Nice, I did notice the missiles sort of don't follow the same direction/energy of the plane resulting in them going through the wing a bit initially on launch?
Actually, that is because the first two missiles (AGM-65 Maverick) have guidance code which has two specific flyout profiles, LOBL high and LOBL low (LOBL = Lock On Before Launch). They first attain level flight during the boost phase of flight, (while the rotor motor is burning), and once the rocket burns out they change into the cruise phase. In LOBL high it attains a glide slope in order not to loose too much velocity, but not loose too much altitude, while in LOBL low it descends to a lower altitude in order to impact the target at a low angle. With the seeker locked onto the laser spot/target, the AGM cruises until a predetermined distance from the target, at which point it enters terminal guidance. In LOBL high the terminal guidance attains a high angle of descent at a shorter distance from the target, in order to impact at approximate a 45 degree angle. In LOBL low the guidance maintains a low angle glide slope locked up with a trajectory to intercept the target. In both high and low modes, the seeker tracks the laser spot, so the laser designator can lead the missile onto a moving target. The other missiles in the video were AIM-9M Sidewinder, which do not currently have guidance for air-to-air working properly, and since they are not locked onto a target, they simply fall. The missiles I will be releasing may not have all of this functionaly yet, simply because I don't have a good interface which would allow the user to select guidance modes. You can currently select between air-to-air and air-to-ground modes, as well as select the weapon to fire, and turn on/off Laser Arm and Master Arm. I'll need fully functional MFDs in order to do it all properly.
Also do you find the weight/gravity of the flight mechanics realistic? I really wouldn't know myself but it seems aircraft has a fair bit of throw when doing sharp turns like the wings are not cutting into the air correctly to change aircraft direction?
JSBSim flight modelling is not easy, to say the least, and even more so difficult for helicopters than traditional aircraft configurations. The only modifications I have made so far to bongodriver's EuroFighter were to implement the weapon system setting the correct mass and drag depending on what external store is on each station. It will take many months of work in order to build even a medium fidelity FDM. Currently the weight, wing area, thrust and other metrics are all approximately correct, however the lift and drag coefficients are not correct at all, and need to be calculated. Right now at high alpha (Angle of Attack), there is too little drag and too much lift. Even though the EuroFighter has super-maneuverability, with high static instability, it should not be able to perform 15 G maneuvers, and doing so would certainly kill the pilot and tear the wings off!
A proper fly-by-wire system would limit the aircraft's ability to exceed around 9 Gs, but an improved flight model will make the most difference in terms of an accurate flight envelope.
Just an observation. Lastly I found with one of the jets in game the autocannon wasn't automatic but semi-automatic firing, not sure if that can be corrected or not, let me know.
This is already fixed thanks to SteelRat's simple JavaScript code, but should probably be a parameter of the fire method on the engine side in the long term. Advanced ballistics will be implemented at some point in the future, to account for such effects as ballistic coefficient, spin drift, wind drift, etc.
Hope that answers some of your questions.
Regards,
Uriah
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Topic: [WIP] Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow (Read 216975 times)