Yo-Yo is an intelligent guy and a gifted programmer, no question. It's well within his ability to create levels of fidelity and realism that would qualify as "99%" accurate, if such a mythical grading system actually existed.

His weakness is that his knowledge of aircraft performance, systems, and operation seems to be entirely theoretical, with nothing experiential to back it up. His attitude toward the actual "feeling" of flight is that it should be discounted entirely. From a scientific point-of-view, that's understandable; the numbers are very important. But there's something to be said for the way it actually FEELS when you strap an airplane to your back and blast through the sky. But that's beside the point, because thus far, we've been talking about numbers, not feelings.

His other weakness is that he believes very strongly in the accuracy of his own mathematical models, to the exclusion of factual information which suggests the model might be in error. This is forgivable, because who DOESN'T have pride in their own work? But this does nothing to advance the realism and accuracy of the simulation that all of us clearly enjoy.

I'm bothered by the sentiment that it's out of line to point out a flaw where one exists. There's nothing wrong with direct communication, and I don't think any "young people" are in any danger by being exposed to a conversation where two parties disagree. They better learn to deal with it, because it's going to be a rude awakening for these unseen kiddos when they emerge into the real world.

I'm also bothered by the idea that we're all just too dumb to understand how complex a task it is to code a simulator, or how super-duper-smart the developers are. We understand and acknowledge those things, and some of us have done so for dozens of years. Not just as consumers of the genre, but as testers, contributors, and developers ourselves.

So it's mildly offensive to throw up link to a thesis as evidence for why we don't know what we're talking about, or otherwise are unreasonable people. Unless you are going to send Yo-Yo a PM to complain that his non-linear equations are too complex and unimportant, don't complain when someone looks at the equation output and points out that it deviates from known behavior.

This isn't about a layperson's opinion about what percentage accuracy is reasonable and necessary for a consumer flight simulation. Neither is this about elevating a small error into something larger than it is. This is about leveraging the existing fidelity built into DCS - by Yo-Yo himself - to achieve a result that doesn't cause gross deviation from the expected behavior of the aircraft.

No pilot expects to maintain pressure in a hydraulic system whose pump(s) are no longer operating. Failing an engine in the A-10 results in the loss of the one and only hydraulic pump. The flight manual confirms that usable pressure will not, under any circumstances, last longer 60 seconds. In most situations, it lasts significantly less. The flight manual specifically states that a failed right hydraulic system will result in uncommanded slat extension as the hydraulic pressure bleeds off. The flight manual specifically states that failure of the left system will result in an inability to raise the landing gear if the gear handle is not raised within 5 seconds of an engine failure.

After an engine failure during takeoff, the inability to raise the gear, or the uncommanded extension of the slats, can degrade aircraft performance such that a positive rate of climb is impossible to achieve. In other words, you're going for a ride in the bang seat. Personally, in my humble opinion, I think that this issue is one that seriously detracts from the realistic operation of the aircraft in a meaningful way.

We may dispute whether this is an "important" issue that only NASA physicists are capable accurately reproducing in a simulation - although I think that's a pretty lame argument to have - but what's not in dispute is that the DCS code is clearly capable of supporting such realistic behavior, and Yo-Yo is clearly capable of modeling such realistic behavior.

All we need to do is convince Yo-Yo that sometimes he makes incorrect assumptions about how things should work. Unfortunately, that doesn't usually doesn't work out well for the messenger. I'd rather have a rational conversation about it on the ED forums, but the moderation (and the project management) won't allow for that. So I'm here at SimHQ instead where, despite being in good company, it's still possible to get mired in useless back-and-forth threads like this one, trying to defend the act of providing constructive criticism.

I don't feel like I should have to do that. I also don't feel like I should have to give anyone a BJ before I'm allowed to provide feedback to the developer. I'm a customer, and a knowledgeable one at that. I've provided ED my services as a tester on multiple projects in the past, and I'm fully aware of what's reasonable and what isn't. You're free to disagree with me all you want; I respect that. But if all we're going to do is go round and round, then I will try my best not to participate in threads like this again.

We've achieved nothing here. The devs aren't looking at the issues anymore, and in fact, they're probably having a hearty chuckle at the way this whole thing has been derailed into a useless circle-jerk of a thread. And who can blame them. Well played. Give us enough rope, and we'll hang ourselves!