flight's concept of a 'good landing'

[jim frost]

>The behavior of the planes
>on the iris is completely phony.  Part of this is evident in the
>sheer caprice of their stall and spin behavior (or lack of it).

True.  I first noticed this when playing with the cessna.  Most
obvious was the lack of the stall that occurs immediately after
takeoff unless you do things just right.  This makes takeoffs much
more interesting, let me tell you.  It's virtually impossible to
*force* this under flight unless you try a low-power takeoff.  Turns
are also unrealistic since rudder on the cessna has a LOT of effect,
while on flight it has little effect on the cessna and almost none on
any of the other planes.  Stalls also bother me since I loose complete
coordination when it starts spinning unpredictably (something I'd
never seen before) although I have to agree with the author that this
is rather interesting.  I would really like to be able to do some of
the common airshow stunts that involve stalls though.

Also, has anyone been able to put the cessna into a flat spin?  I've
tried a lot and I just can't do it.

As a disclaimer, I'm not a pilot but I've spent quite some time with a
cessna flight simulator in addition to using a couple of the
microcomputer simulators (eg Microsoft).  My judge of behavior is
probably somewhat flawed, especially since the lack of real movement
makes many things easier and many harder.  And you just don't *try*
some things in a real plane....

jim frost
madd at bu-it.bu.edu