On 1/10/07, Martin Spott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
"Curtis Olson" wrote:
> http://www.atcflightsim.com/products/710/
> http://www.atcflightsim.com/products/820/
The web site layout looks familiar to me ;-)))
Hey, look at the metal plate on the ground, these guys know how pedals
should feel like ! Curt, which pedals are they using ?
Hi Martin,
ATC builds all their own hardware. When certifying a flight simulator the
FAA specifies that the force inputs on the yoke and rudder must equal that
of the real aircraft for a variety of maneuvers (within some tolerance.)
For instance, setup straight and level (trimmed) flight at some altitude and
speed, flaps up. Now deploy 30 degrees of flaps. How much forward yoke
pressure do you have to hold to maintain level flight? Stuff like that ...
We've discovered that when it comes to whether or not an airplane "feels"
like it is flying right depends very much on how the controls feel. You
could have all the dynamics numbers dead on, but if the controls don't feel
right, a pilot is going to tell you the airplane doesn't fly right.
You can actually be pretty far off with flight dynamics numbers, but if the
control loadings feel right, a pilot will often tell you the airplane is
perfect.
For another project we compared the flyability of an aircraft with different
control sticks. We compared a $20 microsoft usb joystick with a stock
Thrustmaster Hotas Couger flight stick (arguably the best consumer level
stick available?), and then compared that against the same Hotas Couger
stick with the pots removed and replaced with force sensors ... so the stick
didn't move and you fly with stick pressure only.
We were flying a high performance jet aircraft with the fly by wire control
system turned off. We found that the flyability of the aircraft improved
substantially with each upgrade. With the $20 joystick, the aircraft was
barely flyable. With the stock Hotas Couger stick, the situation improved
substantially, but still wasn't great. With the force sensor upgrade, the
hotas couger stick suddenly became really nice and the pilot could now begin
to fly and control the aircraft with some level of precision.
So the moral of the story is that for all you aerodynamicists trying to
model real aircraft performance with as much fidelity as possible ... please
don't over look the feel and the quality of the controls because that plays
a *huge* part in the overall picture.
Curt.
--
Curtis Olson - University of Minnesota - FlightGear Project
http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/ http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/
http://www.flightgear.org
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