floating AI aircraft

[xmit]

I have a AI aircraft (FSP A319) that I noticed it's landing gear is floating about 1 foot above the runway. Is there an way to adjust this so it doesn't look so goofy?

[Inigo Montoya]

This is probably an issue with the CG in the aircraft.cfg.  It is located just after the "general" section of the .cfg.  Locate and adjust this, and you may get some results.

Or maybe not.

[emh8]

There is a problem with the contact point for one or all of the landing gears.  This can be adjusted by going to the Aircraft.cfg file and locating the section,"contact points."  Beyond that, I can't offer much advice.  There might be a tutorial available on editing .cfg files that tells more.

In my experience, there have been problems with using FSPainter models as AI traffic.  For a good AI A319, I recommend going to Project AI:

http://projectai.flight1.net/

The paint kit is found in "Certified Resources."  Lots of repaints available in "PAI Libraries."

Good luck!

[RollerBall]

OK, open up the relevant aircraft.cfg file with Notepad or Wordpad and scroll down to the [contact_points] section.

Here's a bit from one of my Mike Stone Airbuses

[contact_points]
point.0= 1.000, 38.000, 0.000, -8.000, 1181.100, 0.000, 1.250, 55.920, 1.000, 1.000, 0.900, 4.000, 4.000, 0.000, 0.000, 0.000
point.1= 1.000, -5.000, -11.600, -8.200, 1574.800, 1.000, 2.000, 0.000, 1.000, 1.000, 0.900, 7.000, 7.000, 2.000, 0.000, 0.000
point.2= 1.000, -5.000, 11.600, -8.200, 1574.800, 2.000, 2.000, 0.000, 1.000, 1.000, 0.900, 7.000, 7.000, 3.000, 0.000, 0.000

point.0 is the nose gear and points.1 and .2 are the main gear wheels. The fourth entry on each line is the position of the contact point below the aicraft's reference point. Increase the number, the plane will go 'higher' above the ground, decrease it and the plane will go 'lower'. Mostly I think you want the plane to sit just under the surface so the tyres look flattened by the weight of the aircraft.

BTW, here's something else you might like to know.

At the bottom of [contact_points] you have these 2 lines

static_pitch= 0.620
static_cg_height= 7.800

The figure shown in blue is the plane's 'start' position when you start the program or load that scenery. If it is too big, when the scenery finishes loading the plane 'crashes' to the ground. If it is too small, the plane starts with it's wheels under the ground and 'pops up'. It's amazing how many designers get the figures wrong and you need to adjust them.

Hope this helps.

Roger

[packercolinl]

Thank you RollerBall. That has answered a question for me at least. It applies to only 2 aircraft I have but I can see where to correct the problem.

Cheers

[RollerBall]

You're very welcome


This was the very first question I asked when I joined the forum a while ago. Calb was the guy who kindly gave me the answer then and I went on to learn a lot more about editing the cfg (and air) file as a result.

Glad to be able to help

[xmit]

Thanks everyone for your responses, sorry I didn't get back to you earlier. It is all three landing gears and I'll try adjusting the CP's in the aircraft.cfg. Thanks again......