[Flightgear-devel] Turbulence and JSBSim soaring

[Thorsten R. <tho...@sc...>]

With regard to a recent discussion on whether turbulence associated with 
thermals is too strong for JSBSim planes, I have now two more data 
points:

* during FSWeekend, I've tried the C-172p in a thunderstorm for about 15 
minutes. The plane was quite controllable and reacted to the turbulence 
about as I would expect

* today, I've tried soaring with the Pterosaur (for those who aren't 
following the forum, we now have a wing-beat animated, fire-breathing 
dragon... running on real flight dynamics rather than magic). It's not 
the most easily controlled or nimble FDM, yet I entered a thermal with a 
3.3 m/s updraft (that's fairly sizable), got a turbulence norm of 0.46 
(I had artificially increased that by 50% for testing purposes) and was 
quite able to circle in it.

So, for me the case is pretty much closed - JSBSim model in general do 
fine with turbulence and/or thermals, it's just one or two specific 
JSBSim gliders which do not, and I don't see any pressing need for 
action on the weather model side.

However, if anyone wants this feature, I can expose a control slider to 
dial down the strength of turbulence AW creates and that should settle 
the matter for good.

* Thorsten