Hello,
after bringing back airwaveXtreme150 in
February I noticed that a hang glider without environment interaction
is unacceptable. Therefore a conversion from UIUC to JSBSim was due.
The aim of my February release was the
restoration of the original state, where I tried to change as less as
possible.
In contrast to this the JSBSim-Version
is an extensive further development:
- more realistic appearance (e.g.
twisted wing)
- added legs and shoes
- running animation
- view animation
- highly configurable
- FDM is more or less a 1:1 conversion
from UIUC to JSBSim (No weight shift -> this is planned for another hang glider
in the future)
Note the difference in reference system
on ground and in air: On ground the glider rotates around the pilot and in air
the pilot rotates in the
glider system (animation and FDM).
If something is going wrong in flight,
don't hesitate to press "}" .... and a rescue chute will
open.
AirwaveXtreme is now a 3 in 1 hang
glider:
You could configure it as a novice
(single surface, kingpost), intermediate (double surface, kingpost)
or
high performance (double surface,
without kingpost) hang glider. Also individual colors and wheels
could be chosen.
Since real life hang gliders are built
in different sizes to match different pilot weights a "Performance
Settings"
menu allows you to configure pilot
weight, sail area and glide ratio.
All appearance and performance settings
could be chosen independently. In order to prevent inexperienced
users to
configure weird unrealistic settings a
few pre-configured versions are also available.
Flying this hang glider is great fun. I
found that flying in ridge lift conditions close to the terrain is (and looks)
quite realistic. With
appropriate wind settings a astonishing good agreement compared to
real life is achievable. I really think this hang
glider simulator could assist hang gliding instructions (e.g. flying and
landing in strong wind
conditions; demonstrating the considerable increased sink rate in the
lee of mountains) and if you once tried the
"cold front" weather scenario in FlightGear you will never
ever try this in real life!
Recommended flying sites:
A very beautiful site is the real life
hang gliding launch "Hafelekar" which is located near LOWI
(--lon=11.377417 --lat=47.30525 –heading=180 --on-ground). Choose 15kt wind
from 180deg for all
altitudes and soar up to the summits.
A more challenging flight is "Fort
Funston" near KSFO. It's a famous hang gliding site located at
the coast with an altitude difference of only (250ft).
Unfortunately directly at "Fort Funston" the FlightGear
terrain is too smeared to produce sufficient ridge lift but a little bit
further south (--lon=-122.4942234 --lat=37.6980674 –heading=270
–on-ground) ridge lift works perfectly. Choose wind with 20kt from 270deg. Be
careful with the angle of attack on ground. Turn left after launch
and fly very close to the cliff. Play with the performance
settings to explore their influence on sink rate and
wind-penetration.
My original plan was to release this
hang glider after I finished everything without any bugs. But I have
to learn that modeling an aircraft in FlightGear is a
NON-convergent process. Every time I implement one feature I get
ideas of two new ones. However I think that the
actual state is worth to be released.
Known issues are
- kingpost contact point is not working
- FDM on ground not complete (only
pitch input is taken into account)
- multiplayer: generic variables (e.g.
for running animation) don't work
For the latter issue help from the
experts is highly appreciated (and needed). The versions settings are
transmitted
correctly but customized colors, the various toggles
and the variables for running animation (all defined in
sim/multiplay/generic) do not work. I am at a loss.
Still missing features are winch and
aero-towing. It's a shame that aero towing is not yet implemented
since we have towing planes (Dragonfly / Flash2A) in
FlightGear since years. This isn't realistic at all. In real life hang
glider pilots are always looking for tow
planes and not vice versa. :-)
The files are already waiting for a
merge. This is my first merge request. Hopefully everything is fine.
See you in the air. My dream is seeing a bunch of hang gliders at the same time
and at the same site in multiplayer. All with
different colors and performance settings like in real life!
Best regards
D-NXKT
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