Jade Island Flight Test Thrust vectoring update..

[warchild]

Thought you folks might like to see where we're at with this. After seven long years, i'm proud of what we've got..
Follow along with us at http://www.facebook.com/Su37DevelopersNotes for the most recent in SU-37/35 news and I hope you enjoy the show..
Pam
PS. Apparently it isnt going to let this be imbedded so please check here for the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFdSn...ature=youtu.be

[Daube]

EXCELLENT !!!

It looks really impressive. I'm not sure the aircraft is really supposed to be THAT stable during backward flight, but this "proof of concept" looks extremely positive already.

[warchild]

Thanks Daube
::chuckles:: Ya know, you may have a point there. although there is evidence that the plane will remain stable long enough to get missile lock and tone on an aircraft ( about four seconds i think ) there is no evidence anywhere for anything longer, except during its demo flights when its doing a flat vertical corkscrew spin.
An even odder thing is that in order to make it stable, i had to completely destroy all stability. The plane for all intents and purposes is a small, metal, extremely maneuverable cloud; which fits with the original design philosophy.
I think though, given Mikhail Simonovs confidence in 1999 when he offered to dogfight anyone in the world with the SU-37, that it most likely was even more capable than the Russians have ever let on, as that challenge still stands unanswered, even against the updated SU-35s ( the inheritors of the SU-37 technologies ).

[Daube]

It's really cool to see the amount of "interractions" that you guys managed to create with the FSX physics engine.
Concerning the stability, I understand that the plane can keep its backward position for a while. I was just wondering if it was really able to maintain such a fast backward flight as can be seen in one of your sequences.
During slow manoevers, no problems, but when the plane is going fast, I would imagine that the aerodynamics would become problematic...
Anyways, I guess it's time for me to dig that "Super Manoeverer" archive that is sitting somewhere on my disks, to check how stable the Su-35/37 really was in backward flight. I loved this small sim, the very first one to provide a simulation of this thrust vectoring. (it was made from the Flanker 1.0 engine).

[flaviossa]

Impressive video. Didn´t know that this kind of maneuvers is possible inside FS.

[warchild]

Concerning the stability, I understand that the plane can keep its backward position for a while. I was just wondering if it was really able to maintain such a fast backward flight as can be seen in one of your sequences.
During slow manoevers, no problems, but when the plane is going fast, I would imagine that the aerodynamics would become problematic...

Truth told, We arent moving very fast in any of those maneuvers. Each maneuver is entered into at between 250 - 450 km/h and during the maneuver, the air speed usually drops to zero and comes back up to 150 km/h on exit. This is still below stall speed however. Thats why you'll see me freaquently kick in the afterburners when exiting a stunt. I need to get the airspeed back up before i pancake.
This plane has a lower hard deck of 2500 feet and an upper hard deck at 4500 feet where its safe to begin maneuvers. Yevgeny Frolov, the pilot of the SU-37 made the statement that the plane could recover from a stall at 100 feet. Our plane, in its current service configuration of fuel and such cannot do this, While its moving, you can do almost anything you wish but once the airspeed gets too low, your going down like a homesick rock, so, by the time you reach 2500 feet, you need to be getting plenty of air over those wings, or punch out.
High speed thrust vectoring does little more than tighten the turns. The plane simply will not enter into an extreme maneuver as there is too much momentum for the thrust to overcome. At its very best, at higher speeds above 550 km/h the plane ( as big as it is ) handles a little like an F-16.
Yaw/flat rotations are possible ar 0 km/h through perhaps 125 km/h, but equilibrium takes over after that and the plane loses its balance, becoming uncontrollable.
The real plane is able to do a tvc turn where it rolls up on its wing and kicks in the tvc to rotate around and lower the turn radius to almost nothing. Our model can only approximate this at this time due in part to temporary limitations set by the fsx engine. Its the equilibrium issue thats causing the problem here. The truth is, the flight model can be set up to completely overcome the equilibrium issues, however, what you end up with is a 40000 pound metal cloud thats almost completely uncontrollable without the computer making adjustments in the controls as well as the tvc to keep it somewhat on a normal flight path. In the model, pilots could use differential thrust as well as rudder to maintain a correct flight path, but we decided that perhaps people thought this was too much work to do for an fsx model. So we tightened it up. differential thrust is still used in some flat rotations and other maneuvers, but its nit required to resume a straight flight path, and thats where the equilibrium problem raises its head. Restricted in its ability to float freely in any direction, and asked to do three things at once, the plane will lose its balance and tumbles out of control. I suspect that most likely the main problem is in my pilotage of it. I've flown a great many planes over the years and one or two real ones as well, but this thing is unlike anything i've ever seen before and i'm finding a major learning curve with it..

[warchild]

Impressive video. Didn´t know that this kind of maneuvers is possible inside FS.

Thanks Flaviosa .. We're doing our best. This plane has been a dream of not only myself, but Paul Dominiques for the past seven yeas, and we're getting close. Closer than conceivability has ever allowed before. Functional canards, Thrust vectoring: These are all brand new things in flight sim, and heretofore, impossible to achieve. Its a brave new world for flight simulator, and its every bit as confounding , confusing and infuriating as any new discovery would be, but its also a very incredible place to be in. This plane will litterally let people fly like a bird, and do things that until now, only birds could do. Its quite addicting