• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Help please :D

J

Jj Brighton

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Hi, Im on my third year in University and got assigned a project called "Using the flight simulator as a teaching aid". I was wondering if you guys can give me any advice on how I could use prepar3d as a teaching aid for engineering concepts.
 
Hi and welcome :) sounds like you want us to do your assignment for you ;) Have you any ideas so far?
 
To be honest, P3D is the last simulator I'd use for some serious aeronautical engineering work. The flight dynamics simulation is just much too limited to provide credible data on "what if" designs.
If you want to show off a new aircraft in its natural habitat or if you need a software based procedure trainer for an existing prototype aircraft, that can be done with P3D. But one should better use some real software CAE for concept airplane development. Or X-Plane if it has to be a consumer-level simulatior.
 
scruffyduck said:
Hi and welcome :) sounds like you want us to do your assignment for you ;) Have you any ideas so far?
Click to expand...
Ahahaha good one xP But yeah I've only just started the project so at the moment I still have no idea on what to do but any suggestions would be good? :D
 
Heretic said:
To be honest, P3D is the last simulator I'd use for some serious aeronautical engineering work. The flight dynamics simulation is just much too limited to provide credible data on "what if" designs.
If you want to show off a new aircraft in its natural habitat or if you need a software based procedure trainer for an existing prototype aircraft, that can be done with P3D. But one should better use some real software CAE for concept airplane development. Or X-Plane if it has to be a consumer-level simulatior.
Click to expand...
I haven't had a go on P3D yet so I've no clue at the moment =] I've got X-Plane on my laptop too but I think they want me to do it on P3D
 
I got into Flight Simulator just for that. I had a handful of airplane designs and wanted to see what they looked like in Flight Simulator, how it would be like to fly them, etc.

I found I could setup aerodynamic figures in the air-files (config/air file set).

For architecture, it is also pretty amazing. You can setup ground polygons with photo scenery and build buildings on it that are advanced, etc, and see them in a world environment and even take photos of them with the sun and weather in different modes.

If you are engineering planes, you can make tweeks to the aerodynamic settings and get a feel as to how the planes act.

Some people do boats and vehicles as well for P3D (and FSX). It used to be that they didnt have a proper car config, but I think that changed with the AI they have now for traffic vehicles, so its probably more up to date.

Have fun!
 
lionheart said:
I got into Flight Simulator just for that. I had a handful of airplane designs and wanted to see what they looked like in Flight Simulator, how it would be like to fly them, etc.

I found I could setup aerodynamic figures in the air-files (config/air file set).

For architecture, it is also pretty amazing. You can setup ground polygons with photo scenery and build buildings on it that are advanced, etc, and see them in a world environment and even take photos of them with the sun and weather in different modes.

If you are engineering planes, you can make tweeks to the aerodynamic settings and get a feel as to how the planes act.

Some people do boats and vehicles as well for P3D (and FSX). It used to be that they didnt have a proper car config, but I think that changed with the AI they have now for traffic vehicles, so its probably more up to date.

Have fun!
Click to expand...
That's true ! Thanks for the ideas :D
 
Heretic said:
To be honest, P3D is the last simulator I'd use for some serious aeronautical engineering work. The flight dynamics simulation is just much too limited to provide credible data on "what if" designs.
If you want to show off a new aircraft in its natural habitat or if you need a software based procedure trainer for an existing prototype aircraft, that can be done with P3D. But one should better use some real software CAE for concept airplane development. Or X-Plane if it has to be a consumer-level simulatior.
Click to expand...
What do you mean when you said the flight dynamics is too limited by the way ?
 
Jj Brighton said:
What do you mean when you said the flight dynamics is too limited by the way ?
Click to expand...

The flight dynamics engine oversimplifies things in some areas like atmospheric and engine modeling. This saves quite a few CPU cycles when the sim is running, but in order to get nearly real handling and performance characteristics, you need to hack in the numbers of the real thing and then spend some additional hours trial-and-error tweaking them until it flies right. This, of course, only works if you do have a comprehensive set of data for the real aircraft. Also, MSFS neither does VTOL, spaceflight or mixed propulsion really well.

Here are some resources about FSX' flight dynamics: http://www.aero.sors.fr/fsairfile.html

If your only goal is rendering a concept aircraft in a lively environment, then MSFS is your best bet among the commercial flight simulators. The simplified flight model does have the advantage that it can simulate hundreds of AI aircraft reasonably well at once. X-Plane, for example, by default simulates all AI aircraft with full flight dynamic characteristics which puts quite a bit of strain on the CPU.
 
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