I've updated the ticket title. Please make sure to use descriptive titles in the future.

Can we vote this up?

Upvoted.

Only your first point I want to add that this is partially because use are using a joystick (W/S for turning). I use mouse and keyboard and can make quite sharp turns with mouse steering and I do not lose a lot of speed then. Only if I roll on the side and press W/S to turn I will lose a lot of speed.

Cant believe this has not been addressed. Just tried flyting and it feels horrid.

I stopped playing since the game officially came out just because while in beta I thought a lot of the things were place holders, however the game is just sooo disappointing because of some decision making processes that take place at BI.

Plane physics, chopper physics, Action menu. Seriously, this was fine 10 years ago, but have you guys not seen better ways of doing it? I even saw people make some minor mods to action by looking. I,E, Battle field and any other game from the 20th century.

Sorry for the BLOG! Had to vent. :D

oO whut maybe you don't know how to fly a plane :/

The only plane you have available to you at the moment is a L-159 ALCA (A-143 Buzzard In Game) The craft is a single/two seat trainer with a medium power sub sonic engine. You cannot attempt to do serious High G maneuvers in it, due to the fact you WILL stall out, just like i real life. It is not a fighter. Don't treat it like one. Although, i do agree, over all, the flight models do need improvements over their Arma 2 counter parts. In terms of realism anyway. I prefer realistic flight over Arcade like performance. +1 Vote.

The development branch contains the auto rudder removed for player driven aircraft now. I'd say that's a nice improvement on fixed wing aircraft!

Auto-Rudder gone! YA!
I'm not expecting FSX, but its getting better.

BUT now A-143 won't move across the ground, any ground!

Find your friends to vote up this topic. Aircraft have just a very bad physX !

Close formation flight are more difficult because Aircraft piloting skill needed is closer to star wars than FSX !

More over, the maximum altitude is so bad created. At 10k m with the f-18 or 5k meters with the aircraft into arma 3, all of you control are blocked !

Please BI, improve the air physX it is just chaotique and the game could be really better in the Air if it was corrected !

Add : You can already taxi at around 25 km/h put you need a very precise throttle :s.

I'm not sure that all informations should be in helmet because it is only in very few aircraft in the world.

@izaiak

In 2035, there will probably be a decent number of these aircraft in service.

4. should also prevent players without the helmet from having the HUD (when it is only available on the helmet in real life).

The L-159 (A-143 in-game) has the HUD on the glass thingy, not on the helmet.

Not sure how realistic this would be, but maybe if it could be implemented as a revision to the the already existing aircraft. If it isn't, I suppose it should be left as it is currently.

I'd add:

A) The white cross-hair doesn't align with the one on the aircraft's HUD

B) The white circle for the bomb is useless, the indicator on the aircraft's HUD should be used.

C) Add failure points for engines, instruments, navigation, etc. Currently it's just HULL. Usually, engines are the first to get hit by anything.

D) It's not a car. Let us control engine power/thrust instead of speed/acceleration directly.

E) While taking off, the plane veers to the right.

D) No night mode? We're flying blind at night. Even if there isn't a night mode, at least make it possible to viably fly/attack/land at night.

E) Need a proper radar for targeting, a map for navigation (A heads-down display or a working instrumentation panel would be nice), altimeter and a fuel readout.

F) Airspeed *should* be in knots.

G) Weapons should be locked before a certain altitude, especially on the ground.

H) Gear should automatically retract after a certain speed.

I) Afterburners don't seem to exist/i cant get them to work.

J) Aircraft controls should be completely separated from everything else, even at the cost of duplication.

K) Rain doesn't fall inside an open cockpit...though i'm not sure if this is actually worth the bother.

L) If you implement a heads-down display, bring the HUD closer to the screen (and hence make it larger, useful).

M) Almost forgot, airbreaks!

@SuicideKing : you speak about the L-39 in the game, try the F-18 also ( user creation but better than BI work for the moment).

A)B) you are right, it is not possible to fire fire on target with all weapon of the aircraft.

C) You mean in the game engine are always hit in first, or you mean IRL ?

Your both D) +1
E) It is not veering to the right for me =/
E) More realistic engagement yes. A real radar i think it is not possible actually in the game ( it is not lock-on or Falcon 4 BMS). But a more realistic radar range or missile range etc... WILL BE GREAT ! +1 for you.

