Thoughts on Phoenix Simulator

[ChrisE]

I own the Phoenix simulator & I must say that I am most impressed. The flight models seem good and the visuals are lovely. I am also very impressed that I have updated to 5.x and that I now have waterplanes etc. There are one or two issues however.

1. The seaplanes start on land. The beaver does not like to move at all - although eventually it does reach the water where it is fine - and at the pondside the Grumann desperately wants to run into your legs and seems very nose tipping prone everywhere. Lovely model to fly however.

2. Is there any chance of the aircraft design tool appearing anytime soon. I get the impression that the sim is developed by helo flyers. They like repainting their helos & there must be virtually every type of helo model available - I am just waiting for the Chinook. A repainting kit appeared. For fixed wing flyers things are less good. Whereas there are relatively few different model helos made there are many thousands of different model fixed wing aircraft. It is thus, I think, the fixed wing flyers who would benefit most from being able to design, & distribute, their own models. No model design programme has appeared. This is what I mean by my feeling the sim is developed by helo flyers with the interests of helo flyers paramount.

3. I note that since July last year, & excluding the new water craft category, there has been ONE new fixed wing model & TWELVE helicopters. It isn't as though there wern't a lot of helo before. Further proof of the helicopter bias.

[VinceHaworth]

hi Chris,
I also own the Phoenix sim and I agree with your comments. It is a real shame that gliders are poorly represented too - only 3 in the sim and no glider sites to fly from.

I do fly the helicopters and its great fun but more emphasis on fixed wing would be appreciated by many. The phoenix sim has great potential to be the best.

It would be great to also include some 'training competitions' similar to the BMFA scheme (UK).

[guest_jo]

Does phoenix enable users to create their own planes ?

[nemo_uk]

Does phoenix enable users to create their own planes ?

not yet?? it and FS ONE are they only ones that do not :confused:

[slipstick]

Does phoenix enable users to create their own planes ?
No, that's what the "aircraft design tool" that Chris mentioned would be for.

In October 2006 we were told that they "were busy developing it and it will be released soon". I decided to buy Phoenix just as soon as it was available.....and 18 months later it still hasn't turned up, which has saved me some money ;).

I think Chris is probably right it's the sort of thing which is most useful for fixed wing fliers and Phoenix is basically a heli sim with fixed wings just tucked in there as an afterthought. Shame :(.

Steve

[Stan Peterson]

Chris, you can change the starting pos of the model by pressing CONTROL + P to cycle through the available positions - so when you're flying a watercraft you can make it start on the water easily by doing this.

You can also use the simulation > setup menu to change the start position.

I had an email off them a few days ago that suggested a MAJOR fixed-wing update was coming up which would also add a load more models and support for dynamic and slope soaring gliders.

[ChrisE]

Stan,

Thanks for the model positioning info - I had actually found it but it does seem to be a problem specifically of the pond where whatever I fly wants, on standard position, to run into my legs unless I stop it. The Grumann is particularily difficult to stop.

I am delighted to hear about the major fixed wing upgrade. There are a lot more fixed wing flyers than rotary so it must make commercial sense. I hope that it arrives.

BUT where is the model designer that I was promised as part of my buying decision?

Chris

[bilboa]

Stan,

Thanks for the model positioning info - I had actually found it but it does seem to be a problem specifically of the pond where whatever I fly wants, on standard position, to run into my legs unless I stop it. The Grumann is particularily difficult to stop.


Not sure I understand. Are you starting Phoenix with the throttle already advanced, so that the model immediately starts moving? Or is the problem that the model starts out pointing at you? If the latter, you can use Ctrl-O to cycle through various starting orientations.


BUT where is the model designer that I was promised as part of my buying decision?


Look on the Downloads page on Phoenix's website for Phoenix Creator. It doesn't let you create completely new models, but it lets you repaint existing models, which I suspect is close enough for many people.

[Stan Peterson]

To be honest I'd rather just have the official models - they're free and they all fly accurately - rather than having to sift through 10,000 third-party models most of which look and fly pretty badly.

I have used the PhoenixCreator paint package and its actually pretty good.

[ChrisE]

Um. If what you want is a Playboy senior a repainted shockflyer doesn't really do it. There is virtually nothing for indoor type models (other than a shockfler type model), nothing for the pylon type guys & if you are into scale a repainted B17 is hardly a Lancaster nor a Hawk a F15 or Lightning etc etc . The flight model thing is not an issue as you can already tailor it to suit. I just wish that I could make the models look something like what I want to fly. The graphics are so central to these simulators that it does matter.

Personally all the boom & pod helicopters look so much alike to me I could see one model, a repaint kit, and a few different flight models would cover them all. But there seem to be dozens of them.

