Right Rudder Required
For anyone who is interested in realistic flight simulation and hasn’t heard about FlightGear, you should check it out. Version 0.9.8 has just been released and since there isn’t yet an ebuild for Gentoo available, I’ve uploaded it.
When I say that FlightGear is realistic, I mean that it acts very much like a real aircraft does, and there is proper variation depending on the aircraft you are “flying”. I’m not sure what the latest version of MS Flight Simulator is like, but the last version I used, in addition to running incredibly clunkily, was more about cool aircraft and realistic scenery than it was about modelling an airplane properly.
The best example of proper modeling is something that makes proper simulators “less fun” for non-pilots is propellor torque. So as you increase the throttle to take-off power, the engine turns the propellor faster and as a result produces more torque. On a Piper PA-28 (and any other single engined aircraft which has the propellor turning the same way), the increasing torque wants to push the left wing down, which translates into a pull to the left. So to counteract that, the pilot must use a little right rudder. On a somewhat related note, I recall reading when I was younger that the Hawker Typhoon WW2 fighter produced so much propeller torque that pushing the throttle to full power on takeoff could actually flip the aircraft over.
The point is, that to an inexperienced pilot or someone with no flight experience, the first time they use FlightGear they are likely to run off the side of the runway during their takeoff roll. And this can perhaps lead to a “this game is dumb” reaction. Of course, it’s not a game per se anyway, it’s a simulator and simulators are designed to simulate something. You get where I’m going with this.
So whether you are a pilot or not, go download FlightGear and try it out. And don’t forget the right rudder.
Fri, 21 Jan 2005 17:42 Posted in Flying
