I personaly believe this game needs significantly better aerodynamic simulation.
Now, I understand the argument against this- the game would become a lot less of "Simple Planes," But I think it would make the game much, much better.
Things that are missing:
Number one, my biggest gripe:
STALLS: Planes cannot currently stall. They can lose lift in the wing, but airflow separation is not in any way modeled. This is a very important and rather basic part of airplane flight. There is currently no way to put a stable plane into a spin, which is really frustrating as an aviation enthusiast. You cannot stall a plane by pitching up to fast and separating the laminar flow from your upper wing surface.
Stalls are one of the most important parts of aircraft flight, and their lack of modeling, while understandable, is very frustrating.
Second, less important:
Area ruling: transonic flight is in no way modeled. It would be really cool to see this in the game, although it would make advanced jets much harder to create.
third:
Engine Torque
Yeah, this will make flying planes a lot more difficult, especially for mouse users, but it is another important part of propeller aircraft flight.
I understand not wanting to model transonic compression and advanced area ruling, but the lack of stalls makes the planes fly very funky. They feel, to me, very un-planelike.
@ChiChiWerx I must politely disagree. What would be required would for every single wing piece on your plane to have a few new characteristics to them. they would need a critical angle of attack, and something to tell them how to act when stalled. i am not asking for interaction between multiple wings- you need a beefy computer for that. This is not something specific to the unity engine or anything like that- it would simply be a new script or a handful of modules to an existing class.
Now that you mention unity, I am tempted to make a game of my own or mess around with the mod dev kit. I know a lot about planes, bu not very much about coding and the unity engine.
@PositiveAnion I understand how it works. There are ways of using airbrakes at 90° angles that I have found that will initiate a stall.
Yes, agree with all the points you make. But let me ramble and muse: I believe SP "physics" is a result of the Unity(?) engine, which is the platform on which SP operates...it really just emulates how a wing, based on wing area, angle of attack and speed, should react. It does not model the actual airflow, so it's impossible for two surfaces (such as an F-104 t-tail being "masked" by the wing at high AoA) to interact. It's almost as if the builds are flying in a vacuum, just reacting as they should be. It's a simplistic model and it lacks a bit...but, to put it on another platform would probably be really difficult, time-consuming and expensive (for the Devs). Plus, not sure you could carry it around on your iPhone...which is a huge part of SP's original vision. Anyhow, as for stalls, yeah, you can make the wing "stall" by flying slowly, but it's not really based on AoA. The nose of your airplane will "stutter" through the air if you demand too much and I've put aircraft out of control, if not in true spins, plenty of times. Sooo...not sure how much could be gained by the Devs by migrating to another engine.
@MaximusTheMinimus @marcox43 Indeed, you can lose lift by going too slow, but this is not the same as how stall work IRL. I advise you look up the aerodynamic forces behind it.
@PositiveAnion I stalled an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet over the USS Beast on a failed landing just by flying to slow. It was kind of nose heavy. ( a lot )
@PositiveAnion I have stalled my cessna skyhawk 172 while banking
In real life, you can stall an aerodynamically stable aircraft. any wing surface is capable of stalling; a stall occurs when the air on the top of the wing becomes turbulent too far forward, causing a loss of lift and an increase in drag. a plane does not have to be tail heavy.
I too have "stalled" planes and gotten in spins, but these were caused by poor fuel distribution causing the plane to become tail heavy in flight, not because it is modeled in game.
Stall physics aren't very accurate but you can stall. If you give your plane large pitch surfaces and make it tail heavy you can stall it by pitching too hard.
True, I can put a plane into a stalled tailspin. @MechWARRIOR57
accually you can stall