Try the Grumann at the pondside using the standard positioning. Firstly it is very hard to get it moving without it wanting to raise its tail first & secondly unless you do something drastic it runs into your legs & resets as a crash. I can get around both but it isn't user friendly & the tail issue is just plain wrong.

I have contacted Phoenix & they confirm a major fixed wing revision with new models & developers is on its way. My concerns may be answered.

[bilboa]

Hi ChrisE,

I agree with you that Phoenix Creator isn't really a substitute for a for a complete model creator such as what RealFlight has. Personally I don't care, since I don't find it very important to practice in the sim on a model which looks like my own. I'd much rather spend my free time building a new real model than building a new sim model, so I've never touched RealFlight's model creator anyway. But, I understand that some people care more, and Phoenix Creator isn't going to cut it for those people.


Try the Grumann at the pondside using the standard positioning. Firstly it is very hard to get it moving without it wanting to raise its tail first & secondly unless you do something drastic it runs into your legs & resets as a crash. I can get around both but it isn't user friendly & the tail issue is just plain wrong.


I'm still not sure what you mean by "standard positioning". You can use Ctrl-P to change the start position, and Ctrl-O to change the start orientation, so there should be no reason to start with the model pointing at you so that it runs into you when you give it power. Just hit Ctrl-O until it's pointing away from you in the direction you want, and it'll keep using that new orientation every time the model resets. It would be nice if Phoenix chose a more intelligent initial orientation default for planes though, like making it so the plane is pointing away from you, but it's really no big deal since you can just hit Ctrl-O to point it away from you and it remembers your choice after that.

As for raising its tail, I believe that's realistic behavior for a float plane. If you hold some up elevator until it picks up speed it should be fine. I will make the disclaimer though that I've only read about water takeoff techniques and haven't tried it myself, but from what I've read that's how a seaplane will normally behave.

[Heather]

I have found the fixed wing models a bit too easy to fly. For example pick a tail dragger warbird and try to tip it up on its nose on takeoff. I could not get it to do it, yet in real life its a skill to learn how to not do it. Also I noticed that the warbirds did not need any rudder input on there takeoff run, not very realistic.

On the postive side the models are rendered very nicely and are very easy to see and track. However I feel that Ikarus Areofly pro is more accurate in its flight characteristics (The only other SIM I have).

Heather

[ChrisE]

Hi ChrisE,

As for raising its tail, I believe that's realistic behavior for a float plane. If you hold some up elevator until it picks up speed it should be fine. I will make the disclaimer though that I've only read about water takeoff techniques and haven't tried it myself, but from what I've read that's how a seaplane will normally behave.


I am assuming you have tried the Grumann from land as well as water? I have flown model tail draggers for years & have time in full sized tail draggers as well. (DC3, Rapide, Pitts, Cub & Chipmunk but no seaplanes). I am well aware of the need to feed in throttle slowly & to hold up elevator until some speed is achieved & the tailplane is ready to fly. That is not what is happening here. I would say that this is that the pivot point on the undercarriage is too far back and thus with the high mounted engines/ thrust line as soon as you rev up the engines the model wants to lift its tail/ dip its nose rather than start moving forward. No full size aircraft could surely have behaved, to this extent, like this. As I have said I can fly this model & once moving it is perhaps the nicest model in the sim. It is just this ground handling issue. It might be correctable using the model set up but I don't know how.

[archiebald]

Chris,
All you have to do is slightly reduce the "frontal gear friction" in the edit aircraft dialog, the plane will now start moving more easily without tipping.

In any case the sim is not modelling a full sized aircraft, the effect of ground friction, especially on uneven sufaces such as the mud flats will definitely be far greater on a model.

Heather,
I can easily tip up the Spitfire when taxiing (on standard parameters)

[ChrisE]

Archiebald

Yes setting the frontal gear friction to .004 rather than .005 has made all the difference. Makes you wonder why it wasn't set that way in the first place.

I realise that this is a model simulator and not FSX but a scale model that cannot be persuaded to fly , in appearance at least, like the full size is not a good scale model. That is what the judges tell me anyway!

Thanks again for the help. I must get into the settings more fully.

[srl]

I love the network feature, but since the J-update it has been near dead.
Anyone know anything about it ?
Flying with other guys adds some show off to your practice.
srl

[ptuxbury]

Does anybody have any more details on the updates suggested in this thread? I love the sim for helis, but I haven't been flying helis this year so it has gone untouched on my PC for a couple months now. I'm hanging onto it in hopes of some fixed wing updates, but I haven't seen anything significant in quite a while now.

I bought a used copy of AFPD in the meantime, which feels more real to me for the planes (for the time being).