Aux Landing Gear; Skids

[Lionheart]

Hey all,


This is one for the developers. I am making a plane that will be able to belly land when the gear is up. I need to figure out how people are doing this.

What happens is that when my regular landing gear is up, the alternate 'Skid' contact points become invisible also so that only the Scrape points are functioning.

Is this the common way or is there a more modern way of doing this?



Many thanks,


Bill
LHC

[fliger747]

Bill, Have been working on this for the DC2, just have to have the skid points appropriately placed, seems to work fine.

t

[empeck]

Bill, make a code that checks if you are on the ground with gears up, and make alternate, bent propeller ;)

[Piglet]

and make alternate, bent propeller

Maybe it's a jet. Or a Me-163?!?
The aux gear only works for quad gears, Like the Cessna Caravan Amphib from FS9. The FSX Goose, and my Kingfisher use.... uhhh...ummm, shoulda checked this before posting.....

[Gibbage]

163 would be interesting to see. I just read today someone has a glider replica they built and fly's around. That would be a neat glider if they could put a rocket in it!

[Piglet]

NOT looking forward to a C-Stoff bath!:isadizzy::pop4:

[Lionheart]

Actually the Komet project started as a glider. The Gestapo was in charge of organizing it. They had Walter make a rocket engine of 'such and such size', and they had the Horten brothers make a glider that could go 'such and such a speed, and hold a small payload. Near the end, the two 'systems' were united.

It was a massively secret project. It paid a heavy toll on American bombers 'psycologically' (however its spelled). Camera's couldnt film them for 2 years as the craft were so fast and exposure was so slow that they were a blur. The human eyes though saw that they were planes with no props, and they had no tails, and they had swastika's on them. Some figured hitler made a deal with aliens and that they were alien space craft attacking them, thus came the term 'foo fighters'.


Back on topic, I tried all day to get the skids to work. All I got was a dancing plane with a shower of sparks. Thankfully, there was no C-Stoff on the tarmac, lol...



Bill

[Lionheart]

Bill, Have been working on this for the DC2, just have to have the skid points appropriately placed, seems to work fine.

t


Fliger,

I still have the plane falling through the tarmac. Is there something I am missing in the code perhaps?

Here is a typical string from my skids;

This one is with scrape points, which gives a shower of sparks...
point.3 = 2, -3.45, 0.0, -1.9, 1574.8, 0, 0.000, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 4, 0.0, 0.0

This one is with Skids, but falls through the tarmac or causes the plane to fall over when on the landing gear (landing gear deployed, sitting on tarmac).
point.3 = 3, -3.45, 0.0, -1.9, 1574.8, 0, 0.000, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 4, 0.0, 0.0


Also, when I have Skids as the class of contact point, the plane keeps hopping/jumping into the air, while scrapes will allow it to slide along, but eventually it hops onto its nose, dances, then rockets back into the sky (crash turned off). What I want is to belly land, slide in slowly, no sparks. The aircraft would have aluminum runners that would actually take the scraping.

Maybe I am missing something?

EDIT: I did find a 8 missing in that one string posted. There are 5; 3 for the fuselage, one for each wing. This is what I have on all 5 now, and is what is on other planes with scrape strings;
point.3 = 2, -3.45, 0.0, -1.9, 1574.8, 8, 0.000, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 4, 0.0, 0.0



Bill

[Gibbage]

Ultimatly, the Me-163 proved more deadly to its pilots then its targets. Still a cool aircraft though.

[Moparmike]

Fliger,


EDIT: I did find a 8 missing in that one string posted. There are 5; 3 for the fuselage, one for each wing. This is what I have on all 5 now, and is what is on other planes with scrape strings;
point.3 = 2, -3.45, 0.0, -1.9, 1574.8, 8, 0.000, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 4, 0.0, 0.0



Bill

Bill, that eight that you've got in the 6th entry won't matter. The 6th entry is the brake map. 0=none, 1=left, 2=right. No other possibilities that I've ever found for that entry.


I'm guessing that you're thinking of the 14th entry which maps out what sound will be played when that contact point is used. 0-9 available and outlined in the SDK docs.



This is from my CFS2 fiddling a while back. Kinda surprised that I remember it... :redface:
Back to your problem with the retracting "skid" class. Yup, the "3" skid points will retract with with the regular "1" wheel points.
Like wheels, the skid contact points don't actually retract...they are completely ignored if the gear is retracted.

I think you'll need to stick with "2" scrape points and up the impact threshold value (5th entry) so it doesn't trigger a crash.

[michael davies]

Mike has the best solution, up the scrape damage threshold to 3500 or something, then you'll need to make a new scrape effect so that no sparks show or an effect that gives dust or something, these can be added into the cfg as well under the effects section, these will over rule the default ones, ie if the're not in the cfg then the sim will assign its own scrape effect if I remember correctly.

