Simviation Forums

What does reducing/increasing the Induced_drag_scalar do? What effect does it have on aircraft performance?

Also increasing/decreasing Induced_drag_constant in the .AIR file?

Thanks
Scott

induced scalar is a form of drag where the high pressure below the wing disturbes the lift at upper part of the wing. i usually creates vortices wich can reduce the lift thats wht some planes have winglets to block the hightpressure form combining with the low pressure

Parasitic drag is the drag you get just trying to force something to move through air. It's pretty much a constant. Induced drag is an aerodynamic phenomenon. It increases as the airspeed increases. This is why doubling thrust does not double airpseed OR acceleration. Induced drag does decrease though, with increased altitude (less air).

Adjusting it, up or down in the sim has pretty predictable results. Higher top airpeed and quicker getting to that top speed.

But the converse is that if you reduce it too much, you'll have trouble slowing down (and may actually keep increasing airspeed with engines at idle) in your descent. It's for this sort of reason that FDE tweaking is more of an art than a science and you only get consistent results with experience  ;)

Thanks guys..

I tried adjusting it below 1.0. When I did, everytime I deploted the spoilers, the airspeed would shoot up! I would be going 100Kts faster with the spoilers up!.

I learned my lesson and left the scalal alone. I just wanted to see what would happen if I reduced the value.

Yeah.. adjusting any of the values in the [Flight_Tuning] paragraph of the aircraft.cfg file is like a last resort. If you define everything properly in the [Airplane_Geometry] paragraph.. get all your weight, CG, MOI, power and thrust settings right .. You shouldn't have to make many, if any changes in tuning. Once you start, it gets ugly (unrealistic) fast.