Valkyrie Simulation Project 0.1.1 Released

[vsim]

A new release is available on the sourceforge site. The VF-1 fighter mode is now MUCH more well behaved, at least longitudinally. Lateral control still needs work, but it's a big improvement. Other big changes

- Thrust vectoring angles now appear on the HUD

- ESC now exits the program correctly and does not leave the program hanging, i.e. hard to quit.

- VF-1 now much more controlable.

Go here to get it:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3429

If you just wanna run it, download vsim-0.1.1-win32.zip, unzip it any old place and look in the documentation directory for info.

Please report any bugs you find, or give me any comments you have, I get very little feedback on this and would love more people ot look at it and give me thoughts . Send me email off the main site (http://valkyrie.sourceforge.net), report a bug through the bug tracking tool (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=103429&group_id=3429&func=browse), or send me a message here .

Jason

ChangeLog (diffs between 0.1.0 and 0.1.1)

2006-04-30: (vsim-0_1_1)

* .cdtproject

New targets added for the VF-1 FF2001 engine test/table buildup.

* configure.in

Version updated to 0.1.1

* main.cpp

Added code to change for SceneManager termination as an exit criteria.

Previously, if ESC was pressed, the SceneManager/OSG code would

quit running but the main program continued running. ESC will now

properly exit the main program.

* graphics/SceneManager.h

Added isDone() method that returns if the graphics have received a

command to exit (currently the ESC key).

* graphics/SceneManager.cpp

Added code that does not use the default set of OSG viewer settings.

It has been commented out for now, however, until a keyboard handler

is added.

* graphics/models/generic/GenericHud.h

Moved the VectorFont object to the protected section so it can be

used to draw vector fonts in derived graphic objects.

* graphics/models/Macross/VF1/Makefile.am

Added the VF1Hud class

* graphics/models/Macross/VF1/VF1Graphics.*

Switched to a VF-1 specific HUD instead of the generic HUD

* graphics/models/Macross/VF1/VF1Hud.*

Class containing modification for the VF-1 specific HUD. This class

derives from Generic Hud and displays the left and right thrust

vectoring values in the upper right corner.

* models/F14A/F14AAero.h

Added mutator for Cm due to Mach. putCmMach().

* models/F14A/F14AAero.cpp

Added recording of aerodynamic forces/moments

Added a temporary limit to induced drag.

Updated the pitching moment due to wing sweep.

* models/generic/Test/.cvsignore

Added test executables to ignore list.

* models/generic/Test/FF2001Test.cpp

New test to create a table of thrust and drag values for the FF2001

engine.

* models/generic/Test/Makefile.am

Added FF2001_test as a extra program.

* models/interfaces/Macross/VF1/VF1ModelInterface.cpp

Added left and right thrust vector values.

* models/Macross/VF1/FF2001.*

New class. This class performs a table lookup to determine the thrust

output and ram drag of the FF2001 engine.

* models/Macross/VF1/Makefile.am

Added the FF2001 class.

* models/Macross/VF1/VF1.*

Switched to the FF2001 class for engine modeling.

Added accessors to the left and right thrust vector positions.

Added rotations for the left at right engine thrust vectoring.

Added data recording of engine forces/moments.

Modified CM location as a function of wing sweep.

* models/Macross/VF1/VF1Aero.cpp

Added a term to reduce the pitching moment coefficient due to Mach

number. This greatly reduces the Mach tuck problem for the VF-1 since

it does not have glove vanes.

* models/Macross/VF1/VF1ControlSystem.h

Added mutator for Qbar.

Modified accessors to PLA to return a normalized throttle instead of

in degrees.

* models/Macross/VF1/VF1ControlSystem.cpp

Added limits to the C* error integrator to attempt to prevent wind-up.

Modified the longitudinal control law to command C* through more

speed ranges. Previously, the gains were only tuned for lower speed.

The VF-1 should have a much harder time flipping end over end as

in the previous version.

