While debugging the 737 I discovered something that I find unsettling. For the 737-300 model (using a JSBSim flight model) there is a nasal script called air-ground.nas. This apparently adds some automatic control of the spoilers while on the ground. Now, understand up front that the discussion that follows is not about nasal (which is a great feature and a great part of flightgear) but about compatibility, convention, and communication.
JSBSim has a powerful flight control capability that is specifically designed for purposes such as that which the mentioned nasal script addresses. I'd much prefer that such code be done using that capability, and for several good reasons. Among them: 1) It is desirable for debugging and development purposes that the flight model operates as closely as possible to the same whether run from FlightGear or from a standalone version of JSBSim. JSBSim code does not incorporate nasal in its standalone executable. 2) Similarly, uses of the flight models by other simulators which use JSBSim may not incorporate nasal, and thus behavior will differ. 3) Without knowing about such scripts (which I did not until recently), similar capabilities may be added to the existing flight control specification already in JSBSim and may result in a "force fight" or controls confusion. FlightGear has an autopilot model, now there are nasal scripts that may perform flight control related tasks, and there is the flight control specification in JSBSim aircraft. Ideally, some emerging JSBSim aircraft will model their own autopilot within the JSBSim flight control model (which has been conceived and designed with an aim towards GNC analysis from the start). So, there needs to be good communication among several parties when it comes to adding capabilities to a flight model. Jon ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=110944&bid=241720&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
