making a flap

[Guest]

how do I put animated parts on my aircraft like ailerons elevators and flaps?

[Guest]

My approach to flaps and ailerons goes like this.I obtain an airfoil profile for the wing.I use Line to outline the wing, except for the trailing area I want to make the flap.I create a Line to outline the trailing area I want to make the flap.I then use Extrude to create a wing or flap as long as I want.I then duplicate the flap to make the aileron. I make each about half the wing length for my experimental aircraft.Basic animation for the aileron and flap is easy. You just give the part a particular name for the stock animation.l_flapr_flapl_aileronr_aileronGive any part one of these stock animation names and magically it will rotate about its pivot point. You may find some difference with FSDS2, but the animation is done by FS2002, so you should be able to accomplish the same as using GMAX.Flap movement can be very complex in real aircraft. You may have to make your own keyframe animation, perhaps moving different parts of the flap in different ways (translating the flap back and rotating to droop the flap).I would start by experimenting with various flap animation. I sometimes export a MDL that is just the wing or flap I am testing to see what it does. Place the model file in copy of the Cessna so you have panel for easy control.Steve

[Guest]

Ok I will try that let me load up FSDS2 and try that. I just tried that and I could not do it can you help me this is my bigist problem is making a flap or any comtrol serfeses

[Guest]

Is the problem with the animation or with creating the wing shapes?I have not been able to get any "position" animations to work only "rotation" movements when exported from GMAX.I think someone who uses FSDS2 will have to answer. I thought from reading the messages here that FSDS2 supports the stock keyframe animations.Steve

[Guest jlwoodward]

Take a look at daviator.comThere is a tutorial there about how to make a wing and cut out the airlerons, and it is written for FSDS.Have fun,John Woodward

[Guest]

My problem is making the control serfaces and the animation too

[Guest]

Thanks i will do that

[Guest]

Hi thereI noticed one of posts indicates that in GMAX they have found it difficult to animate position animation and have only been able to use rotate.There is no doubt that it is difficult but as a rule when you try to change the postion of the wing make sure you work in World space not Local. Local will give undesirable effects with lateral movement.For rotation however LOCAL is required to animate the object. The local axis must align itself along the sweep of the wing, the anhedral or dihedral (the up slope or downslope of the wing from wing root to wing tip.)Also when applying motion contol set to Linear motion not Bezier or TCB.Hope this helps.Paul H

[Guest]

Thanks paul i never thought of that I will try that once I learn how to make control serfaces