Flight Question Aerodynamics..

[Evil T]

I am trying to enter aerodynamic properties in a config file, having trouble with things like the aspect ratio of a sailplane being 0.7 in the file I am using as a template- it's actually closer to 10, but altering the value causes issues, presumably because other variables are set incorrectly. With all of the variables I could find set to values measured from my airframe, my aeroplane instantly goes to about 10,000,000 miles from the body whose atmosphere I am flying in and into a spin- I am assumning this is because some of the more exotiuc variables not mentioned in the mannual are set wrong for my airframe. Can anyone point me to a document defining all of the variables I might come across or list them here?

 

[francisdrake]

Hi, this might be caused by how the wing aspect ratio is defined. Orbiter uses:

WingAspect F = The wing aspect ratio (wingspan^2 / wing area). Used for
atmospheric drag calculation in the legacy flight model.

To read more about it go to ../Orbiter/Doc/OrbiterConfig.pdf
Chapter 2.5 Vessel configuration files;

In general I recommend the Orbiter documentation, it is really well written and explains the physical backgrounds as well.

If you want to go further into vessel development you may want to download the
"Orbiter SDK" (Software development kit). The docs in there explain every nut & bolt of the program, a valuable source for every developer