> Good to see that you're indexing these files (all in one place and easy to > get). Is anyone moving them into the cvs? Do others want that done?
With so many airplanes about to be modeled I wonder if it's time we considered keeping most of them in seperate packages, and what a standard package should look like. I could put the files in t38.tar.gz and/or t38.zip archives that when extracted into $FGROOT creates directories Airplanes/T38, Airplanes/T38/Panels and Airplanes/T38/Models (if they don't already exist). I can see the Instruments, Huds and Engines directories getting out of control, so maybe it would be best to keep those configs within the T38 directory. This way new airplane packages will stay modular. It also makes it easier to distribute packages that can't be GPL'd for some reason, and easier for FG to be sure of its GPL'dness. FG can then link to the "off-site hangers" where we can keep the packages. > As for the aero data, are you setting the values by 'tuning' and > 'borrowing' from other aircraft? Or are you calculating the stability > derivatives? Mostly tuning and borrowing. I started with the C172 and C310 configs and began replacing numbers. Some data comes from the usual textbooks, like Roskam, McCormick, Anderson, and Etkin, but that amounts to very little, and usually you have to borrow numbers from similar aircraft. The problem is that most of the data is proprietary, so we can only guess. There is a NASA document that has stability data on the T-38 and some other fighter-types, but I don't want to spend the 50+ dollars to get it. Right now the T-38 flies very much like like a T-38 (once the yaw damper went in), but I'd love to put real T-38 data in anyway if it was available. Of course the data problem is even worse for other airplanes, but their handling qualities are very T-38'ish so the T38 numbers should suffice at first. The performance numbers are different, but those are mostly functions of size, weight and thrust. To me the biggest obstacles to realism in the flight models is lack of "feel" in the joystick and lack of the usual visual/tactile/aural cues. Dave _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
