Re: [Flightgear-flightmodel] Airship model

[Lee E. <le...@sp...>]

On Wednesday 08 February 2006 20:53, Berndt, Jon S wrote:
> > I'm working on an airship flight simulator with FlightGear
> > for visualization.
> >
> > I checked Aircraft Downloads at FlightGear homepage, it
> > seems there is no aircraft model for airships. Is there
> > anybody could give me some suggestions about how to build a
> > customized aircraft model, or where I can find some airship
> > model compatible with FlightGear? Thanks.
> >
> > With best regards,
> >
> > -Joyce
>
> Joyce:
>
> I think you are in relatively new territory with airship
> modeling - at least as far as FlightGear is concerned. I've
> reviewed the document pages you sent a couple of weeks ago.
> The major difficulty I see is in modeling virtual mass, but I
> think there are also ways around that. The questions I have,
> at the moment are these:
>
> 1) Do you know the aerodynamic coefficients and stability
> derivatives? 2) Do you have a propulsion scheme picked out -
> i.e. turbine and propeller? Piston engine?
> 3) Is the control system complicated, or is it defined in a
> simple block diagram at the moment?
> 4) Can you quantify the virtual mass aspect of the flight
> dynamics with an equation, or empirical data?
> 5) Do you have performance data for your proposed airship?
> 6) Do you have volume and bouyant gas specifics for the
> airship?
>
> Jon Berndt
> Development Coordinator,
> JSBSim project
> www.jsbsim.org

There is the balloon fdm but I couldn't get it to work last time 
I tried.  I had a quick look at it because I was interested in 
doing some airships:)

LeeE