Landing Gears

[Matrix]

Just a few questions about landing gears.
1) I want to add more realism to my landings by making the shocks of the gear compress when I land. The main gear is a spring steel gear and the nose gear has a pneumatic oleo.
2)I'd like to make the nose gear steerable and I'm not sure what the tag is for it

Any help would be appreciated
Thanks

[andyjohnston.net]

You will have to use multiple parts, with the one(s) showing compression names c_gear, the parent to the steerable section of the wheel will be c_wheelsteer

[Travis]

NOT c_wheelsteer.

Name the steerable wheel part "rudder02".  It won't need any animation, and will work exactly like the rudder.

[Matrix]

Both c_wheelsteer and rudder02 work great. But now with regards to the main gear, do I have to use keyframe animation to show the compression (set no compression at frame 0 and full compression at frame 100?) I'm not quite sure about this, but I thought I saw something in some .AIR files that I've looked at about setting the compression of the landing gear....

[andyjohnston.net]

Frames 100-200 are for compression..

[Milton]

For clarification, ...

frame 0 is gear retracted
frame 100 is gear fully extended with suspension hanging
frame 200 is suspension fully compressed.

Frames 1-100 is used to animate gear extension/retraction.
Frames 100-200 is used to animate the suspension.

If your aircraft has significant travel from hanging to static compression (like a Dash 7 or Dash 8 with around 18"), please ensure that you model that kind of movement.

[Matrix]

Hi Milton,

You mentioned something about setting the contact points to match the compression. How do you do that?

[Milton]

In contact points 1 and 2, you must set static compression (in feet) to equal the movement you want from hanging gear to static compression position with aircraft fully loaded.

Example:

You have animated gear movement in the model to 24" (frames 100-200).

In FS, you want 18" of that to be hanging gear to static compression movement and the remaining 6" to be available for hard touchdowns and suspension.

In contact points 1 and 2 for the main gear, static compression would be stated at 1.5' and max-static ratio stated at 1.333.  Set damping around .85 to start.  (do not overstate total movement)

Test with full load and then with minimum load adjusting vertical distance to ground and damping as required.  

[Matrix]

When I tried to animate the gear between frames 100 and 200 it turned out like I had animated frames 0 to 200. I tried to add a key frame but couldn't figure out how.
Also, when you mean contact point 1 and 2 do you mean two separate contact points for the same point?

[Milton]

Try adding a Position key at 0, then a Position and Rotation key at 100, then a Rotation key at 200.

[Gnome]

Hi Milton,
That GMAX example of your Dash 7 gear animation really helped me to understand it all and I keep it handy for reference.


Kev

[Milton]

Thanks Kev. :-)  Three years ago when I started the Dash 7 project, little was known about animation and modeling aircraft in gMax for FS.  Fortunately there were a few pioneers who blazed the trails and did the hard research and through trial and error came up with some basics.  A lot of credit must go to Chris File for his early tutorials in animation and lighting.

FSAlpha/FSEdge was instrumental in teaching me how to map and texture.  Finn Neuik's awesome videos really helped with other techniques.

These are the guys who were instrumental in my struggle and  understanding of these things.  I am deeply grateful for their early work.