Version: 1.1.19
Frequency: Consistently
Severity: High
Context: in flight
Bug description:
Currently MSFS 2024 airplanes are putting stress damage to the airframe, elevator, ailerons, rudder and other surfaces based on the normal_operating_speed.
I believe this is not accurate as many IRL POH will state airplanes can operate normally with this speed without causing such issues, these will vary from LSA airplanes to military aircraft.
The second issue is the normal_operating_speed is also used by many avionics to calculate the speed tape ranges, so if you guys force us to use different figures to avoid the stress, the speed tapes will become inaccurate for some avionics.
This is an extract of a POH of the TL3000 by TL-Ultralight:
Further down in the POH:
Based on that data, you would configure in the product config files the following values:
normal_operating_speed (VA) = 108
max_indicated_speed (VNE) = 138
With the current W&T system, as soon as an user reaches 110kts which is still in the GREEN Zone for the speed tape, and a simple 10 degree turn or 5 degree pitch climb (which is what many autopilots would do for simple operations) would cause a surface control going wrong with the W&T system.
Another example, this is an extract of a POH of a M500:
Further down the POH:
Based in that configuration:
normal_operating_speed (Vo) = 127
max_indicated_speed (VMo) = 188
And again with the current W&T calculations any autopilot operations on FSR500 while on the Green Arc (79kts to 188 Kts) would result in the ailerons, rudders and elevators being damaged.
However in reality this is not the case, in fact watch the video below on the real aircraft where they execute an emergency “descend” for a M500, they basically put FLC ON at 165kts, drop the gear, Flaps and set the AP to go at 10,000 feet… this will cause the aircraft to descend quickly at a pitch of 15 deg… in MSFS 2024 this causes the W&T to fail the elevator… while in real life, pilots perform practices for this descend all the time without any consequences to the airframe and surfaces.
Video for reference of this operation IRL:
Suggestions
For airframe and surfaces stress , either the W&T should use the max_indicated_speed as it used to be in MSFS 2020 or, a new parameter should be available in order to configure when we require the W&T to damage the ailerons, elevators and rudder. This way we can set the speed in accordance with the capabilities of our airplanes.
Using the Normal Operating Speed to damage the surfaces will result in the majority of the use cases to have a failure on the controls while the pilot is still operating inside the green arcs as per the avionics, which are configured as per IRL POHs, but using a different parameter would allow developers to tweak this properly to perform the failure at least when the pilot starts hitting the Yellow or Red speeds tape ranges.
A possible solution could be, if guys add a new configurable parameter as Airframe_Stress_Speed where if we leave it blank it defaults to the normal_operating_speed (which would leave all the current airplanes working as they are) and if we set it to the value we require, it would use that value instead, allowing us to tweak things better for the end user experience.
All the best,
Raul
CEO www.fsreborn.com