On Saturday, 15 November 2003 21:25, Jon Berndt wrote: > I have some design docs for floatplanes such as the older 1940's era > "Clipper" style of aircraft and I am wanting in the worst way to model one > of those just for nostalgia - they were fascinating planes, and I believe a > well modeled aircraft would add a lot to FlightGear. Imagine a nice flight > model, and autopilot, and the ability to maneuver into the passenger cabin > area. > > Jon
FlightGear would need several changes in various areas to support things like water landings. Firstly we would need to be able to specify various ground types. One way of doing this is to have a number attached to each polygon in the scenery. Say for 4 or 5 bits to allow 16 to 32 different land types. Then make a list of land types like : Hard smooth surface (runway/apron) Hard smooth surface wet (slippery runway/apron) Hard rough surface (roads, grass/dirt runways) Soft smooth surface (golf courses - great place for emergency landings) Soft rough surface (typical ground) Ice hard smooth surface (slippery characteristics) Ice hard rough surface (iced runways) Ice soft smooth surface (snow) Ice soft rough surface Water smooth surface (calm water/inland lakes or dams) Water rough surface (waves/ocean) ... ... Once we have the data in the scenery and a way of querying what type of land you are over it would be a bit easier to model the aircraft behaviour. This is great for things besides water landings. For example not staying on taxiways can get you stuck in mud up to the axles or running over the end of the runway can cause landing gear to collapse, etc. We need more developers. :) Paul _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
