On 12/12/2008 09:36 AM, Durk Talsma wrote:
> If all goes well, I would like to prepare the final release version next
> Friday.
Wow.
> Until that time please hold back on committing anything risky, and
> give these prereleases a decent workout. Let's try to make this the best
> FlightGear release yet. :-)
I haven't had time to do a decent workout ... just a pre-flight
walkaround and a re-check of some longstanding bugs.
Here is a list of a few dozen opportunities for improvement.
1:: c172p: As of rc2, the model makes weird, unrealistic noises that
are presumably supposed to be engine noise, but do not vary in pitch
or amplitude in the appropriate way. Real pilots are very sensitive
to engine noise.
2:: c172p: As of rc2, there does not appear to be any interior area
lighting or any "post" lighting for the instruments. The light
sources are not present, and the knob that would control them is not
present. Lighting is ordinarily needed for night flight. It would be
nice to portray the lighting-control knob, but even nicer to have
additional control via the keyboard and/or via a drop-down menu,
since the knob would be hard to find at night, creating a
chicken-and-egg problem.
3:: c172p: As of rc2, the aircraft's landing and taxi lights are
not effective at illuminating the runway or other surfaces. This
is an issue for night operations.
4:: c172p: As of rc2, on the 3D cockpit nav heads, under some
conditions when GS would be flagged, the GS needle just disappears,
which is unrealistic, since it is a side-pivot needle. In real life
it is physically impossible for this type of needle to disappear.
Also as of rc2 there is some sort of barber pole showing near the
bottom of the display under all conditions. The legend on this
barber pole is illegible.
The NAV2 head in the Seneca is much better behaved.
5:: c172p: As of rc2, there is no Kollsman window visible on the
altimeter. Note that the Kollsman window is rather important in real
flying situations.
6:: c172p: As of rc2, the rudder pedals are oddly positioned; mostly
out of sight of the pilot. Structurally, they appear to come up from
the bottom on stalks, instead of down from above as they should.
And as of rc2, the rudder pedals don't move when rudder movement is
commanded. (The rudder moves, just not the pedals.) This stands in
contrast to other aircraft in the fgfs fleet, including the c182rg,
Seneca, pa24-250, and even the c172r, which have animated rudder
pedals with some degree of realism.
7:: c172p: As of rc2, there is no parking brake status indicator. Note
that landing with the parking brake set would be a disaster in a real
airplane.
8:: c172p: As of rc2, the electrical switches don't line up with their
labels.
9:: c172p: As of rc2, the panel voltmeter reads incorrectly. It is "in
the red" i.e. offscale high even when the actual voltage is within
the normal range.
10:: c172p: As of rc2, there do not appear to be any hotspots by which
the mouse could control carb heat, throttle, or mixture.
11:: c172p: As of rc2, the audio panel is beautiful to look at, but not
functional; i.e. audio signals are not routed through the audio panel.
12:: c172p: As of rc2, ADF hotspots do not line up with the buttons.
13:: c172p: As of rc2, the carb heat control has a funny shape. Also
it looks like it is "out" i.e. carb heat applied. Also it does not
respond when the pilot changes the carb heat setting. This stands in
contrast to the throttle and mixture controls, which do respond.
14:: c172p: As of rc2, when parked, the wheels appear to be several
inches above the ground ... the nose wheel more so than the mains.
This is particularly conspicuous if the aircraft is parked over or
near a stripe on the pavement.
15:: c172p: As of rc2, there does not appear to be any trim position
indicator. Trim is important.
16:: c172p: As of rc2, there does not appear to be any flap position
indicator. Also the flap handle is installed at an unrealistic
angle, so even that cannot be used as a realistic hint about flap
setting.
16) c172p: As of rc2, the fuel caps (atop the wing) are rotated 90
degrees relative to what they should be.
17:: c172p: As of rc2, the front wheel is not centered on the front
axle. This looks quite weird.
18:: c172p: As of rc2, the nutcracker on the nose gear strut is not
realistic when on the ground. It looks better but not 100% realistic
in flight. The nutcracker should fold, not just get shoved rigidly
through the bottom of the engine compartment.
19:: c172p: As of rc2, when looking at the aircraft from outside,
distant background is visible through gaps in the cowling:
-- near the firewall
-- near the spinner, especially just below the spinner.
The gap itself is OK. But there should be something solid inside the
engine compartment. Or at least double-sided opacity for the cowling
material.
20:: c172p: As of rc2, there does not appear to be any EGT gauge. This
seems unrealistic. Sure, the factory considers the gauge "optional",
but why would any owner pass up the option? To save money???
Note that the Seneca and the Comanche have nice-looking 3D EGT gauges.
21:: c172p and SenecaII: As of rc2, there is no transponder. Operating
at KSFO without a transponder is unrealistic.
