Okay, I’m working on my 777 again and I am making the spoilers. The fuselage slicing was pretty brutal, but I am now working on the FT codes to operate them semi-realistically. As I understand, the spoilers have 3 “modes.” They are: roll (asymmetrical), speed brakes in flight, and speed brakes on the ground. They all have different angles at which the inboard/outboard spoilers are deployed.
I don’t have a problem with the on ground/in air function though. I’ve already made a weight-on-wheels variable to take care of that. What I am wondering now is what should happen if the speedbrakes are activated during a roll command. The deflection limit for the inboard spoilers for a roll command is 20° but for speedbrakes it is 15°. It wouldn’t seem right to just add these together to get an max of 35°. Also, there are a bunch of other special cases with the outboard spoilers and how they function.
Another question I had was with the game physics aspect. Should I use speedbrake parts to simulate the drag or should I use a control surface on a wing? If you have made a complex airliner before it would be appreciated if you could provide some input on these questions.
All the individual sliced parts required to make the spoilers are shown in orange, red, and blue. One of the original fuselage parts has been split into nearly 20 pieces!
@Timplanes of course! I've studied aviation for over a decade now and am a qualified pilot, so I felt qualified to answer. Your best bet is to look up stormy approaches and landings shot from the inside, these can help you figure out which panels do what (since not all aircraft have spoilers that all behave the same).
Mmmmm, those trees do be funky
@klm747klm747 and @Korzalerkle, thanks for the help!
I'm no airliner expert but I did make one a while ago and decided to use control surfaces plus air brake parts hidden inside the fuselage (both using the same input), since control surfaces don't have drag and brakes don't reduce lift, so I combined both to get the proper spoiler effect.
The airliner I made is this one btw, If you wanna take a look at it in the designer.
Hello there @Timplanes,
You do want the speedbrakes to add and subtract from roll. in the example case of 20 degrees up from brakes and max input roll, they might be 10 and 30 degrees extended respectively.
The total amount of deflection (L+R) stays the same to keep lift loss and drag relatively constant.
Also note that the maximum extension should not exceed 60 degrees at any time, so having full spoilers up on ground+ full roll would not cause any panel to exceed 60 degrees, only the opposite side to drop.
I suggest using a single modded speedbrake halfway out each wing, tucked into the wing body.
I saw this earlier and sent it to a friend (I can explain it too but don't feel like it)
@BaconAircraft thanks, that’s very helpful. The spoilers actually also have to go to 60° when the plane is on the ground, but I think I can figure out the code for that.
My understanding is that you don't want them to add. Roll is 20 degrees while liftdump or speedbrakes are 15 degrees. An edge case appears where speedbrakes are active while roll is commanded, does that stay at 15 degrees or 20 degrees? I will assume brakes take precedence.
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Assuming rotator is set to 20 degrees on range 0-1:
If brakes are > 0, then activate 0.75xbrakes (0.15deg), else use roll.
Brake>0? 0.75*Brake : Roll
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This is simple, but should work, let me know if it doesn't
I've never made complex airliners so i don't know, but i suggest asking @PlaneFlightX for that.