posted 07-28- 10:04 AM               

Make the slats 'CDial objects and key them to the airspeed. A lot of trial and error involved because you'll need to have the slats fully retract before you reach "top speed" on the airspeed indicator. I think you can do this with the min and max settings on the CDial property. Doing it this way, you'll have the slats partially out at some speeds, which I'm not sure is correct.

OR, (more realistic) attach an airfoil to the slats, and put a dofSpring on the slat DOF. When the plane is sitting still, the slats will be out. As you accelerate, the airloads will force the slats closed against the spring. When you slow down enough, the spring will win and the slats will pop open. Again, lots of trial and error. Make sure you don't put a dofBreak property in there or the slats may break off.

You could also make them "flaps," but then they'd only work with the flap command, which isn't how I understand them to work on WW2 planes.

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--jedi--

posted 07-30- 07:18 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by jedi:
Make the slats 'CDial objects and key them to the airspeed.

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It would seem to me that you could adjust the min and max settings to be, say, 1mph apart. Wouldn't that do it? There would be only a 1mph range where the slats are "half out".

quote:

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OR, (more realistic) attach an airfoil to the slats, and put a dofSpring on the slat DOF. When the plane is sitting still, the slats will be out. As you accelerate, the airloads will force the slats closed against the spring.

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Clever! I like this one, as it's physically identical to the real thing.

Ok, now the problem - the slats are NOT commanded by airspeed to any real degree. I mean they are, it's the air that's forcing them closed just like the second one above. The problem is that it's the "local airspeed" they see, and that's highly dependant on the angle of attack.

I believe a combination of both of the effects above is needed. The spring would take care of the normal behaviour, and then maybe an AoA dial (is there such a thing) to handle the high speed case.

Now the big question - can the operation of these slats effect the airfoil curves? It can with the flaps, so I assume this is possible. Can you have two sets of flaps, and have one set triggered "internally" instead of via a user input?

posted 07-31- 07:34 PM               

Hard to set it up to do the right thing aerodynamically I would think...

posted 08-01- 07:50 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by jedi:
If you use the "oscEndDisabled" feature with the DOF, this airfoil can "vanish" when the slat is closed, and function when it's open.

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Ahhhhh. I like that. What's double-nice about this solution is that it's likely it would correctly make the slats pop-out at different times on each wing.