Map navigation you have one, you have a watch it is enought for those little map =/
I'm not sure one map module would be great. There is a lot of thing to improve before ! But the idea is good.

F) Or not, depend of the aircraft would be better ! ( Russian in km/h, NATO in knots ).

G) I totally disagree with you. You request more realism and you request a noob thing. A safe mode (like on the F-18) Could be a good idea but NOT AN AUTOMATIC LOCK OF WEAPON BELLOW A CERTAIN ALTITUDE.

H) Same as G, you request more realism. So why are you saying that ??? it is so noob ! Do you think fighter pilot are in their A/C "i forget the train shirt ! Oh no it is an automatic retraction, easy ! " lol.

I) All aircraft don't have Afterburner ! The f-18 has. The l-39 not. => it is realistic !

J) What do you mean more precisely ?

K) ok. minor bug. but it is not good i agree.

L) the HUD is in good position ! it is just a FOV vision. Zoom and you will be able to read you HUD correctly. Zoom and you won't be able to do a good close formation flight ! SO i DISAGREE with you. Increase maybe the color between HUD and SKY to get a better visibility of information? Or sky color correction .

M) Again, all aircraft don't have air breaks, and they are in the game since arma 2 if you are IDLE.
So just, put a key to use air breaks ! :)

@DaveZember : You are right, i would mean, maybe the l-39 don't need one, but future fighter could !

1. Not enough thrust. Turning at full throttle will cause your plane to loose all your speed and you will fall. Maybe it should not be able (or pilot will not be able to handle) going hard turn at 700 km/h. However at 300 km/h any jet will be able to keep a steady speed, if not trying to accelerate while full throttle is applied.

Nothing wrong here, btw. This aircraft has very low T/W - it's not a fighter. Turning at max available G will bleed your energy at any speed.

@izaiak:

(I'm using F/A-18 Forea, a flight sim made by Graphics Simulations, 16 years ago, as a reference for most of this.

http://www.gamespot.com/f-a-18-korea/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcyXz9JmxBw

I think the youtube video should showcase most of what i'm trying to say)

C) Both, really. In the game as well, it's the engine that seems to take damage first, just that there's no separate stat for it, like in helicopters.

What i'm basically saying is, you could hit the engines without causing damage to the cockpit area, and missiles like the Sidewinder would target the engines.

You can't fly the aircraft with all engines down, but you could have a few holes in the hull or wings but still get home if your engine's ok.

E1) (sorry about two E's and D's!) I dunno, always happens. I place it on the start of the runway, increase the speed till it takes off...the plane keeps veering to the right, even after i correct it.

E2) I don't really like the idea of bringing up the map in flight (or while driving), as you can't really see what's happening. I mean...it's a bit jarring. Something like working on the desktop and bringing up the Metro UI...if i could bring that up without losing a sense of what's happening around the airplane, that would be better, imo. Again, see video.

F) Yup, both would do, i understand km/h better anyway :P

G) Ah i'm not sure I stated it correctly. For example, in F/A-18 Korea, if you were on the ground, you couldn't fire weapons, because hey, it's dangerous. In Arma 3, you can drop a bomb on the ground while you're on the ground. It'll explode and you'll kill yourself. Sort of illogical to allow it.

So weapons can't be armed unless you're off the ground, is one part of what i'm saying. The other is, even if you've got bombs armed, you shouldn't be allowed to drop them below a certain altitude (say, 200 feet, for example). Again, this is something from F/A-18 Korea, not a noob feature. Just logical safety. ;)

Aircraft might get caught in the blast, etc.

H) Again, not a noob thing. Taken from F/A-18 Korea. Actually, i'm not sure if it was altitude or airspeed that triggered that behaviour. Again, probably done so that the aerodynamics doesn't get messed up.

I) Didn't know that, i thought all jet fighters have it. Sorry!

J) I meant that there are a set of controls in Arma that are common to all situations, infantry, ground/marine vehicles, helicopters and aircraft.

I'd prefer some of them (if not all) to be duplicated again in the helicopters and aircraft section, since i've found i need to keep them different for both.

Something like the action menu, for example. For helicopters i may need the buttons near my right hand's thumb on my joystick, but for fighters i may want something else below my thumb.

I think this could be one of the quicker and easier things to implement.

L) Yeah buut zooming in sort of...yeah you can't see too much. Again, i'd prefer something like F/A-18 Korea. You had two modes, a fixed HUD ( the initial one that you see in the video) and the free-look one.