The longitudinal law now commands the vectoring angles directly

instead of through the z thrust value. The previous version had

problems where the Z thrust command was not high enough to obtain

the value of C* commanded.

A section was added to the longitudinal law to allow the engines

to automatically throttle up if the law calls for more torque than

is available at the current throttle setting. This should help the

aircraft to behave when the throttle is brought back to idle.

Lateral gains were modified to vary with Qbar and should no longer

jitter at high speed due to too high a gain.

* models/toolbox/math/Integrator.*

Added limits to the integrator. The limits may be set through the

putLimits() method.

* models/toolbox/utilities/Constants.h

Fixed a comment for temperature constants.

[Phalanx]

This is pretty good for a VF flight sim. Do they plan on adding weapons to test out the weapon systems of the VF-1 or what? I'm interested in an update of this program. I really wish the lateral controls were'nt so sluggish though.

Edited May 1, 2006 by Phalanx

[Raptor]

Neat!

BUT... You can't stall it! At all! You can fly straight up with no throttle and easily climb to 10,000 feet before you run out of speed, but it keeps going up!

Also it seems that the manuevering performance doesn't really act like it does in the anime... It accelerates just fine but sometimes you can do 16G in a sometimes it'll only show it as 1~2 G when you're turning full-out at like mach 1.

Seems like it would be a more worthwhile effort to simulate the Valkyrie in X-Plane based on the stats, to see how it would actually perform. (Although I don't have X-Plane...).

[vsim]

Neat!

BUT...  You can't stall it!  At all!  You can fly straight up with no throttle and easily climb to 10,000 feet before you run out of speed, but it keeps going up!

Also it seems that the manuevering performance doesn't really act like it does in the anime...  It accelerates just fine but sometimes you can do 16G in a sometimes it'll only show it as 1~2 G when you're turning full-out at like mach 1.

Seems like it would be a more worthwhile effort to simulate the Valkyrie in X-Plane based on the stats, to see how it would actually perform.  (Although I don't have X-Plane...).

395356[/snapback]

Yes, you can stall it, but it's difficult, the system doesn't let you cut the throttles to zero because it will lose ALL pitch control if there is no engine thrust (no stabilizers). So, at 10% throttle, it deploys the speedbrakes instead and limits the throttle to 10% minimum. I may revist that and see if I can bring the throttle down to zero. And the altitude you are looking at is in meters, not feet. Keep climbing, it WILL run out of airspeed (EAS on the left), and the engine thrust will drop off as it climbs because of the decreasing ambient air pressure.

Note that G's aren't shown on the HUD, you are pulling a lot of g's when you pull full back, it's just not shown, the control system is a Nz/Q type (C*), so at high speed, if you are pulling back, you are likely getting 9-10 Gs since Q is so slow at that speed. It is hard to turn quickly at high speed, this is why most dog fights happen < Mach 1, what they really want is turn rate, not G loading. I just ran a test, and I get 8.5-9Gs at Mach 2.0 with full aft stick. I'll add that to the data recording and the HUD so it's more visible for the next release

This is a simulation of how it would perform based on the stats, and some estimation, based onRoskam, and the USAF Digital DATCOM, and whatever else I could estimate from .

Edited May 1, 2006 by vsim

[vsim]

This is pretty good for a VF flight sim. Do they plan on adding weapons to test out the weapon systems of the VF-1 or what? I'm interested in an update of this program. I really wish the lateral controls were'nt so sluggish though.   

395352[/snapback]

Yes, I do plan on adding weapons, but I still need to get fight mode working well, then move on to the next phase, for which I may throw up a poll here to see what is wanted.

I can bump up the roll rate of the system quite a bit still, but havne't messed with it too much, the longitudinal system (pitch) has been consuming most of my time since it's the most difficult.

The washout filter on the rudder is still a little sluggish at times though, it needs work

[jorawar_b]

can this work on the microsoft flight sim 2004? I am new tot he flight sim world, so please excuse em if I sound ignorant to flight sims

[Raptor]

Neat!

