Author Topic: FLIGHT modeling =) (Read 1605 times)

DeeZCamp · « **on:** April 30, 2001, 04:07:00 PM »

Hey all. =) I Always hear of this "FLIGHT MODEL" topic that just bothers me. =( It seems as IF the Aircraft here in Aces are Programmed to REACT a certain way. I find this very sad. IT seems as If the aircraft have "DATA TABLES" that Aces uses to determine the Flight characteristics of each plane. THIS SEVERELY limits the realism that is represented for the aircraft here. I have Asked many people If they have heard of a PROGRAM called "X-PLane" and many have, as well as many not. This X-plane Program is Not a COMBAT simulation, but rather a TRUE REPLICATION of Physicial flight parameters applicable to any aircraft that can be created for use within the X-plane program.
The program uses what is called "Blade element Theory" and is an enginneering process of wich the plane (actual flight model ) and all of its existing Airfoil shapes are CACULATED in REAL time; the Effects of Airpressure/temp/ everything that encompasses all aspects of flight. Nasa as well as other Governmental agencies have used this program for actual preflight testing to determine the effects of how the aircraft WILL perform.
Now after all this babbling of mine, My point is That IF Aces were to USE a REAL TIME METHOD of CALCULATING physical properties applicable to each individual aircraft, then THERE should BE no NEED to argue about FLIGHT MODELS..
I really love the Feel Aces high has as far as the Graphical level of detail, the chat ability and the whole over all ACM/team work experience. I think its the BEST GAME out right now.. for this type so dont think that im trying to bring it down in anyway =)
If those of you who do not belive me in my explanation here, I suggest that you download a free evaluation of the X-plane program,(www.x-plane.com) then goto the x-plane registry site (www.x-plane.org) and download some WWII aircraft that other enginneers/users have created and explore realtime calculation of aircraft. Now dont burn me on this.. im not trying to SELL anything. im just trying to show all those who talk about a "PORKED" flight model that "pre determined flight characteristics" are just limited and maybe HTC could somehow implement if not already doing so to some extent Real Time calculations for FLIGHT performance.
Oh one more thing for those hwo may be wondering about all this realtime calcualtion, and if it needs a lot of CPU horse power to run.. IT DOESNT.. on average a person with a PII450 can even achive 35 FPS. Im on PIII800EB/512 megs ram/ATI radeon 64 meg and 75 FPS in X-plane/Aces high.
OKay sorry for such a long post but yeah. <S>!all

sling322 · « **Reply #1 on:** April 30, 2001, 04:42:00 PM »

What happened Deez? Everybody start ignoring your X-plane ads on channel one in the Main Arena?

Wardog · « **Reply #2 on:** April 30, 2001, 04:54:00 PM »

Sorry, no interset at all in X.

The fact that there is more to AH than FMs, like incorporating Damage modeling,Ballistics and the ability to get 200 guys in the same place at the same time.

They take FM data from what availible to them.

Dog out....

DeeZCamp · « **Reply #3 on:** April 30, 2001, 05:24:00 PM »

heya again =) wardog my point is that they do not need DAta to determine the Predetermined Flight Envelope for the aircarft if The computer is calculating in real time "ON-THE-FLY" the actual aircraft flight physics. As far as the ability to get on someones 6 hehe ;-) This is where the Absence of Predetermined modeling would really come into play due to A more accurate representation of aircraft physics energy state/wieght/thrust to wieght/temp etc.. variables =)
As far as the other aspects in aces high i think its done beautifully. THe only thing that i would complain about, and its pretty much UNfixable right now is Net Lag

<S>

hitech · « **Reply #4 on:** April 30, 2001, 06:03:00 PM »

DeeZCamp, how well does Blade element theory repoduce motor output or the weight of the airplane?

In other words your just swaping one set of data for another.

HiTech

SpitLead · « **Reply #5 on:** April 30, 2001, 06:23:00 PM »

besides... how many of us REALLY (be honest now) would know if the F6F or Tempest or Zero or any airplane for that matter are modelled correctly or not. We have no comparison. Unless there's a WWII Test Pilot amongst us how many warbirds has anyone in this arena flown in real life. This is a SIMULATION.

I realize there are some better modeling tools out there but I think the incremental gain in realism would barely be noticeable and our only frame of reference is the previous modeling.

HiTech, I think you and your team are doing a great job. Keep up the good work.

mrfish · « **Reply #6 on:** April 30, 2001, 06:25:00 PM »

"...The program uses what is called "Blade element Theory" and is an enginneering process of wich the plane (actual flight model ) and all of its existing Airfoil shapes are CACULATED ..."

exactly...it's based on airfoil shapes which have specific force properties. but those properties are unique to airfoils. what do you do about the fuselage? as long as things like roll rate and climb speed are know as a function of speed and air density and a few other things it shouldn't make a difference. in fact it makes no difference and might even be better. i dont know how many pieces htc makes each plane but the complexity and accuracy of the model is only limited by how many pieces you want to write functions for.

Gunslayer · « **Reply #7 on:** April 30, 2001, 06:49:00 PM »

Well first off, I have to point out that this is the exactly the kind of thing about the Aces High community that i think needs some improving. It seems that anytime anyone points out something that could possibly be improved in Aces there is a big bandwagon of people that come out to slam that person. Deezcamp's post was not a flame in any way. It was just a well thought out post on how Deezcamp feels that Aces high could be improved.