So i'm not necessarily saying "decrease FoV", just saying draw the HUD bigger, and make it something like F/A-18 Korea...but with free-look enabled.

True, more contrast b/w the HUD and sky will be nice, especially at night.

M) oooh i dunno about this, are you sure? I've seen airbreaks used in domestic commercial/passenger aircraft as well, while landing (or during the approach)...and again, the F/A-18 Hornet has them.

Didn't get the key part, i'm sorry. :/

We also need wheel brakes and airbrakes to be separate. I want to be able to lock my wheel brakes while I spool up to full throttle on the runway. Currently, if I hold the "brakes" key, my engine just slows down.
The aircraft also need SO much more thrust. The current computer fan thrust barely lets you make a gentle turn without stalling.

+1 with the demongod.

@SuicideKing : ok maybe it was a very good game ( i watched video ). But few things

G) IRL, yes there is safety but it is not with height but with speed. I still disagree with height safety. But ok for a safety with speed.

H) it is in the game ok but it is not realistic ! Like helicopter in the game nowadays , it is not realistic you can't control the gear.

j) +1

L) 2D cockpit is not good because radar fight are not real in ARMA =/
For close formation 2D cockpit is so horrible !
For VMC flight also.

GO check Falcon 4.0 BMS.

This is not because you saw few aircraft with, that mean all aircraft have ! :)
B

Vote here also ! http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=15960

Thank you for all the feedback. You may also check a dedicated thread on our forums http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?167067-Fixed-Wing-Flight-Model-%28dev-branch%29

We are aware that the flight simulation isn't perfect and is simplified. Honestly it has never been in the main focus in our game. However, despite the fact there's absolutely no chance to get it anywhere near the special dedicated products (DCS, X-Plane, MSFS, FG, Falcon 4.0, AeroflyFS...) neither are there plans to implement any 3rd party sim. solution, we'd still like to make flying an enjoyable and satisfying experience (not necessarily top-accurate, we simply don't have the manpower :/ ).

This goes mainly for the general flight physics impression and each aircraft's configuration. There are some limitations in the engine to the effect of flight control surfaces and the response has simplified simulation, but I believe something still can be done ;)

Could you please list what you find as the most painful issues?

(Please, try to somehow consider the impossibility of any drastic changes or the limitations we have in this (I am sorry about it). Also let's leave the IFR, HUD and electronic warfare (radar, homing, guidance, CM) out of focus for now.)

Thank you! (Hope I didn't disappoint you too much :/)

Wo ! it is a real surprise for me to see a answer from you.

So thank you for you answer.

We know that you are not making a flight sim and we don't want a flight sim like dcs etc ...

Things we don't like is the very few possibilities in aircraft / helicopter.

1. Throttle is not well working ( it is close to pushing a key to accelerate and another to decelerate ). A real axe with a precise control of throttle would be very nice.

2. The ability to separate engine / brakes / air-brakes. If you perform a landing on grass with a C-130 for special operation, you can't take-off because you are not able to have full throttle on brakes (in order to reduce the take of distance).

3. We are unable to taxi with heli and link to the 1) we are unable to use the power to well taxi with airplanes.

4. A BIG PROBLEM : you reference for the speed is GROUND SPEED. So when we have wind effect on helicopter and aircraft we came to wrong situations.

Example : Strong head wind at 180 km/H. Spawn in flight with your aircraft and reduce speed to 200km/h .
You will stall because the reference should be the IAS ( indicated air speed) and it is the GS ( ground speed). The game understand that you can't flight at 20 km/h . Ok but is is 20 km/h of GS so we are still flying IRL.

In heli strong cross wind, you should perform a flight at 0 km/h, but here the wind will push you and at a moment you will be forced to turn (the wind will come from the back) and you will have a speed of xxx km/h. IRL the move with the air mass, so there is no this kind of thing.

5. Maneuverability for helicopter and Airplanes could be improve. In fact with airplanes if you turn via ailerons you should turn due to the higher speed over the higher wing => more lift.

At the moment you can flight at 90° of turn, straight ahead.

About heli, i'm not the good one to speak about it but for real heli pilot it seems to be too arcade (really too arcade). Maybe more maneuverable ? I don't really know.

6. NO AMSL ! It is not possible to flight without AMSL altitude... Because At the moment all of your level flight depend of the surface below you. Over the sea you can easily maintain 2000m of level. Ok.

