Just some personal observations.
I have no idea if it's real or placebo.
1. Ground effect seems a little more 'logical'
It's funny to say 'logical' since I have no idea whatsoever how flying a real plane feels. What I intend to describe by using that word is that the 'abruptness' in landing approaches are mostly gone. In the previous versions landings were rough. Yeah, AH is easy to land - but IMO that's because the planes take rough landings a lot better than in real life. The landing itself was a bit wishy-washy... different throttle settings effected the plane heavily, and when the plane was about to land it would seem almost forever until the wheels meet the tarmac. The weird 'floating' feel which seems to go on and on.
Now, the landing approaches seem more smooth. Set right speed, set right rate of decline, decrease throttle and the plane will set itself perfectly on it's three wheels.
2. Lot more sideslip?
Lot more sideslip during banks? Before, when you give a certain bank angle and pull the stick the pitch of the plane rose above the horizon almost immediately. Now, it seems the 'sideslip' tendency seems a stronger, and as a result making coordinated turns are a but easier. Again, I don't know how real planes react to control.
3. Stable while normal, violent at spins
The overall stability of most planes seems to be increased quite a bit. Maybe it's because the visual buffet effect, or maybe due to the FM itself - I'm not sure. However, accelerated stalls and consquential spins are now slightly tougher to control.
Before, spins or stalls were rarely of my concern unless I was insidea plane known for particularly difficult stalls. The normal 'stall/spin recovery procedure' always worked in most of the planes and they worked instantly. A plane spins? No prob. Kick opposite rudder and the plane instanty stops spinning. What's more, I've rarely observed the "neutral stick" procedure. A plane stalls and spins a bit, I just work the stick to set the nose of the plane to where I want, kick rudder opposite of the direction of the spin and the plane would stabilize.
Now, if I jiggle the stick I really can't recover no matter how much rudder I kick. The plane refuses to stop spinning. Set the controls to neutral, kick opposite rudder, no pitch movement - and then the plane will seize to spin. The recovery procedure seems less 'instant' than was before.
4. feeling of weight
This one, I really don't know why it feels so. I feel the weight of the planes much more in all planes now. Particularly when I'm recovering from low-speed loops and stuff.
5. flaps.. more lift more drag?
In a lot of the planes the flap seems to create a much larger pitch-up movement. However, it also seems the effect of the flaps create a lot more drag than it used to - and thus, I've finally learned why some planes should not fly with full flaps in combat. The P-38s for example, do feel heavy when using full flaps. The initial pitch-up movement is beneficial when using first or second notches, but when one goes to deep into the turn using full flaps, the drag feels really heavy. A few of the other planes also feel this effect when full flaps(landing pos.) is used.
6. less trimming
Less manual trimming frenzy. Maybe the previous AH FM had to much torque or something.. I wouldn't know. While some planes like the 109s do need some constant aileron/rudder trimming according to speed and throttle, others like the 190 or the P-51 or etc.. seem much more stable, particularly in the roll axis, despite varying speeds or throttle settings.
..
Any thoughts?
