMS for the new pilot, and a lot of the general directional orientation is already done once he makes it out to the field. I also find that landing on FMS is actually harder than real life, so if a new pilot can grease FMS landings, he is WAY ahead of the game when out at the field. The basic download of FMS includes the Pitts, and it's a blast to fly, but I would have no idea how real it is because I've never flown a Pitts.

The best advice is to download it and try! It's free, and if you don't like it, your not out a dime!

Get it here:

http://n.ethz.ch/student/mmoeller/fms/index_e.html

http://www.interq.or.jp/sun/cyber/fms_aircraft_e.html
welcome to 100's of new planes.

Tattoo: i just went to that page of S.P.A.D planes for FMS and got them all, will unzip and fly later.
Let me know when the ospreys done, that swept wing looks a blast!


on orentation...., i've been using it while learning to hang, will now learn to torque roll. also been getting the nerve for low level fast flight, theres a big mustang thats FAN-TAS-TIC for this.
still fun to play with files and give your self 200N of thrust and go mad

I loved the FMS for training my oldest son to fly he began with a slow flier and then moved up to faster planes he is now able to land many of them down the runway. He now flies my IFO like a champ. He will soon solo the 40 size Tiger Trainer I have been using to train him. His little brother is next. Has any one seen an IFO for FMS?

there are 3, i have 2 of them i think. you can find them by using the links above and searching those sites

There is a Buckman you download and my flying buddy who flies a Buckman says the FMS version flies just like the real thing.

One observation on realism... as a group, I and a couple of other many-planed guys I know demonstrate something interesting about realistic flight characteristics...

If we all have the same plane, mine will always weigh least, accelerate and manuever best with the recommended power plant, and land easiest... Flyer-R's plane will always have the median weight, the biggest engine, the wildest flying characteristics, and the most aerobatic capability... and Flyer-S's plane will always be the heaviest, the slowest to accelerate, and arguably the best suited for inexperienced flyers.

If you flew an exact simulation of any of these airplanes after flying any other of the airplanes, you would say the simulation's performance is unrealiststic -- and you'd be right, sorta. That means that a perfect simulation of the plane one guy flies can be a really bad simulation of the next guy's plane of the same type. So unless the simulation does a remarkable BAD job, it's really hard to say that it's any more or less realistic than any other (at least as far as simulating flying behavior goes).

I agree. Every plane is diffrent and the small changes that can be made are endless.

Al,

IMHO, weakness of FMS flight model is not related to a wide variety of the flying objects. It's not even about the sloppy PAR files (there are so many beautiful planes, which have unrealistic parameters listed in PAR file). The main weakness of FMS flight model is its linear nature. Look at PAR file--the scope of aerodynamic parameters listed there suggests that the flight time integration is linear. This inevitably leads to inability of modeling high-angle-of-attack modes. Look how FMS planes behave when you throttle back: the most they can do is to turn down and dive. I doubt that any 3D maneuvers are possible at all.

I would agree that full non-linear time integration (which accounts for the non-linearity of aerodynamic forces vs. the angle of attack and Re numbers, as well as non-linear integration of the differential equation of motion, let alone in-flight vibration and flow separation analysis) is too computationally demanding to implement on PCs. But other R/C sims do some clever tricks to improve the flight modeling! I wonder if there are any publications on this subject (they should be as long as NASA crowd continues to spend tons of taxpayers’ money). Too bad the flight model implementations of particular flight sims are the trade secrets of their developers…

Just my $.02 worth,
Boris
(totaling 10 years in Aerospace education--I must had nothing better to do then!)

From that viewpoint, I gotta agree. (I hope that doesn't mean I'm contradicting myself, but the real esoterica of flight wasn't what I was really focusing on -- more the utility of the simulator as a lower level training tool).

I like having new guys use the current sims for what they're good for, but boy would I love to work on getting some better technology into all of them (uh, the simulators, not the newbies). Maybe it's an idea for an unsolicited proposal to our friends at NASA.,

there was a flight sim called CSM that was very acurate in how it flew, but anytime you did something wild it would crash.
Prop thrust seams to do nothing in FMS and you cant do any 3D, you can however knife edge ( somestimes ) and if you get it right you can loose a wingtip in the runway

How do you create a plane for FMS? is there a program for it or do you just alter some files or what?

follow those links i gave you for new planes, you will eventually find a builder, i've not done it myself tho