Above the north West of Altis it is not possible and it is a PAIN.
http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=14194

7. HUD are not always well working. Information are not readable during the night without NVG or when you have sun in front of you.

Firing help on the hud are not where bombs or canon will hit the target.

8. Flaps have no effects on the stall speed.

9. Mass of the aircraft have no effects on landing distance, fuel consumption etc...

10. For FLIR the ability to have the dynamic view distance ( also on screen of the pilot, to see what the copilot is watching ).

But it is not flight model.
http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=16434

At the moment it is all i remember and 1) to 7) are mains problems.

Thank you !

Edit : with heli when engines are down, it is like you are IDLE so you have no control to perform a good autorotation ... Huge pain to try to tuch the ground alive in several examples.

Wow. GREAT top 10 list izaiak !!! I agree with almost everything on your list, in the exact 1-10 order you listed. Fantastic work.

I wish we also had the option to choose KNOTS on NATO aircraft. VERY confusing to be a flight sim fan who's used to knots, and go to km/h.

When I am in the Wipeout I can not see Crossroad texts on my screen.

Edit: Just to be clear, they don't show up at all.

We need a key press to change the HUD text color. (Point number 7 on izaiak's list).
Changing HUD text color would make the HUD readable at various times of the day.

Thank you heyvern69.

I would be more precise with some things.

@heyvern69 : i disagree about a key to change the HUD color. IRL you have 1 color and you keep it. Few new HUD had more than 1 color but it to have better readable information, not to change the colour as you want to see better.

@exxuDex :

1. IRL, your will loose speed by turning, and more over by hard turning, so the game need a G-effect to have a realistic loose of speed during hard turn.

2. ok

3)I think it is ok now, you could update it ?

4. "i can not see anything" it doesn't mean that it is a game problem. In my opinion HUD light is not good and information are not well sized. Lights / gear / flaps should be cockpit information ! On the HUD you only have flight information and weapons information. DEVs could get more space to adjust information size if they change few things.

5. ok

6. i'm not sure is about the thrust. it is more about game engine.

7. You already have it on the HUD ! it is not realistic and it is not a good choice to do something like that but you have it.

8. can say nothing, i didn't test it.

@DEVs / @oukej : Will we have feedback , or devs will read our thread ? People are hard working to increase flight model etc ... The game need just few basic change to be 100x better in the AIR part.

@oukej, thank you for the reply, we really do appreciate you guy's hard work to try to make this game as good as it deserves to be. And we are happy with the fixed wing aircraft, we just have an ideal in our minds, and it isn't even that far away from the current situation.

In my mind, the issue of constantly losing speed originates from the fact that some people fly using the keyboard.

I realized this while driving and I suspect it may be related to the aircraft too: while driving, if you hold "w," you are going to want to go a good driving speed. You don't want to press W in the SUV (modeled after the real life BMW X6 and BMW X6 M) and over the next 20 seconds, accelerate to 260 km/h. That's not conducive to driving down a dirt road.

For people with rudder pedals like me (or who use any other analog form of throttle), they can have a middle zone, where the full throttle would be the real life full speed of the car.
And perhaps the lack of aircraft speed is related, who knows. I think they could definitely use a boost of thrust, no matter what other changes are needed.

@the_Demongod, you are correct. the reason people stall out is because they assume either pulling hard on the flight stick, or holding "S" on the keyboard should give them a constant turn. This is false. In real life, your aircraft cannot hold a constant turn that way, especially without afterburners. That being said, most keyboard users will have a problem with this, but those with a flight stick should try a new approach, and finding the right limit between thrust and turn. It can get a bit more complicated in terms of turning, but im going to keep that bit to myself. ^.^

PS- im a keyboard and mouse user, and i have no problem with flying, or stalling out. If you wish to watch me fly with Mouse and keyboard, watch my CAS mission here - = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1B3fVJgTIM = -

I have been experimenting a lot with the sweet spot between hard turn + stall and slow turn + speed, but I've been pretty disappointed. The reason is because no matter how slowly you turn, unless you are constantly holding the accelerate key, you will lose speed. I can see this happening in a hard turn, but having played plenty of DCS, I can tell you that a slow, level turn in the A-10 while at cruising speed will not lose you a lot of speed. I just wish that hands off the throttle keys could be seen as a cruising speed, instead of practically an idle speed.

