The question of why Flight Simulators instant replay does not record everything comes up a lot on forums and discussion groups. One recently from “Cloudy” was as follows:
Landed with the Caravan, switched engine off, waited till the propeller stopped, THEN engaged the Replay with repeat, watching as usual once the aircraft from the outside, then again with the instrument panel. Spotted two new ones:
Differential brake pressure (obviously modelled in normal simulation as I use it everyday with my pedals with toe brakes) is NOT modelled during replay, as clearly shown via my brakes pressure gauge
Gradual propeller slowdown is also not modelled: when the engine stops the propeller freezes in a split second, both in outside view and in the Propeller RPM gauge.
I did not know the answer to this but I did know that the ACES team would not have “just left this feature out” without reason. An answer from the team (thanks Z) was as follows:
This is a limitation of our instant replay functionality: we don’t fully simulate all the sub-systems that make up an aircraft in this mode, we only update aircraft position, orientation, and a few other items that are noticable visually during a replay (things like flaps and gear position). This keeps the data set we store during flight to a reasonable size while still allowing for visually replaying the experience.
I think this observation is a good one, and exemplifies the power of the simulation we run during “normal” mode: each one of the sub-systems in an aircraft is simulated as accurately as possible – we’re not “faking” the gear brake fluid pressure, for instance. I’d be curious to hear how important it is for us to allow the recording of *all* the parameters during a flight? I’m sure you can imagine the enormous size of this data set, depending on the length and data capture frequency of course.
So, there it is… How important to you is this feature? Post away 🙂
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