Aircraft simulation software
Matt Jardin
> Can anyone suggest aerodynamics simulation software that will allow me
> to simulate the entire aircraft (and not just airfoil) including
> fuselage, wings, tail, canards, etc. In essence, I want to design a
> 3-D aircraft using this tool and then simulate it's flight dynamics
> to see if it is air-worthy.
>
> Please suggest shareware as well as commercial packages.
>
For configuration aerodynamic modeling:
http://www.desktopaero.com/products/LACatalogPage.html
For a good open-source flight simulator:
www.flightgear.org
Tom Sanderson
> Can anyone suggest aerodynamics simulation software that will allow me
> to simulate the entire aircraft (and not just airfoil) including
> fuselage, wings, tail, canards, etc. In essence, I want to design a
> 3-D aircraft using this tool and then simulate it's flight dynamics
> to see if it is air-worthy.
There are empiricle and analytical formulas that can do a lot of this type
of work for you without getting bogged down in 3D design...any good textbook
on aircraft design will give you enough to get started with initial
parameters (wing planform, airfoil, dihedral, tail volume, weight, thrust,
etc.).
FYI, "airworthy" is a legal term. An aircraft is airworthy (in the US) if
it meets all the federal aviation regulations. I think what you mean is,
"see if it will fly." No software has been created yet that can determine
airworthiness.
There's a lot of useful one-off programs here:
http://www.aoe.vt.edu/~mason/Mason_f/MRsoft.html
And, though I've never used it, for initial work, this seems to be like what
you're looking for:
http://www.aircraftdesign.com/rds.html
Tom.
herna...@gmail.com
> Can anyone suggest aerodynamics simulation software that will allow me
> to simulate the entire aircraft (and not just airfoil) including
> fuselage, wings, tail, canards, etc. In essence, I want to design a
> 3-D aircraft using this tool and then simulate it's flight dynamics
> to see if it is air-worthy.
Hi, I am an Aerospace engineer, and that kind of software is quite
difficult to get if you are a single individual. Most aircraft
companies have a different softwares packages (ANSYS CFX) to get the
different coefficients (lift, drag, moment, etc..) under different
flight conditions usign a CAD model of the proposed aircraft.Once you
get the coefficients, you can use them to write your own flight control
system and simulate the flight. Good luck
Keta
> Can anyone suggest aerodynamics simulation software that will allow me
> to simulate the entire aircraft (and not just airfoil) including
> fuselage, wings, tail, canards, etc. In essence, I want to design a
> 3-D aircraft using this tool and then simulate it's flight dynamics
> to see if it is air-worthy.
>
Try the X-Plane simulator. It has great flight dynamics, and you can
design your own plane accurately with a program which comes with the
simulator. If you design it correctly, it will match the real flight
dynamics pretty well. I think some real-world planes have been tested
in X-Plane before the plane was built, to test its flight
characteristics. And even if the graphics are not as good as in Flight
Simulator (in my opinion), they're still very nice. And it's frame-rate
friendlier! For me, it's a very good simulator, which lacks some
features of FS but has other great ones (try flying the Space Shuttle,
or flying in Mars). If you're looking for flight model accuracy, this
is the one. Take a look at www.x-plane.com Hope that helped.
Adam Chapman
I use a commercial flight simulator that is also available for home
use. It is call X-plane and is developed by Austin Meyer.
It comes with "planemaker" software, and if you know the drag
coefficient of the components, you can put them in easily.
Adam