BUT...  You can't stall it!  At all!  You can fly straight up with no throttle and easily climb to 10,000 feet before you run out of speed, but it keeps going up!

Also it seems that the manuevering performance doesn't really act like it does in the anime...  It accelerates just fine but sometimes you can do 16G in a sometimes it'll only show it as 1~2 G when you're turning full-out at like mach 1.

Seems like it would be a more worthwhile effort to simulate the Valkyrie in X-Plane based on the stats, to see how it would actually perform.  (Although I don't have X-Plane...).

395356[/snapback]

Yes, you can stall it, but it's difficult, the system doesn't let you cut the throttles to zero because it will lose ALL pitch control if there is no engine thrust (no stabilizers). So, at 10% throttle, it deploys the speedbrakes instead and limits the throttle to 10% minimum. I may revist that and see if I can bring the throttle down to zero. And the altitude you are looking at is in meters, not feet. Keep climbing, it WILL run out of airspeed (EAS on the left), and the engine thrust will drop off as it climbs because of the decreasing ambient air pressure.

Note that G's aren't shown on the HUD, you are pulling a lot of g's when you pull full back, it's just not shown, the control system is a Nz/Q type (C*), so at high speed, if you are pulling back, you are likely getting 9-10 Gs since Q is so slow at that speed. It is hard to turn quickly at high speed, this is why most dog fights happen < Mach 1, what they really want is turn rate, not G loading. I just ran a test, and I get 8.5-9Gs at Mach 2.0 with full aft stick. I'll add that to the data recording and the HUD so it's more visible for the next release

This is a simulation of how it would perform based on the stats, and some estimation, based onRoskam, and the USAF Digital DATCOM, and whatever else I could estimate from .

395359[/snapback]

Why don't you set it so it's crazy unstable (like the real thing would probably be), but program a "Fly-by-Wire Computer" simulation to make up for that to make it flyable?

It seems way too stable right now... (assuming you haven't already programmed it to self-correct itself like that)

That way we could have the mega-manuevers but also be able to fly it without crashing it all the time.

Edited May 1, 2006 by Raptor

[Lightning]

great...so when can we see a vf-4?

[vsim]

Why don't you set it so it's crazy unstable (like the real thing would probably be), but program a "Fly-by-Wire Computer" simulation to make up for that to make it flyable?

It seems way too stable right now...  (assuming you haven't already programmed it to self-correct itself like that)

That way we could have the mega-manuevers but also be able to fly it without crashing it all the time.

395381[/snapback]

Without the control law there, it is "crazy unstable", the only control for pitch is thrust vectoring, so that loop is ...quite important . And the control law I've programmed in is the "fly by wire computer", it is the reason it is taking me so long to get the thing to fly well, i.e. like a pilot would really want it to behave, pulling high pitch rates at high speed would pretty much kill the pilot instantly, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't want that . I can probably throw in a flag later to disable the control laws and you would see just HOW horrible it flys without it, it is uncontrollable without the control laws running.

The aircraft with the wings swept all the way forward (they sweep automatically now), is very close to neutrally stable, i.e. it is almost perfectly balanced. As the wings sweep back, though, I don't quite have it balanced as well yet (working on it), although it's pretty good now, just not exactly where I want it.

And pulling 9-10Gs at M 2 is a mega-maneuver , the thrust vectoring is working pretty hard to get that, there is a lot of resistance to the aircraft changing pitch angles at that high of a speed (large dynamic pressure).

Now once, the space flight comes around, the controls will be written to allow the aircraft to spin around fast because there is no aerodynamic loading, so it can pretty much spin around fast all the time, but I haven't started that part yet.

