Pitts / Fixed Wing Flight Model Review

  • Oh, definitely. Knifeedge you can not hold for long in 90 deg. Yes, the fuselage give some lift. But really not enough to hold it.

    In airshows they are not 90degree if they do long knife edge flights. And in competition you will not be long in knife edge, for example in a four point roll. Good judges are trained to see the difference.

    Wish for Aerofly FS 2/4:

    - Flightpath recording on hard drive and replay in sim from different view points

    - Smoke for aerobatic planes

    - Multiplayer or at least watching other people flying sitting on ground or inside tower

  • "... P-Factor which can also be modeled with the AeroPropeller class using its .LateralDragCoefficient, .LateralForceCoefficient, .SideThrust and .DownThrust attributes."

    That would be me but it's only part of what you call p-factor. There is no physical p-factor as such, there are individual components that play together.

    The lateral drag and force coefficient are useful for knife edge flight.

    For the p-factor use the prop-wash rotation like you did on the vertical stabilizer but also try the wings..

    if you increase the propwash percentage it might help during knife edge... the rotation is just the twist, that doesn't help much at high speeds.

    The frequency of the gear is affected by the mass of the gear and the joint spring force constants. Search for JointFuselageLeftGear or something like that and you should find K and D values that you can change to weaken the gear and make it less stiff.

  • Great stuff all! I’m new to sims, and VR, but have done tailwheel and aerobatic training in the Pitts, and did my helicopter ratings in the R-22. I bought Aerofly FS specifically for realistic training in the PItss and R-22. It’s very impressive to say the least and the original post here is spot on. I’d love to hear if most of this was adjusted or if not, maybe get some tips on how to get mine close to real feel. I am using a proflight Puma helicopter flight controls. Any sensitivity adjustment instructions for the pitts would be welcome!

    Also, is there no ball/slip indicator in the Aerofly FS2 Pitts?

    Edited once, last by MaxxAwesome (May 22, 2022 at 11:53 PM).

  • Great stuff all! I’m new to sims, and VR, but have done tailwheel and aerobatic training in the Pitts, and did my helicopter ratings in the R-22. I bought Aerofly FS specifically for realistic training in the PItss and R-22. It’s very impressive to say the least and the original post here is spot on. I’d love to hear if most of this was adjusted or if not, maybe get some tips on how to get mine close to real feel. I am using a proflight Puma helicopter flight controls. Any sensitivity adjustment instructions for the pitts would be welcome!

    Also, is there no ball/slip indicator in the Aerofly FS2 Pitts?

    I haven't flown a Pitts, but I have lots of tailwheel and aerobatic time in Decathlons and a few others (a little bit of competition too), and I own a fully inverted RV-7 that I built myself. I find the Pitts, Jungmeister and Extra in Aerofly FS2 in VR to be the best available tools on PC to practice aerobatics with. Balls aren't too useful for competition aerobatics IRL, as "coordinated" in comp aero means the airplane is doing what it's supposed to do, rather than ball center. And if using a ball to coordinate turns inverted you would need an inverted inclinometer. Better to develop the feel. 'course there's no feel in the sim, but you can "coordinate" by watching the nose slew (or not) rolling into our out of turns, upright or inverted as you would IRL. Cheers to you for taking that training. No doubt you are better for it. I hope they keep the excellent flight models in the next version. As for hardware, I'm using a Warthog HOTAS setup, with rudder pedals (of course). But I have replaced the stick base with a Virpil base. Much more precise than the Thrustmaster base. I have used the Virpil setup software to program a very slight curve in the XY axes to desensitize the stick just a little bit around neutral. Best tool I have to practice with outside my real aerobatic RV-7. Now, if we could talk IPACS into including an RV-7 in the next version...

  • I haven't flown a Pitts, but I have lots of tailwheel and aerobatic time in Decathlons and a few others (a little bit of competition too), and I own a fully inverted RV-7 that I built myself. I find the Pitts, Jungmeister and Extra in Aerofly FS2 in VR to be the best available tools on PC to practice aerobatics with. Balls aren't too useful for competition aerobatics IRL, as "coordinated" in comp aero means the airplane is doing what it's supposed to do, rather than ball center. And if using a ball to coordinate turns inverted you would need an inverted inclinometer. Better to develop the feel. 'course there's no feel in the sim, but you can "coordinate" by watching the nose slew (or not) rolling into our out of turns, upright or inverted as you would IRL. Cheers to you for taking that training. No doubt you are better for it. I hope they keep the excellent flight models in the next version. As for hardware, I'm using a Warthog HOTAS setup, with rudder pedals (of course). But I have replaced the stick base with a Virpil base. Much more precise than the Thrustmaster base. I have used the Virpil setup software to program a very slight curve in the XY axes to desensitize the stick just a little bit around neutral. Best tool I have to practice with outside my real aerobatic RV-7. Now, if we could talk IPACS into including an RV-7 in the next version...

    Hey, so we are already two, is that enough? :D

    I have a similar background as you and agree with all you said. I haven't built an RV but fly an RV-4 in competition and have flown the -6 and -7, too. I have tried an MSFS RV-14 Addon and the flightmodel is just awful. The Aerofly flightmodel is still the best in all consumer flightsims.

    Regards,

    Martin

  • Thanks for the replies. I’m figuring the Pitts out but I think the rudder goes full with barely any pressure. Makes a hammerhead very different than I’ve seen in real world. Mashing full pedal at the top to start it is way overkill Vs real. As for inclinometer, good point on not having one for inverted. Didn’t think of that. But when I briefly flew the pitts with Budd Davisson he was pretty loud about keeping the ball centered for our pattern work. It does seem like stepping on the high side of the compass sort of works