Alexander Schleicher ASK 21

[D-ECHO]

New year - new aircraft!
Here is the updated version of the ASK21. Originally developed by Heiko Schulz with help/parts from AJ MacLeod and Detlef Faber, it has been updated by D-ABBA aka Thomas Polzer, Viktor Radnai and me, D-ECHO aka Benedikt Wolf this year.
You can get it from the official SVN repository: https://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/fg ... aft/ASK21/
Some screenshots:





HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[abassign]

I've been flying for years, but I do not remember all those edges, being the glider completely made of fiberglass, all the edges, fittings and headers are well-connected. It would be nice of you I raised the amount of polygons to better represent reality. Those who flight with a glider, one of the the things that admire that type of aircraft, it is its curvatures that make it similar to a beautiful girl and not an ugly duckling.
From the performance point of view, do not worry, you can put tens of thousands of polygons without a noticeable degradation of performance, already verified this fact many times.
With blender to improve the curved surfaces uses the smoot function that seems to work wonders without increasing the number of polygons, it works very well on the tubular elements, such as bars and on the final trunk of the fuselage that is similar to a conical tube.

[Cloudhead]

Very nice!

Just a few comments:

• The trim handle is not included in the model, and it doesn't seem like the plane reacts to changes to the trim from the joystick buttons that I have mapped to trim. Without the trim handle visible, it is a bit difficult to see if changing the trim produces any result in the model.
• The canopy is very dark, and even if the weather outside is sunny, the view from the cockpit is like flying during a solar eclipse. I ended up flying it with the rendering of the glass turned off. I even have to turn it off for every flight, which is a little bit annoying, given the short length of a normal glider flight.
• The airspeed indicator should have the yellow triangle at 90 km/h, as far as I know (the minimum landing speed according to the flight manual). If I have read it correctly, it is at 95 km/h in the current version.

I presume the flight model is the same as before, so these remarks are probably not relevant here, but let me list them anyway:

• The sink rate in normal flight is abnormally low. I have not tried to calculate it, but it should be somewhere just below 1 m/s.
• The stick gives a feeling of very quick reactions to input. Are the masses and/or their distribution correct in the flight model?

But apart from these small details, a great job!

[D-ECHO]

Thanks for this detailed feedback. We will have a look the issues

[D-ECHO]

Version 2.0 has been pushed to FGAddon!

[Timi]

Thanks for a nice aircraft! I noticed it says in the description of the aircraft that for aerobatics
it can be fitted with a tail ballast. However any kind of aerobatics except spinning are
prohibited while the ballast is fitted. This can be verified on page 27 of this manual:
https://www.alexander-schleicher.de/wp- ... B_E_HB.pdf

This nice model motivated me to start developing some aerotow AI scenarios as well
since the default KRHV aerotow scenario with the Cub is simply too slow to tow an
ASK 21. Here's a taste of things to come:
https://youtu.be/j3MBNveFIgA

Cheers,

-Timi

[D-ECHO]

Hi Timi,
sorry that is a mistake from my side, I should have only written spinning instead of whole aerobatics

Good news and a great video, we are also trying to implement a drag roboter, so you don't have to place waypoints anymore
Regards

[Timi]

What should be fitted for aerobatics though is an extension to the pilot tube on the nose of the aircraft because otherwise inverted flight will not show correct airspeed.

Great news that drag robot as well.

[Timi]

Also I noticed the air brakes operate with a delay after pulling the handle.
In reality the handle operates the air brakes directly as fast as you move
the handle.