On Fri, 10 May 2002 13:31:27 -0500, Cameron Moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> * [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. ..hush, who say we can't fly rc models from a chopper... ;-) > > 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 ..for a realistic model, say 1.5kg, 1.5m and 50km/h, for a typical RC trainer model. > > 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. ..have you tried out YaSim here? I believe Andy wrote it for solving the unknown variables. > > 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 ...or being driven in an convertible or flown in a chopper etc... > > 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. ..configurable. Some see farther. Some cheat using binoculars. And some are adviced by Naval radars "in case you've lost out there". ;-) > > 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. ..I dont believe rc model kit vendors do invest in researching their kits flight dynamics, most care about handling. YaSim, Andy? -- ..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;-) ...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry... Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. _______________________________________________ Flightgear-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-users