BTW, thrust full forward is currently FULL overburn mode, which can't be left on for any real length of time, but it currently does not keep track of that. Supposedly overburn is good for, what...2-3 minutes, maximum? 50% throttle is full military power.

can this work on the microsoft flight sim 2004? I am new tot he flight sim world, so please excuse em if I sound ignorant to flight sims

jorawar_b, no, it will not work with Microsoft Flight Sim 2004, sorry. It's currently just a stand alone program.

  great...so when can we see a vf-4?

When I get the VF-1 working in all modes, I'll move on to the next aircraft, and the VF-4 IS on the list.

I'm trying to put more time into this project, but unfortunately, it doesn't pay the bills and I don't have an infinite amount of spare time, and the nature of how I am doing this makes it pretty hard to do. The whole program has been built up to realistically simulate the aircraft as best as I can estimate how it would behave. I started by generating F-14 aerodynamic data, which was a big undertaking, then modifying it to remove the stabilizers since the VF-1 doesn't have them, then had to model the VF-1 engine, add a control law so it would behave as the pilot commands, etc. etc. It's a mini flight-test program in sim land, lol. But it's fun . And believe it or not, it's slowly picking up steam (for those of you who have watched it move ever so slowly over the years).

Thanks for the comments guys, I'm making notes

[vsim]

BTW, thanks for looking at it folks, I know it's not much to look at yet, but people looking at it and asking questions is a good motivator and makes me want to work all the more on the project, so keep the questions, comments, concerns, feedback, whatever coming, I'll try and keep up .

I can't wait to start working on Gerwalk mode so I can get myself all confused again in the mess that is keeping the thing from falling all over the sky.

[Phalanx]

BTW, thanks for looking at it folks, I know it's not much to look at yet, but people looking at it and asking questions is a good motivator and makes me want to work all the more on the project, so keep the questions, comments, concerns, feedback, whatever coming, I'll try and keep up .

I can't wait to start working on Gerwalk mode so I can get myself all confused again in the mess that is keeping the thing from falling all over the sky.

395635[/snapback]

Also Vsim, as a personal request, can you design the cockpit of the VF-1 as an add on to the realism of your flight sim and do you have a chase view of the VF-1 in the works so we can toggle back in forward between cockpit and chase views?

[evirus]

BTW, thanks for looking at it folks, I know it's not much to look at yet, but people looking at it and asking questions is a good motivator and makes me want to work all the more on the project, so keep the questions, comments, concerns, feedback, whatever coming, I'll try and keep up .

I can't wait to start working on Gerwalk mode so I can get myself all confused again in the mess that is keeping the thing from falling all over the sky.

395635[/snapback]

Also Vsim, as a personal request, can you design the cockpit of the VF-1 as an add on to the realism of your flight sim and do you have a chase view of the VF-1 in the works so we can toggle back in forward between cockpit and chase views?

395656[/snapback]

i dont think he(i speak in generalities) even has a model for the VF-1 from what i remember.

what i would realy like to see is the return of simguild. Simguild was a multiplayer combat flight simulator using bi/tri-planes... it was vary fun and the servers could hold well over 100 players.

im wondering if a multiplayer version of this could be made in the same fashion, simguild wasn't all that complicated, even in its final version the terrain consisted of a small number of features, something like 6 airfields(brown boxes) with hangers(gray cubes with a hole going through it where the planes spawned) maybe some trees and houses

[Raptor]

Why don't you set it so it's crazy unstable (like the real thing would probably be), but program a "Fly-by-Wire Computer" simulation to make up for that to make it flyable?

It seems way too stable right now...  (assuming you haven't already programmed it to self-correct itself like that)

That way we could have the mega-manuevers but also be able to fly it without crashing it all the time.

395381[/snapback]

Without the control law there, it is "crazy unstable", the only control for pitch is thrust vectoring, so that loop is ...quite important . And the control law I've programmed in is the "fly by wire computer", it is the reason it is taking me so long to get the thing to fly well, i.e. like a pilot would really want it to behave, pulling high pitch rates at high speed would pretty much kill the pilot instantly, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't want that . I can probably throw in a flag later to disable the control laws and you would see just HOW horrible it flys without it, it is uncontrollable without the control laws running.

