Aircraft Size Scaling When Flying

rfc

New member
When flying at a PhotoAirport, is the size of my aircraft, flying a distance, accruate? When I see my airplane next an to an object of know size, it seems to small. Is there some scale setting in the airport or aircraft model file that establishes the proper size scaling?

Thanks
rfc
 
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what exactly are you referring to as an "object of know size" ?
keep in mind that on a 2d screen depth perception is severely limited

yes you can change the visual scale of any aircraft but its not as simple as
just "Making it bigger"..
weight, CG, wing loading power plant etc. etc. need to be compensated for the aircraft to fly realistically
 
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Just like in real life, in the sim, when your model gets further away, it will appear to be smaller. Is it accurate? Hard to say. The sim has limitations projecting a 3D image in a 2D environment. Cycle through the zoom settings (Z key) to find a setting you like.
 
and theirs always the binocular gadget .......never have figured out how you're supposed to hold your TX and a pair of binoculars at the same time though :p :p
 
Well to be specific, I have a 2 foot wide mail box, 100 feet from my flying position in my photo airfield. My airplane has a 4 foot wing span. When I taxi it next to the mail box it appears to be smaller then the mail box. The wing span appears to be less then 2 feet at 100 foot distance.

Thanks again
rfc
 
Yeah as far as scaling accuracy, Realflight does pretty well.

You need to make sure your airport objects are scaled properly however.

There are some variations in 3D object sizes that will make it seem as if the plane sizing may be off in relative terms.

The 3D "ruler" within the sim can be used to adjust scales properly.

Start with this when setting up nearby objects. Assume that at 100% the ruler is correct.

You'll find that you'll need to scale up or down 3D objects by a percentage to get some dimensions right.... particularly larger objects.

KE seems to have done this purposely, so as to permit you to use the 3D objects for all sorts of things.

e.g. some of the road or runway tiles are either too small or too large when initially placed, but can be scaled up to specific dimensions.

Other sims are all over the place.

In Aerofly Pro 5.0 a 5ft wingspan plane takes up the width of an entire two lane road.... yeah right... and there is no mechanism within the sim to handle adjusting sizes.
 
all true except
I don't think that will help in his situation
as the mail box is just part of the image in the pano he is using not a placed object
is that correct rfc?
 
I think the problem is in the panorama picture itself.
When creating a panorama picture, you use a camera-tripod at approx. 1m50 height (this is a normal eyes height for a normal 1m75 tall human)
The problem in realflight, is that the "pilot spawn" is 2m tall.
Because of this, you will have perspective issues because the physical POV (point of view) is different from the POV of the photographed panorama.
when your plane is close, you see it in Realflight from a 2m high perspective, but the panorama picture shows a 1m50 (for example) perspective --> The plane looks small
When going further away, the perspectives change and your plane looks bigger. ;)
A good way to fix this, would be the ability to change the size of the pilot spwan in the airport editor.
 
ViennaLex76 said:
A good way to fix this, would be the ability to change the size of the pilot spwan in the airport editor.
There used to be a setting in older versions of RF to set the pilot height. But if you took 2 otherwise identical pictures of the same scene, one from 4 feet above ground, and one from 6 feet above ground, I don't think there'd be much if any difference in something that is 100 feet away, whether it's the airplane or the scene.
 
jeffpn said:
I don't think there'd be much if any difference in something that is 100 feet away, whether it's the airplane or the scene.

You're right, but the POV difference isn't the only issue in perspectives- problems. Most of real landscape are slight hilly and the RealFlight Simulation is allways flat when using panorama pictures.
If the real landscape, for example, slightly goes down, then your plane will be truly 100 feet away, but looks like maybe 200 feet away on the panoramic picture and so, 2x as big as it really is. If you also count that picture-cameras all distort the picture, and the distortion are almost impossible to 100% fix, you can imagine how the result really looks like.
If you edit a Photofield airport, you will see that the runway is often wider at the end (many runways side-by-side) than in the middle.
On the panoramic picture you can see definitely that the runway should be same wide at the whole length. This effect if clearly visible at the "Canyon Crosswinds Field" airport for example.

The best results would be achieved with a flat and plane landscape, with a camera at 6 feet height (2m) and all details perfectly measured.
 
While I believe that there is a photographic problem with the image as it is being recreated in real flight, you should know that you can edit the aircraft and change the size of any plane...

You also need to re-work the physics of the plane to add the necessary weight, sizes and engine thrust to make the scaled up aircraft fly correctly...

So yes, the aircraft are represented correctly, but there is a problem with your background image.
 
12oclockhigh said:
So yes, the aircraft are represented correctly, but there is a problem with your background image.

Yup... sorry I missed the bit about the Pano.

I see a lot of Panos where people have not taken scaling into account....
 
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