Radar Altimeter

[Guest bones]

A couple of interesting questions if I may..The Radar Altimeter measures the height of an aircraft from the ground beneath the aircraft. In FS does this equate to the mesh you have loaded? I assume that loading a new mesh will affect the RA calculations.If so then how about jumping a step further - could the autopilot be reprogrammed to follow RA height instead of a barometric height? I think you'll see what I'm getting at.. To complete the idea I should also be asking one more. If FS knows the height of the mesh underneath the aircraft can it also predict the height of the mesh ahead of the aircraft at a certain point? This is obviously trickier as predetermined point would have to be determined from track and speed, but as all three values are known by FS it's more a matter of whether the data can be extracted and interpolated.

[wsieffert 0]

Bones,Are you trying to build a B-1B and doing NAP flying!!??:-lol

[Guest bones]

Not a B-1B :-)I wouldn't have asked this question a year ago but FS is getting closer to reality all the time. I really wanted to know if the concept is now in the "feasible" tray rather than the "wait until the next version" tray..

[Guest JeanLuc_]

Hi Bones,there is an issue with the A/P engine in FS2002: it only follow a barometric altitude in increments of 100ft. You can still fool the system in setting an ALT computed from the difference between the RAD ALT and the current baro, but then you won't avoid the 100ft increments. Also, FS only updates the value of the baro alt every 1 seconds. It requires some more tricks to compute an instantaneous baro alt from what is available from the FS vars. I'm currently working on a set of altitude gauges that all have an independant baro setting, not tied to the kohlsman setting var. It will allow a standby altimeter with its own baro (could be set to the QFE for example), a main altimeter set to another setting (the QNH for example) and a third one for the A/P ALT hold function.

[wsieffert 0]

In present day flight sims, all the aero is done in minimum 30Hz>60Hz iteration rate. One second iteration rate would get you killed, down low and fast!!!

[Guest bones]

I'd better make the most of that second then!Thank you all. Sounds as if it's getting more likely - but not quite yet.