Bill Galbraith writes: > Helicopter simulation in FlightGear, or any other 'simple' simulation > program, is difficult.
[grin] Understatement. Yeah, when I was a kid I used to build models and read through aeronautics books. Then I discovered computers, and those neurons went unused for two and a half decades, but when I rediscovered helicopters and FlightGear and started thinking "this flight model might be open to improvement" I looked at simple solutions, found a couple of NACA lift/drag curves for airfoils oft-used in helicopters (NACA0012 was the first one that came up multiple times), began to work out the geometry and the simpler bits of the math, and started to come up against the swept wing issues... And then decided that maybe a better start would be to figure out how to use Blender and donate a JetRanger model to the cause... > With a joystick that is spring-centered, there would be only one > condition where the controls would be centered. I tried to fly with a standard spring-loaded twist joystick for about 15 minutes, quit and immediately started cutting lumber for real controls. My current controls are a non-centering full-length cyclic, pedals (which need their sensitivity upped just a little), and a collective that needs a little less drag. Better balancing on the counter-spring for that is scheduled for this weekend, and realizing that hovering really required using the collective pretty much constantly improved my abilities dramatically. One of the questions I've got is: I've tried to work through the linkages that'd make up helicopter controls, and every way I come up with there's some force feedback. Am I hallucinating, or is it subtle enough or played out in such a way that it's just better to build controls which don't have springs? > I can't commit to any schedule for completion, but there are enough > people pressing for it now that I need to get off my butt and just > do it. Keep your eyes open for an announcement in the coming weeks. I'm in heads-down mode for a 3d animation software startup, so I'm loathe to commit to writing code (and totally understand the unwillingness to commit to a free project, and I've still got quite a bit of playing with the Bo105 before I've flown that out), but if you want a second set of eyes from someone who at least has been through the 3d graphics end of the pipeline pretty heavily, and 25 years ago (when I was 12) knew what a Reynolds number was, give a holler. Dan _______________________________________________ Flightgear-users mailing list [email protected] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-users 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
