Some test results on rudder response in FS2020

[DHenriques_]

Thanks, MarcE. Your description exactly describes something I had been experiencing. I guess I just did not think of it as part of the fight model per se, but I should have. Nonetheless, Dudley's settings have cured the problem for me.

Wayne

I‘ll try his settings too, I have the MFG Crosswind pedals but they don‘t work differently either so it should help too.

One additional factor I failed to mention. My setting changes do help but along with the changes your technique (the manner in which you use force on the pedals) needs to be refined a bit. Make a special effort to be GENTLE and subtle in the way you apply pressure to the pedals, just as you would do in the real airplane BTW.
The flight model is still not perfect by any means but reducing the settings to the levels I stated AND paying some added attention to the pressure you apply to the pedals should add together to give users a marked improvement to the yaw sensitivity issue.
Hopefully Asobo will continue to address this problem by making more changes to the sensitivity curve code.
Dudley Henriques

[MkIV Hvd]

Yes they are indeed negative. I missed that when I posted. Thank you.
DH

No worries Dudley, thanks for the confirmation!

Cheers,
Rob

[Mustang]

Wayne,

If I understand your question correctly then the big problem is the situation that they switch from the taxi behaviour to flight behaviour at some speed during the takeoff run. The rudder authority suddenly decreases extremely abd the nose veers violently into the wind. And then in flight there is absolutely no adverse yaw. So you basically use the rudder to steer, then keep it on the runway with minimum input until rhe airplane at some point suddenly turns its nose. Depending on the rudder settings this is hardly controllable.

I saw in one of the developer Q&A sessions that the crosswind component is reduced to zero at low speeds to avoid issues with weathervaning on the ground. That was a conscious choice because their tyre ground friction model needs improving. The crosswind slowly ramps up to the true value as you pick up speed, reaching 100% by the time you reach 50kts or so, if I recall.

That likely explains some of the 'weird' behaviour you see during the initial ground roll. There's no 'switch' from taxi model to flight model though. The flight model is active at all times (i.e. forces acting on surfaces), they just fudged the wind for now to allow you to taxi well enough at low speeds on windy days.

That said, I quite like the ground handling and friction as it stands. Not perfect, but far greater than default FSX where aircraft seem to slide around and don't really exhibit any grip or 'bite' from the wheels when they first touch the ground, especially in crosswinds.

The issues I do have with the flight model are the huge amounts of engine power needed in most aircraft to maintain slow flight when on the 'wrong side' of the drag curve (near full-power when on final approach at times!), and the fact most aircraft seem to be able to fly well below stall speeds in the landing configuration and can be slow to touch down. The yaw controls are far too twitchy out of the box for sure and reducing sensitivity it is a must as per this thread!

[cristi.neagu]

I saw in one of the developer Q&A sessions that the crosswind component is reduced to zero at low speeds to avoid issues with weathervaning on the ground. That was a conscious choice because their tyre ground friction model needs improving. The crosswind slowly ramps up to the true value as you pick up speed, reaching 100% by the time you reach 50kts or so, if I recall.

Begs the question of why did they not fix the problem, and instead chose to create new problems... Based on info coming from people who are more in the know about what's happening under the hood, it seems like this is a recurring theme with Asobo.

That said, I quite like the ground handling and friction as it stands. Not perfect, but far greater than default FSX where aircraft seem to slide around and don't really exhibit any grip or 'bite' from the wheels when they first touch the ground, especially in crosswinds.

Weird. That's the opposite of what I found. Planes in FS2020 are incredibly hard to keep going down the runway, both during take off and landing. It's like the tyres have absolutely no grip at all. I tried doing the DA62 landing challenge in Scotland (or in Shetland) and it was absolutely impossible because i could not keep the plane on the runway due to very low tyre grip and ridiculous weathervaning, even more severe than when in air.

[Mustang]

Well, I'm in no doubts that their intentions are good but it's a hugely complex undertaking and I expect that they did not have the time to attend to every aspect of the flight model, so leaving the 'complex' ground friction model until another day, they had to put in a workaround. It's a question of priorities. They won't be the first developers to have done so and won't be the last. I'm not here to defend the developers, but all products are a compromise of different demands, much like the design of aircraft themselves. I am grateful they are quite open about it and working to improve it. Sure, the community is impatient and a month is like a lifetime to many, but it's a hugely complex program with dozens of separate branches of code.

Look at all the flight model features that were added later to X-Plane 11 during its lifetime. You could equally ask why they weren't added in right from the beginning. Everything takes time, research, testing. Yes, they could get outside help but again, it's all a balance. It's easy to judge from the outside where everything seems to simple to us users.

To the weathervaning, yes I agree it's very strong on the ground at times, not helped by rudder sensitivity issues. But in a mild crosswind at those times when it does seem to behave, the aircraft at least seem to change direction on contact with the ground (if you don't kick out the slip). FSX always felt like landing on ice on the other hand. But everyone experiences things differently. For me, FSX aircraft feel like they stop moving through air at the moment they touch the ground. There's no bounce in the undercarriage, no tendency for a wing to pick up or anything. At least in MSFS I feel that I am moving through a dynamic, fluid air mass, even though there are some obvious issues to solve. Overall, the good outweighs the bad, but we all have different demands from our simulators too.

[Oracle427]

One thing I find really strange about the MSFS 2020 ground handling physics being discussed here is that MS Flight pretty much nailed it. I wonder what happened to that code?

[jsbrewster1]

Hi!

I applied your settings to my Thrustmaster pedals, and with a bit of tweaking they worked so much better than I had before. The one setting I had to change significantly was the Reactivity, 15% wouldn't really let me steer on the ground at all, I have it at 40% and everything seems to work well, still have to use differential braking a bit, but I had to use that for my old crappy settings as well. Thank you for the setup!

[Dogsbody55]

Thanks for the suggested rudder settings, Dudley. I've given them a try and the only problem I have with them is immediately after touch down in a crosswind. The plane is all over the place, but perhaps I just need more practice in the sim. Ground handling is definitely a problem in this sim, so some practice and perhaps some tweaking of the settings may help. I'm using the Saitek/Logitek rudder pedals, and flying the Just Flight Turbo Arrow which has a good flight model and is a joy to fly. I trained on a PA-28-161 IRL and this is very true to that, if a little heavier in feel and a good deal more powerful. I don't fly the stock offerings at all now, as the Turbo Arrow has become my go to plane. It's performance at higher altitudes make flying over mountains so much better and I'll probably use it even after A2A release the Comanche. Which has me wondering what an A2A Turbo Arrow would be like .


Cheers,
Mike

[cristi.neagu]

the only problem I have with them is immediately after touch down in a crosswind. The plane is all over the place, but perhaps I just need more practice in the sim.

It's not a problem of practice. That is a long standing issue with FS2020, one that a lot of people have pointed out. I have yet to see any indication that the devs even acknowledge this problem. They are working on improving the rudder dynamics in the 172, but since they're doing that up in the air and not on the ground indicates to me that they haven't really understood what the problem is.

[Dreamsofwings]

These are great settings Dudley. Have resolved the irritation level at a particular aircraft that behaved skittishly on the ground. This feels so much more realistically and the aircraft has ground handling less similar to a wonky wheeled wooden crate go-kart! Many thank thanks for posting this up. Just wish I had found it sooner.