Andy Ross wrote:
John Wojnaroski wrote:Well, excuse me....
Believe it or not, what makes an airplane turn is LIFT... think about it.
Well, OK. But let's not get too pedantic about things.
with an aircraft. An aircraft held in a level sideslip will turn, for example, due to the side forces caused by the slip, no wing lift need be involved.
Define 'level', if the wings are level, REALLY level, the rudder will produce a torgue to turn the nose until the counter-acting moment produced by beta is equal and there she'll stay, in a skid, but no turning. In fact, as Dave noted, you have to cross control with the ailerons to keep the aircraft from banking and turning if you step on a rudder. The Wright Brothers got it right from teh get-go; else why bother with wing-warping if rudders would do the job?
so what you're saying is ignore the math and EOMs which the last time I checked seem to be what aero engineers use to design, build, and test based on kinematics and physical forces. IMHO you've got it backwards
Aphorisms like "lift causes turns" or "the rudder doesn't turn the aircraft" are training and educations tools; they're true as metaphors, but aren't physical laws.
One of the features that make FG so useful as a research tool is the validity and accuracy of the EOMs, so let's not short change that aspect of the program. Lord only knows what the boys at MS are using...
So fire up FG and your favorite airplane and try a few things and look at the data....
Regards John W.
_______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
