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How the FlightGear project works: Difference between revisions
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How the FlightGear project works (view source)
Revision as of 21:17, 25 December 2013
, 25 December 2013→Lack of Support and Backwards Compatibility: http://forum.flightgear.org/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=15207&start=45#p195018
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In addition, FlightGear itself has been a moving target with a constant stream of new features and enhancements some of which require changes to at least some aircraft. | In addition, FlightGear itself has been a moving target with a constant stream of new features and enhancements some of which require changes to at least some aircraft. | ||
= Number of aircraft vs. quality of aircraft = | |||
First, let me say that there are HUGE fluctuations in the quality of FG flight dynamics models, and that I don't like all of them. This is why I specifically wrote which planes I use and asked which plane you've been flying. Some FDMs are pretty bad, but others (the Seneca-II for instance) are made by people who fly the real thing, yet others (the P-51D, the F-16) are done using a huge pile of available test data and have been tweaked literally for hundreds of hours to agree with the real performance and capabilities. It's these FDMs which I like and which I'm defending here. | |||
So, you ask why some posters are so enamored with the FG FDMs. For once, because I know physics. When I do certain things, I know how the aerodynamics works out, and I expect to find that in the simulation. | |||
For two, I've been flying gliders for a while. I distinctly remember the feeling of making tiny not really conscious movements with the stick all the time to fly the thing. I want to have that experience reproduced by a flightsim, it's part of the feeling of immersion - and the top-end JSBSim models do that for me. Also, I want to _do_ something while flying, not just get my plane on rails and watch the scenery. | |||
Third, because I find it educational. I for instance happen to know that the F-104 Starfighter was pretty accident prone. Just 10 minutes flying around with the thing told me why - when the plane becomes unstable, what maneuvers you can and can't do (I think the Starfighter is also one of these FDMs with plenty of real life experience used by the creator...). I find it interesting to explore how the SR-71 reaches Mach-3 and why it needs to do the funny 'dipsy' maneuver. I find it instructive to understand why one has to fly the Concorde by the book and how fuel consumption figures change if I don't. I want to understand how thrust vectoring can be used and how stable it is. I want to learn what's different about a helicopter. For all this, I need the real physics of flight simulated as faithfully as possible. | |||
= You need development guidelines = | = You need development guidelines = | ||