This is an improved version of the Aeroscope – the “Aeroscope_4”. It runs about 50% faster. If you start the model by clicking the green “Fly_by_settings” button you can fly hands-free and adjust parameters during the flight. You can at any time click the red dot in the center of the chart and start the joystick macro, which means that… Read More... "The Aeroscope – video preview #2 and an improved Excel file (#4)"
[sociallocker][/sociallocker] Read More... "The Aeroscope – video preview #1"
This section finalizes the aircraft (glider) by inserting the wing, the horizontal stabilizer and a center of gravity (CG) sprite in the layout. [sociallocker][/sociallocker] Longitudinal Aircraft Dynamics #5- putting the glider together by George Lungu – This section puts together the fuselage, main wing and stabilizer with the proper scale, shift and rotation determined by the input parameters. Scaling and… Read More... "Longitudinal Aircraft Dynamics #5 – finishing the aircraft"
This section of the tutorial explains how to create the 2D aircraft components for the animated longitudinal stability model. The first part deals with extracting the x-y coordinates for the fuselage, canopy, vertical stabilizer and rudder. The second part handles the main wing airfoil and the horizontal stabilizer airfoil. All thses parts will be put together in the next section.… Read More... "Longitudinal Aircraft Dynamics #4 – virtual aircraft definition"
This section discusses the layout of the virtual plane and provides for the worksheet implementation of the plane dimensions as input parameters controlled by spin buttons and macros. In the final part a freeform is used to generate raw data for the fuselage. [sociallocker][/sociallocker] Longitudinal Aircraft Dynamics #3- defining the virtual aircraft by George Lungu – This section of the tutorial… Read More... "Longitudinal Aircraft Dynamics #3 – layout parameters and wireframe fuselage generation"
In the previous section, the main wing airfoil and the horizontal stabilizer airfoil were simulated using Xflr5. The three coefficients, lift, drag and moment were then interpolated on charts in Excel using 4th and 5th order polynomials. This section shows a few tricks about how to easily introduce those 60 equations as spreadsheet formulas in Excel ranges. It also presents a simple linear interpolation method across the Reynolds… Read More... "Longitudinal Aircraft Dynamics #2 – 2D polynomial interpolation of parameters cl, cd and cm"
This is a tutorial about using a free aerodynamic modeling package (Xflr5) to simulate two airfoils in 2D (the main wing and the horizontal stabilizer) for ten different Reynolds numbers, then using Excel to extract the approximate polynomial equations of those curves (cl, cd and cm) and based on them, simulate a 2D aircraft as an animated model. This section deals with… Read More... "Longitudinal Aircraft Dynamics #1 – using Xflr5 to model the main wing, the horizontal stabilizer and extracting the polynomial trendlines for cl, cd and cm"
The previous section implemented and charted the ping-pong polar diagrams in a spreadsheet and showed a reasonable similarity, for moderate angles of attack, between these diagrams and the ones modeled using Xflr5, a virtual wind tunnel. This section introduce the concept Reynolds number and it also contains a very brief introduction to Xflr5, the free virtual wind tunnel software. Aerodynamics… Read More... "Aerodynamics Naive #3 – a brief introduction to Xflr5, a virtual wind tunnel"
This section of the tutorial implements the lift and drag formulas in a worksheet, creating and charting the polar diagrams for an ultra simplified ping-pong model of an airfoil. Comparing these diagrams with ones obtained by using a virtual wind tunnel (XFLR5) we can see a decent resemblance for moderate angles of attack (smaller than about 8 degrees in absolute value).… Read More... "Aerodynamics Naive #2 – spreadsheet implementation of the Ping-Pong polar diagrams"