I'm writing some automated testing code for pieces of FG, so that I can experiment with changes to various internal bits of code with more confidence that I haven't broken anything. These aren't quite unit- tests (they test multiple areas of the code at once) and they're pretty crude, but any testing is better than none (and quicker than manual testing).
Initially I've focused on the various things done by fgInitPosition, since this indirectly uses the Navaids and airports data, and potentially the environment code. Doing this, I came across something which seems counter-intuitive to me: There's a /sim/presets/offset-distance-nm property, which allows (logically enough) to offset the start position relative to, for example, a runway. What I've found is that for a runway, where the / sim/presets/heading-deg is initialised from the runway heading, the default azimuth to offset by is the *reciprocal* runway heading. This means to start 10nm 'out' from the threshold, one can use a positive value of 10 - I expected this to require a negative value. Line 771 of fg_init.cxx (double azimuth = heading + 180.0;) is the relevant piece of logic. I wonder if this is intentional, since it's the more common case that starting 'ahead' of the threshold, but equally it might be a bug - the azimuth is inverted to move from the runway centre 'back' to the threshold. Note there's also /sim/airport/runways/start-offset-m, which *is* 'forwards' from the threshold. Anyway, what makes me wonder if there's a bug here is the glideslope logic. In the case where a glideslope angle is specified, and also a preset altitude, we encounter the code at line 976 of fg_init.cxx. Now, the crucial observation is that this code does multiply the final distance by -1. As a result, the calculated offset-distance-nm would place the start position well down the runway - possibly some way beyond it, in fact. Anyway, that's my analysis, I'd love someone to check my logic and see if they concur or disagree. Regards, James ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
