Well I mean my Cessna has steerable wheels and an engine that delivers power.... the car on my drive also has an engine and steerable wheels but it aint a Cessna, yet they have a lot in common... in fact I wrote off a car once and it flew twice before coming to a stop.
yes jsbsim's ground handling isn't brilliant, but considering they've spent no effort on it at all it's a start.... jsbsim's ground contact can create some amazing bounces but, that again is because they've created the most basic ground handling they could get away with to get the plane in the air.
I'm saying that a C++ guy could concentrating on this missing element of jsbsim code create a realistic ground handling and power transmission from the engine via the gearbox to the wheels... such that an external force is applied at the point of contact.
Now take a plane.... it moves through a not very dense medium.... air, using a propeller..... using aileron and a rudder....... so does a submarine, accept that the medium is a lot more denser.
A ship floats.....but then again so does a balloon and jsbsim can do one of them.... so why not ballast tanks on a sub ?
A sail is basically a wing...a keel a rudder.... the similarities are there to see.
Actually given time (possibly years) I'll have a crack at all the above using 'systems' within jsbsim simply for the heck of it.... been a bit busy lately on rockets..
My thoughts are that jsbsim does what it says on the tin.... but it doesn't have to do only what it says on the tin... with a bit of imagination and the ability to write C++ it could do a lot more for Outerra.
Simon