Best

Michael

[Lionheart]

Mike has the best solution, up the scrape damage threshold to 3500 or something, then you'll need to make a new scrape effect so that no sparks show or an effect that gives dust or something, these can be added into the cfg as well under the effects section, these will over rule the default ones, ie if the're not in the cfg then the sim will assign its own scrape effect if I remember correctly.

Best

Michael


Many thanks Mike and Michael.

I am still left with a plane that dances about on the tarmac when it slides to a stop. I wonder if increasing the MOI will shut that 'dance' down. (Im going to give it a try).

Thanks for all the input. Massively appreciated.



Bill

[Moparmike]

If I remember right, you can use the compression, compression ratio, and damping entries (9, 10, & 11th entries) on scrape points too.

I'm not sure if the MOI would affect ground handling effect.

[peter12213]

NOT looking forward to a C-Stoff bath!:isadizzy::pop4:

I drink the stuff :mixedsmi::pop4: LOL!!!

[Lionheart]

If I remember right, you can use the compression, compression ratio, and damping entries (9, 10, & 11th entries) on scrape points too.

I'm not sure if the MOI would affect ground handling effect.

Awesome. I'll try that out now..


Thanks Mike.



Bill

[FelixFFDS]

Bill - it's easy. You don't have skids. You really have an amphibian with skid-shaped floats.

[michael davies]

Felix, will an amphib sit on the ground ?, I'd have to try it to find out, not sure really but could be a good solution as it'll allow the gear to retract and avoid scrape points.

Bill, yes MOI will effect ground bounce, it effects landing gear as well as I found out on the Apache many moons ago, it'll also effect the plane in the sky so be careful when messing with it, a good rule of thumb is 3-5x the empty weight as a basic figure to begin with, the real calculation is much more complex but thats what I use to begin with.

Best

Michael

Additional, I have this nagging voice in the back of my head that says Skids dont work too well, there is another type of gear point you can use, its called ski and might by type 4 ?. You may also try a set of type 1 (fixed) gear but place them at the scrape locations, technically the type 2 should extend past them and it should still work ok, Amphib (type 3) works like this with type 1 going past them to make ground landing possible.

You might have to double check my type numbers above, I'm away from my PC so the're from memory.


Bill - it's easy. You don't have skids. You really have an amphibian with skid-shaped floats.

[Lionheart]

Bill - it's easy. You don't have skids. You really have an amphibian with skid-shaped floats.


BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks Felix.

Once again you saved the day. Worked so perfect, I cant believe it, lololol..

Dommo Arrigatto, gozi-mash-tah!

<-- bows humbly

[Lionheart]

This is pretty cool. I can even ditch in the water now, lololol...

Thanks Felix.



Roger that Michael on the MOI. I did get some shivvers on the floats when it was on the ground. I tried messing with the Empty MOI a bit, but that doesnt seem to be doing it. Might be all my 'pontoons', lol..

Several days of this. Great to get it working. I'll sleep better now.


Bill

[michael davies]

Bill,

Not the Empty MOI, try the Pitch, Roll and Yaw MOI figures, add 10-20,000 to each and see if its better.

Best

Michael

[FelixFFDS]

Felix, will an amphib sit on the ground ?,

WHile I am known for my hare-brained ideas .... this time I actually tried it out first (Note to Bill - you'll be getting a bill for landscaping at Friday Harbor)

My reasoning is that, in FLight Simulator, it isn't so much what IS but "What can it appear to be?"

[Moparmike]

Neat suggestion on using the float class as a skid Felix!

[FelixFFDS]

Neat suggestion on using the float class as a skid Felix!

AS Bill (both Lionheart and Fr....) know, I am at my most brilliant when I channel Inspector Poly (who generally has no clue what he's talking about).

[Lionheart]

Bill,

Not the Empty MOI, try the Pitch, Roll and Yaw MOI figures, add 10-20,000 to each and see if its better.

Best

Michael


Ahh... Roger that. Thanks Michael.



Bill

[Lionheart]

AS Bill (both Lionheart and Fr....) know, I am at my most brilliant when I channel Inspector Poly (who generally has no clue what he's talking about).


Man Felix,

You have saved my 'blank' quite a few times now with suggestions that were pretty imaginative and off the normal path of doing things.


Many thanks Sir.



Bill

[fliger747]

Bill:

Somewhere in the pile of stuff on my FS setup is a Komet, which seems to work OK, I'll have to have a look. Been very busy since returning from the "stans" with flying the cub on floats and ministring to the new lady....

In a couple of daze if the issue remains open.... t.