Note that there is a nice-looking and well-behaved transponder in the
CVS c182rg.
22:: c172p: No GPS? Is it realistic to fly without a GPS these days?
Suggestion: Remove the ADF and DME from the main radio stack and use
the space for a transponder and GPS. The ADF and DME can be
relocated far to starboard or discarded entirely.
23:: c172p: Numerous performance / handling / FDM bugs ... as discussed
elsewhere.
24:: SenecaII: As of rc2, there is a "flap motor" noise when the flaps
are being extended or retracted. I don't think this is appropriate
for manually-operated flaps.
25:: Instrument: Phantom DME ident. As of rc2, sit on the ground at
Livermore, KLVK. That's within the base package. Tune up the Travis
VOR on 116.4 and listen for the ident. You will hear the TZZ VOR
ident ... so far so good ... and also the TZZ DME ident. That's a
problem, because there is no DME at Travis. The phantom DME ident
comes from a long-standing bug in the audio ident code.
26:: Core feature: As of rc2, if --fg-scenery points to something
nonexistent or unsuitable, no error message is produced. The sim
just starts up with no scenery. This appears to be a rather new bug.
Users would benefit from an informative error message.
27:: Multiple aircraft, including SenecaII: Inappropriate noises
resembing "gear motor" noises are heard during initialization. Also
a "clank" resembing a brief attempt to start an engine. This is a
very old bug.
28:: Multiple aircraft, including c172p and SenecaII: As of rc2, with
parking brake set, the aircraft does not hold position. Somewhat
noticeable at idle; very very noticeable during a full-throttle
runup.
This used to be a problem, then it got mostly fixed, and now it has
returned. Reportedly it is a problem with the "ground interaction"
features of the FDM.
29:: ATIS: Bugs too numerous to mention.
30:: Instrument: Localizer service volume: As of rc2, the localizer
service volume appears to be very different from what it is supposed
to be, as documented in the Aeronautical Information Manual. There
is no sign of the false localizer courses that real systems always
exhibit abeam the station.
Similar words apply to false GS beams and other service-volume
issues.
31:: Dialog: As of rc2, attempting to use the "glideslope" feature of
the locate-in-air dialog does not work. It does not work if the
altitude is specified (and not the distance). It does not work if
the distance is specified (and not the altitude). This has been a
known bug for years.
32:: Dialog: As of rc2, if you sit at KSFO and try to relocate to the
SAV VOR, it will take you to Savannakhet, Laos (SAV) ... even though
the pilot probably wanted to go to Savannah, GA (SAV). In case of
ambiguity, the rule should be to go to the /nearest/ fix of the given
name.
This has been a known bug for a very long time.
33:: Dialog: As of rc2, attempting to use the locate-in-air dialog more
than once tends to make the simulator unusable and to spew error
messages on the console. Example:
Could not open and/or write the state to the initial conditions file.
Model Author: Unknown
Creation Date: 2002-01-01
Version: $Id: c172p.xml,v 1.20 2008/09/01 15:14:33 torsten Exp $
Description: Cessna C-172
Trim Results:
Angle of Attack: 5.53 wdot: nan Tolerance: 1e-03 Failed
Throttle: 0.50 udot: nan Tolerance: 1e-03 Failed
Pitch Trim: 0.00 qdot: nan Tolerance: 1e-04 Failed
Trim Statistics:
Total Iterations: 61
Sub-iterations:
wdot: 0 average: 0.00 successful: 0 stability: 100.00
udot: 0 average: 0.00 successful: 0 stability: 100.00
qdot: 0 average: 0.00 successful: 0 stability: 100.00
Run Count: 55200
OpenAL error (AL_INVALID_VALUE): set_pitch
CullVisitor::apply(Geode&) detected NaN,
depth=nan, center=(-0.0075 5.00004e-07 0.0),
matrix={
nan nan nan nan
nan nan nan nan
nan nan nan nan
nan nan nan nan
}
... followed by a rapid and endless spew of "nan" and such.
This situation nearly 100% reproducible if the dialog is used more
than once during a flight. The message is not terribly informative.
There is AFAIK no way to recover from this situation short of
restarting fgfs.
This is an old bug; it was first reported a couple of years ago.
34:: Core feature: The --model-hz=10 setting still crashes the sim.
Symptoms are variable: One time it initialized the aircraft in a 90
degree nose-up initial attitude and left it there, with 100% cpu usage
and zero frame-rate. Another time it spewed endless gibberish to the
console, such as the "nan" blocks mentiond above.
This is a very old bug.
35:: Airport: As of rc2, the runway centerline lighting is missing
from runway 28R at KSFO.
36:: As several people have reported over the years, the Saitek X52
interface needs many improvements. See:
http://www.av8n.com/fly/fgfs/README.X52
http://www.av8n.com/fly/fgfs/X52.xml.htm
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