Re: [Flightgear-devel] Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 12

[Hal V. E. <hv...@gm...>]

On Wednesday, May 25, 2011 01:28:39 PM Stuart Buchanan wrote:
> On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 9:19 AM, I wrote:
> > On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 6:37 PM, Hal V. Engel wrote:
> >> I used it for the P-51D and found the system to be easy to use and it
> >> took all of perhaps 10 to 15 minutes to create ratings for the four
> >> areas that get scored and then create the entries in the *set.xml file.
> >> The system is easy to use and for less advanced models should only take
> >> perhaps 5 minutes to do. More advanced models take a little more effort
> >> but the system is clearly not burdensomeness for aircraft authors to
> >> implement.
> >> 
> >> The real issue is to get a consensus with in the aircraft author
> >> community to use a standardized rating system like this and I don't
> >> think this has happened yet. Once there is wide spread agreement on
> >> something like this it should fall into place fairly quickly.
> >> 
> >> One thing that might be stalling this is that there is currently no
> >> published description of the proposed system (I will call it Stuart's
> >> system) available other than searching this email list and a few things
> >> on the forum. At one point Stuart said he would create a document that
> >> covers his system but this has not happened yet and the only way to
> >> find it is to search the archives and even then the information is
> >> spread over a number of emails. Making things even more confusing there
> >> is a wiki page on this subject
> >> 
> >> http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/Formalizing_Aircraft_Status
> >> 
> >> which does not cover Stuart's system but rahter a totally differnt
> >> system. In fact the system proposed on the wiki is more complex and has
> >> no details on how the ratings would be made unlike Stuart's system. The
> >> details on how to rate various things is one of the key aspects of
> >> Stuart's system along with it's relative simplicity. Perhaps we can get
> >> the wiki page so that it reflects Stuart's system?
> > 
> > Thanks for the poke. I completely forgot to write this up.
> > 
> > I'll try to do this today, though it needs a proper name.
> 
> This is done. I've gone ahead and replaced the article completely with
> the rating system described in December.
> 
> Now I'm off to rate all the aircraft I maintain!
> 
> -Stuart


Thank you.  This is a good starting place and more detail can be added if 
there is any confusion on how to use the system. 

I think it should be extremely difficult to get a 5 in any catigory and in any 
area where we have examples of models that have gone well beyond what is 
needed to score a 5 I think we need to set the bar higher.  I would like to 
suggest that the FDM catigory be changed slightly to reflect what we now know 
can be achived with our FDMs.

Flight Dynamics Model 
0: None, or using FDM from other aircraft 
1: JSBSim Aeromatic or YASim geometric model used without tuning. Flaps 
modeled. 
2: FDM tuned for cruise and climb configurations
3: FDM matches PoH in 90% of configurations 
4: FDM very closely matches PoH and most known test data.  This includes fuel 
consumption, glide performance, stall speeds, time to altitude and other 
performance charaterisics
5: FDM models out of normal flight envelope characterisics IE. stalls, spins 
and compressibility/transonic effects (if the aircraft can reach transonic 
speeds). 
Hal