The fact is Aces is a constantly evolving and improving product, and that is one of the reasons I like it. But I feel that we the Aces High customers have every right to make well thought out (not just flight model _____ is porked) suggestions to Hitech and and have them considered without being ridiculed. Like Deezcamp says Aces High is an excellent game as a whole , but there are other games out there they may do certain things a little better. No one doubts Hitech's expertise in this field, he has been doing airplane simulations for years, but I think if Hitech could occasionally put his ego aside he may just get some good suggestions from the community.

As far as what Deezcamp knows about flight physics, I respect his opinion highly. Spitlead says "Who has actually flown all these planes?" Well, Deez hasn't flown all of them. But he is a real pilot in training and has flown many planes including a fully aerobatic WW2 trainer (Texan I believe.) He also just came out of there air force where he worked with the Stealth Bomber. He did a lot of time in the Air Force Multi-Million dollar flight simulator. So if he says the B2 bomber in X-plane handles like the one in the Airforce Simulator, I take that to say something about the physics of X-plane.

I blew Deez off for a long time when he was preaching x-plane to me. But one day I finally downloaded and gave it a try. And you know what, he was right. The physics just feel right on . Its like Grand Prix Legends was touted as having very realistic physics. I have never driven a 60's Indy car, but I have driven a car enough to know it just "feels" right. I don't think anyone on this board can say anything about deez or x-plane until they actually try it.

Animal · « **Reply #8 on:** April 30, 2001, 07:11:00 PM »

Hmm.. I have X-Plane, and the Cessna I fly there flies little like the one in real life.

Now I have never flown a plane modelled in Aces High, so I dont know wich engine is best.

hitech, can you please model a Cessna that we can fly offline just for the sake of comparison?

mrfish · « **Reply #9 on:** April 30, 2001, 07:27:00 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Gunslayer:
I don't think anyone on this board can say anything about deez or x-plane until they actually try it.

that's why i am speaking up - i actually paid for mine and it has set in a box collecting dust for a year - i loaned it to a friend and was embarassed at the response - it is a regretful purchase unless you like flying over 'quake dark' terrain in ugly planes with cartoon panels.

Wardog · « **Reply #10 on:** April 30, 2001, 07:31:00 PM »

Gun, ya missin my point here..

If it cant get 200 people in it, doesnt have ballistics modeled and a damage model i have no interest in trying it.

Ive never owned a boxed sim, ive never tryed anything other than online sims. Ive been flying online since 1989 AW-DOS and to this day have never flown anything that didnt allow for 200 people in an area.

You might want to reread my post, i didnt flame Deez at all. Only stated that i had no interest in X. now anything else that doest have Live opponents.

Dog out.......

Citabria · « **Reply #11 on:** April 30, 2001, 07:45:00 PM »

or a t6 texan.

that would be fun to have

Gunslayer · « **Reply #12 on:** April 30, 2001, 07:52:00 PM »

To MrFish

X-plane, like aces high is a constantly evolving sim. If you haven't played it in a long time, you still cant pipe in here. Unless you want to compare X-plane to a pre-release version of aces high.

To Wardog, Not everyone is flaming deez, but the general attitude of this post was not intelligent consideration, but "lets ridicule deez for suggesting somthing different." Thats not to say that you were doing that. Also, the damage modeling etc is a big part of aces high and one of the things that makes it good. But the flight model has nothing to do with the network code. All of aces's flight models are calculated on our own computers. Only positional information and damage are sent over the net. Changing the flight model does not affect that or how many poeple can play online

Vulcan · « **Reply #13 on:** April 30, 2001, 08:32:00 PM »

I used to play Flight Unlimited 1 & 2. They used an airflow model like X-Plane (no X-Plane is not unique or breaking new ground!).

Interestly the P-51 in AH and FU2 feel similar.

The problem with modeling realtime is that it cannot be as complex as tables. IE, tables can have extremely complex calculations and adjustments fed into them, time of calculation doesn't matter. Whereas a realtime model has limitations, you cannot feed as complex models into it without requiring a lot of cpu.

At lets be realistic, at the end of the day heavy duty modelling of airflow is done on some big gear. Sure NASA might have played with X-Plane, but when it comes to the nitty gritty they feed it to the big beasts to crunch the numbers - not some piddly little PC with a bugged Intel processor.

Does X-Plane, for example, model transonic drag?

Blue Mako · « **Reply #14 on:** April 30, 2001, 09:33:00 PM »

Deez,

First this is not a personal attack (just a disclaimer after the posts above).

Blade element theory is a process used to calculate the airflow around propellers. It is not a process that can be used to calculate whole aircraft flight parameters. If a sim (or anyone else) claims to use this process to model an entire aircraft then they don't have a clue what they are talking about.

Also, using data tables will give you a similar result to real time calculation of aerodynamics. Why? Because both methods use the same basic principles to calculate the parameters involved. Also, the simplifications needed to make a complex 3 dimensional aerodynamic model using finite element theory actually processable on a home computer are so numerous that the results are likely to be less realistic than a table based model anyway.

The problem also comes in when you consider that an aerodynamic model doesn't actually give you the aircraft's behaviour anyway. The aerodynamic model outputs forces (these same forces are what are included in a table based model for given altitudes, airspeed etc) which are then used in mechanics of flight equations to calculate the behaviour of the aircraft.

Food for thought.