
This is not the location of the contact point when the aircraft is sitting on the ground, as that location assumes weight on the gear and some degree of compression. Translation: this is the contact point of the gear with the hypothetical ground when the gear has no compression, in other words, as if the gear is supporting no weight. YASim calls this "the location of the fully-extended gear tip". The x, y, and z attributes define the gear's surface contact location relative to the aircraft's reference datum. If this looks complicated, then fear not, because most are optional and many are for special applications. Landing gear have quite a few interesting attributes: These can all be configured using elements. Some tricycle arrangements also feature a tail skid, while some gliders have small wheels attached to the wing tips. You may have as many gear elements as you need. For example, in the above tricycle example, the nose gear is gear "0", the left main is "1", and the right "2". You can declare your gear in any order, but order determines the sequence of properties in the property tree.

Those with retractable gear will have a control for extending the gear, a control output for showing the position of the retractable gear, and a control-speed to regulate the time required to extend or retract the gear. Many gear elements will also have control subelements for assigning functions like braking. Note that there are two other potential contact types other than gear which I'll discuss shortly.

A retractable gear element will generally be defined as follows:Ī non-retractable element is even simpler:Ī gear element should always have an x, y and z attribute which defines the contact point.

Getting flightgear rudder to work how to#
Let's look at how to use the gear element in a YASim aircraft.Įach gear element consists of a contact point, a number of optional attributes, and a number of optional controls and outputs. This is a tricycle arrangement with gear elements for the nose wheel, left main, and right main. Most aircraft will define three landing gear elements similar to the following example: The element is the primary contact point for ground or water surfaces and the only contact points which can be disabled (retracted).
