* [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Grant Edwards) [2002.05.10 10:38]: > I've been looking around for a flight simulator for > radio-controlled model airplanes. I've found several > commercial programs and a couple free (as in beer) programs; > all for Win32. [One of the cooler free ones is at > simulator.home.pages.de]
I've been down this path before. I've played FMS and RealFlight Classic, and both work fine. Tried both under Wine and couldn't get them to work. > I've searched the FG mailing list archives, and haven't seen it > mentioned, so I thought I'd ask... > > Could flightgear be used to simulate model airplane flight? Yes, though we can all agree it's a little bloated for the task. > I'm guessing there would be three main issues: > > 1) The numerical model. Would the flight model used by FG > scale properly to a plane with a mass of 1kg, a wingspan of > 1m, and flight speed of 5km/h? [Maybe this is a stupid > and/or obvious question. I'm an electrical engineer, so > Reynolds is a guy who sold aluminum...] I've asked this question before and was told the JSBSim should scale. After dealing with JSBSim for a while, I think we could definately use a separate FDM for RC flight or at least a solver to guestimate a JSBSim config given certain inputs. > 2) The POV for the renderer. The POV needs to rotate/zoom to > follow the plane while it (the POV) stays in one place > [unless you want to simulate somebody desperately running > after a plane being carried away by the wind]. We have this now in the form of a Tower View. The only thing missing, IMHO, is the ability to set a "max distance" option so the aircraft will not get so small that you can't see it anymore. > 3) The ability to take control inputs from an RC transmitter. > In addition to PC joystick/keyboard control, one would want > to be able to use the output from the "buddy" connector on > the RC transmitter. I've yet to purchase a connector for my transmitter (it's an Airtronics). I have used the RealFlight transmitter/joystick, and Linux recognized it as a normal analog joystick. Worked great until I have to give it back to the person I borrowed it from. :-) > The third one I could deal with. The cable needed is pretty > trivial, and I could write a Linux device driver. But it's a > bit moot if the other two problems are intractable. I think there is a lot of interest in using FG as an RC sim, but noone has implemented any aircraft except for the UIUC guys -- I think they have one RC aircraft modeled. The largest hurdle at this point is the flight dynamics. -- Cameron Moore [ I'm trying to daydream, but my mind keeps wandering. ] _______________________________________________ Flightgear-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-users
