is the new aero model exactly realistiic?

[boxley]

ive always played with far, which i assumed was really realistic, but i always hated how difficult braking and landing was , have to come in at 130 m/s and try to land without lifting again and end up stalling out.

but this is way easier, made a nice fighter jet and it can glide at 50m/s before a gentle drop onto its gears and landjng, is this realistic?

[Bedwyr]

I apologize, but do you mind too terribly if I piggyback with a related question? It might help support your question too.

Something just struck me about realism. For the new aerodynamics and the old FAR, does the Whitcomb area rule apply for this level of simulation?

[woosy]

No. I tried the stock plane D45, take off, then keep it flying at about 200m, maximum throttle. After reaching 800m/s at about sea level(already insane), the accelrating is almost unstoppable, when 896m/s hitted, boom. Then I tired to fly higher. 4000m, 896, boom; 19000m, 900+,boom. How could this be possilbe!!!!

[Sasquatch_Punter]

It's a compromise between realistic and fun. The drag system is pretty realistic AFAIK.

[Kerbart]

Microsoft's flightsim used a parameterized model that felt fairly accurate.

X-plane on the other hand used an aerodynamic model that felt pretty wonky at times. (*dons flame-resistant suit for X-plane fans*).

Still, X-plane was a dedicated flightsim where planes are constructed with customized geometry, fine tuned for each specific model.

KSP is a rocket simulator where planes are put together like lego-models. The question is not "how realistic is it," but "what do you expect from something that is 'realistic'"

I expect that the goal is to have a model that aligns with what the average player intuitively understands as reality (which not necessarily is reality). Anything slightly more advanced than that is wishful thinking.

[Emilio]

Still, X-plane was a dedicated flightsim where planes are constructed with customized geometry, fine tuned for each specific model.

KSP is a rocket simulator where planes are put together like lego-models. The question is not "how realistic is it," but "what do you expect from something that is 'realistic'"

This exactly. Dedicated flight sims can work on one specific airframe and have it working like its real counterpart. Since KSP is about being as creative as you can, you can't expect the same level of accuracy, especially if the system is based on part stats (a more viable approach would be what nuFAR is doing, making its calculations based on the whole fuselage).

But as far as I'm concerned Squad has done an amazing job on the new modeling. Being able to actually stall is a huge improvement (Well if I thought I'd ever say that sentence...).

[SkyRender]

The whole "go boom over 900m/s" problem is actually because the heating system is borked right now. It's factoring atmospheric heat generation completely wrong, failing to account for just about everything that an atmosphere does when shock heating is generated. Basically, it's generating the same level of heat at any given increasing speed regardless of atmospheric density.

[Old Foxboy]

Just for your information: multiply m/s speeds by 2 and you roughly got knots. (well, exactly 3.6/1.852, which would be 1.94).

So a touchdown at 50 m/s resembles a touchdown at 100 knots, which is quite realistic for a faster aircraft. Fighters or large Jets touch down at 150-160 knots, and a Cessna might get as slow as 40-50 knots.

However, the Kerbal Spaceplanes still tend to glide too well IMHO. I guess the wings don't have induced drag calculated (drag induced by air streaming around the edges of the wings and creating those huge turbulences behind heavy Airliners). That's the reason planes don't seem to slow down below 150 m/s very well. There also still seems to be no difference between straight and swept wings.

And yes: The low altitude acceleration is "a bit" exaggerated.

All in all not bad for a Lego Game.

[Curveball Anders]

As an old fart with experience from most flight sims from that last 20 years I mainly use one test to judge the 'reality' of a flight model.

And it's 'snap roll'.

Take any aircraft close to it's stall, and step on the rudder.

If it's a reasonably realistic model then the sudden yaw will yank the inward wing into a stall, and the aircraft will roll into the yaw.

If the model is almost good (or you've miscalculated the stall), then the aircraft will sideslip and roll against the yaw.

If the model is bad, the aircraft will just yaw.

(If the model is really bad, the aircraft will yaw, even when parked.)

[NathanKell]

1. Going by the lift curves in physics.cfg, it appears that at low mach numbers all wings are treated as unswept, high aspect-ratio wings (i.e. glider wings) whereas at high mach all wings are treated as low-aspect, highly-swept wings. That means KSP doesn't need to try to figure out wing sweep or aspect ratio, all it needs is wing area. The upshot is that your stall speeds for "fast-looking" planes will be way, way, way lower than in real life, and gliders will have no trouble going fast.

2. neither stock nor oldFAR accounts for area ruling. The new voxel-based FAR does however.

[TimePeriod]

I would rather have forgivingly realistic then painful realistic.

[Bedwyr]

1. Going by the lift curves in physics.cfg, it appears that at low mach numbers all wings are treated as unswept, high aspect-ratio wings (i.e. glider wings) whereas at high mach all wings are treated as low-aspect, highly-swept wings. That means KSP doesn't need to try to figure out wing sweep or aspect ratio, all it needs is wing area. The upshot is that your stall speeds for "fast-looking" planes will be way, way, way lower than in real life, and gliders will have no trouble going fast.

2. neither stock nor oldFAR accounts for area ruling. The new voxel-based FAR does however.

Gotcha. I'd seen the new screenshots for nuFAR and it looks pretty dang cool. Area Rule gives me a quick mental frame of reference for what to expect from the systems and is in no way a dig or complaint.

[Hcube]

The roll is CRAZY in the new aero. Uncontrollable.