Fig. 1: Comet 4C with a ride height scale attached to the undercarriage object. The Comet is shown in Mexicana colours (XA-NAR) at Heathrow Airport (Aerosoft/XP10). The screenshot is in XP10.30 with global shadows on and HDR off. Click for high resolution.

Testung plug-ins raised a list of bugs, snags and wishes. One of these is that the ride height settings need to be slightly different in X-Plane 9 and X-Plane 10.

Checking ride heights is an occasion when some kind of test or checking instrument is useful. A scale, rather like the draft scale on the bows of a ship, was added to the undercarriage object to measure ride height and rake.

1. The 3D object geometry is the same for XP9 and XP10.
2. Leg length was adjusted in Plane Maker until the bottom of the tyres just cut the ground*.
3. Deflection when empty was adjusted to achieve a ride height of 5' 6".
4. Further deflection adjustment was made to level the aircraft by taking the average of the dataref sim/flightmodel/position/theta while the aircraft was rotated to different compass headings.
5. Deflection when at max weight was checked against the original strut specifications, then levelled again by repeating step 4.

* Whether the tyres cut the ground or float above it has a lot to do with the accuracy of scenery geometry as well as the set up of the aircraft itself. It will not be right everywhere, so checks were made in a range of places to achieve a reasonable average.


Fig. 2: Detail of the ride height scale.

Next step:
Updating low-poly models and preparing packages for beta testers.

--
GMM-P
(07-11-2014)

Tags: Performance, Testing