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Any chance we will get this? Would be neat to add parts like a wing, rudder, body, elevator... you get the idea.

It's possible you can simulate this kind of thing right now You can create a plane using a collection of rigid bodies and joints and build up from there. Will take some time to plan it all out and get it exactly right but the results will be worthwhile.

I'd love to have a go at trying this out now, but am stuck in the middle of something else. If I was doing it, I would do as Mike suggested. I always do things the complex way but I'd have 8 rigid body cubes for:

- The main body
- The left and right wings
- The left and right rear wings
- The rudder/stabeliser/whatever it's called
- The lift/ailerons, or whatever they're called on each main wing.

I'd probably do something similar to this:

- Calculate the total forwards velocity of each plane wing, and use that to derive an upwards (on the wings local y-axis) force to apply to the wings. This would simulate the lift from the air running over the wings at the plane moves forwards. If the plane was moving sideways, no upwards force would be generated. If the plane is upside down, a downwards force would be generated. This would have a cap, to simulate the maximum upwards lift the plane can have. Any speed along the y-axis of the main wings would create a negative drag force. Meaning that if you dropped your plane downwards from stand still as it was horizonal, the wings would have a parachute effect. Basically, try and model all the forces that wind would place upon the wings as it moves along its own local axis.

- Apply a similar upwards force to the ailerons/flaps/whatever. So that as you tilt them downwards, it'd apply an upwards lift force, as well as a backwards drag, just like real life.

- Model the rear wings in exactly the same way. You'd have to tweak the effect they'd have so that the plane would stay level at a certain forwards velocity. By applying forces along the rear wings local y-axis in proportion to it's movement on that axis, you would effectively keep the plane level. If the tail rose upwards, downwards forces on it would push it back into line.

- Do exactly the same thing for the rear wing/rudder. It'll just be operating on a different rotational plain.

Now, I'm not saying that not complex. That's a lot of work there, a lot of trial and error and a lot of maths. But DP already has the bare bones in place. You just have to bear in mind that airplanes are 100% about wind resistance, and DP has no wind resistance modelling at all, so you have to model that all yourself. Once you've done that, DP will take care of the rotational and linear velocities for you, and the wings snapping off, and the plummeting into the ground.

I tried a flying vehicle once. It worked,just I couldn't get the camera to act correctly. I just added forces to it to make it move in a certain direction,I also disabled gravity when you were in it. But I also couldn't get the rotating with mouse to work,I'm not sure why. It just wouldn't rotate

To get it right, you need to figure the area of the wing, and so on.

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/lifteq.html

We did an airplane using Meqon where we had to have a force pushing up on the bottom. This only worked since the plane was relatively low on the ground....

There's so much to plane physics that I don't think it would be possible to model it purely by adding lift to wings. Wing size / shape / profile has a big influence on how a plane flies, plus you've got things like ground effect, flaps, slats, all the other control surfaces, air flow around the fuselage, how a plane performs at different altitudes, weather and wind speeds, etc.

You may be able to get a rudimentary model using simple forces but it will be nowhere near the realism for Flight Sim.



Doesn't the horizontal stabiliser act as a control surface, not a lifting body?

No idea! I would imagine both though. At the end of the day it's all about simulating it to the degree of required realism. For example, personally I find the dog fighting in BF1942 awesome. The physics aren't gonna be very accurate but they play well and feel realistic enough to be convincing. There is still the sense of weight and lift and instability.

If I made a plane physics, I would have no intention of trying to make a super realistic sim. I'd just be going for something that feels realistic enough, does the job, and is fun to control. I dont think it should be that hard to get a moderately realistic sim going (i.e. something that seems realistic to someone who's never flown a real plane or top quality flight sim)

Btw, me and a few mates have just started buying remote control planes. When you see how those mis-shapen pieces of crap get into the air, even with massive crash damage, you're surprised they can still fly. That idea of elegance and precision engineering that you normally have about planes kind of goes out the window. So long as you have the right components in more or less the right place, some sort of flight seems possible. We're constantly gluing wings back on, sticking bits of wood over the wings to reinforce them, taping on the landing gears etc. All good fun. Actually, I should put a vid up on Geek Culture of our shananigans at some point.