posted 03-20- 12:18 AM               

airK
airChord
airInc
airAR (know what it is and how to calculate it, but how does it affect flight characteristics)
airWash
aircVa

Last, how do you increase dive capability besides adding weight?

Thanks.

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"Where'd he GO!?!?"
thunk-thunk-thunk-zing-OUCH
That answered my question

posted 03-20- 05:32 AM               

AirChord describes the profile of the wing. It's the distance front to back.

AirAR is the air area of the wing. Combined, the two tell the game engine what shape the wing is.

Air area determines the wing loading, which should affect the way a plane responds. The PBY has wings the size of a football pitch, and glides really well. It can also fly very slowly, since it's wings give a lot of lift.

posted 03-20- 05:38 AM               

4. Chord Length: This is part of the obAirfoil prop list (airChord). It is the average length in feet from the wing's leading edge to trailing edge. So for a rectangle wing the chord is exactly the distance between the leading and trailing edge. For an eliptical wing the chord will be an average of all the chords lengths accross, you can estimate this by cutting the wing in serveral sections.

I'm not sure exactly how this effects the FM, my guess is that it has to do with certian wing effeciancy aspects.

5. Aspect Ratio: (airAR) Effects wing effeciancy (lift to drag ratio). A slender long wing creates less drag for the same lift. This is measured as a ratio of chord length to wing span for the entire wing that this model is part of. Apect Ratio = wing span devided by chord length.

6. Oswald Wing Effeciancy Number (airK) This represents the wing's planform. An ideal elliptical planform means a 1 for this number. A very ineffeciant wing planform pushes this number towards 0. This number mostly just decreases lift to drag ratio, a low number adds drag for the same amount of lift.

airInc: This simply tiltes the wing's AOA pn the aircraft... you can use this to tweak the incidence angle between the wing and horizontal stab.. (which can also have an airInc BTW) It is measured in degrees, where 1 = 1 positive degree of AOA. This is seldom used - uless your name is Pang

airWash: This simulates the wind from the prop hitting the tail surfaces at an angle and causing yaw and pitch tourque. I ALWAYS delete this until the FM is perfect, then add it at your discretion. A bad setting here can KILL you... it can make setting the CG impossible. For example, maybe in cruise, your plane feels great, then cut the engine and you stall like your CG has all of a sudden jumped WAY back... tail heavy.

aircVa: This goes on the root level model and tells the AI the do-not-exceed airspeed.

Dive capability in terms of what? What is holding it back, speed, or damage? For speed, you can lower over-all drag, look at cylAirfoil, or the main wing airfoils. Also, if your plane is too nose heavy, this will slow you down a bit... a CG perfect with CL will slow you down a tiny bit as well... CG just behind CL (slightly tail heavy) gives you the most speed in a dive (this is called a tuck-position) This is because in this situation the wing and horiz. stab are working at the lowest AOA together in level path... and less AOA means less drag.

If damage is the issue, strengthen the wing springs... and make the wings heavier if they are too light.

These are just ideas... they may not be accurate