Ok, that sparked an idea from a game i played called YSFlight Simulator. The most simplistic thing ever, and you cant really call it a simulator, for reasons you'd have to try to believe. Ok, to point, the way thrust worked in that game is much like how it woks in TOH to some respect. "Q" and "W" handled thrust, and the Tab key enabled/disabled Afterburners. This being said, in Arma 3, they could make it to where you can raise thrust via. "Q", on a bar. When you let go of Q, the thrust level stays at that level you left it on, keeping that amount of thrust unless you either increase it more or decrease it. This means that on take off, you can increase it to full and let off the thrust till your at designated altitude, before pressing "Z" some to bring down the unnecessary extra thrust. I think this would be a fantastic idea to help the thrust physics in Arma 3 improve.

What we really need is for the new Helicopters DLC collective to be implemented to fixed-wings. To be blunt, the current throttle system is no better than Battlefield 4's. It's a shame really. What we need is to have a scale displaying the current level of throttle, and to be able to move it up and down instead of having a medium speed (too slow to do anything), an accelerate speed (which is faster but still too weak) and a brakes key which for some odd reason also throttles down the engine.

IMPORTANT

The forces and accelerations are not calculated correctly. Something is broken with it. See here for the REAL explanation, tests AND A WAY TO FIX IT:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?167067-Fixed-Wing-Flight-Model-(dev-branch)&p=2793625&viewfull=1#post2793625

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?167067-Fixed-Wing-Flight-Model-(dev-branch)&p=2793858&viewfull=1#post2793858

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?167067-Fixed-Wing-Flight-Model-(dev-branch)&p=2793937&viewfull=1#post2793937

Despite a constant gravity force when 90° banked, the aircraft has a fixed speed in that direction, doesn't accelerate. I think this is the main source for many problems that people experience.

another great post by Fennek in that thread: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?167067-Fixed-Wing-Flight-Model-(dev-branch)&p=2795483&viewfull=1#post2795483

I made a small contribution as well, sorry if this was already reported:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?167067-Fixed-Wing-Flight-Model-%28dev-branch%29/page38

While i enjoy how it's done in dcs, an AFM for planes probably won't happen in arma for the following three reasons:

1. Ridiculously small terrain size, terrain following with AoA model would probably require more skills and work than now
2. General oversimplifying when it comes to details. In arma you fly a plane, in DCS it flies you. Same goes even with helicopters, they actually very easy to handle\hover\stright-fly\estimate in arma even with AFM. I'd say this also applies to infantry in an attempt to implement accuracy/inaccuracy by sways. To medics and wounds too (although there are plenty mods to fix this). Also no G forces - wanna crazy helicopter dives with <-4 Gs welcome to try it then. Also no difference in model caused by air pressure levels. Also you can breathe in a heli at 10km asl. Also artillery computers instead of a proper solution evaluation thing. Also buildings that are barely touched by indirect fire - which is much unlike what they become after prolonged military conflicts. Also no SAMs. Also magic missle guidance instead of a laser\radar\thermal guidance. Also laser guidance only for bombs, and bombs only laser-guided. Also decieving missles doesn't require to maneuver (so that missle gets to decide whether it needed to change course), they divert non-deterministically with some random probability (obvious when you fire at any heli that makes a straight attack run on you. 1. It glides on you; 2. You launch a missle 3. Flares released, missle changes its course towards where a heli is very-very unlikely to go). Also lots of flight model stuff listed above and in forum topics. etc, it is possible to go on and on with this list of details which don't feel like they will be done. (there are insignificant details i admit, like an AFM for seagulls)
3. Lots of time should be put in making complex models. A module for DCS worths like the whole arma, and it took ED >10 years to develop dcs into what it's now.

One could love to take an irreplaceable role at doing one thing well, while having people that depend on what they can't do. And actually have fun, because things are hard, it is them which make for a roleplaying, and an interesting one. Piloting a plane shouldn't be something any infantrymen can do. Pilots themselves are precious: you won't care about one single soldier behind your lines, while the pilots pay grade is what makes commanders to dispatch (and risk) SAR teams to find that ejected pilot. Pilot is a resource too, you won't let an ordinary private to fly planes even if all your proper pilots are captured - in combat, planes worth much more than a human being (unless it's a pilot\officer).

Also if you are really good pilot, any squad could tolerate the fact you tend to avoid not being a dick. AFM would make piloting a way to go for being valued only for managing to land badly damaged fixed-winged trucks.

Despite it's unlikely planes afm will be done in a full and proper scale, i still want have this.