Simviation Forums

I use AirEd to edit my .air files and am somewhat familiar with .air files in general - but want to "tweak" up a couple of aircraft to alter some their flying characteristics, but I don't know exactly what to change. Are there any tutorials out there that would give me some guidance on this ??

If I were you, I woudn't mess with the airfile.  The aircraft.cfg is much easier to understand, and it overrides the airfile.  Just go through the cfg file and read what each set of entries says.  Try opening one of the default aircraft's config files.  They should have a listing next to each entry you are wanting to change that describes what they do.

Ron Freimuth has a nice document on cfg file entries:

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/hsors/FS_Soft/f ... ft_cfg.txt

Other niceties are available here:

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/hsors/FS_Soft/index.html

That's a great site, Milton!

Thanks much for the link . . .  :D

Thank you.  If you haven't ever read Tom Goodrick's Flight Dynamics Papers, you should.  They are available on that same site I believe.  Though Tom wrote this for FS98, the basic concepts and principles still apply.  You can skip some of the heavier stuff and get on to the nitty gritty.  This was very helpful to me.

Then, if you are still interested, Jerry's 1% Excel Spreadsheet (workbook) will help you understand a lot about .air file tables and relationships to cfg entries.  But the best part is that it will build tables specifically for your aircraft and engines to get the performance on the numbers.  The output is a cfg and .air file that gives you a great aircraft FD to tweak to your liking.  An awesome tool (with test gauges) if you have MS Excel.

Check it out here: http://www.mudpond.us/

I've used that spreadsheet before; or I should say "tried to use it".

I never could get it to work, even when working with exact numbers from published documents.  It always gave me an error message, and in the end I would end up emailing Jerry and asking (re: pleading) for help.

So nowadays I just stick to editing the config file and using AirEd to change the name and such in the airfile.

Thanks guys. My momma always said "Be careful what you ask for - you might get it" and all of the information this inquiry garnered certainly bears her out. It will take me several months to go thru these links, sort them out and learn as much as I'm capable of learning.

Again, thank you everybody - I appreciate it.