The Hangar

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Tanner Swett

00:07

I'm probably going to do something like...

Break the aircraft into a couple of components, try to calculate the forces on each component.

I'm kind of just rambling now, I'm probably not going to be able to come up with any coherent questions. :D

I think I can model each piece of the aircraft as being an airfoil, and I'll assume that the different airfoils mostly don't interact with each other.

Of course, this means that the fuselage is also an airfoil.

Not a particularly effective one, though.

Hmmmmm. I wonder how wing chord affects lift and drag.

As far as span goes, I imagine that lift and drag are pretty much just proportional to span.

And I'm also assuming that thickness doesn't really matter much.

11 hours later…

ratchet freak

11:34

There is a (open source) mod for KSP that models realistic aerodynamics based on airplane shape

5 hours later…

Tanner Swett

16:35

Yeah, Ferram Aerospace Research is pretty great. :D

I have no idea how it actually works, though, aside from the fact that it apparently uses voxels.

Tanner Swett

16:58

I could sit down with the code for a couple of days and try to figure it out.

2 hours later…

Tanner Swett

18:51

All right, apparently people don't like my answer here.

-2

A: Maintaining straight and level altitude

Once cruising altitude is reached, the plane remains at the same altitude for the entire flight until it starts to descend for landing. If earth was a globe, we would need to drop the nose of the plane every couple of minutes to compensate for the curve of the earth. Is this correct? You're ...