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Terrain Following or Bouncy Castle

Printed From: Just Flight Forum
Category: Just Flight Products
Forum Name: Tornado GR1
Forum Description: Discussion area for the Tornado GR1
URL: http://forum.justflight.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=30718
Printed Date: 28 Mar 2024 at 8:26pm


Topic: Terrain Following or Bouncy Castle
Posted By: MashTrapper
Subject: Terrain Following or Bouncy Castle
Date Posted: 15 May 2016 at 6:05pm
Am I doing something wrong or is it too much to hope for?

I managed to get good results with Terrain Following exactly once, in Hawaii over some rugged and challenging terrain. That lasted for about 10 minutes and it was quite exhilarating. It was navigating mountains beautifully.

That was after many, many failed attempts both before and since. Most of the time, the Bouncy Castle effect moves increasingly beyond Clearance knob setting and into the ground. Other times, turning on Terrain Following just results in an instant fiery crash into the terrain from whatever altitude I was at when I engaged it. I've been at 10,000 feet and BOOM! ground contact.

Failures happen regardless of whether I perform manual start or hit the auto-start button, or just start flying right after loading up.

So my question is: am I missing something or is this pretty much what's expected?



Replies:
Posted By: kevinh
Date Posted: 16 May 2016 at 6:13pm
I don't think you are missing anything, that's what I get too. Even when it is holding height above terrain I get a constant porpoising oscillation. That certainly isn't right. Basically TF and RH modes are unusable as they are. I'm sure with some autopilot tuning it could be fixed.

I haven't seen failures though.

Kevin


Posted By: MashTrapper
Date Posted: 17 May 2016 at 12:47am
Yeah, seems like terrain following was an idea that didn't, but hopefully will get adequate attention.

By failure I meant failure to keep the plane off the ground. I didn't mean system failure. That was a bad choice of words on my part.


Posted By: kevinh
Date Posted: 10 Jun 2017 at 11:05pm
Any chance this will ever get fixed?


Posted By: Henry_W
Date Posted: 17 Jun 2017 at 7:46pm
Same problem here. When using TF, sometimes the Tornado keeps the height above ground, while very violently pitching up and down, sometime it crashes into the ground. What I did observe is that even while flying over flat “ground” (e.g. a big lake or the sea), it is always descending, even though the altitude is constant. The path vector in the HUD indicates approximately 2 degrees below the horizon and the VSI indicates a constant descend rate of 600 ft/min. When you watch the aircraft from external view, you see the landscape constantly jumping down, so that the plane must keep descending in order to remain at constant altitude. Weird. When using altitude hold all is fine, but TF and RH are giving the above-mentioned problems.

Still a wonderful plane, though.

Best regards,

Henry


Posted By: kevinh
Date Posted: 09 Aug 2017 at 9:11am
Is there any news of this? Will Just Flight ever fix TF and RH modes? I know they have a lot on but an acknowledgment that the problem exists and a commitment to fix it would be great.

I'm sure that if RH mode was fixed the TF mode would have a much better chance of working. It's very strange that Altitude Hold works perfectly but Radio Alt Hold does not.

Kevin


Posted By: Rich
Date Posted: 09 Aug 2017 at 12:41pm
Hi,
At the moment we're not sure what the plan is for the Tornado. With the advent of 64bit sims, we'd really like to go back and turn on all the stuff that was originally coded but had to be turned off due to the performance issues in FSX, and also perhaps expand the scope of the project to include some other variants, in addition to squashing any remaining issues.
The developers are currently very busy on other projects at the moment, but certainly the Tornado project hasn't reached the end of its development life just yet. 
 


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Posted By: kevinh
Date Posted: 15 Aug 2017 at 8:39am
Rich,

Good to hear there is some hope.

Terrain following and Radio Alt Hold haven't been turned off for performance. They just don't work properly. Haven't done since initial release and I reported it to support before the first SP. I understand the time issues but leaving this unfixed would be very disappointing. Especially as terrain following mode was a headline feature from the outset.

As Baro Alt Hold works smoothly and no longer nose dives when engaged it shouldn't be too hard to get RH mode working as well. TF mode should work smoothly too with the same tuning.

64 bit conversation is a different thing altogether and if that can't happen I'll still enjoy flying the GR1 in FSX. 64 bit won't help performance.

Kevin


Posted By: Herky
Date Posted: 27 Nov 2017 at 10:04pm
Originally posted by Rich Rich wrote:

Hi,
At the moment we're not sure what the plan is for the Tornado. With the advent of 64bit sims, we'd really like to go back and turn on all the stuff that was originally coded but had to be turned off due to the performance issues in FSX, and also perhaps expand the scope of the project to include some other variants, in addition to squashing any remaining issues.
The developers are currently very busy on other projects at the moment, but certainly the Tornado project hasn't reached the end of its development life just yet. 
 


Having flown the "other" Tornado in P3d. I prefer the JF model.
However with 64 bit P3dv4 this will permit the aircraft to have features that previous versions were prohibited from having due to VAS limitations.
The "other" Tornado rapidely exceeds VAS limits in P3dv3. I surmise that the use of custom terrain maps and a silky smooth terrain following radar are two VAS eaters?
If JF can provide a better terrain following system and a detailed map for the guy in the back that would be a start.
Some enhancements to the GPS v VOR v TACAN navigation would also be welcome. The pressing "Nav" on the left hand navigators screen, produces vague results. At present, I am unable to identify which mode I am in, consequently accurate navigation is suffering. A nav mode identifier, that stays on the navigator nav plan screen, would eliminate any doubts.
Also, a brightness knob on the HDD Nav map would help it to be seen in different lighting conditions.P3dv4 excells in lighting effects, so no limitation here! All those lighting potentiometers can now be variable.
So here's hoping for a great 64 bit aircraft. There is no limit to how much VAS this aircraft may now use. So let's go for it JF!

Best regards
David

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You Tube at HERKY231 or David Herky



Posted By: kevinh
Date Posted: 05 Jan 2018 at 8:25pm
Rich,

Now the P3Dv4 version is out (and very welcome it is too) are the future plans any clearer? Modelling other versions are all very well, but fixing TFR and Radio Alt Hold autopilot modes must be given priority, surely? The original product advertising made much of this feature and it has never worked. It's fundamental to simulating the Tornado properly.

Cheers

Kevin



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