Thanks for the comments guys, I'm making notes

395631[/snapback]

What I meant was have the plane make corrections (ie, it's moving the simulated control surfaces on it's own, limiting the G's, and preventing stalls, etc) more so than have a few set parameters that it can't break for the sake of stability.

[vsim]

BTW, thanks for looking at it folks, I know it's not much to look at yet, but people looking at it and asking questions is a good motivator and makes me want to work all the more on the project, so keep the questions, comments, concerns, feedback, whatever coming, I'll try and keep up .

I can't wait to start working on Gerwalk mode so I can get myself all confused again in the mess that is keeping the thing from falling all over the sky.

395635[/snapback]

Also Vsim, as a personal request, can you design the cockpit of the VF-1 as an add on to the realism of your flight sim and do you have a chase view of the VF-1 in the works so we can toggle back in forward between cockpit and chase views?

395656[/snapback]

i dont think he(i speak in generalities) even has a model for the VF-1 from what i remember.

what i would realy like to see is the return of simguild. Simguild was a multiplayer combat flight simulator using bi/tri-planes... it was vary fun and the servers could hold well over 100 players.

im wondering if a multiplayer version of this could be made in the same fashion, simguild wasn't all that complicated, even in its final version the terrain consisted of a small number of features, something like 6 airfields(brown boxes) with hangers(gray cubes with a hole going through it where the planes spawned) maybe some trees and houses

395721[/snapback]

Yes, that is correct, there are no graphic models at the moment, the ground is pretty much it. It's hard to find modelers who will to work for free .

Yes, multiplayer will definitely exist, I've got a developer on the team whos specialty is networking and once I get the fighter mode to the point where it's usable, I'll start harassing him to see what we can get done. And yep, likely early on it will be very basic and just have some generic terrain and a small area to fly around in and chase each other and eventually shoot each other.

[vsim]

What I meant was have the plane make corrections (ie, it's moving the simulated control surfaces on it's own, limiting the G's, and preventing stalls, etc) more so than have a few set parameters that it can't break for the sake of stability.

395741[/snapback]

Really, the only parameter now that it will ignore form the pilot is the throttle. And with my recent change to allow the control laws to automatically ramp up engine thrust when you call for more of a moment than the thrust vectoring can provide at your current throttle setting, I may be able to relax the 10% thrust limit, that's a bit of a left over from the previous way the control system worked where it couldn't easily override the throttle. So I may very well go back in there and allow the throttle to come back even further, back to maybe 1% or so. That would also allow it to slow down much easier, right now it is hard to slow down for landing (there IS a gear model in the game by the way, lol). The intent was that flaps and slats would be deployed for landing, but that isn't implemented yet.

Raptor, if I'm still missing your point, send me a PM and we can discuss it

[Skullsixx]

no screenshots?

[vsim]

no screenshots?

396135[/snapback]

Yeah, there are a few up on the site, but there's not much to see, 99% of the work has been done in modeling the aircraft itself. So there's not much pretty to look at *sigh* one day . The nice screenshots on the site were old concept models someone did for us a while back.

Here are the most recent screen shots:

http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?group_id=3429

The 0.1.1 VF-1 HUD is the most recent.

[vsim]

Verion 0.1.2 is up, here are the changes:

05/20/2006 - Jason

Version 0.1.2 changes include:

- Nz (G loading) is now displayed on the VF-1 HUD.

- Mass Balance adjustments so that the VF-1 stays more neutrally balanced as the wings

sweep aft. This allows the VF-1 to operate at lower throttle settings.

- A bug was fixed in the rate limit code in the filters. The surface actuators for all

aircraft will now be correctly limited to the specified maximum rate.

Details are the same for downloading it, just download 0.1.2 now instead of 0.1.1. See the first message on this thread for info.